#The main issues I have aren't with this site but with social media in general

[airagorncharda]

not to be too much of a rebel but I genuinely enjoy this website. If I didn't I would leave.

[educatingmerlin]

Hi and thank you if you answer this one!

Is it just me or does any content with Gwen/Elyan/both of them gets so much less attention from fandom?

ArWen is much less popular than Merthur, despite it being canon. As an artist, who loves drawing Gwen, it's sad to say that Gwen/ArWen arts don't get as much likes and reblogs than Merlin/Arthur. I don't even want to start on Elyan.

And I wanted to know what if it's about art quality? I tried many different stuff with Gwen. Fast and lively sketches, full rendered arts I spent hours and hours of my life, etc etc. Many experimental things to see if there's any difference. But a simple sketch with Merthur gets much more attention in just minutes :/

I can't understand if that's racism towards the character? Or people in fandom just generally love gay characters, absolutely ignoring one of the main characters who IS a female? ://

It really is frustrating to see. As an artist I, of course, love attention (there aren't much who doesn't). But I also don't want to be stuck drawing two same white dudes just to get more likes&reblogs, considering that I myself AM NOT a white man and I do want more diversity in art.

And there's this dilemma in what should I draw to satisfy fandom's needs or should I draw for myself only and suffer from no attention

Thank you for your submission and for sharing your experience.

I am sorry that you have had to go through this, especially with working countless hours making artwork only for it to go unappreciated.

First of all, it is important to know that this is not due to you personally or the quality of your artwork, but it is an issue with the fandom and how they interact with certain content. So please do not blame yourself!

What you have said is right. The fandom is largely dominated by fans of the white characters or non-canon ships (who are mostly white themselves). Whilst there are fans of Arwen/Gwen/Elyan, there are not nearly as many fans for characters such as Merlin, Arthur or Morgana.

Of course the racism has affected the situation too.

It is likely a mix of both things. As there are more fans for the white characters, they are only interested in seeing content of the people they love. This is not a bad thing, but it does impact the way they interact with content. And with racism they usually do not want to see any content of the Black characters.

With the fandom being majority Merlin/Arthur/Merthur fans it is pretty easy for them to gain a lot of interactions with their content and it has often led to certain posts becoming viral (or at least semi viral with thousands and thousands of reblogs).

It is a really difficult situation to be in when you are constantly trying to get your work out there and appreciated. The fandom needs to be a lot more welcoming to content which celebrates a wider part of the show and the characters.

I have a post about this planned which I will share soon but I am striving to do this within this page. It is so important to support creators and artists of color in the Merlin fandom.

For now, there are a few things that I would suggest:

Try to follow and interact with artists who also focus on Gwen/Elyan. Finding a circle where you are on the same page as other fans may be helpful in building up your page and interactions.

No doubt you are doing this already but make sure that you are tagging correctly. For example on Gwen artwork, do not solely tag Gwen related things. Often the hashtags for Black Merlin characters get bombarded with non-Gwen related posts. Many fans follow Gwen tags to see Gwen content but end up unfollowing as posts about her are usually lost in a sea of white Merlin characters.

Make sure you are on different social media platforms. I have spoken about this before but on each site, the fandom is different. One site may be more welcoming and supportive of your artwork than another.

I know this is difficult as this is something which is out of our control and we have to rely on others to support us. It would not surprise me if you have already tried these things, but if you have not, I hope that they do help.

I also hope that other artists share their own tips about this!

My future post will be asking artists what this page can do to help other artists (of color) in supporting them so please look out for it or feel free to submit something here.

[monarchisms]

oh yeah, now that it's closed, here's the post i wanted to make about that rt rebrand poll i made last week. this will be pretty long and kinda rambly, so feel free to just blacklist the "long post" tag :)

so like, i made the poll because of 2 main reasons: 1. because of a mix of comments i saw on other sites from people who also didn't know what color it was supposed to be, and 2. because of myself confidently believing it was some shade of orange until i switched from looking at it from my laptop screen to my phone screen.

it being a godawful shade of red/red-orange was mentioned in the article itself, which is why my question was phrased "what color do you guys think it is?" since either red or orange is both technically correct. going more into the specifics of the poll numbers:

tumblr doesn't show the specific number of people who voted for any given poll option by default, just the percentage, so i went digging and followed this tutorial to get the raw data using firefox's inspect tool. the final results are, with 934 votes total, red at 551 votes (59%), orange at 303 votes (~32.4%), and other/a secret third thing at 80 votes (~8.6%).

