My project is up and running, although I haven’t been very good about updating it. I discovered that I am pretty much tumblr illiterate, but I am working on that! I have collected a series of links to fake historical information on the internet and will be posting them on a regular basis from now until the end of the project. I realized that the links themselves don’t really create a resource for digital history, so I am thinking about implementing a template to tie them into the theme of the project. Something along the lines of:
What the internet says:
What really happened:
What does this teach viewers about history:
I’m hoping that this template will allow me to present background research that will contribute to the overall conversation and purpose of the tumblr. As it stands now, the only explaination viewers have is the title of the page.
I think that this will help the posts to be more substantial and my tumblr to function as a digital history resource. I have written one post on conspiracy theories of the internet, and have research for two more. The problem that I have with them is that the sheer length of the post doesn’t really fit into the flow of the tumblr. I also made the mistake of choosing 9/11, which has a more serious tone than the other posts. While I tried to integrate it by focusing on the absurdity of some of the claims as well as the absurdity of some of the evidence presented, but I’m not entirely sure that it fits. At the end of the day, people using the internet to promote the idea that 9/11 was an inside job is still a pretty dark topic. I’ve chosen lighter historical topics for my next articles, and they will be posted over the course of the next week.
http://madelineann90.tumblr.com/