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OH MY GOD did you read that fic yet? I read it last night at like five am and OH MY GOD MY FEELS MY FEELS I CAN’T EVEN. WHAT IS AIR? MY SHIP. MY BEAUTIFUL OTP. I CAN’T CONTAIN MY CREYS RIGHT NOW. ASDFGHJKL; *FLIES INTO THE SUN*

Chances are you have no idea what I just said up there. You don’t, that is, unless you happen to have a blog over at tumblr.com, in which case that paragraph is probably crystal clear to you. Tumblr is rife with “crazy talk” like that, particularly when it comes to fandom blogs (blogs which devote themselves to one or more television show, movie, book, or other piece of media). These blogs have become what I think is one of the most interesting discourse communities out there today.

I got involved with tumblr a little over two years ago, and I was not exactly prepared for all the new words and phrases that I encountered as I scrolled through my dashboard (or “dash”, if you’re part of the discourse community). I would frequently find myself wondering what this stuff even meant. People would be yelling “I CAN’T EVEN” or worse, “I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO CAN.” They would talk about ships but not about boating, and they’d wail over their OTPs. They called Facebook users “peasants” and their favorite celebrities “life-ruiners.” It was pretty weird.

But eventually I started figuring stuff out. Ship is short for relationship and OTP stands for “one true pairing,” and usually these phrases are used to talk about relationships between fictional characters. (For instance if you want nothing more than Buffy and Spike to get together, you ship them. They’re your OTP.) And basically every other phrase they used was just to exaggerate things. You prefer tumblr over Facebook? Totally understandable; Facebook is full of peasants. You have an overwhelming crush on Jude Law? Well that makes sense. You crush on Jude Law has ruined your life. He’s a life-ruiner. That episode of Breaking Bad blew your mind? Sure it did! It filled you up with feels (feelings, for the layman); you can’t even. That’s what the tumblr discourse community is all about.

And eventually, I found myself slipping into the discourse myself. About six months into my tumblr experience, I saw The Avengers. And When I got home, I got right onto tumblr and said something sort of like: “AVENGERS WAS SO GOOD, OH MY GOD. I HAVE LITERALLY NO PLACE TO PUT MY FEELS ABOUT THIS MOVIE. AAAAAAH.” And in retrospect, that was probably not the most eloquent thing I could have said about my movie experience. Even so, the post got a few hits. People understood what I was talking about, and they agreed with me. I was part of the community. (For anyone who is interested I don’t really use ‘feels’ anymore. I’ve switched over to using ‘emotions.’)

Through my two years on tumblr, I’ve seen the discourse evolve a bit. Things shift a little bit from time to time. New phrases emerge, and sometimes they stick. But really, the thing that I think is so interesting about it all is that tumblr discourse is that this isn’t a discourse that has come from super high-and-mighty authoritative community. It came from a group of people who are just really enthusiastic about pop culture and media, and wanted a way to express what they were feeling without having to go into incredible detail about things. (Not to say, of course, that the tumblr community can’t go into detail about things when they want to. There are lots of very intelligent and eloquent people on that website, and man can some of them write.) They’re just a group of people who are enthusiastic about what they’re seeing, and can’t wait to scream about their feels.