If you’ve been scrolling through TikTok looking for marketing advice or reading yet another LinkedIn post about “the only platforms that matter,” you’ve probably absorbed the same narrative: Tumblr died sometime around 2018, and nobody uses it anymore except for a few nostalgic millennials reblogging Supernatural gifs. That story is convenient, tidy, and completely wrong.Tumblr is alive. More importantly, it’s one of the most underrated platforms for Gen Z creators, bloggers, and small business owners who are tired of fighting algorithms that seem designed to hide their content from the people who actually want to see it.
The platform currently hosts around 135 million blogs and sees over 30 billion monthly page views. Those aren’t the numbers of a ghost town. What happened is that Tumblr stopped trying to be everything to everyone. It lost its mainstream spotlight, and in doing so, it became something more valuable: a community-driven space where content still spreads organically through genuine interest rather than algorithmic manipulation.
Here’s what makes Tumblr different in 2025. When someone reblogs your post, it appears on their blog and in their followers’ dashboards with full attribution back to you. There’s no paywall hiding your content from people who already chose to follow you. There’s no engagement bait required, no “comment LINK for the link” gymnastics, no dancing in front of your product while trending audio plays. Your words, your art, your products can spread purely because people find them interesting enough to share.
The reblog system functions like old-school word-of-mouth marketing, except it scales. One person shares your post, their followers see it, a few of them share it, and suddenly your small handmade jewelry shop or your essay about climate anxiety is reaching thousands of people who are actually in your niche. The platform rewards specificity rather than punishing it. You’re not fighting to please an algorithm that wants broad appeal; you’re connecting directly with communities that are actively searching for exactly what you’re offering.
Tumblr’s tagging system is another underappreciated asset. Unlike Instagram, where hashtags have become largely decorative, or Twitter, where they’re mostly used for jokes and trending topics, Tumblr tags actually function as a genuine discovery tool. People browse tags for content they care about. If you’re selling vintage-inspired clothing, posting in relevant fashion tags means people who wake up and think “I want to see cool vintage fashion today” will find you. If you’re writing about mental health, book reviews, urban gardening, or fountain pens, there are active communities having daily conversations about those exact topics.The demographic assumption about Tumblr being exclusively millennial is outdated too. While exact numbers are hard to pin down since the platform doesn’t release detailed analytics publicly, surveys and user reports consistently show significant Gen Z presence, particularly among people who are tired of the performative nature of Instagram and TikTok. Many Gen Z users maintain Tumblr blogs alongside their other social media precisely because it offers something different: the ability to be weird, specific, and earnest without worrying about maintaining an aesthetic or personal brand.
For bloggers, Tumblr offers built-in hosting with customizable themes and the ability to use your own domain name. You can run an entire blog on the platform without paying for separate hosting, and unlike Medium, you’re not locked into someone else’s paywall system or design constraints. You maintain control over your content and presentation while benefiting from the platform’s social features.
For store owners, especially those selling art, handmade goods, digital products, or vintage items, Tumblr provides free promotion to highly engaged niche audiences. The users who stuck with Tumblr through its awkward years tend to be people who value independent creators and are willing to actually spend money to support them. This isn’t an audience that just likes posts and moves on; these are people who maintain wishlists, share shops with friends, and come back months later to finally make that purchase.The platform’s quirky reputation actually works in your favor. People expect Tumblr to be strange, personal, and authentic. You can write long-form posts about your creative process, share behind-the-scenes photos of your workspace chaos, or post genuine thoughts about your work without it feeling off-brand. The audience appreciates personality and substance over polish.
There’s also something refreshing about a platform that hasn’t monetized every square inch of screen space. You’re not competing with sponsored posts every three scrolls. Your organic content has room to breathe. When people see your post, it’s because someone they follow thought it was worth sharing, not because you paid for placement.The learning curve is minimal. Create a blog, post your content, use relevant tags, engage with other blogs in your niche by reblogging and commenting on their posts. That’s genuinely it. You don’t need to study the latest algorithmic changes or figure out the optimal posting time down to the minute. You don’t need to create fifteen different content formats for fifteen different platform requirements.
Tumblr won’t replace your other marketing channels, and it shouldn’t. But it can be an incredibly effective supplement, especially if you’re creating anything that benefits from community, context, and actual conversation rather than just passive scrolling. It’s a platform that rewards showing up consistently and being genuinely interesting to a specific group of people rather than trying to game your way into virality.
The internet keeps getting louder, more crowded, and more exhausting. Every platform wants you to post three times daily, respond to every comment within minutes, and basically perform engagement as a full-time job. Tumblr asks less and often gives more. Your post from two years ago can suddenly get discovered and shared because someone found it while browsing tags. Your small pottery shop can build a loyal following of people who genuinely love ceramics, not just followers who vaguely remember seeing your reel once.
So no, Tumblr isn’t dead. It’s just not interested in being the loudest platform in the room anymore. For creators and sellers who are exhausted by the constant algorithmic chaos of mainstream social media, that might be exactly what makes it worth your time.
