My Tumblr Top 10 for 2009

You may have noticed that I have a dumb little side-blog over on Tumblr, called Film Noir Tagline. Much of the time, it’s just pictures of pretty girls in pretty outfits, but I throw in some design porn, music, and assorted Internet ephemera I find funny or inspiring.

Much like my Twitter account, this whole Tumblr thing is taking its time to evolve. I promise you don’t want to see what I posted to Twitter before I started using it for wisecracks, puns and dick jokes. At the same time, I’m sure the current state of Film Noir Tagline will seem shabby to me once it finally decides what it wants to be when it grows up.

For now, though, I’m going to use it as another excuse to continue looking back on 2009. We’ll laugh, we’ll love, we’ll cry and maybe we’ll even learn something. Here are the 10 most liked/reblogged bits from my Tumblr this year:

#10: “At The Tweetup”

This was a recounting of a befuddling conversation I had with an otherwise very lovely search-engine marketing expert. She changed the subject to cheese shortly afterward, and everything was fine. I may respond to anything marketing-related with a vacant, watery stare, but goddamn, I love cheese.

#9: “Single Ladies Dance to MC Frontalot“

My pal MC Frontalot wrote a clever rap called Tongue-Clucking Grammarian, about punctuation, onomatopoeia, and other topics dear to my heart. Someone mashed it up with Beyonce’s Fosse-lized dance routine from Single Ladies to create what Kanye West would surely agree is one of the best videos of all time. Of all time.

#8: “His Heart Couldn’t Beat It“

This was either very timely or way too soon, depending on your perspective. Shortly after Michael Jackson’s death, I spotted this winning combination of horrifying pun and CSI-intro-meme. Looks like his heart … couldn’t Beat It.

#7: “Geek“

My friend Sean Bonner created this image as a commentary on the rise of geek as the new cool. I figured it worked pretty well as a meta-commentary (ick, I know!) on Tumblr in general: lots of Internet fame, not so much actual geekery.

#6: “How To Use Twitter for Marketing and PR”

http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/ basically sums up my feelings on the matter.

#5: “Texting the Chicago Sun-Times”

A wry take on the future of journalism from Batterymouth, a Chicago improv group that features a dude with whom I went to college.

#4: “It’s On Top, Dude.“

Sent from a party last week, in a rare moment of civic responsibility.

#3: “FFFFail“

A tragically accurate guide to creating a popular image on Ffffound! Found on the competing image-collection site Design You Trust, of course.

#2: “Fuck it let’s party.“

Sam Falls has created the kind of piece that’s so perfectly cheeky, you want to slap yourself for failing to think of it first. “Fuck it, let’s party” seems to have tapped into the collective id of the Tumblr crowd, and  this work of Sartre got reblogged around the world and back.

#1: “Oh, Betty!“

January Jones, best known as Mad Men’s Betty Draper, in GQ. Between the utter TV juggernaut that is Mad Men, and everyone’s favorite Ibsen-esque housewife draped (sorry) in nothing but leather, what’s not to love?