Microblogging and social networking platform founded by David Karp in 2007 — home to fandom, creative subcultures, and LGBTQ+ communities, acquired by Yahoo for $1.1B in 2013 and subsequently sold for $3M.
Tumblr as creative subculture infrastructure: the platform's reblogging mechanic (effortless content amplification) made it uniquely suited to fandom communities, queer identity, and creative subcultures that didn't fit Twitter's public discourse or Facebook's real-name social graph. The Yahoo acquisition/destruction (paying $1.1B, failing to monetize, selling for $3M six years later) is among the canonical examples of large-company acquisition destroying small-company culture. The 2018 adult content ban accelerated its decline.
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