red winning wasn't a surprise, really, but i was pleasantly surprised at how many people didn't have a definite answer or switched between answers like i did. i can't exactly pin down why that is, but if i had to wager some guesses...

the color scheme has a high chance of being a callback to rooster teeth's Popular Web Series Red Versus Blue™:

and with a want/need for rt to rebrand, the idea of keeping the color scheme while also making it modern and pop out is really cool, but its execution is uh...

i couldn't fit everyone's tags, but you get the gist. it fucking sucks, man.

as @god-of-arts-and-crafts has pointed out:

orange and blue are complementary colors, with them being opposite each other on a color wheel except the people who made the rebrand chose a deeper shade of blue??? they couldn't even get that right, oh my fucking god, so while its technical color is red-orange, it can be overwhelmingly orange when paired with a similarly bright shade of blue, which is what's causing many people eyestrain. hell, the first time i looked at the picture when the news dropped, it literally gave me a headache lol

finally, as i've said in the tags of a different post about this eyesore, this is an accessibility nightmare. with the worst color combination possible, the colors used for the new font and logo are definitely not ada-compliant. there are free sites out there to test images for general accessibility issues. contrastchecker is what i use sometimes, and below is what i got using red-orange as the background and blue as the foreground, and vice versa:

(both versions had the same ratio and color difference lmao)

the americans with disabilities act recommends that the contrast ratio be 7 at the lowest, but should ideally be higher than that, if possible. this is objectively and subjectively a very bad corporate rebrand, and i really, really want rt to break their "no jokes on april 1st because that's our anniversary" rule this year. if for nothing else, then just so that people who haven't read the variety article and/or the reactions on social media aren't jumpscared once the new intros/endcards/whatever else start rolling in.

[dittomander]

Advice for New AO3 Users

In the vein of all those "guide for new tumblr users" posts, bc someone might as well make one, right? ao3 itself has a pretty robust FAQ that goes into far more detail on the mechanics of the site than I can realistically cover, so my main focus is going to be on common concerns/issues I've seen myself:

General Site Notes

or: AO3 is not actually a social media site:

there is no algorithm. there are tags you can search and stats you can sort by, and that's how you're gonna find stuff to read, and that's how readers are gonna find your work. Even tumblr at least has the explore tab; AO3 truly has no "recommended" feature.

like yes, getting more kudos and comments will bump your fic in the "sort by kudos/comments" filters, but this isn't a targeted algorithm pushing your fic toward certain people. there's no way to be "good for the algorithm."

so the way you get people to engage with your work is by presenting it in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they're looking for. You will want to tag your fic appropriately. You will want to write a summary. You will NOT want to be self-deprecating about your skill. Remember, your fic is likely one of hundreds, if not more. If people can't gauge what to expect, or if you tell them to expect nothing, then there's always another fic they can check out instead.

a minor thing, but Wattpad folks, no one on AO3 calls them "books". Like I'm not gonna say you have to stop but just understand that when you call your fic a book, you are advertising to everyone on the site that you are an Outsider.

Tagging Guidelines

honestly I think I see "I don't know how to tag things" with even more frequency than "I don't know how to write summaries" but I'd argue that for AO3 the tagging is probably more important since tags are what people use to actually filter/search for fics, so some general tips on weird things I've seen:

Archive Warnings: these are the major character death/underage/noncon/graphic violence tags, as well as the "chose not to use archive warnings" and "no warnings apply". Those latter two are inherently incompatible with any of the former four. If you say "no archive warnings apply", then using an archive warning anyway is just confusing. Similarly, "chose not to use archive warnings" and any of the actual warnings just... doesn't make any sense. If you're using an archive warning, then you, uh, did choose to use archive warnings. I've seen people tag with all 6 at once. This does not inspire confidence in the quality of the fic, it does not draw people in - it just makes people doubt that you know what you're doing.

Relationships: the "&" is for your platonic/familial/friendship relationships. the "/" is for your romantic/sexual relationships. I've seen people make cases for both for QPRs, but let's be real most fics are not about those so that's a bit of an edge case. Please remember that tags are used for finding and filtering -- when you mis-tag a "/" as a "&", not only will people looking for a romantic fic of your couple have a harder time finding it, but you're also making it so that the people that don't want to see that pairing can't filter it out.

