The Internet. It’s a wild place. You can theoretically do just about anything there. Shopping, working, learning, creating; and none of them are of limits. Apparently, neither is deceit.

Dishonesty has been a hallmark of the Internet since its infancy, from the early days of predators in chatrooms to cat-fishing to fraudulent advertisements to misleading headlines. There are few left on this green earth that still believe the garbage spewed out of the Internet’s abyss.

Tragically, many of these people are teens.

The Internet is a mecca of false and misleading information. Because of this, it’s almost impossible to have an opinion without someone on the web seconding it, validating it, and confirming your self-induced superiority complex. Enter: Tumblr.

Tumblr is a blog-style social media outlet where users run personal blog pages dedicated to whatever they chose. It combines the photography of Instagram with the humor of Twitter, the comment and respond format of Reddit, the multimedia accessibility of Facebook, and lets you color it all in.

And yet, regardless of the slander I throw at it today, I will admit one thing: It’s brilliant.

Additionally, I would like to make clear that my intention with this article is not to disrespect or even blame the founders, and creators at Tumblr. Anyone could have made this website and it could have gone the exact same way. I find no intent in their work, only a situation that has grown far bigger than them. Tumblr has lost, at least in my mind, the title of a social media site. Tumblr is a soapbox and a therapist and a crusader and a bully wrapped up in a url and password. Tumblr has grown beyond itself, and it’s time to chop it down.

Tumblr, like any social media site, is primarily populated by teens and twenty-somethings. Both age groups provide a unique piece to the intricate Tumblr dynamic. The teens provide the angst, the naiveté, the coming of age bullshit we’ve all watched Molly Ringwald decipher approximately fourteen times. The twenty-somethings feed off of this energy, absorbing it into their potentially mature but practically juvenile mindsets, and spewing it back at the teens. The teens reclaim it, newly validated in their opinions now that someone older and wiser has confirmed it, and thus the cycle continues. At face value, this practice may seem harmless, if not annoying, but it’s the subject matter that creates the issues. See, Tumblr has become well known for its large population of “social justice warriors,” a condescending term used to refer to Tumblr users who dedicate their blogs to social justice issues. Most frequently, these SJW’s are young girls, upper middle class, residing in the U.S., Western Europe or Australia. Almost exclusively liberal, these kids spend hours on their computers discussing the intricacies of veganism as a lifestyle choice or whose lives matter. Once again, at face value, this may not seem so heinous. Teens developing a political view through constructive discourse and research isn’t so bad, right? Truly, it’s not. Too bad thats not what’s happening.

Instead of a polite outlet to discuss world views and opinions, Tumblr has grown into a hateful cavern of clash and faction. It is clear from spending just seconds on the website that liberal ideals are the pinnacle of Tumblr users' values, and yet there is no general consensus on how to uphold this universally admired trait. Thus, everyone's personal opinions collide. There is no way to please everyone, and therefore no way to please anyone. While many credit Tumblr as a contributing factor to the rise in popularity of feminism in young men and women, it also proves to be nearly the sole reason that third wave feminism is taken for a farce. There is no gradual progress or growth on Tumblr. One mistake is made, and suddenly the whole community has turned against you. There is no effort to educate in a kind or compassionate manner, no understanding that circumstance may breed disagreement, just a vaguely agreed upon idea of right and wrong help up as a manifesto of millennial incompetence. And these aren’t even the bad ones. Because, so what if you’ve discredited the movement that earned women the right to vote by making popsicles out of your own menses? You’re young! And dumb! You've haven’t hurt anyone, have you?

Now we introduce Tumblr’s psych ward. Along with being a soapbox for young liberals to insult each other, Tumblr also harbors a dirty secret hidden in the alcoves of the site. Type depression into the site’s search bar, bypass its warning message with a click of a button, and find yourself privy to a disgusting display of fetishization and glamorization of mental illness. Bloody blades and sickening quotes, girls in oversized sweaters with their eyes whited out and prescription pill bottles dance across the screen. It’s sad. It’s scary. It’s "so cool."

Much like cigarettes and sniffing paint thinner, Tumblr has become yet another self-destructive but oh-so-chic outlet for the disgruntled teen to express just how little anybody understands them. The problem here is that now, another teen, disgruntled as the first, shouts it back. And then they’re not alone. And then they feel right.

So now you’ve seen these disgusting pictures, and read these disgusting words, and you’ve never felt so understood. Other people are sad and you’re not alone. And all of this was under the depression tag?

I must have depression.

We’ve now fallen down the rabbit hole.

Self-diagnosis is a treacherous habit. If a person is truly ill, they need help, and possibly medicine or other medical care they can’t provide themselves. These Tumblr pages could feel like a coping mechanism, but in actuality, they serve as a trigger that encourages users' depressive behaviors.

Contrarily, and most likely more often, many of these users don’t actually have a diagnosable mental illness. They might have some symptoms, or occasional bouts of concerning behavior, but nothing severe enough to require medical treatment. Once again, the site could be functioning as a trigger for these behaviors, feeding in to users' idea that they are ill. Additionally, these pseudo-ill samaritans end up diminishing the seriousness of true mental illness sufferers. Also, while this phenomenon is mostly existent with depression as the disease at hand, several others, such as anorexia, bipolar disorder and social anxiety are exceedingly prevalent on the site.

This is what Tumblr does. It creates a vacuum of identical ideals and bounces them back and forth from screen to screen, validating these opinions be they merely unintelligent or alarmingly harmful. These teens and 20-somethings see their angst reflected in their peers all across the globe, but instead of being comforted by it, abuse it until it becomes intertwined in the fiber of their being. Without their crusader ideals, their imaginary illness, or their network of like minded folks, they are, and have, nothing. It’s breaking down teens into nothing but labels, the very thing these adolescents are attempting to escape.

Now, this conundrum is anything but the creators' fault. Still, it is a truth of their creation, a side effect no one could have ever foreseen. There’s not much that can be done to stop it, and yet, it’s something that needs to be stopped. Save this site. Save these kids. Save the reputation of a generation.

Fix Tumblr.