#I genuinely don’t get antis who consume sus media

[lil-may0nnaise-xd]

At this point it’s literally just there for good publicity points, don’t fucking convince me otherwise.

[weaselbeaselpants]

I have a lot to say and not enough time to say it. It hurts, but ya’ll know what this is about so if you want my full fandom retrospective opinion thing guys, here.

I’ve been following Vivienne’s art and career since I found her on dA in 2009. I’ve basically grown up with her and have a wide range of opinions up and down her collective work. I must stress that I do not know her as a person and no matter how critical I get in my personal time if I somehow met her in real life or converse with her online again (like, back in the day we went back and forth. She was pretty nice to me), I’d be humble and congratulate her for her success.

Critique does not, EVER equate to attacking people.

But

the reason I don’t call myself a VivziePopVivzmind-fan is the exact same as to why I don’t like the proud use of ‘anti’. Let me try and explain -

The vast majority of Viv fans are just that: fans. Viv’s one of their favorite artists and they’re happy for her and obviously defensive when some mouth breather pops into their fan discussion calling her and all of them trash. Quite a lot of the Hazbin fans I know in my circle of friends are all pretty accepting and agree on the problematic notions and implications of her work.

HOWEVER, there’s a vocal minority in the VivziePop fandom that were and still are toxic. Their specific interest in Viv back in the day was toxic...and now that she’s moved on into a successful career I doubt they’ve gone away, considering the things I’ve heard. These people - they’d flood Viv’s comments sections and stuff with messages like they were talking to her when they weren’t and they’d unironically call her a god in a way that feels like gaslighting, ex: “I’ll NEVER be as good as you Viv! My art is just sooooo unpopular oh god you are incredible no one will ever like you as much as meeeee”. It made me uncomfortable. It made me not want to be around her because these people took Viv’s role in their lives so seriously and their demand for her attention...it struck a nerve.

These same fans have been around long enough to see actual shitlords - the likes of Kiwifarms and tapatalk wikis - come in and actually harass Viv. Viv’s been sent revenge porn by sick freaks who think they’re funny and believe she deserves it. No. In my non-name fan bystander opinion, Viv’s got some shit to work on, but no one deserves raperevenge porn. EVER. It was genuinely bad and yes Viv and her base have every reason to NOT TRUST these communities. Unfortunately, when these incidents happened, these particular fans took it upon themselves to gatekeep the fandom and act like Viv’s unofficial guard against any kind of decenting opinion of her, all without her say so.

((to the critics who will be all “but Viv or Faust said THIS to their fans-”, like I said, Viv’s far from perfect but regardless of how much she prolly wanted people to side with her I’m gonna guess that she didn’t want people sending transphobic death threats to DollCreep. Again, and this is coming from a bystander here, I have a feeling Viv knows about some of the toxicity but doesn’t know how/want to address it - which is a conversation all it’s own.))

This particular breed of VivziePop “fan” holds so much toxicity in her fandom(s). They aren’t the only cause, but they’re there. They feel entitled to her attention and her approval. They creep me out. Having spoken to other much-less critical admitted fans of Viv around me, these fans appear to creep everyone else out and put the rest of the fandom on edge. They’re gatekeepers. They’re creeps. Like the bronies and SU fans of yestertodayyears, they know harassment exists and that people have crossed the line - so they think any means is necessary to prevent that is automatically good. I could pile together all the incidents and folks who’ve had bad runs ins with this aftershock of Viv-obsession, but I do have a life of my own and this post is already stupid long so I’ll just list out the biggest examples and provide receipts when asked.

Critical blogs have gotten RAPE and death threats because they don’t like Viv’s art. HonestZoophobiaCriticisms, a blog I interracted with back in the day, def got one. Now Viv’s opinion of crit-blogs is that they’re “bad takes” but I can assure you she doesn’t want that shit being said on her behalf.

I’ve seen young artists get blacklisted from sites and forums cause they so much as post a redesign. Viv and co get told through the grapevine that someone’s making hatespeech and so preemptively block said person (prolly cause they’re in the middle of WORKING and can’t deal right now) only to find out after the fact that no, it was just a kid drawing their version of her characters. There’s serious miscommunication issues within the fandom about who’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and once you get the actual staff involved in this game of telephone you’re begging for trouble. The problem acknowledged, however, it’s souly from the “Viv never did anything wrong camp”. No word is said about how ugly the fandom is under the surface it’s all one type of person’s fault and not complicated’. Blah

I’ve only ever had ONE obsessive ‘fan’ who’d stalk me, mock me, and then redraw my art just to get attention from me. That shit fucked with my head. As a follower hundreds of miles away from Viv who’s agreed/disagreed with her through the years - I absolutely believe her when she says she hates ‘creeps’ and that she doesn’t want anyone in her fandom spreading hate on her behalf. It’s the one thing about her I’m POSITIVELY sure of. Whether she believes that said underlying harassment exists and/or is even a problem within her fandoms is anyone’s guess. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to write stupid blog entries like this, talk about fandoms and media and how they and the real world affect one another, and rb fan art I like. I’m cautiously optimistic fan with a side of salt.

