#culture of online bullies

[stonebutchery]

it's kind of baffling to me that entire sub-groups of queer folks endured a decade of being singled out and targeted for being asexual, aromantic, bisexual, pansexual, nonbinary, polyamorous, etc. and i have yet to see any substantial apologies from people who were directly responsible for causing genuine harm. i find it completely bizarre that there are so many people who want to sweep their past contributions to widespread lateral aggression toward specific queer groups under the rug like it didn't happen so they can wash their hands of it... there are people who are irreversibly traumatized because of this. there are people who took their lives because of it.

i'm wording the post like despite the fact that exclusionism targeting these groups (and more) continues to persist partly because it was a really frighteningly common trend to harass people just because they were ace, aro, bi, pan, nonbinary, poly, etc... and it's crazy to me that many of the people who were affected by this massive multi-pronged public online bullying campaign against the 'unacceptable types of queers' are the ones still receiving messages like "my url got put on an aphobe blocklist in 2016 because apparently a post i made making fun of asexuals got some teenage asexuals harassed and i still distrust asexuals to this day because of that" ...are you fucking kidding me?

we will never achieve any kind of unity as a queer community while we are insisting upon ignoring the hurt that lateral aggression has caused, and acting like the burden lies on the shoulders of the people who were harmed to forgive the people who harmed them and 'just move on', many of whom are not sorry for what they did! or they don't consider what they did to be wrong! how is that not deeply disturbing and troubling to more of you?

03/06/2024 edit: i’m putting a complete moratorium on this post because i am really sick and tired of having my point not only completely misconstrued and distorted entirely but also weaponized against transfems (particularly in replies i have decided to delete about how “ugh yes, exclusionism, and now transfems are bullying transmascs”) i find that really sickening and i’m demanding that it stop, and i can make it stop by turning off reblogs. so i have.

my objective in writing this post was never to request an apology from people who have been laterally-aggressive exclusionists in the past. i don’t think we’ll ever get more than a handful of apologies from those people, anyway. my point was that it was pretty terrifying to witness and experience a lot of lateral aggression that transferred from the real, in-person world to the deeply online spaces back into the real, in-person world in a really fucked up feedback loop and being a young queer person during this time and having that shape me, snd shape the experiences of my queer friends who have been traumatized by it.

however, it is absolutely unacceptable to me that the issue of transmisogyny is so blatantly overlooked by our entire community. for decades, transfems have experienced oppression and exclusion from transmisogyny-exempt women and queers. their exclusion from political queer liberation movements has caused many of the major schisms within our community we are still having arguments about to this day. if you want collective queer liberation, you must uplift transfems. there is no other option. you don’t get to write off all transfems just because one person who happened to be transfem was mean to you online or something.

i have answered and responded to way too many conspiracy-brained transmisogynist reactionaries to allow this post to keep fucking snowballing with people writing paragraphs in the tags about “transmisandry” or “transandrophobia.” please get your heads out of your asses.

this absolutely is the transmisogyny website, as always, and the place where all basic textual comprehension skills go to die, apparently.

[mutantninjamidlifecrisis]

So I’m reading MNMC for the first time, and I see Leon and Casey signing at each other a lot. Do the other turtles know sign? I’m just curious why Casey signs not your fault at Leon when Donnie is right there in the lab

Also amazing fic!! Leon really needs therapy (and so do all of the turtles)

Hey, great question. This is something I've never really explicitly clarified in the story itself. Casey and Leon's tendency to communicate with each other through sign is a fun little headcanon that stemmed from the idea of having something that was shared just between the bad future boys. Sign language was one of the first things that came to mind as it's reasonable to assume that having a form of silent communication would be very helpful during missions (as well as in resistance meetings or negotiating with allies). I imagine Donnie would have been the one to teach his brothers sign language, if not before his injuries (whenever they had free time), then definitely after (that blow to his face would have caused substantially hearing damage to his tympanum, causing him to be partially deaf in one ear. Something I imagine Donnie's mask/filter could be modified to help with as a hearing aid, but it's not perfect).

