Tumblr curse

A term for the seemingly ubiquitous trend on Tumblr where character’s skin colors tend to be drawn with noticeably different physical characteristics, like being more fat or dark-skinned, than they actually are in canon by Tumblr artists. The reason for this is unknown, but the most common hypothesis is that the artists on Tumblr subconsciously make the characters look more like themselves, such as being overweight, of being the main cause behind this phenomenon. Some of the more famous examples of this trend being franchises that are very popular with Tumblr users like Steven Universe and Harry Potter, due to their character’s being very fast and loose with physical description, making it very easy for Tumblr artists to insert their own ideas of what characters look like, even though Tumblr artists often ignore the very few distinctive physical characteristics given to them in canon.

Alice: Hey Bob, why did this artist make Ronald Weasley really overweight in this fanart, despite him being described as “tall, thin, and gangling” in the book?
Bob: Must be the Tumblr curse.

tumblr logic

The predominate mindset among more vocal Tumblr users, where whoever have the most incensed emotions, or whoever has the most “oppressed” attributes (POC, women, etc.) always win every argument, no matter if they are factually right or not. Virtually every Tumblr community engages in some form on this mindset in some way, with Tumblr users especially enjoying to hate on white, cishet, males no matter what their political state is (see: die cis scum, male tears, etc.) Granted, Tumblr logic does not mean Tumblr users are always wrong, this is just a logical fallacy that is often employed by Tumblr users to argue with people who disagree with them, even when said conversation has nothing to do with race, gender, politics, etc. tl;dr: This is an appeal to emotion, appeal to minority, and victim complex that Tumblr engages in at an alarming amount, and due to this repeated fallacious logic, is what gave Tumblr its infamous reputation of “feelings over facts”.

Example of Tumblr logic:

Logical internet user: I dislike your opinion, so I will give out a bunch of (possibly true, this is the internet after all) facts that refute your argument.

Illogical internet user: I dislike your opinion, so here is 13 reasons why you are a sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, (insert other Tumblr buzzword insults), bigoted scum who’s argument is now completely invalidated due to their alleged bigotry, even if they made actual points.

*The illogical user then gets upvoted for appealing to various minority groups, whereas the logical user gets thrown into oblivion by the seething lynch mob of incensed internet users who want someone to fight against.