Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.03-151402/https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-flocking-tumblr-millennials-musk-zuckerberg-safe-space-2025-4

Occupy Wall Street, Notorious RBG, cottagecore. These and several other lasting internet trends and IRL movements of the 2010s were born not on Twitter, on Facebook, or in the mainstream media but on Tumblr. You might remember it as the blogging platform that became one of the most hyped startups in the world before fading into obsolescence — bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013 (back when a billion still felt like a billion), then acquired by Verizon, and later offloaded for fractions of pennies on the dollar in a distressed sale. That same Tumblr, a relic of many millennials' formative years, has been having a moment among Gen Z.

Zoomers have gravitated toward the pseudonymous platform, viewing it as a safe space as the rest of the social internet has become increasingly commodified, polarized, and dominated by lifestyle influencers. As in its heyday, Tumblr is still more about sharing art, culture, and fandom than individual status. More posts about anime and punk rock than bridal trends and politics. In 2025, 50% of Tumblr's active monthly users are Gen Zers, as are 60% of new users signing up, according to data Tumblr shared with Business Insider. And several of Zoomers' icons, from the "Fault in Our Stars" author John Green to the pop superstar Halsey, have come back to the platform.

"Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet," says Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who worked at Tumblr for seven years, leaving her role as head of content in 2021. She still uses her own Tumblr regularly as the internet's resident meme librarian. "It allows for experimentation that's not tied to your face."