29th
I guess it’s Spring on Tumblr.
We were all a little like Prufrock in this thing, weren’t we? “Do I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? Do I out myself to my Tumblr crushes before a semi-live audience?” And we were being honest that these Tumblr hearts we click could often just as fittingly be tongues.
And then the secret message tumbl appeared. These tantalizing snippets of adoration, like horoscopes, each nail everyone at once.
“That’s me, I just know it.”
And then it fizzled.
It strikes me that we were invited to a love fest and arrived to find a classroom full of sweaty 6th graders with soda cans and whispers. And I suppose that’s fun too. Who among us hasn’t had recurring dreams of finding themselves back in middle school, secretly in posession of their adult life’s experiences, for a comfortingly disorienting day of do-overs?
But in middle school, wouldn’t you have given anything to be somewhere else? I know I would have. So as tantalizing as it was yesterday to immerse myself in this secret message game, I think it’s best if I just clarify today - when I heart your post, I’m really hugging it. Or kissing it. Sometimes just a peck on the cheek, but sometimes I’m unabashedly making out with it. And by “it,” I mean, “you.”
But until these web playtoys of ours evolve beyond stars and hearts, developing licky tongues, rubber necks, and stiff pants icons to click, it’s any middle schooler’s guess as to the specifics.
