Zelda Fitzgerald: The Ideal Tumblrer

Tumblr is very much the type of thing that Zelda Fitzgerald could have used during her era of oppression as an aspiring writer. Considered an outlet of sorts that emulates the teen girl diary (just ask Tavi Gevinson of The Rookie), Tumblr would have been the perfect way for Zelda to express herself clandestinely without incurring the wrath and jealousy of F. Scott.

It’s easy to see that Zelda would have thrived in a more contemporary time, but while stuck in her own, she was subjected to the tyranny of her husband and others around her. While writing her only novel, Save Me the Waltz, Zelda was derided and verbally abused by F. Scott, who insisted that she not write about her time spent in a mental institution as it would overlap too much with his own novel, Tender Is the Night, which he was writing around the same time.

But, had she been given the opportunity to Tumble her thoughts away, it’s possible Zelda would have had enough of a creative release to keep the raging turmoil of her mind under control. Back in the day, her “over emotional” state was deemed insanity. Now, however, it’s likely that modern psychology would not have relegated her into this category simply because she was a woman who expressed her feelings passionately.

Moreover, F. Scott, who constantly “borrowed” lines from her diaries, would not have been able to do so if she had patented them on Tumblr, where her own solid base of followers could have seen them and known that they were hers. Possible Tumblr user names for Zelda might have been theunflappableflapper, fscottsprisoner, slavetolove, asouthernerinparis or loonybinblues. The opportunities for her to write freely and with an open audience would have given Zelda the chance she deserved at becoming a respected scribe on her own merits.