Yahoo made it official Monday morning, confirming the weekend rumors that they were going to buy Tumblr for a whopping $1.1 billion. In her own Tumblr post, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said they “promise not to screw it up,” but that appears to have done little to ease the fears of Tumblr users who are convinced the acquisition is a death knell for their beloved blogging site.
Such a reaction is of course commonplace anytime the early adopters of a particular site discover that its owners plan to turn their labor of love into profit. But because this is Tumblr we’re talking about, you can find a wide range of those reactions all in one place—on their own Tumblr page. A small sampling from the appropriately named Meltdowns About Yahoo Buying Tumblr:
- “I hate the people in my school and the people on other social sites. You all are so real. sometimes this is a great way to take my mind off things. I’ve talked to interesting people who I might not ever meet but I don’t care it was great to talk with them. I’m deleting my tumblr if this goes through.”
- “The Yahoo acquisition is like coming home one day to the news that your family is going to be staying with you forever. They’re moving in. Its not family you like either. Its that annoying uncle who you never agree with and who you don’t feel safe around. No one understands why you’re as upset as you are because at least you still have your home. But it’s not your home anymore.”
- “So Yahoo bought Tumblr, which means it’s time to pack my bags and move on. It’s been real good knowing you, Tumblr. … I’ll delete my blog, and it’ll seem as if I was never here. But I was, and so were you.”
- “Couldnt we always go back on livejournal or even..myspace? Those places died out because of tumblr, so if tumblr dies out couldnt we go back there..?”
- “Dear yahoo; Tumblr is that weird kid that sits in the back of class reading books and daydreaming and has vivid fantasies of people experiencing horrible things like stepping on Lego and contains lots of obsessions and is really horny. All the time. Please don’t change it because despite it being different, that’s why everyone loves it.”
Tumblr hosts an estimated 50 million blogs, which at last count were creating 2.3 million posts per hour. It remains to be seen if any of the users behind that flurry of activity will actually follow through with threats of fleeing the site to never return, but in the meantime they at least have an easy place to vent: on Tumblr. You can read more meltdowns at the Tumblr in question here (h/t @JeremyStahl), or head on over to “Moneybox” for a slightly calmer analysis of the deal.
***Follow @JoshVoorhees and the rest of the @slatest team on Twitter.***
This post was updated at 1:12 p.m. to include additional examples from the Tumblr.