Characters: You probably don't need to tag your OCs by name. Remember: finding and filtering. If you're the only person using them, then having those names in your character list aren't going to actually communicate anything about the fic or help people find it, because people outside of your circle aren't going to know who those characters are. This can also be confusing to the tag wranglers and people new to the fandom, who won't know if those characters are even in the source material or not. The multitude of variants on the "Original Character" tag is fine for most circumstances.

Additional Tags: This is the section for any other information you want to convey about your work, and it's the section I see people struggle the most with. Suggestions for the sorts of things you can cover here include: genre, timeline notes (i.e. pre-canon/post-canon/canon-divergent/AU/missing scene/etc.), tropes, themes, content warnings, and other features of the story. If you're having a hard time coming up with things to tag, AO3 will have suggestions if you start typing something. Remember that the goal is to communicate information about your fic that you think people might want to either find or avoid.

People using the tags for brief author's notes is also a pretty common thing. The keyword is brief, though. Lengthy commentary in the tags can distract from the actual content tags and can mess with screen readers.

Going overboard with tags is also an issue for that same reason. This is a "use your best judgement" type of thing.

Use your best judgement on what you consider "in" your work to tag. If a character only shows up for an irrelevant background scene, for example, does it really make sense to tag them? People looking for that character will be disappointed that they were barely in it, and people looking to avoid that character might just filter out your fic even if they wouldn't have been put off by the cameo.

You can edit your tags after posting a work, at any time. As the content of your story changes, you can update the tags accordingly. You don't actually have to tag everything that you plan to include in your story right at the start, and in fact, you probably shouldn't. See the above bullet for why. If your fic is abandoned or otherwise slow to update, having misaligned tags can be confusing or disappointing.

Also: DON'T CENSOR TAGS. Your fic will not get taken down for having the word "die" in the tags I promise. Censoring tags just messes with the filters and makes it harder for people to avoid potentially triggering content.

Posting Tips and Tricks

bc there's a lot of weird formatting happening in fics lately and I'm not sure how common knowledge this stuff actually is:

there is a pair of buttons in the "Work Text" section labelled "HTML" and "Rich Text", respectively. AO3 defaults you to HTML. The average user is gonna want to switch that to Rich Text. HTML gets you far more direct control over how your work appears, but if you're just using a basic word processor's formatting options, it's gonna be way easier to just copy-paste into Rich Text.

paragraph breaks in the Rich Text editor are already double spaced. You only need one return between paragraphs. If you manually double-space, or if you copy-paste in something double-spaced, there's going to be a ton of empty, floating space between your paragraphs when you actually post.

when you post chapters for a multi-chapter fic, you will generally have the option to add a chapter specific summary and notes. This is not the case for chapter 1. When you post the first chapter of the fic, the summary and notes that you wrote are associated with the entire fic, not just that chapter.

What this means for summaries is that if you want a Chapter 1 specific summary, separate from the fic summary, you'll have to go back and edit that in after you post it.

Notes follow the same principle, but I specifically want to mention end notes: If you add your "chapter 1" end notes at story creation instead of editing them in later, those notes are now associated with the entire fic, which means that as you add new chapters, they will no longer appear at the end of chapter 1 and instead get repeatedly pushed to the end of the latest chapter.

Editing an existing chapter won't send a notification email to subscribers or bump the fic in the "recently updated" list, no matter how much you've added, so no one will have an easy way to know there's new content. If you want to make sure people are seeing your work, you'll want to either post your additions as new chapters or just wait to post your story at all until the chapter you're writing is actually finished.

Next to the Post button is a Preview button for seeing what your work will look like before you actually post it. This is extremely helpful, especially if you're using the HTML editor, to make sure everything looks the way you're expecting. There's many a wall of text in the archive that could've been saved if their author had just checked first to see if it looked good.

Feedback Etiquette

readers: 99 out of 100 authors are going to absolutely love getting comments. you do not have to worry about being annoying or not mattering or not knowing what to say. If you leave a comment on someone's fic, you will probably make their day, and it may even lead to more conversation and/or content.

that said, it is generally considered poor form to offer unsolicited criticism on someone's fic, no matter how well-intentioned or constructive it might be. Remember, fan authors are hobbyists - they're writing for the fun of it, and it can be really disheartening when something you're doing For Fun is met with judgement. Try to remember that fic authors are real people, behind the screen. They created something that you can read, for free.

writers: what that means for you is that if you genuinely want concrit on your work, you will have to explicitly welcome it somewhere in your notes.

