This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Tumblr Publics, John Green, and Sanctionable Girlhood

Abstract

Morgan Bimm’s chapter questions the complex ways that girls take up space online and navigate the nuances of digital politics. Her questions build upon an exploration of a digital moment on Tumblr in which Tumblr user virjin critiqued YA novelist John Green. Green and his fellow adult, YA authors swiftly responded with vitriol. The critique and the subsequent response reflect the messy and ambiguous tensions between the digital practices of teenaged readers/consumers and adult media creators, revealing the unequal value of girls’ voices, that are valued as fans but not as critiques. Building on the theoretical traditions of girlhood studies and feminist studies, Bimm’s work expands the definitions of feminist resistance, and suggests that such digital moments offer small points of rupture that jar the mainstream.

Appendices

Appendix A: Deactivated Tumblr User’s Original Post

The original post that sparked this event was posted by Tumblr user virjn at some point on either the evening of June 10 or the early morning hours of June 11, 2015. The exact time of the original post is now impossible to trace because, in the aftermath of the event, Tumblr user virjn deactivated their blog. The screenshot below is taken from the exact thread that John Green replied to on June 11, 2015 (see Appendix B for more details), and therefore represents the exact text/implications Green was replying to in the absence of being able to locate the active/authentic blog post.

By the time John Green was tagged in and subsequently responded to this text post, it had already garnered over 15,000 independent “notes.” On Tumblr, notes connote one of two actions. Either a Tumblr user can “like” the post, effectively saving it to a list of material to be accessed or reblogged at a later date and presumably demonstrating their agreement with the content therein (although see danah boyd’s article for a more nuanced discussion on binaries of affective possibility imposed by digital architecture), or they can reblog the post outright. Reblogging content on Tumblr, posts that content to the user’s personal blog and also reproduces it on the Dashboards of those individuals who have chosen to follow the Tumblr user in question. While Tumblr posts can be screened by filtering out certain tags or key words, reblogging effectively widens the circulation of a post (particularly a new post, as in this case) and increases the size of its respective public.

Appendix B: John Green’s Reactionary Tumblr Text Post

The text below is taken from a text post created by Tumblr user John Green on June 11, 2015 in response to a text post created by a now-defunct blog (detailed in Appendix A). The post as it appears here has been edited only slightly for some awkward spacing; the text itself remains unchanged.

“You want me to defend myself against the implication that I sexually abuse children?

Okay. I do not sexually abuse children.

Throwing that kind of accusation around is sick and libelous and most importantly damages the discourse around the actual sexual abuse of children. When you use accusations of pedophilia as a way of insulting people whose work you don’t like, you trivialize abuse.

I’m tired of seeing the language of social justice – important language doing important work – misused as a way to dehumanize others and treat them hatefully.

So we all seek (and seek to share) the jolt that accompanies outrage and anger. As studies have shown, the complicated dopamine rush that comes with righteous indignation is very powerful, and I’m indulging it simply by responding to the outrageous accusation that my work is somehow evidence of sexual abuse.

But the outrage cycle is exhausting, and while there are wonderful examples of outrage fueling long-term, productive responses to injustice – We Need Diverse Books and the UPLIFT both come to mind – too often the Internet moves from jolt to jolt, from hatred to hatred, ever more convinced of our own righteousness and the world’s evil. And getting caught up in that is very painful.

I realize that will seem privileged to many of you (and it is), or like an excuse (maybe it’s that too), or lacking in empathy (maybe so), and I’m sure there is plenty here to deconstruct and reveal my various shortcomings (which are legion).

But this stops being a productive place for me to be in conversations if I’m not allowed to be wrong, if my apologies are not acknowledged alongside my misdeeds, and if I’m not treated like a person.

I think at this point it’s impossible to continue to use tumblr in the way I’ve used it since 2011. My life is different (in ways that are both good and bad); this community is different (in ways that are both good and bad); the world is different (in ways that are both good and bad).

So if this blog begins to look more one-way, with more original content and less reblogging/commenting/answering asks/etc., that’s why.

I want to emphasize that I am ridiculously lucky to work on stuff I love, from Crash Course to The Art Assignment to writing books. And I trust that many nerdfighter communities – whether vlogbrothers or Dear Hank and John or the Wimbly Womblys or the kiva group – will continue to be open and collaborative and constructive. Also, I’m not angry or anything like that. I just need some distance for my well-being.

Thanks for reading. DFTBA.”