Can we talk about how a seriously concerning number of people are drawn to social justice not out of the goodness of their hearts but because there are prevalent circles within the social justice community that actively reward and encourage behavior that is nearly indiscernible from bullying and harassment with reassurance that it’s the ‘right and just’ kind?
these tags r too accurate to not include
Hope you don’t mind that I included your tags, I’ve seen this exact thing. I’ve even been on the receiving end of this stuff just for refusing to go along with callout post culture.
Their youtube channel also has several hundred pics reposted as slideshow tributes and recolored for their own stories.
They’ve once more begun posting more recolored art theft despite empty threats of leaving dA. This time, one from HydraCarina who does not allow that with their work. This kid (and I use the term loosely here) seems to think they’re entitled to fan art and treat it like a personal coloring page. One of their characters even vaguely resembles WhiteKimya’s Uru design.
They’re now taking other people’s characters and making breedables out of them while tracing MalisTLK’s art for the results. They’ve thus far taken from Albinoraven, Officialstigma, YurikoSchneide, Sumaliart, and many more.
To recognize TERFs, anti’s, fash, incels and other internet shitstains, one pattern you need to recognize is this:
They take some normal human behavior
Explain it in the darkest, most bad faith way possible
And then ignore any other, often more realistic, explanation.
A simple example:
A lot of adults watch TV shows about high school relationship drama.
Dark bad faith take: all these adults are obsessing over teenager sex lives because they want to fuck teenagers.
More realistic explanation: a lot of adults have memories of their own high school relationship drama that they like to relive, process, etc through media.
Another realistic explanation: People can empathize with the stories of hobbits, dragons, defense lawyers, plucky detectives, space rebels, talking dogs and teenagers in high school without always having a desire to fuck the characters involved.
It is possible to just enjoy a story as a story without it fulfilling some emotional of sexual need.
Like, when you take a tiny step back, it becomes clear that the jump from ‘adults watch high school dramas’ to ‘they all want to fuck teenagers’ is absolute moon logic.
This logic only works if you assume the absolute worst possible things about the group you’re talking about.
This logic works if the only lens you can see a group through is ‘predator’ and you do not acknowledge that they are completely humans who can just do non-predatory things like ‘enjoying stories’.
And
assuming the absolute worst possible things
about a specific group while denying their complexity and humanity… well, that is absolutely key to what TERFs, anti’s, fashos, incels, etc. do.
Someone asked me in private why I grouped ‘TERFs, anti’s, fash, incels’ together. Do I think anti’s are as bad as fash?
Short answer: no, anti’s are not as bad as fash. They’ve done some pretty despicable things. Spreading false accusations, doxxing, suicide baiting, trying to get people fired, stalking, etc. But they’re not trying to gain political power in order to commit genocide. So on the shitstain pyramid they’re a few tiers below fash.
I grouped these in a row here not because they’re all exactly the same amount of terrible, but because they’re groups to watch out for. If you’re a queer person trying to exist safely online, you do not want to interact with any of these groups. If you do not enjoy being brainwashed into a hate group, you do not want to interact with any of these groups.
It’s also notable that
TERFs, incels and anti’s all
have a tendency to fall down the fash radicalization pipeline because they already share some basic ways of thinking. Assuming the absolute worst possible things
about a specific group while denying their complexity and humanity is an example of that shared way of thinking.
#Can someone please explain what ‘anti’ stands for? It’s to common of a term for me to connect it with something specific
Ok, here;s my attempt: ‘Anti’ is a term that emerged in fan fiction communities to describe a group of people who felt that some forms of romantic or erotic fan fiction should be off limits to write. Stuff like:
Fiction that describes
relationships between characters who are abusive to each other in the original work.
Fiction that describes
relationships between characters who are related.
Fiction that describes
relationships with a big age difference.
Fiction that describes
relationships between minors.
Fiction that describes rape.
Ignoring the fact that exploring unethical and
potentially
unethical situations is an essential part of what fiction is for. Fan fiction has always been a realm through which people, especially
teenagers and young adults
, explore their relationship to harm, to trauma, to ethical grey areas, to taboos and to forbidden fantasies. It’s where a lot of teenagers and young adults learn that what is hot in their fantasy isn’t what they want in real life, which is an important part of sexual development.
But according to Anti’s, writing of any
romantic or erotic
scenario
that would be unethical in real life, makes the author itself unethical. This is then used as a reason to cyberbully a person, harass, spread horrible rumors and in some cases stalk, doxx, try to get them fired, to to get them to commit suicide, etc.
Over time the term ‘Anti’ came to be used outside the fan fiction universe as people noticed that the same people doing this stuff were also campaigning against stuff like kink at Pride parades. Anti came to be defined by stuff like:
A literal interpretation of fiction in which producing unethical scenarios in fiction is itself unethical.
A strong judgement of either all kinks of a lot of kinks, and against the expression of anything remotely kinky in public spaces.