Younger Donnie herein the lab probably knows ASL, however what Leon and Casey use is kind of a bastardised version of the official version (both due to Leon making up his own signs he can use with just one hand, and because Leon is a terrible student that often made up his own hand motions that, at first were accepted ironically as in-jokes before they were suddenly being used by the family all the time unironically, to F!Donnie's dismay). Current Donnie probably can pick up a few words here and there but I imagine it would be very difficult for him to follow what Casey and Leon are saying to one another.

[scarefox]

idk with all the discourse about who's allowed to sing and who not, I feel like a lot of people forgot why humans sing in the first place, where singing comes from culturally...

Especially the Thai culture and fandom reminded me of that you do not have to be a perfect singer to have fun with each other. Singing is originally a fun or emotional activity to share vibes with your group, village, tell stories. (side note: the pagan folk genre is basically also a good witness of the past in that regard)

The whole Thai actor fan meeting and concert habit seems to be a very Thai culture thing just mixed with pop culture and capitalism.

Observing the Thai folks I see at my local yearly Thai festival, they are very similar. They still party hard even if the singer is not that good. They constantly go to the stage to slip the singers some money or gifts, request them to sing certain songs.

[hussyknee]

You know what? You're right about everything. In fact people who shit all over mspec gays/lesbians not only have no concept of how anything works, but they're also fucking selfish and horrible members of the community. I'll die on this hill. A bunch of assholes only out for themselves.

We are actively under fire in many countries. US and UK are actively heading into a trans genocide. Russia is getting worse, too now. Loads of other countries I haven't named. (Before anyone says jack shit the fucking center named after the person who coined the term genocide said we were headed that way. Genocide isnt an overnight thing you stupid leftists Do your damn research and shut up.)

We are at a high rate of suicide and sexual violence, regular violence housing and health care denial, etc. Do you think someone is going to stop and make sure someone isn't a snowflake queer or "tucute" or mspec lesbian before they bash their fucking head it? Do you think a doctor is gonna tell a nonbinary person who looks visibly queer "of course I'll treat you, you're not one of those trans people" Not to mention how you're so quick to exclude closeting and questioning kids who already want to kill themselves? Do you fucking hear the way you talk about your own people? LEAVE OUR OWN PEOPLE ALONE AND CALL YOUR GOVERNEBT REPS OR GET PETTITIONS CIRCULATED OR DONATION POSTS BOOSTED!

You would really rather attack people who's fucking LABELS you disagree with than do anything fucking positive to protect the rest of us? It makes me sick to my fucking stomach that y'all care more about policing than you do about your own people? Absolute selfish and cruel bootlicker behaviour. It's disgraceful, and I'm ashamed and enraged to share space with you people.

[pa-pa-plasma]

man, I'm kind of getting real fucking tired of people treating disinterest/repulsion of sex as an evil that needs to be defeated. just say you have no idea what consent or coercion is & go

[allgremlinart]

maybe its the autism in me but personally. could not give a FUCK about people breaking internet social rules or committing a faux pas. like ohh noo someone was awkward?? someone used too many 😂 emojis?? someone commented a joke that didn't land?? ok. I will never in my life judge someone for that when there's a billion other things I can judge them by lol.

[olive-nothere]

If someone had told me years ago that in the future every other social media app would be watered down 4chan while tumblr would be the only online space where you can have a good time without going insane I wouldn’t have believed them at all but yet here we are

[aeide-thea]

i'm never knowingly going to reblog a post that includes the phrase 'touch grass,' and that's not because i don't think it can be psychologically beneficial to get in some outdoor time if possible—i went for a walk earlier! it was great!—or to take a break from conversations that are getting you wound up, but because i think that particular wording generally reveals two things:

first, that the writer is speaking not from a place of genuine concern and sympathy, but from judgmental impatience à la 'get therapy,' which—i too have felt judgmental and impatient in my time, god knows! but when i feel that way i try to go unpack those feelings in private with a thoughtful friend, instead of pretending they constitute a source of wisdom or a helpful sort of energy to direct at people, you know? and i'm definitely not particularly interested in boosting a ventpost from someone else—who pretty clearly hasn't bothered to take the breather they're urging on others, if they're making little digs like that—as if it were actually sincere, carefully-reasoned advice.

and second, that the writer's argument embraces some seriously sloppy assumptions, which pretty immediately undermines my trust in the rest of their analysis—i mean, there's absolutely no guarantee someone's local scene will be any less parochial, just because it's playing out irl! there's also not actually a clean divide between 'people who spend time in the Real World' and 'people who spend time on the internet, which is for porn losers,' as demonstrated by a number of phenomena including, again, the aforementioned grass-recommenders' own presence right here on tumblr…

anyway. obviously we all have our own particular lines we draw around particular rhetoric that bugs us! these are just some reasons why that particular phrasing bugs me.

