I was not a very good intern, namely because I was focused at all the tasks I enjoyed—fact-checking, research, reporting, writing—and basically worthless at the tasks I decided were beneath me. I would actually invent reasons to get out of having to do menial tasks, which is obviously a great attitude for a 22-year old.
But at the last internship I ever had, I found a niche: Tumblr. Fast Company’s social media presence was very unformed at the turn of 2011 (ironic for a magazine that breathlessly covers the tech world) and for some reason, no one blinked when the intern asked if he could run the Tumblr. It must have come up in a meeting. “So, we have fastcompany.tumblr.com registered, and should do something with that because we’ve run several articles about how Tumblr is the next wave. Who wants it?” I alone answered the call. Blogging became my daily task, what I defaulted to when I had no articles to fact-check or blurbs to write.
There was no one I had to approve posts with, no guidelines. I think I was told to link to at least one of our articles per day, and that was it. Every Tumblr and Twitter today is run by a 22-year old, I believe, but it’s hard to be to imagine they have no instructions or editorial oversight. I was running the off-shoot website of a very popular magazine at my own whim. I wrote about Soulja Boy. I posted Mountain Goats songs. I teased our articles with links like: “Chillwaver or Cabinet member?”
None of this is essential or important or Good, and there were 22-year olds are the time doing work that was essential and important and Good. (There are 22-year olds now who are doing that work.) It’s just very weird to me that any of this happened—that I didn’t have to use the 2011 equivalent of “bae” to keep myself relevant, and that I somehow didn’t fuck it up. The Internet was so lawless then! You could do whatever you want! Social media managers were barely a thing, and already we were joking about how the industry was doomed to collapse into itself. (Four years later, har har har.)
I’m sure if you’ve been reading airgordon dot tumblr dot com since 2011 (that’s some of you!) you may already know this. But it’s four years to the day since I hashtagged an infographic about medical marijuana as #weed and not, you know, #medical marijuana, so I’m feeling nostalgic.