Tumblr is a blogging website that also functions as a social network where people follow blogs and interact through messaging and chatting. Tumblr users can post pictures, quotes, songs, videos, basically anything they can find on the internet. Although lesser known, Tumblr is 10 times better than that other social networking site, Facebook.

I recently deleted my Facebook account. Here’s the reason why: I wanted to connect with people in real life again. I wanted to stop using it as a crutch in order to get to know someone. Yes, on the outside, we would all like to believe that Facebook is a way to connect with friends, but I’m pretty sure you don’t speak to those 700 people on a daily basis, or even a monthly basis.

People use Facebook to stalk, simple as that. It basically forces you to put all your personal information out there in for others to know without having to ask. All the profiles have the same layout and individuality is nonexistent.

You can argue and say the new timeline introduced by Facebook is a step in the right direction for individualizing Facebook, but I feel it’s only improving the site’s stalking abilities. To be able to jump to a certain year in someone’s life just to see what their life was like is disturbing. My memory is good enough to remember significant events without Facebook’s help. I wasted too much time on the site and reaped no benefits. It was unnecessary for me to share minute details about my life, like what the weather was that day, “OMG! It’s snowing!”

With the timelines feature, friends who view your profile will be able to get to the information faster. So even though Mark Zuckerberg would like you to believe that the new timeline is a better way of telling your life story, it still doesn’t encourage individuality. Facebook is giving their users less and less control but exposing them more and more.

Meanwhile, on Tumblr, there are numerous ways to express my individuality through my blog. There are thousands of themes that can be used, and I control all the content that is put on my page. If I don’t want to expose my relationship status, I don’t have to feel obligated. Users can share their interests and inspire other users with their internet discoveries.

Facebook is a stalking tool; Tumblr is a creative outlet. Some, however, disagree. The rapper Drake recently stated, “I’m really scared for my generation, you know. The thing that scares me the most is Tumblr. I hate what Tumblr has become. Instead of kids going out and making their own moments, they’re just taking these images and living vicariously through other people’s moments. It just kills me. Then you’ll meet them and they’re just the biggest turkey in the world. They don’t actually embody any of those things. They just emulate…It scares me.” I guess that makes me a turkey, because I am Tumblr’s biggest fan.

I think what has gotten Drake scared is the “reblog” option on tumblr. When a person posts something, his or her followers have the option to press reblog and post it to their own blog. I see how Drake would feel that’s unoriginal, because you’re able to take someone else’s work and claim it as your own; you admire it, but you’re not going out there and creating it yourself.

What Drake doesn’t realize is even though the kids using Tumblr may not be taking the pictures or making the moments on their blog, they’re expressing an interest. They’re more vulnerable because their blogs are built strictly on their personal interests. Tumblr is for inspiration, not for emulation. It’s for personal pleasure, rather than satisfying the curious minds of your “friends.”

Who’s to say someone who posts a photo of a beach will never vacation in Bali? Or write a novel because they were inspired by a J.D. Salinger quote? Just because Tumblr bloggers don’t originally provide the material on their blogs most of the time doesn’t mean they’re unoriginal. No two blogs are alike, because the interests and minds of no two people are alike. Each blog is a collage of interests.

Tumblr is focused on the representation of an individual, not the exposure. What Drake needs to realize is that Tumblr is just the tip of the iceberg of self-expression; it’s a stepping stone for what its users aspire to create or do. I’d rather people become inspired by what I post on my Tumblr rather than stalk photos my friends tagged me in from Friday night.