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Stop trying to reclaim the culture of abuse.

Harming people is not “cringe”, it’s bad because it’s fucking harming people.

Beings participating in online harassment are not “pathetic and shameful”, they’re fucking harming people and that is all you need to talk about it being bad.

“Cringe”, “dumb”, “pathetic”, “shameful”, etc, are all intended to be about assigning negative value to traits and behaviors that are not harmful to anyone, and harm the beings that have those traits (and that assignment is already harmful).

Even when you’re applying that to actually harmful beliefs and behaviors, you’re still taking the focus away from the harm being done and to some abstract cringiness/etc.

As well as in general perpetuating language and patterns of abuse. I promise you, people who have been abused by those see you. Idgaf if you’re also one of us, you’re certainly fucking hurting the rest of us.

(This post was originally made with no paragraph breaks, decided to add them just between each sentence before posting, the last sentence in the paragraph above was added after that)

[karmathehalflander]

I’m going to get some hate with this one but it needs to be said.

STOP HARASSING CREATORS FOR CREATING MPREG CONTENT!!!

I’ll say it again. Stop 👏 harassing 👏 creators 👏 who 👏 create 👏 Mpreg 👏 content 👏

it doesn’t affect you and there is nothing wrong with anyone creating or enjoying content involving male or nonbinary presenting pregnancy! And I think it’s a bit transphobic to suggest that Male presenting pregnancy is weird or gross. As if it isn’t something that exists in real life! Trans men and nonbinary individuals have children all the fucking time and you need accept that fact.

also, stop going on posts of creators being like “are you the person who drew that thing?! Yano, ‘that’ thing? 💀💀” Mpreg is not a curse word and it’s weird that you think it’s weird. And it’s really rude of you to come in and act like they did something disgusting.

this isn’t saying you need to like said content. It’s fine if it’s not your cup of tea.

And it’s also ok to criticize content that may fetishize people and experiences. But harassing people is never the way to go. It’s not your place to bully and harass people.

Not to mention what you are doing by stigmatizing a mostly queer experience. You are hurting people and being rude for no reason!

I’m so sick of seeing talented people be shunned and harassed and struggle with their mental health for something as simple as Mpreg!

(also this stands for anything. Don’t harass people for making fan content that you don’t like. It’s ok to call out genuinely problematic behavior but harassment gets us nowhere)

and I’m ready for the hate. I’m ready for angry people. But I can’t stand it anymore.

please stop.

[shopcat]

just thinking thoughts trying to articulate them but re: trans names and even "stereotypical" trans names i just think it's like. luckily it's died down for now at least on here or maybe i just follow people who aren't assholes but seriously what was with that whole era where people just made fun of people's names or tongue in cheek poked fun at each other with a little too much cruelty let alone done by CIS people... like that's so weird. like i do have what i'd call a Stereotypical Trans Name in that it's unusual and "weird" to other people and it's not even actually like, the most out there or individualistic thing ever it's just kind of an old timey name that isn't as popular anymore but i chose it specifically bc it was a "proper" name. and i STILL get shit for it like all the time. and it's just like. why do people CARE...