HOWEVER: writers - you are also not entitled to comments in any way, shape, or form, and the line between encouraging people to comment and guilting them into doing so is actually not that fine. Comments are not some sort of admission price to your work - that's already covered by someone spending their time to read it. Please remember that the people reading your fics are real people, too. They do not exist solely to provide you with validation.

also, frankly... some of you could probably afford to offer some benefit of the doubt to comments outside the mold of what you consider "good". The person who asked when the next update is probably doesn't think you're an automaton that exists to write tirelessly for them - they probably just like your fic and are excited to see more. The person that said your fic reminds them of show XYZ probably wasn't accusing you of plagiarism - they're probably just making connections, which is like, analysis 101. The ideas of "it doesn't matter what you comment just comment!!!" and "these are the DOs and DON'Ts of commenting!" aren't exactly the most compatible. The only reason I even isolated concrit above is because that's actually explicitly critical - most things people list as "incorrect" ways to comment are, uh, probably pretty benign.

look, the tl;dr on comments is just please remember that you are not the only real person on the internet and that communication is hard, so try your best to be kind and support one another.

On Kudos

I'm pulling this out to its own section actually bc the feedback section was getting very long. Anyway:

Kudos is a measure of popularity, not a measure of quality. There's some poorly written stuff out there that's swimming in kudos and some absolute gems that have next to nothing.

Factors that can play into how many kudos a fic gets: the time posted, how many places the fic was crossposted, pre-establishment of the author, fandom size, crossover familiarity, ship/character/trope popularity. Again, there's no algorithm for this - these factors don't affect a fic's relative popularity because of some behind the scenes code that's playing favorites, it's just dependent on what people are most likely to look for or be willing to check out.

the more niche something is, the less attention it's going to get, and that's something you've kinda got to be prepared to accept.

what all this means is there's not really any value in comparing your stats to other writers. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment the second something disproportionate happens - of course Bonnie BNF's fics are getting more attention than yours; she's been writing the fandom's most popular ship for years already. She has ten times your audience out of the gate.

That said, quality is still a factor. It's not the end-all-be-all deciding criteria for what's going to get a fic attention, but it does matter. And I'm not saying this to be cold or disparaging, but to be realistic. I've seen people fall just as readily into the trap of citing their work's subject's unpopularity as the only reason for their lack of feedback, all while ignoring glaring issues with their pacing, grammar, or characterization, as I've seen people fall into the trap of beating themselves up for not being able to match the pace of a fandom's more established authors. Sometimes the answer to "how do I get more kudos" really is just "write better fic."

Look, at the end of the day, though, neither the attitude of "I am but the helpless victim of fandom preference" nor "omg my work must be such shit" is actually very helpful. There's always room for improvement, and fandom can also be a bit of a crapshoot. Your best bet is to just focus on how you feel about your work rather than on how strangers on the internet do, because that's damn near impossible to predict. Yes, validation and feedback is important, believe me, I'm a writer too, I know, but you've gotta have some intrinsic motivation to be happy as a writer.

So that's about all that I personally wanted to cover - like I said at the start, the AO3 FAQ is pretty good, and this post wasn't really meant to be comprehensive. I'm more than welcome to any site veterans that want to add more tips on things they've seen, especially re: posting and tagging advice.

Otherwise though, the main takeaways here are just be nice to people, be honest about your fic's content, manage your expectations, and please preview before you post - your readers' eyes will thank you.

[potteresque-ire]

In light of @rainbowsky 's recent response to an ask, I thought this information may be useful for i-fans:

(Under the cut: On the Chinese paparazzi — why Chinese netizens think they're abysmal at their jobs, and why their words should be taken with little more than a grain of salt.)

Whether it's the paparazzi 劉 大錘 who recently made news in our fandom , or other paparazzis sharing similar nicknames such as 江 小宴 and 張 小寒, they've been ... a bit of a laughing stock among c-ent melon watchers. The "explosive news" these paps promise, which are often hinted several days before the reveal to generate hype, usually involve stars who aren't particularly famous, or are long-suspected, stale pieces of "melon". The evidence presented is often flimsy, such as one or two blurry pictures.

