wobblegong

Thinkin' about animals....

  • 🐟/🐠/they/them

deviantArt: jWobblegong

*tiny furry cheeps*


An important lesson for anyone not native to tumblr is that the concept of "tumblr sexyman" has always implied a strong element of farce. Not exclusively– no, no, some people are sincerely horny for the guy. But there must be an element of comedy, of shock, of "this guy? Him? REALLY??" to a tumblr sexyman, or else he's not a tumblr sexyman, he's just a dude some people think is hot.

Thus:

Twitter user theomancyCos saying: Now that tumblr polls exist they're having their OWN tumblr sexyman vote, and I think the people here might have to reckon with the fact that Reigen is actually a Twitter sexyman.

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in reply to @wobblegong's post:

This is the thing that's been driving me a little nutty over these things, honestly. Case in point: I've seen multiple people say that Spinel StevenUniverse is a Tumblr Sexyman.

Apparently Tumblr Sexyman just means "literally any character that you personally like" these days.

I don't know how I feel about the idea that someone is tumblr enough to be way into Steven Universe but not tumblr enough to understand that the blorbo is not a tumblr sexyman until/unless they reach a critical mass of strangers yelling about 'em. Just because you and your friends like the blorbo doesn't mean they've reached the critical threshhold....

Also the idea someone WANTS their blorbo to be a tumblr sexyman is... n-no. It's. It's not a pretigious title. It's not a good thing, just a weird one.

YEAH, like it's always been my interpretation that like... IDK, Sexyman status comes with a level of having to NO WAIT I CAN EXPLAIN THO to sharing that you like them. Like, explaining why you're so obsessed with The Onceler or Sans Undertale or the DHMIS Clock is like... part of their whole deal. Some kinda mixture of like:

  • Fans going completely yonkers bonkers
  • A level of weirdness to their appeal, something that isn't just a regular fan favourite type of character - be it unconventional appearance, "unappealing" personality, amorality, etc.
  • Often the appeal skews heavily visual attraction (finding them sexy/etc) often in spite of a strange/unconventional appearance (or lack thereof) - or sometimes a desire to make them attractive in some way too (see Bill Cipher twinkification)
  • Something about them makes the fandom make tons of transformative (or straight up original) content for them - lack of canon design can do this pretty easily, as can there being something nuanced or complicated about their personality that the canon doesn't explore
  • Notoriety outside of the fandom

(I'd argue the notoriety isn't even specifically needed much - it certainly helps, but I feel like notoriety enhances the vibes rather than making them. Personal taste for that one though I think.)

Anyway I think part of the problem wrt "sexyman is not just a person you like" is that people start just, interpreting these polls as Make Your Fave Win versus trying to discover who is the most fitting winner?

(That and like, probably also the same thing that happens when super popular songs end up on character playlists just because people like the song, even though the song like, doesn't match at all.)

.....i've spent over half an hour editing this giant comment and have no idea if it makes ANY sense. and im incapable of being concise. but im sending it anyway bc i can so whoops sorry 4 the essay enjoy i guess