Mixed opinions and critique within a fandom CAN and SHOULD exist. Hazbin Hotel has been greenlit by a studio! It has a product line of merchandise you buy. Helluva Boss is getting eight more episodes this coming year (yeeee:3yeeee). Two of Viv’s properties are now products. Nothing is immune from critique. And in critique you will find a lot of people who are not ‘nice’. Critique or analysis doesn’t have to be nice. There will be, in Viv’s words’ ‘bad takes’ on her writing. Maybe they will be actual CinemaSins-styled bad takes or maybe Viv is just mad that people don’t love and feel inspired by her characters the way she wants them to - it’s a fact she’s going to have to get used to.

((TBH, I’m pretty sure she’s already realized that criticism of all types need to exist. It’s just that, again, her and the SpindleHorse staff are kind of overwhelmed by all matter of takes and opinions coming their way they kinda can’t deal weeding out the fair ones from the assholes, so she lumps them all together.))

Shitposters, ironic fans, unironic fans, critical fans, just critics of Hazbin and Helluva CAN and WILL exist. They should exist and not feel threatened by the megafandom. There are people out there who are one step further and rightfully bothered by Hazbin/Helluva’s use of incorrect symbols, portrayal of certain topics, and the response by creators. These people have strong opinions and are actually disgusted by Viv. They deserve to exist too and should not be vilified because, like me, they’re commentary doesn’t consist of anything personal towards the people at Spindlehorse or the fans of her works. They can rant, they can be professional, they can be petty and they can be fair. But they will exist. You have to deal with it.

I am an ADD/OCD ridden autistic woman with serious anxiety issues who has no one to talk to half the time and so only HAS my fandom to communicate with. But that’s just it - it’s a fandom. A community. You have to learn to not think souly of yourself and of others in a community. A fandom doesn’t exist just for you or any one person. You have the right to be angry and defend or be offended. And it’s in the spirit of that that I ask, prrraaaaaay even, that I please

NOT BE CALLED AN “ANTI-ANTI” for not liking the moniker?!

I DON’T TO BE AN “ANTI”. Not ironically, not unironically. ‘Anti’ should be for politics and shit like pedophiles, necrophiles, nazis, serial killer stans, Trump, racists, antisemites, terfs, animal abusers, rapists, and antivaxxers. Anti should only come into critical media analysis when these ethical issues follow suit IN TO fandom discussion. ((EX: Anime and MLP proudly waving their cp and non-con into the public eye; Hazbin appropriating cultural symbols which are not satanic; Basically anything that concerns John K or Butch Hartman.))

If your DNI list unironically consists of the entirety of one fandom:  CONGLATURATIONS! You have done the exact same thing these particular creepy Viv fans have done: monopolize the conversation. And yes, people I’m referring to, IT’S STILL A PROBLEM EVEN IF YOU’RE FIGHTING RACISM/SEXISM/HOMOTRANSPHOBIA.

There are hundreds of Vivziefans who ARE more critical, accepting of faults, interested in discussion and especially rewrite and redesign stuff who would LOVE to engage with you and give you a follow. There’s hundreds of people who no doubt agree with you!

But the thing I’ve seen these very proud AntiHazbinVivzieHelluvaWhatever blogs do is lash out at fans for continuing to like Viv and consume Viv’s art in a healthy way. What the actual fuck is your problem?

I get it. Say a crazy Hazbin fan gets on your case for even SUGGESTING Viv could be homophobic ((”SHE’SBIANDWORKSWITHGAYPPLblahablahblah”)). They get in your face, make some callouts, try to rile up support against you, leave disgusting harassment throughout your social media? Absolutely ban worthy. After that it’s perfectly understandable why you don’t want to engage with anything HHHBZPVivzierelated because you’re so fucking tired of being labeled an abuser or “just jealous” for having an opinion on a show you don’t like. I’m with you!

But,

A fan agrees that something in the canon is bad or that Viv did something they don’t like?

