Tumblr Screws Hipster Underclass to Appease Hipster Overlords at Pitchfork
And by “screw” I mean “forcibly reassign a subdomain,” which is basically disemboweling a blogger’s very soul because it changes his web address and renames him. Worse than the subdomain swap, however, is how childishly Tumblr handled it.
With some choice missteps from Tumblr Director of Operations Meaghan O’Connell (pictured above via), the usually user-friendly microblog platform is facing user insurrection. Here’s how it went down:
- Pitchfork magazine decides it would like to own pitchfork.tumblr.com. Though the domain is already owned, it has not been active since November. Here’s Pitchfork‘s explanation of what happened next:
Pitchfork emailed Tumblr the other day to ask how we would go about securing those URLs to use them for our publication. [...] Within 10 minutes, a tumblr representative responded: “Hi, Megan. Those URLs are now free. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with. Thanks for using Tumblr!”
- Meaghan celebrates Pitchfork‘s first post with a tweet.
- The person who ran the original pitchfork.tumblr.com discovers that he has been moved to pitchfork1.tumblr.com, and says the handful of posts he wrote are gone. He writes about it on a separate Tumblr account, where he goes by Tumbledore. The post receives 580 reblogs and “likes,” which is the Tumblr equivalent of a Million Man March.
- The shitshow begins. Meaghan accuses Tumbledore of lying. She does line-by-line refutation of his claims.
Actually when Tumblr released the domain to Pitchfork Media, pitchfork.tumblr.com was completely dormant and empty. There were not “several posts,” on that account, there were zero.
As per our policy, we emailed this account’s address to inquire about the dormant account. After you failed to respond for 72 hours, we released the domain.
- Tumbledore accuses Meaghan of “libel” and posts an email correspondence with Tumblr Support that says “We didn’t notify you.”
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- Pitchfork abandons ship, subtly laying the blame with Tumblr. In a post entitled “Dear Tumblr community,” Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber says Tumblr handed over the subdomain in “10 minutes” (not 72+ hours) and posts a screenshot of Tumbledore’s original pitchfork.tumblr.com posts. If we believe Schreiber, then Tumbledore is telling the truth and Meaghan is not.”We’ll be happy to surrender the URL and find a home elsewhere if the original register of the account wishes.”
- Hipster underclass uprising: Tumblr’s leadership is “full of shit” and “out to make a buck.” Meaghan is “arrogant and rude.” The final blow: Hipster Runoff says Tumblr is acting “like MySpace and Blogger.” In other words: Corporate.
- Meaghan psychoanalyzes her detractors’ “sense of loss” in a comment to The Rumpus. She alludes to “false information” but doesn’t clarify who was wrong and when.
Most remarkable about this case is how Tumblr falls on the sword of its purposefully democratic platform. Meaghan—a 24-year-old sex writer who describes herself as “fucking in love with my blog”—mixes business and pleasure on her personal blog, as is pretty common for Tumblr. When she addressed Tumbledore, her tone was that of an egoblogger settling a personal score. Likewise, her attention to detail apparently slipped, opening a window for a built-in population of factcheckers to prove her wrong, and to debate the relative willfulness of an apparent fabrication.
We asked Meaghan about Pitchforkgate’s factual discrepancies, and she says she’ll respond tomorrow, once she checks in with Tumblr. Pitchfork.tumblr.com currently remains in Pitchfork magazine’s possession.
View full post on Gawker: valleywag
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: Attacks on Meaghan, which are on this post, is what I meant.
Maureen O’Connor
Is pitchfork1322 . tumblr . com available?
misha trotsky
@Maureen O’Connor: Also… huh? Where did I attack the post? I loved the post. I don’t anymore.
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
@Maureen O’Connor: *Heart*
You de-starred me like an hour ago. What kind of funky retroactive ass covering is this?
I apologize, Meaghan. Lying just infuriates me so.
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
Though your commentary is usually welcome, Uncle Billy, the attacks on this post go too far. I’m de-starring you.
Maureen O’Connor
Ugh. Everything about this girl makes me a little ill. She’s one of those hipster mid-twenties asshats that makes me wonder what she’ll do once she turns 30 and is no longer culturally relevant in the little sphere she’s created. Maybe she can head up the tumblr Elderly Outreach division?
greengrassjar
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming:
Her book project looks mildly interesting.
[www.kickstarter.com]
She may not be the twit her tweets make her out to be. And let’s not forget she’s 24.
quantrail
@quantrail:
I wonder if she wrote that herself. Doesn’t jibe with the way she uses language on her twitter account (even after you decode the twitticisms)
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: Her thoughts on the Notre Dame experience.
[meaghano.com]
Hard not to like her.
quantrail
@Uncle_Billy_Slumming: When it comes down to prosecuting paedos, that’s when they start getting desperate for things to do.
John Thompson
Couple of interesting details:
She was awarded an internship by the ” Boehnen Fund for Excellence in Gender Studies” The Boehnen Fund seems to trouble Cardinal Newman.
Notre Dame’s Gender Studies Program offers internships for academic credit at “approved locations.” Through its Boehnen Fund for Excellence in Gender Studies, Notre Dame’s Gender Studies Program awarded a grant in 2008 to fund a student’s internship at the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C.
