The Terrible Consequences of Yahoo’s Tumblr Buyout

By Lauren O'Neal May 21, 2013

• Yahoo! drops a vowel to promote cross-brand synergy, becomes Yaho!.

• All Yaho! employees now required to work from home, in the middle of the night, when they’re about to go to bed after they read this one last thing.

• Both private-messaging features offered by tumblr. (now called “Tumblr?” for punctuational synergy) include a Sent folder. Users reel in confusion: “I can see both sides of the conversation? I don’t understand. Which part did I say?”

• Yaho!’s women’s section, Shine (now “Shne”), now just GIF after GIF of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

• All Tumblr? asks sent directly to Yaho! Answers. “We think an enriched user base is the most seamless way to monetize questions like ‘I think your really cool but yuo dont follow em back but thats ok XD’ and ‘check ur human privelege, it’s not my job to fucking educate u,’” says rep.

• Tumblr? Storyboard (“Tumblr? Stryboard”) exclusively features headlines like “’Hot’ women that aren’t: one guy’s take” and “What exactly is a ‘Latino’?”

• Average age of Yaho! and Tumblr? users evens out to about 30. “Can I still Google my email?” an elder woman asks her 10-year-old grandson as he posts nude selfies.

• In accordance with company policy, Yaho! deletes all the porn from Tumblr?. Tumblr? ceases to exist, and all of these consequences disappear.

Lauren O’Neal is a creative-writing MFA student in San Francisco. Her writing has appeared in publications like Slate, The Rumpus, and Corium Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Photo via.