A fan likes your silly shitpost meme?

A fan asks if they can like Hazbin and follow you at the same time? 

A fan does fan art of something you don’t like?

If your response to any of these ^^^ things is to get LOUD and accusatory, Vivsplain them about how they’re an absolutely awful person to ever question YOUR opinion, or just block them without a second thought? You’re a petty, vendictive shit and you also need to learn to let things go. I’m sorry but you do. As I already said, Viv’s work is a brand at this point, not just the work of a singular person. As such, there are gonna be mixed opinions and you can’t judge every single one of these people by what they like. You’re a shitty critic with a shitty attitude and yes that will demean the value of what you’re saying. This is bad because, if you’re trying to point out how Angel Dust’s abuse IS handled terribly; gay rep in Viv’s work is weak and terrible; the show appropriates closed practices; the fandom makes excuses for predatory artists and creepy behavior and individuals who have sketchy pasts - I’M WITH YOU. WE NEED TO BE TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT. JUST BECAUSE THESE ARE ADULT CARTOONS SET IN HELL MEANS THERE SHOULD BE ANYTHING CLOSE TO 2013 PONY-TUMBLR. <<<---- this shit is as important to me as it is to you and I really don’t like being called an abuser or apologist for saying “hey maybe blowing up at ppl for the shows they like ISN’T the way to go about this”. 

But I have, just like the good old days of 2015 Zoophobia of yore, been blocked because I admit to being tired of ‘Anti’ being equated to ‘critical’. Same with hater.

Critical DOES NOT = Anti+Hater. I’m fucking tired of people saying it does and I’m tired of people taking up the term as some weird form of fandom reappropriation. It’s stupid.

Tl;dr: Once upon a time, I was in a budding fandom for something I liked made by an indie artist I watched on dA. I wanted to be a bigger fan than I was already, but was told by toxic people within said fandom that I couldn’t be part of it for reasons they’d made up in their head about my ‘motives’ against Viv. My admiration for Viv or what I liked about Zoophobia didn’t matter because I thought the story was really rushed and people weren’t being truthful with how they really felt about it - ergo, I HAD TO GO. 

Flash forward 8 years later- My opinion of Viv’s body of work has changed but I still find myself in love with her style and some of her characters. I want to be on a forum or service that gives a healthy look at the problems there are with this series and fandom...and I’m met repeatedly by petty bs where people are again at each other’s throats. And yes, I do think it’s causing more harm than good especially when you insist there’s a “x person shouldn’t be trusted” mentality when fighting actual fucking racist, xenophobic, predatory bullshit.

[lastsonlost]

Now you all know how I feel about ACCUSATIONS. Even if I don’t like them HE IS STILL INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY NO IF ANDS OR BUTS PERIOD!

However MULTIPLE accusers ain’t a good look. So if that said on with the shit show.

ScreenJunkies, the home of “Honest Trailers,” suspended Andy Signore, creator of the popular online series, after multiple women came forward accusing him of sexual misconduct.

“We have been conducting a thorough investigation into allegations made against Andy Signore and are preparing to respond to those allegations and take appropriate action. Given the additional statements that were made today, we feel it is necessary to suspend Andy’s employment while we continue our investigation.  We will take all necessary action once the investigation is fully complete,” Defy Media, owner of ScreenJunkies, said in a statement Friday.

Signore has not responded to a request for comment.

One woman, April O’Donnell, a ScreenJunkies fan from Wisconsin, told TheWrap that Signore tried to sexually assault her repeatedly, and threatened to get her boyfriend, Joshua Tapia, fired from his job at ScreenJunkies if she spoke out. She said she and two other women went to the ScreenJunkies human resources department in July to complain about Signore.

Another woman, Emma Bowers, said that when she worked as an intern for Signore, he came across pin-up photos she had done in the past and wrote to her about “jacking it to you in your undies!” Signore then asked Bowers to come

over so he could do that in person.

“You can read a book for all I care,” she quoted him saying.

Bowers added that her interactions with Signore killed her interest in pursuing a career in costume design — the field where she hoped her internship might lead.

“So yeh, it’s not just Weinstein,” she wrote, referencing Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein, the subject of a bombshell New York Times expose about his history of payouts to women who accused him of sexual misconduct. “I wish I’d fought more, wish I’d screencapped his messages, but I was young, scared, and dumb. So I didn’t. Girls in Hollywood get taken advantage of so much. I just want people to believe me when I say this happened.”