Once, the "evidence" was ... an illustrated comic.

The teasing of Chinese paparazzi's ineptness reached a high point back in June, when it took a Taiwanese paparazzi, 葛 斯齊 Ge Siqi, to expose the alleged infidelity of a mainland Chinese rich-businessman-celebrity, 汪 小菲 Wang Xiaofei. Why did the Taiwanese care? Because Wang's wife at the time of the alleged affair was a famous Taiwanese star, Barbie Hsu 徐 熙媛.

Along with teasing, clinging to every word of the live broadcast by Ge, the Taiwanese pap, Chinese netizens, desperate to know the latest and the freshest gossip, scaled the Firewall to the Taiwanese news sites best known for such content.

TVBS. Apple Daily. The latter being the cousin of Hong Kong's famous Apple Daily, the evil, horrible "pro-Hong Kong independence" newspaper that has been shut down by the government.

The Chinese netizens screenshot the gossip and posted it on Weibo, blurring out the Apple logo, and logos of other "politically incorrect" news outlets. They had experience doing that; they had done that during 王 力宏 Leehom Wang's messy divorce as well.

The Taiwanese, they sighed, know how to make entertainment entertaining.

The whole Wang ordeal was such a blow to the ... "dignity" of the Chinese paparazzi that a legendary figure — to the melon-watchers of c-ent, at least — vowed his return. Zhuowei 卓偉 had a title bestowed upon him by the Chinese media, which the Chinese netizens actually agreed on: 中國內地第一狗仔 The Number One Paparazzi of Mainland China.

Oh, you may ask, so China has skilled paparazzi, after all? Where had Zhuowei been then? Why had he allowed his colleagues to be humiliated in the first place? He vowed a return ... where had he gone to?

Since I'm writing this, some of you may have already guessed. Zhuowei, along with other capable paparazzi of his time, have all been censored since 2017.

In June of that year, the Cyberspace Administration of China (網信辦 CAC) ordered the online social media platforms to shut down the pap's accounts.

The CAC instructions were as follows (Source):

... 責令網站切實履行主體責任，加強用戶賬號管理，積��傳播社會主義核心價值觀，營造健康向上主流輿論環境，採取有效措施遏制渲染演藝明星緋聞隱私、炒作明星炫富享樂、低俗媚俗之風等問題。

... To order websites to earnestly perform their main responsibilities, strengthen user account management, actively disseminate core socialist values, create a healthy and upward mainstream public opinion environment, and take effective measures to curb issues such as exaggerating the scandals and private matters of celebrities, hyping the wealth and leisure pursuit of celebrities, and promoting vulgar kitsch.

Weibo made a similarly-worded official statement about the censorship. Since then, Zhuowei and the paps' "crime" have been summarized by four words: 低俗追星 Vulgar Star-Chasing.

* Nods *, in China, even the paparazzi are expected to "disseminate core socialist values". But this expectation is in direct conflict with the pap's job, isn't it? Papping is a "dirty-laundry airing" profession. While their work's superficial purpose is to provide gossip to melon-eaters, it also necessarily reveals the not-so-nice things about society, particularly among the rich and famous. The powerful people.

Zhuowei never returned. His new social media account was shut down a few days later.

In July, Ge, The Taiwanese Pap, hosted an author's event for his new book. To the Taiwanese media, he revealed another reason why Chinese paparazzi have had their hands tied at their work, in addition to having to spread "core socialist values". While speaking about his early working experience in the mainland (he had actually collaborated with Zhuowei before), he mentioned what had happened when he had tried to follow a Chinese singer (Source):

這個歌手在中國都是直接結交官二代，我在對岸工作時，曾想要拍他，但是被當地狗仔警告別拍，因為拍了會被抄家，曾有人拍了立刻被警察到家裡搜索，真的是抄家無誤。

This singer in China always made friends with the children of government officials. When I worked in the mainland, I wanted to follow him, but I was told by the paps there to not do it, because I would have my everything taken away if I did. There was another paparazzi who followed (the singer) and immediately, their home was searched by the police — it was really like having everything taken.

In short: the reason was corruption. Chinese celebrities making, using their ties with the government to get away with things. The government, helping the celebrities cover things up. The paps, with neither money nor status nor fame nor power, paying a dear price for doing their job.

Papping in China can be a high-risk profession.

How do the 2022 Chinese paparazzi make a living then? Their findings do raise some interest among the Chinese melon-eaters, but the interest tends to be short-lived, and there's competition amongst themselves. Even if they do make a jaw-dropping, explosive discovery one day, chances are, it will involve dirty laundry non-compliant with core socialist values, and they'll have difficulties finding outlets or platforms willing to buy the photos or other evidence — because these outlets and platforms are, too, bound by core socialist values and may never get their investments returned, should the published articles get censored right away.

What do the paps do then? What have they done to get the best financial return from their livelihood?

I'm not a Chinese paparazzi (seriously!) and have no personal connections with them. However, if the many mentions in the Chinese melon blogs are to be believed, then, most likely, the paps will first try to sell the evidence to the celebrities involved — especially if the celebrities involved are sufficiently famous, and have the financial resources to make a (very) generous offer: both for the evidence and for the paps to not say a word about it to anyone. It's very, very commonly mentioned in melon blogs that the management of some (unnamed) celebrity has bought back an incriminating photo of them, for example, staying the night in a hotel with a member of the opposite sex ...

This means: the Chinese paps of 2022 are often half-paps, half-blackmailers.

This also means: their words cannot be taken with more than a grain of salt.

Paps also have a set of professional ethics they're supposed to follow, as crazy as it may sound. I shall let Zhuowei describe it for you, as he did in the preface of Ge's new book (Source). The quote also provided indirect evidence that Chinese stars had a habit of paying the paps:

我記得很多年前我們曝光某對超一線明星情侶的戀情，當時他們對拍攝到畫面的攝影師說「多少錢，我們買」，攝影師平淡地回答說「我們的新聞不是這樣運作的」，所幸就我認識的同行來說，堅守底線，不改初心，苦中作樂者為大多數，為了新聞真相「雖千萬人吾往矣」，我想這是記者和狗仔隊這個職業傳遞給社會的最大的正能量。

I remember, many years ago, we exposed the romance of a super-star couple. At that time, they said to the photographer who took the picture, "How much is it? We'll buy it." and the photographer replied flatly, "Our news does not work like this." Fortunately, as far as my colleagues are concerned, most of them stick to the bottom line, keep to their original intentions, and make lemonade out of lemons. For the truth in the news, "I'll charge even when thousands of people have." I think, this is what the professions of reporters and paparazzi have passed on, as the greatest positive energy to the society.

Was it self-aggrandizing, equating the work of paparazzis with that of news reporters? Many would think so. At the same time, though, there is some truth in what Zhuowei said. The words of anyone tasked to report facts cannot be taken seriously, if money can buy their silence; if whatever they wish to expose must be filtered through ... core socialist values.

The eroded professionalism of Chinese paparazzis may not be their fault; it may be more the consequence of their sociopolitical environment. However, in all cases, their trustworthiness as a source of truth has been compromised, and c-ent melon-eaters are aware of it as well, aware that there may be a reason why "explosive" news from the paps now involves mostly smaller stars, who are less able to pay; why evidence to these news is often shaky, if existent at all.

And so, to those of you who're reading this, who may have been recently told that a Chinese pap's word is The Final Word: now you know that in the opinion of their regular audience, the current crop of Chinese paparazzi isn't exactly the star performers of their profession. You may have also gained some understanding why, too. Hopefully, this information can help update your decision on how to interpret That Final Word.

And I'll wrap this once-again-too-long-thing with: if someone tells you Final Words like these again, please be aware that these tellers may know all along that the Final Words are by people who aren't particularly qualified to give them, and "forget" to communicate the fact. The language, the information barrier between c- and i-fandoms make it easy for such prevarication to happen. The ineptness of c-paps is actually rather well-known among c-ent watchers, fans included.

That night, when the Pap's Word got on the hot search, most c-turtles were playing peacefully in their corner, happy and unperturbed. Adding to their ease was: what had happened — what @rainbowsky explained, about the auto-reply — had been known among c-turtles for a day or two already.

