Students utilize blogging site for inspiration, writing and everything in between.
Regardless of where you are on campus, chances are the person next to you has a Tumblr blog. The blogging website, which allows users to set up a customizable blog for free, has become widespread amongst MVHS students. The website allows one to “follow” other blogs, which enables them to see content the blogs they follow post. Users can also “reblog” others’ posts to show up on their own blog. Nevertheless, Tumblr still serves as a place for people with the same interests to mingle and communicate with one and another. Here’s a look at some of the types of blogs students run on campus:
The personal blog
Most students’ blogs, unlike those previously stated, do not fall into one sole category. Instead, their blogs are an amalgam of their interests: the “personal” blog, such as junior Rhea Choudhury’s blog.
“My blog isn’t really [based on] one thing,” Choudhury said. “But I reblog stuff that captures my interest, so it ends up being a lot of fruits, a lot of people running and a lot of funny text posts. It’s like my brain on the Internet.”
Don’t forget to write!
Others use Tumblr to serve the community. Junior Samantha Shieh runs a submission-based creative writing blog (writersyoga.tumblr.com), managed by her and a few other friends to improve their writing skills. Each week, Shieh posts a tutorial on a certain element of writing –– plot, character, description –– and a corresponding prompt. Followers can respond with written submissions, which Shieh and her fellow blog administrators publish.
“We would all get really out of shape in writing between projects,” Shieh said. “And when we would get back to it, we’d be saying, ‘Wait, I suck now. We wanted to keep something that was a running practice.”
The fandom blog
Perhaps the most popular kind of blog on campus is the fandom blog. People who run fandom blogs often form their own fandom communities, where they can all share their likes and dislikes about the media they’re fans of. Senior Shuti Arora is a member of the One Direction Tumblr comm
“I feel like there’s a different fandom community on Tumblr than outside of Tumblr. There are One Direction jokes that happen on Tumblr and I’ll be telling it to one of my friends who’s also a One Direction fan who doesn’t have a Tumblr and they just don’t get it,” senior Stuti Arora said.
Interactions within fandom communities aren’t always sunshine and rainbows, though. Some members of fandoms tend to take things too far, claiming that whatever they are fans of is the be-all, end-all best. Thus, “fandom wars” break out.
“I think it’s ridiculous when they look down on someone because of what they like. Whatever, it makes me happy. Why do you care?” Arora said.