Tumblr is back!

Image created by awesome Tumblr user MisterHippity

Tumblr has returned to the Interwhatzahoozis!

You can go back to asking, WHAT THE HELL IS A TUMBLR?

No, this is a good thing. For almost 24 hours the web was deprived of 6-year undergrad girls in arty tees holding their hassled-looking dogs up to webcams.

I have actually loved using Tumblr (since late 2007-ish) and would recommend it to anyone who wants a web presence but doesn't really know what to do. Tumblr sort of teaches you how to do this blogging thing as you go.

Also, the way Tumblr set up the dashboard (where you edit your blog and read other Tumblrs you follow) is borderline genius and the thing that draws you back to the site again and again. It makes blogging much more personal and intimate, more of a conversation.

Weirdly, conversely, for some people (I'm one), this also makes it a little hard to take Tumblr all that seriously sometimes. I've rarely done what I think of as real blogging on Tumblr, simply slapped stuff up there with a quip, much of the time. It honestly just didn't seem like it was worth the trouble. I've spent hours reading others' posts on the dash--and for that I'm grateful--but I never felt like composing anything there.

So I have a strange mix of responses to Tumblr's problems--I feel a mild irritation that I can't look at friends' blogs but I'm also amused at the idea that some people might have freaked out about it.

Long live Tumblr! Tumblr is, for me, still kinda dead.