This is all part of the “make Catholicism hip” conspiracy, isn’t it. They’ve got a whole Vatican 2.0 thing going on right now… social media… etc.
Also, this is all Gawker’s fault!
I met the people from Tumblr at a meetup and we became friends. They saw I was good at using their product and they needed someone to teach other people how to do it so they hired me as the Director of Outreach. I was an english major; I never planned on working with computers.
The real story is jakobandjulia.com. I heard about these people through Gawker who were writing about their relationship. I went to their site and their site was a Tumblr site and that’s kind of the big joke around the office. The reason I started using Tumblr was Jakob and Julia.
Lovely Meaghan’s Bio
So how does she tie into the Volcker-Rockefeller conspiracy over in the #tips section? Is Tall Paul Catholic too? He comes from German, she comes from Germany
Is this the Boehnen that helped her out with the internship?
[people.forbes.com]
He’s got the Notre Dame and Catholic Charities pedigree.
The Pope is gunna poop when he hears that she’s associated with an organization that promotes women’s rights *and* she doesn’t believe in God. One you give women choice and remove god, what’s left for the church to do besides collect rent and prosecute old pedophiles?
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
Tumblr’s Collective Ego could be culled and rebranded as an alternative power source, I’m thinking.
trentemoller4
Alternate headline: Pitchfork eviscerates O’Connell!
Magister
@filthy tongue: 24 year old GINGERS are the worst.
SousChefGerard
This is why 24-year-olds typically don’t get to be Directors of Operations.
filthy tongue
Uproarious selections from the black soul of the Meaghan O’Connell twitter feed:
“I’m attending Friday’s Tumblr reads event pretty much for the express purpose of learning how to pronounce “Choire.”
“(I just wanted to say gauche)”
“Is it gauche to say “Oh, I was just reading your wikipedia entry”
“I keep thinking like, WHO IS MUTTERING IN THE APARTMENT and then I’m like “Oh, fucking Glenn Gould, you get me every time.”
“leapers asked: I’m looking for something great to read, preferably a short story collection. What do you… [tumblr.com]” (post removed)
“I can tell we’re growing because complaining on Twitter has exponentiated”
“I have to stop attempting film reviews they always are the same and it is embrassing”
“thebronzemedal asked: If you had to give up using one punctuation mark for Lent, which would it be and why? [tumblr.com]“
[meaghano.com]
“Just found out “ruminous” isn’t a word. Guess I’m combining ruminating and ruinous, which come to think of it, is very appropriate.”
This exists: [pitchfork.tumblr.com]
“Sometimes I’m just in my “content stream” and I think I’m on my @-replies and for a minute think @colinmeloy is talking right to me <3 <3 <3″
“OH in my head, like every day: “can we call it Outreach not Marketing i am having an anxiety attack?”
“@jennyholzer CONDUCIVE NOT CONDUCTIVE”
“@gabrielkahane dear gabe, why/how do you know who julia allison is? i don’t like that. xo, M”
“I just learned what afk meant, somewhat appropriately, from @tao_lin. I kinda thought it was an abbreviated version of asdfghjkl;”
“I mean, is it okay to say I read that @johncmayer article trying to think of ways to meet him and sleep with him?”
“My yoga teacher just spanked me”
” I don’t believe in God.”
[Foster Kamer appearance] “@weareyourfek Do you wanna be the closer?”
“Oh yeah! I knew I shoulda fact-checked. Thx”
“Really testing the limits of my anti-Read More stance. GOTTA BELIEVE IN SOMETHIN, GUYS.”
“I was put into the hands of a Philistine and my power was taken from me via an overpriced salon on Lorimer Street.”
“I have been castrated in the bangs area.”
“If there is a universe where ’9 to 5′ is not the best song in the world, I don’t wanna know about it.”
“My spirit was crushed when I found out this week people have to hit Always Display Images when dealing with my email sig. I am An Asshole.”
It just goes on and on! Meaghan O’Connell, Notre Dame is proud as hell.
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
Why are the nasty ones always the hotties?
ThoughtsOnReality
She would have been a ginger, damnit. We just can’t catch a break!
Dirty_Terry
And this is why I’d rather write on a “corporate” blog platform. At least they’re likely to be consistent and standardized in how they fuck you.
Mount_Prion
I just trademarked Meaghan O’Connell and demand that Tumblr reserves MeaghenO’Connellisalyingass.tumblr.com for my exclusive use.
The link actually works. Please Tumblr, don’t take it away:
[meaghenoconnellisalyingass.tumblr.com]
Uncle_Billy_Slumming
I checked. She is indeed “fucking in love” with her blog. Like all lovers, we should let them have their space and privacy. No one else go there. Honestly it’s like walking in on your college roommate staying in to “just cuddle” with his/her new squeeze. You know the flannel pjs are going to come down and handjobs will ensue. Get out now.
MinkyManky
Pitchfork released a statement directed to Meaghan O’Connell saying:
“Just tell the truth. The truth tastes nearly as sweet as Animal Collective’s semen.”
Karlifornia
Hmm, looks like someone has already decided to move on:
[pitchfork.wordpress.com]
raincoaster