I know folks in the anti-SJW community are always going on and on about how tumblr is the absolute worst, most toxic site on the Internet, beating out even the likes of 4chan, and I’m on the fence about that. I neither agree nor disagree, because I’m not quite sure where I stand, having not touched 4chan since I was in middle-early high school (and even then only very rarely). I can only speak from my experiences on tumblr.

What I can say is that tumblr’s brand of toxicity is unique–at least in my own experience, and from what I’ve seen.

I’ve seen people be mocked for suggesting that cults exist on tumblr, oh, those silly anti-SJWs, always blowing things out of proportion, but if not cults, then at the very least cult-like behaviors are very real and present on this site.

And the “cult leaders” are almost always twenty-something-year-old adults with legions of young teens as their underlings.

I can link you to entire, 500-page threads in forums dedicated to documenting crazy Internet bullshit, complete with archives and screencaps, pertaining to the sort of behavior I’m talking about. If asked for those links, I will provide them, without hesitation, but I feel many already know what site, in particular, I’m referencing.

Twenty-something-year-old, college-aged adults come onto this site, and they post their opinions. They post how they feel. They post angry rants directed at other users, often over minor disagreements. These posts are shared and reblogged, sometimes hundreds of thousands of times, and impressionable young teens latch onto the much older, much more experienced figures.

You see this most commonly in social justice circles. Young teens in the modern age are always striving to be educated on social matters, and that’s good, I won’t knock them for that. I, too, strive to keep myself educated and updated.

The problem is that they don’t do their own research, or formulate their own opinions–not once they’ve found a leader to amass behind.

Once that happens, everything their older, wiser leader says is true, no questions asked. They join in witch hunting and harassment brigades. They learn how to doxx, and use their new knowledge to “get back” at those they perceive as evil. They create, like, and reblog poorly-researched call-out posts, and participate in smear campaigns.

All because this older, wiser person says it’s fine, it’s good, this is the right thing to do, this is the only way.

Even more worrying, when the young teens decide they no longer feel comfortable towing the party line and try to leave, they become targets of the very same horrific acts they once condoned and participated in. Their leaders turn on them in a flash.

These twenty-something-year-old, college-aged adults doxx, threaten, harass, demean, and slander thirteen-year-olds, because those thirteen-year-olds dared to leave the fold.

Then those thirteen-year-olds go crawling back, apologize, beg for forgiveness, so that they might be spared.

Think about that.

Isn’t that kind of fucked up?

Isn’t that kind of abusive, manipulative behavior?

Yeah, adults do that to minors on this site every day.

So while I can’t say for certain whether or not tumblr is the absolute worst, most toxic site on the Internet, I can say that I’ve never seen this sort of behavior on any other site I’ve been a part of–not in the same quantity as I have here on tumblr.

At this point, it doesn’t matter which site is worse. What matters is that adults are taking advantage of inexperienced, confused, frightened kids, and no one’s doing anything about it.