Another woman, Devin Murphy, tweeted “DM’s and an email he sent to me that scares me.” In the DMs, he repeatedly urges her to dress up in a costume.

Signore’s Honest Trailers pokes fun at popular movie and TV trailers. In the past, the series has skewed films like “Ghostbusters,” “The Mummy” and “Logan.” It launched in 2012 and its YouTube page has amassed over 157 million views. Screen Junkies, the channel that hosts Honest Trailers, has over 6.2 million subscribers. Signore is also the creator of Screen Junkies and the SVP of Content at Defy Media.

SO I GUESS THIS IS AN HONORARY MENTION BUT IT DON’T LOOK GOOD.

WELCOME TO THE WHITE KNIGHT

home to such dishonored alumni such as mr.  Christopher ( KIDDY PORN) John Goldberg.

In 2016, the vocal progressive and male feminist stepped down from his position as editor-in-chief of the Alamo Drafthouse-owned publication Birth.Movies.Death following allegations of sexual assault and multiple instances of sexual harassment.

According to the report, Goldberg had 53 pornographic images of small children between the ages of 4 and 14 years of age on his mobile phone. Additional images and video were also found on his home computer.

MATT HICKEY

Matt Hickey was an anti-Gamergate journalist who accused the movement of being “future rapists”. In fact, here’s his exact quote:

“#GamerGate is a bunch of women-hating future rapists!”

Matt is now facing 3 rape charges from women who allege that Matt sexually assaulted them. Matt has also been sued by an attorney general for running a fake porn agency scam. He set up a fake amateur porn organization and then tricked women into having sex with him, who thought they were auditioning for a porn video:

Anti-#GamerGate journalist Matt Hickey is not only facing multiple counts of rape charges in the state of Washington, but he’s also being sued by the Attorney General’s Office in Washington on consumer protection grounds. The suit came up after the Attorney General Bob Ferguson had the case brought forward where it was discovered that Hickey had been running his fraudulent porn recruitment agency for more than a decade in order to trick women into sleeping with him.

DEVIN FARACI

Devin was an editor in chief and writer for Birth.Movies.Death who stated that “The losers in #GamerGate are mad at women because women want nothing to do with them!”. You can read his article about Gamergate HERE.

Excerpt from the article:

Arguing with these people (Gamergate) has been eye-opening. A lot of these kids – and they are, without a doubt, largely kids – are simply ignorant. They don’t understand the world, and that includes everything from how gaming websites work to how people interact as adult, sexual humans….. They’re outsiders, losers, weirdos and freaks. And most of them aren’t just male, they’re white males…… They do it because they have been raised in a world where women are not humans but prizes, and so they can’t see them as individuals…..

Matt stepped down as editor in chief of Birth.Movies.Death in October of last year, after several women came forward to accuse him of sexually assaulting them:

The accusations surfaced on Twitter after Faraci shared his views on video tapes of Donald Trump bragging to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush about groping women. The movie blogger tweeted that he was “terrified” of the Republican presidential nominee and labeled his running mate, Mike Pence, an “ideological monster.” Faraci’s condemnation was widely retweeted, but one woman took issue with his statements, tweeting under the handle @spacecrone, “quick question:  do you remember grabbing me by the p—y and bragging to our friends about it, telling them to smell your fingers?”Other women offered their own stories of Faraci’s inappropriate behavior. He did not deny @spacecrone‘s accusations, tweeting, “I can only believe you and beg forgiveness for having been so vile.”Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas owns Birth.Movies.Death, which offers up casting stories, reviews, and trailers for cinephiles. The company declined to comment. In an exchange with Variety, @spacecrone said that Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League spoke with her about her allegations and was “empathetic.”

Robert Marmolejo

Robert was a member of Zoe Quinn’s “crash overide network”, which was intended to fight against Gamergate and other forms of “online harassment”- in reality, the members of this group harassed more people that they people they were supposedly fighting against.

Robert, who commented on Gamergate last year, saying “we need to take action against #GamerGate and the ideology that spawned it!”, has been accused of rape by at least 20 women:

A male feminist deeply involved in Zoe Quinn’s Twitter-partnered “anti-harassment” organization, Crash Override Network, has been accused of harassing, stalking, and abusing female victims, in a series of tweets and leaked chat logs from the organization’s supporters….. Robert Marmolejo, who is reported to have helped manage Crash Override’s social media accounts, allegedly used his position and connections to abuse around twenty women online….Marmolejo, who was previously an active anti-GamerGate activist, and had repeatedly labelled conservative actor Adam Baldwin, and YouTubers TotalBiscuit and Sargon of Akkad as “misogynistic”, “sexist”, and “anti-woman,” deactivated his Twitter account after a series of apologetic tweets confessing to having “f**ed up.”Anti-GamerGate web developer, “Internet Abuse Specialist”, and feminist Izzy Galvez, who also happened to have been a member of the secret Crash Override group, tweeted on Saturday to confirm the allegations.“If you’re catching up: Over 20 women have come forward & revealed that Rob/UnseenPerfidy had sexually harassed them over DMs, Skype, etc” announced Galvez.