The Word didn't faze them. After all, when it comes to seeing love, millions of human eyes are far, far better than a hidden camera lens. ❤️.💚

[olderthannetfic]

Sorry if someone has sent an ask on this but I have a topic for discussion I think you would like. So I've been seeing a lot of Tumblr posts that fall into two categories: "I hate X thing, I can be as loud or public or insulting about the people liking it--up to and including calling the people who enjoy it Bad People--as I want and if you don't like that you're a oversensitive baby!" And "wow it would be nice if people stop shitting on this thing I hold dear so openly, sometimes in official tags, and sometimes even irl to my face knowing that I like it"

Like I understand it's one's own tumblr blog, you can say whatever you want on it and nobody is required to engage. But I have a fan focused blog and any deviation from the exact tags or following the exact right people I see constant posts degrading something I hold dear or even casually like as immoral, Problematic and therefore you Must Not Engange or as Bad Quality And Unenjoyable. Part of it is just Tumblr culture being contrarian and snappy lately. Part of it is learning new ways to cut down who I follow, for instance unfollowing people who I otherwise like but make fun of fanfiction increased the quality of my feed a lot.

But I had a friend who mentioned a song they like and hold dear and their other friend immediately went into how it's morally wrong because it's "capitalizing on someone's trauma" which is a wild and baseless claim in context and just rude?

My question is: why do people think insulting something, especially if it's popular is always appropriate and right?

I've even seen people say it's wrong to be offended by this because "people these days see their interests as extensions of themselves" (implied that they shouldn't)

Also do these snobs just leave any conversation irl when someone mentions Marvel movies? Do they refuse to dance at a party when someone plays a pop song?

Anyway rant over. Thoughts?

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1. Bold of you to assume they socialize offline or that they're brave enough to get in someone's face when not hiding behind a keyboard.

2. Honestly, 99% of all this is an issue of social media formats that have reblogging and site-wide tags.

Look, I know we all love reblogging, and there are positives to this format. The biggest one is that you don't have to constantly produce substantial content in order to have something for your blog.

But the downside is that the tags are used as both a main feed for people who like the thing and each blog's personal categorization system and an accurate label for a rant post about how the thing sucks. Social conventions might separate these things a little, but tumblr is designed in a way that conflates them.

A lot of this has more to do with the failings of a tumblr or twitter type format than the failings of any given person.

But...

3. Why do people think hating on shit is awesome?

I think a portion of it is that really popular things one hates feel like they're getting shoved in one's face constantly, so people lash out.

But far more of it is a general toxic geek thing of thinking that being sniffily superior makes you sound smart.

Sadly for them, it does the opposite.

Talk to any cinephile douchebags offline, and they'll happily shit all over all sorts of films that aren't up to their ~standards~, often while showing how ignorant they actually are about cinematography, editing, and any director who isn't part of that 70s new hollywood movement.

Loving things, especially with extreme earnestness, is the very definition of cringe for a lot of people because admitting something intimate about your taste means being vulnerable and unashamed. People who refuse to let go of their shame hate it when other people demonstrate that that's a them problem and not just the universal way to be. "How dare you exist as a [BL fan/writer of indulgent self inserts/fat person/GNC person/slut/weirdo/fan of schlock] and NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT IT????"

Hating on shit is safe.

Loving things in public means being vulnerable.

[howtosurvivebeingsingle]

Does Confidence = Consequence?

Just last Tuesday, I was asking myself the same question when some geezer opened the door for me on my way into the dollar store. His comment was "Nice horns", sad enough it didn't end there. I had almost finished my shopping when he stepped in the same aisle as me making every petty, fake excuse to inch his way closer to me. He even used lines like "Whoops, passed the socks." and "Do I know you from some dating site?" Even in line, he kept trying to harass me, and then our idea popped into my mind. I looked him dead in the eye and said with a smile; "You do know I'm gay right?" I may receive a lot of hate for this escape routine, but it did manage to fend him off for a spell, that is until the lady in front of me said "Good job, I'll use that one!" He spun his head around and kept trying to make a move on me. Thankfully lady and her boyfriend in line behind me were generous enough to help. He stood blocking the aisle to ensure the man didn't lay a finger on me. I thanked them after we exited the store and hurried to my car. I know it's a bit of a topic to bring on an argument, but when your brain is in panic mode the craziest things slide into your brain and out of your mouth. I am enrolled in Aikido for self-defense purposes, but only one month of the class doesn't qualify me for defending myself just yet. Sensei says I'm too tense, but with time that'll fade. Honestly, I could've defended myself had it come down to it, but I indeed froze, and explaining that to him was a bit of a pill. He did however encourage me to work harder and remember how scared. He says that way I'll perform better in class and in real life. I guess I didn't help the situation any with my dress being short. I, like many, am not completely confident in my whole figure. I feel that my torso could use some work but the rest of me is great particularly my legs. This dress did show a lot of legs and made me feel confident until that point in the day where grandpa showed up. It covered my torso, and butt pretty well, but my legs looked especially good in it with a pair of low heels. I'm positively certain that hetero women like myself struggle with this issue, but I wonder if my people from all genders feel this way. Did you also use a really bad escape in a fight or flight incident?

