CokeTalk: RIP tumblr

From 2008-2012 there was an anonymous tumblr called CokeTalk that felt r e v o l u t i o n a r y to teen-me. The concept feels even more revolutionary now in 2026- no self-publicizing, no brand deals, no social media tie-ins??? I digress.

CokeTalk was some California Cool Girl in her late 30s, a divorcée, an unapologetically sexually liberated Good Time Gal, drug aficionado and all-around Bad Influence. I've been so submerged in my climate-anxiety-general-anxiety-summertime-and-also-generalized-sadness nostalgia that I ended up on archive.com looking for her- tumblr made the destabilizing choice to delete old blogs (RIP jane-austen-porn.tumblr.com). God bless whoever archived so many pages (also really, why? Who was thinking to do that then ?).

Turns out her posts imprinted on my formative little brain- like this one on Ennui- I actually remember the words, I remember reading this and thinking "ah yes, it's me". I can't remember to take out the fucking garbage without multiple post-it notes stuck in strategic places. Imagine the woman I might’ve been if I'd made the effort to read something more "substantive" during that key developmental stage. If I’m honest with myself, I would’ve ended up an unmotivated neurotic pothead no matter what, albeit one with some working knowledge of historically significant philosophy fuckboys. Arguably making me even more insufferable than I already am so perhaps it’s for the best that I spent more time smashing up pain pills on my bedroom floor and skipping class to go shoplifting than I did reading anything heavier than coke-fueled rants on the internet.

Back on track. In July 2009, the anonymous spiritual fairy god-daughter of Eve Babitz wrote:

“Ennui is reserved for those with either stunning beauty, exceptional intelligence, or obscene wealth. Literature professors suffer ennui. Runway models suffer ennui. The single mom working the drive-thru window? Well, that bitch is just depressed.”

And for the rest of my life I would ask myself: am I smart enough or (more importantly) beautiful to have ennui or am I just a depressed drive-thru bitch? Turns out a bitch contains multitudes, sometimes it’s ennui, sometimes it’s depression and sometimes you’re just stoned and bored in line at the drive-thru and mistook it for something deeper.