Jamie Killstein

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Jamie is a male Feminist American writer, radio host, and stand up comic who accused Gamergate of being about sexism, instead of ethics in journalism.

Jamie was booted from his podcast last month, after several claims of him sexually abusing women were brought forward.

Comedian and lauded male feminist Jamie Kilstein has departed the podcast he co-hosts amid allegations of manipulation and abuse from multiple women.On Monday morning, liberal independent podcast Citizen Radio and its co-host Allison Kilkenny announced that Kilstein would be leaving the program. Later that day, however, Kilkenny clarified that Kilstein’s departure from the podcast was a result of allegations of him preying upon, manipulating, and emotionally abusing women.In a Facebook post slightly detailing the decision, Kilkenny, who is also Kilstein’s ex-wife, wrote that “murmurs” of Kilstein’s abuse lingered in the past, but because of anonymity, she was “never able to learn the full scope of what happened.”That was until a few days ago, Kilkenny wrote, when “one of the women” who came forward was someone who had worked for the podcast, though she doesn’t mention how many women came forward initially. Kilkenny wrote that she asked Kilstein to leave the show, seek therapy, and apologize publicly. She said he has declined to do the latter, so she decided to clarify the situation in the post instead.“Without making this about me, I want you all to know I’m furious, crushed, and horrified by all of this. I always believed Citizen Radio was a genuinely safe space, and I’m trying to make it that way again,” Kilkenny wrote. “I’m so, so sorry for letting anyone down.”

Juan M. Thompson

Juan Thompson is a former writer for The Intercept who was later fired for fabricating and publishing fake stories. Juan wrote an article for the Intercept in 2015 accusing Gamergate of being a hateful group that threatens violence against “marginalized groups”.

He was later arrested by the F.B.I for making bomb threats against 8 Jewish community centers. The except below is taken from his Wikipedia page:

Thompson was arrested by the FBI in March 2017 for allegedly making bomb threats against at least eight Jewish community centers in the U.S. According to officials, Thompson phoned in and emailed many of the threats under his ex-girlfriend’s name within the preceding two months, in an effort to frame her. Thompson also allegedly made at least one threat under his own name, under the pretense that his ex-girlfriend was framing him. He had also emailed the Anti-Defamation League in his own name in late February, pointing to his ex-girlfriend as the perpetrator of all of the bomb threats.

Leland Yee

Leland is a former democratic senator of California who made a career of attacking violent video games and blaming them for youth violence. In 2005 after the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ‘Hot Coffee’ mod was unearthed, Yee passed two California assembly bills that restricted the sale of mature video games to those under the age of 18 and where these games could be advertised.

Leland, who accused gamers of “violence against women”, was also a big fan of Anita Sarkeesian, who he described as “courageous”.

I commend Anita Sarkeesian for her willingness and courage to take on this important issue. For far too long, the video game industry has glorified violence against women and often depicted female characters as nothing more than sex objects. Such sexism is unacceptable and teaches our kids the wrong lessons. Those who have criticized Ms. Sarkeesian with such offensive comments should be ashamed. It is time for the industry to stop perpetuating stereotypes and further demeaning women.

Leland Yee was sentenced to jail on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016, to five years in prison by a federal judge for weapons trafficking (ironic). Someone who dedicated his life to complaining about violent video games is literally responsible for putting deadly weapons in the hands of bad people.

Here’s an except from a Washington Post article about Leland’s sentencing.

Yee served as a state senator and was plotting a secretary of state campaign when his political visions were curtailed by a federal indictment in March 2014. The arrest swept Yee and his associate Keith Jackson, 51, up in charges alongside some of the city’s most notorious characters, notable among them Chinatown gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow.This Wednesday, Yee received a five-year prison sentence for accepting bribes and trafficking in arms. After initially denying culpability, Yee pleaded guilty to the charges last summer. These acts were discovered by undercover federal agents investigating organized crime in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jackson, a former school board president who helped Yee facilitate the bribes, received a nine-year sentence.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB.