'alksjdf;Lksfd': tumblr and the fandom user experience

A growing trend is the participation in online fandom communities through the support of the blogging platform Tumblr. While past research has investigated backchannels-chatter related to live entertainment on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter-there is a lack of research on the behaviours and motivations of Tumblr users. In our study, we investigate why fandom users chose Tumblr over other social networking sites, their motivations behind participating in fandoms, and how they interact within the Tumblr community. Our findings show that users face many user interface challenges when participating in Tumblr fandoms, especially initially; yet, despite this, Tumblr fandom communities thrive with a common sense of social purpose and exclusivity where users feel they can present a more authentic reflection of themselves to those sharing similar experiences and interests. We describe how this suggests design directions for social networking and blogging sites in order to promote communities of users.