#especially in a community as young as the mcyt fandom

[brotherofbagels]

There needs to be more nuance in how people view the situation but the internet doesn't allow for that.

[locusfandomtime]

you can really tell the different audience demographics of Lifesteal vs Hermitcraft by the comment sections because the average spokeishere or whatever comment is like “LIKE THIS if you are a real Spoke fan!!! ❤️👊😎 if this comment gets 100 LIKES ill tell my mom to subscribe 🤪 who else is watching in 2028❓❓😂” whilst the average ethoslab comment is like “my wife is giving birth but this is more important”

[helsex]

So I saw your tags under the mcytblr confession blog and I agree. As much as I love zines I’ve noticed three had guest artists and writers and sometimes would have the same people. Like the first two might have the same guest artist and then the third one has a guest writer that’s in one of the previous zines. I know the way to fix this is to run your own zine but there’s not a lot of resources on how to run a zine.

I say this as someone who was in the Geminitay zine, there was not a lot of us compared to bigger zines, I think there was 30 of us max? All of us had different skill ranges and I don’t think anyone from that zine is in the upcoming zines as well (going off the ones with public contributors)

Yeahh...

I have never really been in other fandoms so I can't speak for if or not it's a common issue elsewhere but it's definitely a common issue in the mcyt community (specifically hc I suppose because that's predominantly my fandom). I said it in the tags and I'll say it again, this place can feel very... clique-y.

I'll be the first to admit my art is not very good so the fact that I've been rejected from a ton of zines isn't something I take personally, but I know several artists way more skilled than me who have also been rejected because they just aren't 'In' with the right circle. I've completely stopped applying to any because I can literally always predict exactly the people who are gonna be in it, and it's always the same handful. Zines started as something small, physical, and sometimes rough. When they moved to an online thing they were for the community, but now...now they just feel like the same circle of friends working on a collab project.

Which is fine! I have absolutely nothing against the popular artists in this fandom, they are so creative and skilled I have a lot of admiration and respect for their art.

But at the same time it feels a little like they do have a 'monopoly' on the entire zine space as it were. Same moderation teams, same participants. And absolutely yeah you can make your own but because the focus is so much on the 'main' zines it may never get traction or participants.

Not to mention, running any project or managing any amount of people especially people you don't know is hard (speaking from experience), and a lot of people in this community are young. Personally I do not think it would be wise for someone younger to undertake such a thing, but because of the current biases they're never getting in a zine any other way, you know?

I hope this doesn't come off as me whining or shitting on popular folks because I'm not, I'm just pointing out something I've noticed after being here years that's kinda sad and disappointing.

But on a positive note, the Gem zine was really heartening to see, so many smaller artists I'd never seen before finally getting their chance :) I hope we can get more like it

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: Anonymous

our interviewee today is the anonymous author of the "SBI Crit Post". he's asked to both remain anonymous and not to be sought out; he's been incredibly helpful and polite through this entire interview process, and i would ask you all to leave any residual feelings you may have from that time at the door. If you think you remember who posted it, please keep it to yourself. that said, let's begin!

Q: Before we begin talking about the ‘Crit Post’, I’d love to hear what your experience of MCYTblr was like before it was posted. Do you have any standout memories from this time?

A: Not particularly. There's some things that I guess looking back on nowadays is kind of wild, like how in the groups I was running in, shipping of any kind that wasn't DNF was super frowned upon (as in, I trigger tagged for IRL shipping)…but truthing wasn't really? Or, how back then the lines between 'critblr' and main mcytblr were super fuzzy. I hung out with both groups before the Crit Post to no issue. Oh!!! And this is a wonderful piece of MCYTblr lore that you may not know, but when I posted the Crit Post, I was apart of a MCYT art exchange themed after MCC called MC Creatives. I think it only happened once, and I can't exactly remember who ran it. They were a really nice DNF (? or just DTeam) blogger. I think it's cool to see that even back then the community was pretty tight knit and had overarching community activities like we see today. It's interesting to me that our fandom has missed out on some of the more important parts to being a fandom… not many big bangs, only one or two that I know of. It's very sad, but we are a weird fandom in general, and definitely a Modern Fandom, if you understand what I mean by that LOL. There is one memory that does stick out, completely irrelevant to this interview though. The fake Dreambur meetup. I pulled an all nighter for it. I was shaking. I drew fanart (though never posted it). Everyone was hysterical. And then it was faked and everyone went WHAT.

Q: As you let me know in your dms, you were the user who made the original “SBI Crit Post”. Would you mind giving a quick rundown of what it was exactly, for anyone who may not know?

