Last week I went to Universal Studios and I remembered a tumblr post that’s been with me after all these years. There are several that my brain has archived and pop up when some event or situation triggers them. This is the one I think about most often because I remember all the elements separately and there’s weirdly a lot of opportunities for it to come up. Here I will break down all the elements of this post and why I think it’s so special but here it is in all its glory
Now let’s break it down one by one. The original post, by durbikins, is good on its own. Universal Studios has always paled in comparison to Disney Parks and it's always fun to make fun of them. They’re an easy punching bag and no one feels bad because they’re not a real person. It’s good but not great. It’s not really biting enough to make me laugh and I don’t really care that much about amusement parks for this to resonate as strongly with me as it does. It becomes great the same way all tumblr posts become great: nonsensical arguments between idiots.
The first counterargument laid out is that you can drink at Universal. To which OP responds “have fun being dehydrated” this is my favorite part of tumblr arguments. Everyone is dealing with a completely different framework of how the real world works and what is important. While it is universally understood that alcohol is fun and cool, many on tumblr had no understanding of the reality of drinking in any capacity. Most conversations were real experience versus Health class fast facts. The immediate rebuttal to “readily available alcohol” being “risk of dehydration” is the kind of weenie behavior we saw every day and accepted as part of life. We all know the downsides of alcohol consumption and no one would ever put dehydration at the top of their list. Yet on Tumblr, it’s mistake number one.
The next argument warns of the dangers inherent in Disney world as there are more recorded incidents at Disney than at Universal. OP’s immediate rebuttal is basic understanding of statistics, which most people just do not have. Of course Disney has more “incidents”, they’ve been open longer and they have more parks. Also they’re not talking about deaths or life threatening accidents, they're talking about incidents, which could mean anything. This is more classic tumblr weenie behavior. These people want to live in a perfect world so bad. There is no such thing as a perfect amusement park and no humans act perfectly, so there will always be “incidents” and while deaths should be preventable, incidents of some kind will always happen. Half of the incidents are just guests fighting each other, which is true of any bar, museum, government building, or family gathering.
We then move to the greek chorus section of the post where the fighting is mostly done but there’s still added commentary. The first comment is amusement park discourse. This was our favorite thing to say about other people fighting at the time. Had the post been made a year or two earlier they would have said “Drama in the amusement park fandom” which was our favorite thing to say whenever people would fight about things that should not have fandoms. When the Anish Kapoor vanta black incident happened we said “drama in the paint fandom” but that was the past and now we were all about discourse. I don’t know who taught us that word or why it took us so long to learn it but once we learned it we couldn’t stop. That’s a common theme of tumblr and all things related to it. Once we start, we cannot stop. We’ve never been content to let sleeping dogs lie. We’re much more into beating a dead horse. Saying “amusement park discourse” at the time certified this post as an instant classic. Automatic reblog from at least 5000 people who bought into the joke of the month wholeheartedly and without question.
The next comment brings us back to the original. For the record, I don’t remember Hop (2011). Incredible. Incredible. That’s what is at the root of this whole thing for me. I also didn’t remember Hop. A movie I’m not sure if I've seen or not. I think not, but I’m not sure. That’s the real tragedy of the Universal parade. The best they can give us is Hop (2011), a movie that basically doesn’t exist. Forget all the other arguments, the root of this whole thing is Hop. Say what you will about alcohol and incidents. That’s the saddest part. All Universal has to offer us is…. Hop (2011)
Finally we have Stefon, someone who, when removed from context, is still funny. Saying “New York’s hottest club is…” is still funny and “this place has everything” is also still funny. This meme is often misused and almost never done well, making a perfect execution all the more sweet. Stefon should be used sparingly. Does this place have everything? Is this New York’s hottest club? The answer most times is no but when a perfectly unexpected Stefon arrives it hits like a freight train and there’s nothing better. Stefon being the final denouement of this post wraps it up perfectly. It is a great button on a great post where every addition brings such joy.
This post was popular for a while. I remember the feeling of seeing it on my dash and wondering why someone I follow was reblogging posts about Universal versus Disney and why this specific post felt so familiar and then it would hit me. I would be filled with giddy excitement, knowing I had forgotten enough about the post for the jokes to feel new. My brain was so addled with content that I could read the post and know it was funny but not remember why.
Eventually that’s what tumblr became. An opportunity to chase that feeling of a familiar joke whose punchline you had forgotten. No more sorting through the good and the bad. We just want the familiar. The new ones wouldn’t be as good anyway. If I had to read a post in the style of 2014 tumblr, written in 2021, my skin would crawl and my eyes would roll into the back of my head.. That person is either a teenager, which I’m not interested in or they're an adult who still talks that way, which I can’t stand. As much as Tumblr still exists, the reason to still have it is to go back in the archive. The new posts just don’t hit the way they used to, when I was in high school and had truly nothing better going on. I’m not there for new content. I’m there to reminisce. I’m there to remember Hop.
In my research for this, I did my due diligence and tried to see what these collective geniuses were up to now. Almost all of them had deleted their blogs. Nothing left, no trace of their identity. One of the two that still had their blog up hasn’t posted since June of this year, which is not that long ago but in tumblr time feels like forever. The OP is still semi active, reblogging one post or so a day. When you follow the link to the original author's post, it no longer exists and has been replaced with the message “Theme park culture is an embarrassment and Disney is scum”. This kind of walk back is typical of the Tumblr world. People grow up and are embarrassed of their past “fandom” behavior. What they defended and how they acted. They also tend to become more anti-capitalist as they age and are more critical of big corporations. Embarrassment is good and healthy but these people need to be kinder to their younger selves. Now that we know better and do better, it’s fine. Especially when one’s worst crime is loving theme parks. As Rizzo says in Grease, there are worse things I could do. They should also be kinder because for many still semi active tumblr users their general behavior hasn’t changed. Their interests have just shifted. There’s still an obsessive shilling for their interest or hobby, they’re just hoping this one is more anti-capitalist than the last one. There are no ethical hobbies under capitalism, even learning about communism.
As I’ve said, this post stays with me and comes up a lot. It reminds me of a time gone by when the internet was funny and I liked using it. When I wasn’t addicted to my phone. When tumblr was fun and equal parts laughing at and laughing with. When I was a teenager with teenage problems and not an adult struggling to feel like one. It means more to me than just a funny post. It’s a way to travel to a time gone by. To forget my current reality for a little while and go back to a version of myself that I can never be again. Most importantly this post reminds me of Hop (2011).