like. i know you can't make grand sweeping generalisations for a group of people as varied as every trans person on earth but for a lot of us i'd go ahead and say your name as a trans person and even just AS A PERSON... A HUMAN BEING is an important part of who you are and ties into your identity to a degree that differs from person to person. and for a trans person specifically can be one of the only things you have for... yourself, along with pronouns, especially in online spaces/if you're not out/if you are out but struggle for whatever reason to even be given the dignity of being called YOUR OWN NAME, etc. i'm not gonna harp on about that aspect forever bc i think we all know but it's just like, in the face of that annoying tiktok cunts making a list of "every transfem is called [blank] and every transmasc is called [blank]" and there being 6k comments talking about how stupid and unserious it all is is just NASTY. like man shut the fuck up 😭

i don't find it funny like 95% of the time i think it's just like mean ... i also know people could probably read this and be like shut up you're being annoying it's not that deep but like whatever man. i think it's basic decency to not make fun of people for something that's a part of who they are especially if that identity puts them at risk which to be real can affect pretty much everyone other than white cishet christians etc at FAR worse severity/cost and i think instilling the idea that "people's names are fair game" outside of actual tongue in cheek intercommunity good faith joking around is actually Bad. not that i'm actually comparing these things bc it's not 1:1 and has different levels but still i think it comes from the same like... source. the amount of times i've had people use my own name as if it's a gotcha in anon hate is actually astronomical and half of them don't even realise they're BEING literally transphobic is crazy. i mean i've joked about it and i don't take it that seriously but it's still like, transphobic and i hate these people it just also doesn't bother me because i'm a normal person who isn't actually insecure about it and who literally cares what someone's name is. and xfiles girls love me unintentional side effect.

[auntbibby]

as a visibly-jewish, neurodivergent non-passing trans woman, my relationship with kiwifarms is kind of like Picard’s relationship with The Romulans in ST:TNG

im scared they have so much intel on me, im surprised they “respect” me to the extent they do, im grateful they arent actively attacking me Right Now and worry this peace cannot last, and i ultimately look down on them for their brutality & cruelty.

meanwhile kiwifarms looks down on me for being a different species than them, but “respects” me as being One Of The More Interesting Ones Of That Species, and continues to scour the galaxy for more intel on me, some of which is inaccurate. also they refer to me with words that reflect their disdain for my species.

i think ultimately it would be dangerous of me to attempt to curry kiwifarm’s favor. their website is primarily a hatespeech & harassment site, that has literally bullied people into suicide. they see me as an entertaining plaything, not a person, and i am probably one online post or personal crisis away from becoming their torture-subject. but i do sometimes find myself wondering what their reaction will be to my online posts, mainly because they follow my online presence closer than even my actual friends & family. they talk about my work in VERY complimentary terms, which tempts me to think of them as fans, but i cannot allow myself to do that. it’s too dangerous. theyre frickin kiwifarms

i think it would probably be better if i didnt know about them. kiwifarms, if i could have one request: could u completely hide yourself from me, and only continue following my existence from where i cannot see you? i can literally google “petermobeter” and youre like the 2nd or 3rd result. if i was a member of an uncontacted tribe, and u were a group of anthropologist documentary filmmakers, id be like “hey, strange people? please move, youre scaring the fish.”

[catspouse]

i think the most insidious thing about cringe culture is that it restricts our ability to seriously inquire on the sorts of media we take for granted -- if you are shamed for even consuming {BAD_MEDIA_X}, then it is impossible to publicly critically engage with these media -- both to appreciate aspects of artistry found in something otherwise mediocre, but also to dissect the harmful ideas that these media disseminate, which is especially worrying for media produced for children.

[demonstars]

jason derulo minds his business and sings his catchy lil songs everyone leave that man alone 😭

I would check out his music if I wasnt so invested on this fic but like. Yeah

[heavenaintaniceplace]

i think the whole ‘culturally christian’ debate stems from a deep need to erase all influences of christianity from everything and particularly everyone past present and future. but thats impossible to do so the end goal, the praxis of what using ‘culturally christian’ amounts to is unclear, impossible to do instantly and extremely difficult long term; even if you wanted to it would take about the same amount of time christianity has existed and influenced other things, almost two thousand years. and because christianity impossible to tear down or uproot in the present but theyre still angry and want to lash out and blame someone for the world’s shortcomings, they go for the easy targets which are ex christians online and traumatized people

[humandisastersquad]

Someone (esp if they’re a teen): [expresses a reasonable discomfort/boundary about something] Chronically online adults: [start screeching about purity culture]