Marissa Mayer Promises to Leave Your Tumblr Porn Gifs Alone

As fervent Tumblr users already know, their beloved Internet home, replete with reality TV gifs and hashtag-confessions of a hashtag-teenage-tumblr-queen, has a new landlord. Yahoo announced a $1.1 billion deal Monday that will bring Tumblr under the corporation’s wing. Though Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer promised “not to screw it up,” Tumblr users are, unsurprisingly, blogging like it’s the apocalypse. “Yahoo just bought Tumblr… This is the beginning of the end,” “They say they would let it continue as a independent business. Don’t you fucking lie to my face,” and “The end is near” are some of the obligatory statements Tumblr creatures must post to save face in the wake of their new forced allegiance with The Man. But one of the biggest questions that Tumblr users have been bringing up is how Yahoo will deal with the NSFW content that some estimate makes up about 10% of Tumblr.

During Yahoo’s Flickr press event last night, Mayer stated that Yahoo has no plans to axe the porn and NSFW material that many Tumblr users hold dear. “It’s the nature of user-generated content,” said Mayer. “I think the richness and breadth of content available on Tumblr— even though it may not be as brand safe as what’s on our site— is what’s really exciting and allows us to reach even more users.”

But that “richness and breadth” includes pages like jiggle-jiggle.tumblr.com and other very clearly labeled tumblrs like pussy-ass-tits.tumblr.com (Obviously NSFW, I don’t feel bad about not giving you a warning). I wonder what kind of tailored advertising those blogs would receive from Yahoo? Something tells me it won’t be one of those John Stamos greek yogurt commercial.

The funny thing is, Yahoo is the part of the Internet where your mom goes because she doesn’t quite get what the Internet is. (No offense to your mom. YOUR MOM!) Whereas Tumblr is the safe-haven for every subculture and its subsequent subcultures in gif form, Yahoo is where my aunt sips on coffee from her “Must Love Dogs” mug and pauses every half hour to appreciate the wonderful invention that is the Internet. What’s she going to do when she sees Sailor Moon’s boobs covered in semen on a hentai Tumblr? “We want to let Tumblr be Tumblr and let Yahoo be Yahoo,” Mayer assured wary investors after the deal. For now, letting Tumblr be Tumblr means letting those ass jiggle gifs continue to jiggle scot-free.