Tumblr Tuesday: What Should I Put on My Tumblr?

Welcome to our twenty-fourth Tumblr Tuesday, where every Tuesday we celebrate our love of Tumblr by interviewing the mastermind behind a new blog. Tumblr, a New York City based startup, is like the FFFFound for the rest of the world. It’s as shareable and fast-paced as Twitter but populated with more in-depth text and rich images.

In January, we announced that Tumblr serves 120 million people and 15 billion pageviews every month! But Tumblr’s founder and CEO David Karp admits that one area the blogging network hasn’t performed well enough at thus far is content discovery – which is what our weekly column Tumblr Tuesday is all about.

This week, we’re taking a slightly different approach to Tumblr Tuesday. We’ve actually found a NON-TUMBLOG site that generates images for you based on a whole slew of typical Tumblr cliches. It’s called “WHAT SHOULD I PUT ON MY TUMBLR.” For example, choose “Celebrities” and “Being Sad” and a celebrity photo superimposed with sappy James Blake lyrics on top will appear. The site’s creator, Grace Gordon is a super rad chick from Australia who was kind enough to virtually sit down for an interview with us about her Tumblr generating machine.

CBM: First off, who is the fabulous team behind What Should I put on my Tumblr?

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Grace Gordon: It’s myself, Grace Gordon and a friend named Thomas Sinclair who is a very talented Rails developer I met in a former role a few years ago when we launched a nightlife-oriented social platform together. So I knew we wouldn’t kill each other on a fun pet project!

CBM: What do you do when you’re not categorizing Tumblr images?

GG: I work as a Social Media Strategist at OMD, which is a global communications agency, trying to convince my clients of the worth of Tumblr (amongst other channels). Hahaha. When I can manage to prise myself away from the Internet I’m listening to rap, riding my bike or hanging with my girlfriends.

CBM: When did you start using Tumblr and what was the inspiration for this non-Tumblog?

GG: While it’s technically not on Tumblr, it has been reblogged and posted a bit! I started using Tumblr actively about 2 years ago and the inspiration came from some of the recurring themes I was noticing across the people I was following.

CBM: How many users have you had on your site?

GG: 10K uniques at this stage but I kinda always knew it was pretty niche!

CBM: Where are you pulling these images from?

GG: Tumblr of course! I follow a bunch of ‘mood’ blogs, I selected pics based on the popularity of the particular images, how good they would look with text layered or how well they fit with the category. One of the main Tumblr’s that inspired the site was I Can Read.

CBM: Could you tell me a bit about the tagging system you used?

GG: It’s extremely manual. We have buckets for each category, the generator selects a file from whatever bucket is selected at random, so I essentially dumped the files into whichever bucket they suited.

CBM: What’s the point of the site? A satirical jab at Tumblr users or just a bit of fun?

GG: A bit of both! I really do adore Tumblr and the Tumblr audience, maybe it’s an Australian thing to poke fun of the thing you love the most. I guess I was also inspired by how regularly I pitch in Tumblr at work as an option for clients and how I think there is still a bit of fear in them about engaging with it as a social media content marketing tool. But the content is quite easily ‘gamed’ and even more so as a brand.

CBM: What are your 5 favorite What Should I Put On My Tumblrs?

GG: I love: ‘Drake Lyrics + Boobs‘ (my life);
‘Food + Romance‘ (also my life)
‘Hipsters + Being Sad‘ (this is just hilarious)
‘Places + Living‘ (for genuine inspiration)
‘Basketball + Being Mad‘ (If you’re lucky you’ll get “Zero Fucks Given” over a Jordan dunk)

Hope you enjoyed this! Also, check out our Tumblr Tuesday from weeks’ past:

Story by Courtney Boyd Myers

Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups gr (show all) Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io, a transatlantic company designed to help New York and London based technology startups grow internationally. Previously, she was the Features Editor and East Coast Editor of TNW covering New York City startups and digital innovation. She loves magnets + reading on a Kindle. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter @CBM and Google +.