Tumblr was launched in 2007 and was an almost immediate success. By 2013, it was purchased for 1.1 billion dollars by Yahoo! Inc., and during 2014, the site hit over 200 million blogs. It was known for being a slightly subversive space where everyone was welcome, so it’s no surprise that the site attracted some of the funniest and silliest people on the internet as well. And that’s why Antisocialduckling on Instagram has unlimited content. This page, which has amassed an impressive 233k followers, has shared 7,500 wholesome and hilarious screenshots from Tumblr, featuring some of the most brilliant interactions the site has ever seen.
We got in touch with the page’s creators, Mash, Bram and Jake, via Instagram, and they were kind enough to have a chat with us about how Antisocialduckling was born. “We saw other pages with a similar style and decided to make this page to post what makes us laugh,” they told Bored Panda. “And hopefully that makes someone else laugh.”
There’s no question that Antisocialduckling has made hundreds of thousands of people laugh. But one thing you might find interesting is that the creators of the page actually never were avid Tumblr users. They can still appreciate how unique the site is though. “It’s special because it's nonsensical and chaotic, which I relate to strongly,” one of the creators shared.
And as far as how they decide what to share with their followers, there are not a lot of strict rules involved in the process. “If it makes me laugh, I post it,” one creator told Bored Panda. But they did note that all of the posts they share are screenshots they took themselves, and if there is someone who can be credited, they are sure to tag them.
We also asked the creators of Antisocialduckling if they had any particular posts they’ve ever shared that were their favorites. “The little gif where Timmy the Ostrich runs in circles,” they shared. “Guy is just a little bit lost.” And as far as what the future holds, the creators say that they don’t have any specific plans yet. “We will just keep posting and see what happens!” If you’d like to follow along with all of their chaotic and hilarious posts, be sure to visit Antisocialduckling on Instagram right here!
Ask anyone who was addicted to Tumblr in 2014, and they’ll tell you the site changed the landscape of the internet. It was a pioneer, and nowadays, it’s easy to forget how much of a trendsetter Tumblr was. But lucky for us, Jess Joho at Mashable wrote a piece exploring this topic to ensure we all remember. The first way in which Joho says Tumblr changed the internet is how it provided a safe place for women, queer folks and “kinksters” to explore their sexuality. “The Tumblr dashboard was one of the only places to see sex viewed through a primarily female gaze, to see what women liked to look at and not just hardcore [content] filmed for male pleasure," says Rachelle Hampton, Tumblr scholar and co-host of the ICYMI podcast.
Tumblr was also a trendsetter in the way that it wove social justice discourse into internet youth culture. “Whether you know it or not, you likely learned words like ‘problematic’ thanks to Tumblr,” Joho explains. Popular blogs dissected issues like feminism and systemic racism in ways that were easy for youth to understand. “Tumblr changed online discourse forever by mainstreaming and distilling these complex socio-political theories into meme-able concepts accessible to young people who want to make the world a better place,” Joho continued.
Unlike many other social media sites, where having anonymous profiles often harbors hate and inappropriate content, Joho says that being anonymous on Tumblr made the site a much more welcoming space. “Tumblr's anonymity gave its young users permission to build online identities without needing to offer up any of their IRL selves for the internet's ridicule,” she writes. “Unlike TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter, Tumblr was the one social networking platform where you could gain thousands of followers without ever revealing your face, name, age, gender, location, school, job, or any other personal details. That's probably a big reason why it was such a safe haven for the marginalized, too, as closeted queers found welcoming online homes that let them escape IRL homophobic households.”
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