A: I would, but frankly I barely remember anything about it. It was like… I saw someone being like "weird that we aren't as critical of SBI as we are of DT" and I thought, "Well, I can probably try?" and made shit up. It was nonsense. I can't even remember what I said about Philza. The points against the others were "Tommy is too young to be in this business" "Wilbur queerbaits" and… "Technoblade needs to be less honest about his ADHD he's glorifying it" or something like that. Again, it was nonsense at its best.

Q: What was your reasoning at the time for making the post? Did the overall culture around you play a part in it?

A: Here's the part no one knows: At the time of posting, I was 13 by maybe… one, two, or three weeks. And I'd spent almost the entirety of my time as a 12 year old in a community that was like "we need to be Critical of our Favorite Creators because this is Righteous and the Only Good Way To Engage With MCYT" and I was like "Everyone here is older than me and therefore endlessly smarter than me," and therefore just accepted it. You can see it very clearly in the part that was "critical" of Wilbur Soot. He was queerbaiting for what? Acting like he wanted to kiss men? Dressing nice? Ridiculous! But if we called Dream a queerbaiter (and never GNF, because everyone was convinced he was gay), then I thought surely Wilbur Soot could also be a queerbaiter! This made total sense to baby 13 year old me. It's not fair to really call that indoctrination: it's not like I was falling down an alt-right pipeline or anything. I was just a stupid kid with too much internet access who liked minecraft and knew nothing about like Dan & Phil or Septiplier (kind of thing that would make me suspicious of this activity--especially truthing). I thought I was fufilling some honor by saying "and yes, my favorite minecraft boys aren't without fault either!" The people that stayed friends with me after that… some of them were my closest normal non-Critblr friends, who refused to abandon me (shout out to you guys you know who you are), and the rest were the people in Critblr who were… okay with my behavior.

Q: I understand that the backlash to the post was very intense– what was it like from your perspective? Did it have any affect on you?

A: Lots. Lots and lots and lots. I lost a bunch of my close friends who weren't okay with what I'd said or how I'd doubled down, and it really messed with me as a kid in the middle of quarantine. There were times where I genuinely considered hurting myself irreperably as either a way to "apologize for what I had done" or just a way to stop worrying that everyone I knew was going to block me one day. Those feelings lasted for a long time, I still struggle with them to this day, over three years later (? I think). And I was kind of lead to believe that was an okay response. I recieved asks the night that it all went down where I was told I should hurt myself. Of course my own behavior wasn't cool, but neither was that. I know there was a post out there by a popular (at the time?) Technoblade blogger that detailed the faults in that post, but I never read it. All I knew about it was that people saw it, and harassed me because they saw it, and that the OP of that post hated me. It got to the point that seeing that blogger's URL caused me to have panic attacks, a ridiculous thing because that blogger as far as I know never actually did anything wrong. I don't know. Every once in awhile, someone in the server I'm in (hi some of you are definitely reading this :3 i love you guys) will bring up the post in passing and I'll have to mute the channel for 24 hours because I'm scared. Or even when we're discussing normal drama, if something feels too close to the Crit Post, or like it might come up, I'll get shaky and nauseous and have to mute the channel for 24 hours. It's weird, the shit being told to kill yourself because you did something dumb as a 13 year old can do to you.

Q: As a follow-up: What, if anything, do you wish had happened instead?

A: I don't know really. I guess the obvious answer is "I didn't make the post" or "I didn't double down", but I think the real answer has to be that I wish the community I was in hadn't taught me that what I was doing was an okay move.

Q: Do you have anything else to add about the Crit Post, MCYTblr, or the community as a whole?

A: Not really. I "retired" from MCYTBlr in I think 2022, but kept a passing interest in it for a long time, and I'm still active in a discord (hi again) comprised entirely of fans and retired fans. I loved MCYT, and in some ways, I still do. When I'm sad, I put on old Technoblade videos. When I'm really sad, I put on old Purpled videos. These things are my comforts, things that I haven't ever been able to give up. And that's good! Even if I don't talk about MCYT anymore, I'm glad it's there for me.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I do wish more people took the discussion of rampant safeguarding issues in streamer culture (specifically mcyt but it’s a thing everywhere I am related to someone who started streaming as a teenager this shit is universal) without twisting it into “oh, well you support (x cc who’s a bad person who was a child in the community at one point?)” or “oh, you hate (x cc who made some weird jokes but isn’t a bad person as far as we know)” like no the point of safeguarding isn’t that there’s people we should allow to be unsafe or people who are 100% trustworthy around others actually. all the children who grew up in that enviroment were failed beyond belief, even if they’re shitty people, because safeguarding applies to children who will do horrible things in the future. all the adults who weren’t ill intentioned still should have had more foresight and care because all it took was one bad actor and the children in the scene were incredibly, obviously vulnerable. we already know of one person who allegedly manipulated and intimidating underage ccs especially young female ccs and we had no clue for years and that is because the safeguarding in this community is dogshit and has been for decades and that should Not be a fandom war issue. safety comes before everything.