Alexis: "I used a period excuse to get out of a bad date. Does that count?"

Michael: "A guy kept following me as I went shopping and I told him my boyfriend was waiting outside for me and pointed at a random guy. I'm asexual."

Jessie: "Sometimes, faking you have to go to the bathroom works. Just make sure it's one with people in it."

Kesley: "At bars, I get harassed a lot, I always order an 'angel shot'. That's a secret code that tips off the bartender and lets them know someone is bothering you."

Travis: "I've been harassed by girls before and it wasn't fun. She's a coworker of mine that doesn't take 'no' lightly. I told her I already had a date."

How sad is it that the things that make us feel confident can instantly turn into a bitter situation with the wrong people? All I showed were my legs, and that situation made me want to burn that dress to ash. Does being confident really come at a cost? Tuesday did show me that in some cases, it definitely does. The woman in front of me, who blew my cover, was a senior citizen. Her praising comment didn't aid me in any way but brought to my attention that people of her generation still get the same kind of treatment, which I'm sure is no different for younger generations either. On various social media platforms besides this one, I've noticed a challenge where someone says; "What would you do if all the men went away?" I've noticed lots of people classifying as female said similar things like going for a walk alone, wearing whatever they wanted, eating as much as they wanted without judgment, etc. They make many men sound like animals, and I'm starting to think they're not half wrong. This whole week I've noticed wandering eyes from various places outside the dollar store. The grocery store, restaurants, church, the pharmacy, the mall, even just strolling through the park. It feels like people are undressing me with their eyes. Nowhere is safe! Men are the carnivorous beasts and we are the main course. Just when I was starting to feel unsafe everywhere, I remembered the sole man aside from my father that didn't look at me that way, my best friend.

Now I know what you're thinking, having a male best friend means he's gay, or he secretly likes me. The answer is no. Most teen dramas or movies want you to think that a man and woman who are best friends are the two answers above or friends with benefits. We do go back since junior year of high school, where everyone called him gay and I was the sad emo chic. He asked me out to see the homecoming game since he was late to too many band practices, at the time no one wanted to date me and my older brother put him up to it. He did kind of like me at the time, I didn't know him aside from drama, so I gave him a chance. We had fun but decided we didn't see each other that way and have been friends since. All the other people we knew from school sort of left the two of us and since then we've grown protective of one another and have been in separate relationships when we can find them. In public, I call him my brother in front of pretty girls, so no one thinks we're a couple. In all my years I'd never imagined my best friend being a straight man. We take good care of the other and encourage them to get out and do things. Most of the time, he drags me on terrifying rollercoasters and I try to get him to eat new foods. What is it with men and eating nothing but meat and soda? We're out of town working a convention this weekend. Perhaps I should've slipped broccoli in his lunch so he'd never know.

That doesn't bother me nearly as much as seeing how lonely he is. He's never done anything to me and we have the movie marathons to prove it. But his last relationship went up in smoke when his girlfriend broke it off saying she didn't love him as much as she thought. She wanted to take a break from dating or something but started dating this other guy right away. After a few months, they were engaged and the wedding has been on hold since the fiasco of 2020. They're still friends and they hang out in a group nearly once a month, but every time he goes home he looks distraught. Why is it that the sweetest of people are given the least amount of love when the earlier mentioned jerks are getting all the action? In our case, we both decided we didn't see each other that way, but unless men are a bit of an asshole women don't want them. I don't know about you, but I'd like a man to open a door for me out of courtesy without comments like "Nice horns". Looking at my friend day-to-day reminded me that not all men are bad, but perhaps the hetero women aren't the best either. Maybe they're just as big of jerks as men are at times. It makes me wonder if men get uncomfortable with any comments from women? If confidence equals consequence on both sides, then everyone loses. If that was the case, perhaps we're all a little sheepish making us no different from anybody else, and that's pretty crazy. Much Love Your Way Darlings!