who is the "we" and what does "normalize" mean?

degree to which tumblr has taken over this platform is fascinating because to the intended audience both of the answers to these questions are clear rather than ambiguous

these posts are ritualistic invocations in which someone asks a hive mind to grant blessings ("normalize") for a particular course of action that they themselves are embarking on but wish to cast as "we" (much as in the "royal we")

it cannot be anything else, because of the unique paradox of how platforms like tumblr attract people who view themselves (not always unreasonably) as outcasts but nonetheless find themselves in an environment of intense conformity

hence the paradoxical need to ask for approval before engaging in rebellious behavior, as opposed to merely doing it and saying "to hell with all of you, i will go my own way even if it leads me to the ends of the earth"

to be clear, I think Tumblr is just an egregious example of an overarching issue that you see in so many other places online https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1303744022729691137

namely that people obsessed with resisting conformity and exercising freedom of speech and behavior flock to a technological system that paradoxically has far more social judgement than the offline world

the mirror image of Tumblr is 4chan, where individual identities vanish altogether into a sea of anonymity which refines all voices into a singular, harshly enforced style of speech and behavior https://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/anonymity_as_culture__treatise

a strange world, is it not? https://outsidertheory.com/control-societies-with-sacrificial-characteristics/