A strong judgement against the idea that any teenager is having sex or watching porn before they’re legally an adult.
An abstinence-only approach to talking about teen sexuality.
A strong judgement against any sort of age differences, which they seem to get stricter on every year. A strong judgement against
any friendly interaction between adults and teenagers, no matter how nonsexual. An obsession with the idea that adults are constantly preying on teenagers (hence the ‘watching high school dramas is sexualizing teenagers’ stuff).
The idea ‘if it makes me uncomfortable, it must be unethical’.
And importantly: the willingness to engage in organized online violence against people who are seen by the Anti’s as violating these rules. Once it has been decided that someone is ‘a predator’ or ‘a pedo’ (usually over something trivial like commenting positively on a fan fic) any amount of violence is deemed justified.
Now most Anti’s are just ‘protect the children’ pearl clutching conservatives who are very online. Most probably spend their younger years being online bullies and their later years campaigning against sex-positive sex education in schools and driving the new satanic panic or some shit like that. But a notable number of Anti’s have gone from these positions towards becoming a terf or a fascist. Turns out that people in a
‘protect the children’ panic mode who see predators everywhere are quite vulnerable to fascist ideology. No big surprise there.
From what I’ve seen, the Anti to TERF to Fascist pipeline is like, one of those hose adaptors.
Antis: “This Media makes me uncomfortable because I lack the emotional maturity to engage with it in any other way other than an attack on me!”
TERFs: “We got you covered! Here’s a very restrictive but simple toolset for determining what Media is Safe!”
Fascists: “And if you want to know (((Who))) is responsible for this Degeneracy in Media, we have an answer for you.”
Just like you don’t need to justify why you don’t like a character by making up some reasons why they are ’problematic’, you don’t need to make up some reasons to justify bad choices a character you like made.
I’m so tired of ‘stans’ defending their faves beyond common sense, always eager to point out “but XYZ made even worse choices, how can you defend them and not my fave??”. What kind of argument is that even supposed to be?
Liking a character does not equal defending their every action. It’s okay to like a character even when they’re not perfectly pure.
Their youtube channel also has several hundred pics reposted as slideshow tributes and recolored for their own stories.
They’ve once more begun posting more recolored art theft despite empty threats of leaving dA. This time, one from HydraCarina who does not allow that with their work. This kid (and I use the term loosely here) seems to think they’re entitled to fan art and treat it like a personal coloring page. One of their characters even vaguely resembles WhiteKimya’s Uru design.
Their youtube channel also has several hundred pics reposted as slideshow tributes and recolored for their own stories.
Jan 27
[video]
[video]
Jan 21
If they really are trolling, they’re playing the role well. He doesn’t seem to understand what trauma or manipulation is in his long ironic analysis of Scar apologia.
You are responsible for curating your own online experience.
If something upsets you, makes you angry or queasy or triggers you, stop reading/looking at it. Avoid things that might make you feel that way.
Learn to use the Sort and Filter function on AO3, especially the Exclude tools.
On social media, block and mute accounts / tags / words when necessary.
If you hated something, you don’t need to tell that to the creator or start pointing fingers at them publicly.
The Back button is free. Use it.
Addendum:
Yes, for this to work, creators need to tag their works accordingly, so that people know what sort of content they are about to engage with and can nope out if necessary.
I will probably make another PSA about the importance of proper tagging later.
Ship And Let Ship
or SALS
You are allowed to ship whatever you want.
Everyone else is also allowed to ship whatever they want.
You are entitled to dislike or even hate a ship. If you want to do this online, in public, don’t use the ship tags for hate posts.
If you see someone posting about a ship they like and you don’t, there is no need for you to start arguing with them in their replies / comments / QRTs / reblogs. Don’t throw your hate in their face.
Do not harass fan creators or fans for shipping something you disapprove.
All of this also applies to liking / disliking an individual character.
Addendum:
”I agree with this, except when…”
No, then you are NOT agreeing with this.
Let me make this VERY clear. There are NO exceptions. None.
You don’t EVER harass real people over pixels.
If you disagree with this, kindly block and move on.
Your Kink Is Not My Kink
or YKINMK / YKINMKATO
The longer version is ”Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay”.
People have different tastes. Not everything is for everybody.
Even if you don’t like a specific kink, other people are still allowed to use it in their creations.
You are entitled to dislike kinky content and think that it’s ”weird”.
Don’t kink shame or judge people based on their kinks.
This goes both ways: your kink is not someone else’s kink, so don’t push it onto those who are not into it.
Be Kind
or Don’t Be An Asshole
Focus on the things you like instead of the things you hate.
Create and unite instead of destroying and dividing.
Don’t harass real people over fictional things.
Stop stirring up petty drama just to get some attention on social media.
Stop trying to ”win”. Fandom is not a competition.
Remember that your own experiences aren’t universally shared. Your perception of things can differ from someone else’s, but that doesn’t mean either of you is necessarily wrong.
