One thing that was running through my mind as I read the articles on advertisement was the connection between Tumblr and various cheap fashion websites throughout the internet. A certain popular wing of tumblr takes on this sort of grungy, high-fashion kind of vibe that embodies each individual user’s “aesthetic,” and they all try to reblog as many things as they can adherent to their personal aesthetic motif. In terms of fashion blogs, this usually means a very polished yet rustic aesthetic, kind of like an article of clothing you’d buy at a thrift shop but a lot more polished and maybe even a little snootier.

One thing that accompanies this aesthetic, though, is promotions from various different tumblr users for sites like Romwe and Shein, which offer the clothes shown in pictures like these for an absurdly affordable price. Although it seems very individualistic and edgy, it instead acts as a direct pipeline between what’s thought of as “edgy” and “different” in terms of fashion and common people on tumblr. The result is generally a large group of people taking pictures in the same shirt and uploading them to their blogs, which could be as much of a blessing as it is a curse.