Giving In to Technology

Tumblr. Instagram.

These are things I never thought I would use. It's bad enough that I kind-of sort-of have a twitter that I use once in a while. But tumblr? Get real, that thing is for fankids to post their fanfiction and fangifs and fanroleplays. And instagram is just a cheater's way of taking pictures (says the girl whose camera has been lying dormant for...oh, maybe a year). Tumblr and Instagram were just fads junking up the internet with...junky junk. Using either of them would totally ruin my street cred.

Or so I thought. Because then I found people who were using them both as a serious tools. Photographers who wanted to capture and share every-day moments quickly and thoughtfully; art bloggers and writers and all kinds of people. I thought...man, maybe this wouldn't be such a bad idea.

And you know what?

It turns out that it's a totally flipping awesome idea.

I signed up for Instagram on my iPhone, linked it to a brand spanking new Tumblr account, and voila! I suddenly have a totally new creative outlet that fits in my pocket.

I can't believe I was ever so blind.

For some reason, I have a hard time accepting this technological wave our generation is riding on. The only reason I got an iPhone in the first place was so I could combine my iPod and phone into one device. I own a handful of apps, that don't even hold a candle to my 12 year-old sister's library of 473,642 (a rough estimate). I'm quick to scoff at social networking sites. But I should really start giving in and riding the wave because...it's pretty freaking neat.

Now all I need to do is find a widget that will load thumbnails of my tumblr pictures in the sidebar of my blog...

In the meantime, check it out at http://ferociousostrich.tumblr.com/. Follow, tweet, tumble...do that thing you do, kids. I'd love to see how other people are using these tools to keep their creativity flowing.

((That first picture is from my living room, filled with paper lanterns. Thanks to Elizabeth from E Tells Tales for giving me the idea, and for directing me to Wit and Whistle to learn how to make them. Well, re-learn how to make them. I’m pretty sure I knew how to make these when I was a kid, but I never would have thought to use them as lanterns. Bravo.))