There’s two main things that I’m going to be talking about in this post: Number 1 being Tumblr, and Number 2 being Doctor Who.
Tumblr is a social networking website that was founded by David Karp. The website/app allows a person to post pictures, gifs (moving pictures), videos and regular text posts. Doctor Who is a BBC TV show about a Time Lord who has adventures with his companion as they travel through time and space in the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), which is basically a giant blue police box that blends in with its surroundings.
Okay so now you know the gist of the two, but what do they have in common? People that work for Doctor Who the TV show have an official Tumblr account that goes by the username of “doctorwho.” The account reblogs pictures, gifs, videos and text posts that specifically revolve around Doctor Who. When an episode of the show is live on television, tumblr users express their feelings through memes about what is currently going on in the show. A meme is an image or text post that revolves around either a funny or stupid joke or reference and it gets passed on from person to person through social media. The people who run the Doctor Who account always reblog posts about the episode from Doctor Who fans (Whovians) that are watching the episode live. While watching the eleventh episode of the ninth series of DW , “Heaven Sent,” I decided to contribute to the flood of other posts on Tumblr.
There’s this popular meme where the first stanza of “Let It Be” by The Beatles is alternated to fit a situation that is currently going on. For those who aren’t familiar with the song, which is kind of difficult to believe because the song is basically a part of music history but just in case, it goes like this:
When I find my self in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
Near the end of “Heaven Sent,” Clara Oswald, the Twelfth Doctor’s companion, attempted and succeeded to encourage the Doctor to keep moving forward by telling him “Get up off your arse… and win!” As soon as Clara said that, I immediately thought of the “Let It Be” meme and texted my fellow Whovian friend the following:
when I find my self in times of trouble
clara oswald comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
“get up off your ass”
She flat out told me, “You need to post that on Tumblr because if you don’t, then I will. That is GOLD.” I took her advice and decided to post the text post on my tumblr account with the username “ayeanthizilla.” Well remember how I said that the Doctor Who official Tumblr reblogs posts from Whovians that are watching the episode live? Yeah well they reblogged my post and because the official page reblogged it, the post gained over 3000 notes. It became one of the most reblogged Doctor Who text posts of 2015. The DW Tumblr recognized my post as being one of the “fandom famous” posts and asked me in a private message if they could show my post in the Fan-Picked-Favorites episode for the season nine recap/before-season-ten-comes out special! So yeah, look out for my Tumblr post in the new special that is going to premier sometime soon!
Here’s a link to my text post~