think on this.

i’m not exceptionally surprised or disappointed that the occasional tumblr t-shirt ad is popping up on the dashboard now and then - it seems inevitable that they’d need to monetize this somehow.

i do, however, object to this specific ad. to me, ‘wouldn’t this shirt look better on you?’ implies a shared assumption that the shirt doesn’t look good, or as good as it could, on the guy pictured. (this guy is also in another ad with the tagline ‘ladies can’t resist,’ which seems to imply that yes, ladies could resist, because look at this guy.) the further underlying assumption seems to be that any tumblr user is more physically attractive than this guy, which is an easy way to make a lot of tumblr users feel excluded, denigrated, and ‘not real/target/valued tumblr users’ due to their physical appearances.

so, go get your money, tumblr, but please make your ads less offensive.