[enneamage]

your SBI post made me realize something, which is that the insistence on anything only ever being exactly what you say it is and nothing more, in the context of fanfiction, shipping, porn, etc. ie: "it's platonic cuddling, you're the one making it weird!" functions on the same principle as the mcyt fandom approach to politics does. saying the right thing is valued above all else, discourse begins and ends at nit-picking language, and you're discouraged from going out and doing external research instead of "listening to (x) voices," in other words, folding to public opinion (see: the ranboo racism apology phenomenon). The end result being that calling out racism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on, is constantly used as a convenient cover for a secondary goal. for example, ranboo fans recently digging up stuff to get mad at matpat for while in reality, they're just pissed off that he called ranboo an ex-dsmp member… but if you try to say they don't actually care, it makes you seem callous to bigotry (SO YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT RACISM? vs SO YOU'RE MAKING THE HAND-HOLDING WEIRD, CREEP?) obviously, unknowingly participating in a kink community is a lot more overtly dangerous, but it's the same tendency in a different context: if you actually interrogate the political issues you're discoursing about, you don't get to use them whenever it's convenient anymore. if you actually consider whether you're writing kink fanfiction and call it what it is, you either don't get to write that kind of fanfiction anymore OR you don't get to participate in "polite society" anymore. the obsession with lists of boundaries and either badgering the CCs about them or piecing them together wholesale if they don't already exist, which is what creates the "but it's Platonic cuddling, kissing, BDSM, and marriage, i promise!" excuse in the first place, is another fixation on precise language...

(if my phrasing here is a little convoluted it's because i'm posting in Tired Mode, and you have to forgive me.)

To be fair, there are a lot of fandoms that go way back that have co-opted social justice causes to try and get what they want. This goes back at least a decade, this corner of the streamer sphere is just the most recent and pointed example because you can directly address one cc and get a response really quickly compared to a showrunner or team of people. In a lot of ways social justice language is some of the only power people (especially young people) will have online when it comes to getting what they want, so I understand why nobody wants to let it go or frame it differently even when it’s a personal beef or self-interest.

It’s not like these people are never right, this is a Youtube/Twitch/gaming space and it’s loaded with bad behavior that I would rather people be mindful and aware of. The issue is as you said, you can usually track a secondary goal underneath the callout, and it’s rarely as clean as it’s presented as. For whatever baffling reason Ranboo had a bunch of racist people defending him and he’s had to try and find ways to get that to stop, and that continues to be very real, but people were also pissed off at Ranboo for a bunch of other reasons that went unspoken.  

In some ways this situation is the child of black-and-white thinking, something is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong, and by extension people are either absolutely right or absolutely wrong. People are very afraid of being absolutely wrong themselves, so they hunt down specific permissions to do things, and then use the letter of the law to protect themselves when someone says “hey this is kinda off.”  

[antimony-medusa]

this is mars creatchure i just don't want this tied to my main because the batman fandom Scares Me

found family is SUCH a way to condition yourself into kinks. it's not exclusive to mcyt. i jumped right from dsmp and sbi (even though you know, was always more of an emduo guy, i got to see the sbi fics as well) to dc and batfam and the shit people will write and slap on "they're brothers" to. it makes me a tad insane.

i'm not gonna talk about the obvious issues in the fandom, and like. i guess at least some people are honest about it, writing slash ships of the batboys and all (whole other separate issue) but like. some of the people with 'batcest dni' in their ao3 tag write the most borderline shit i've ever read.

i don't have concrete thoughts on it or like. a commentary abt what it means or whatever, just that the phenomenon seems to be present in found family fandoms as a whole, not just mcyt

Oh yeah I've seen hints of the batfandom in action, that seems FAIR. I do not want you to get swarmed.

Honestly the found family space being very similar in batfam to what it is in dsmp doesn't surprise me, especially when I know that a lot of people transitioned from DSMP/SBI to the batfam. (I also saw signs of people going to stranger things, and a bunch of other fandoms, and the part where I went Oh Good Luck was seeing some people trying to do kpop band boys as a found family. Go with god.)

You have people who really like the strong bonds between people in fiction, but they aren't quite mentally comfortable with writing or consuming sex or romance. And while some of them are doing this because they're sex-repulsed or really like platonic relationships, a bunch of them are just young or they've unwittingly bought into some cultural messages about how Sex Is Bad Actually. So in their fandom, they end up either picking up or creating a family dynamic for them to work with. And then if anything was to happen romantically with their new blorbos, it would be both underage and incest, so absolutely they've made sure nothing can happen because it would be horrible, so they're safe to continue with family dynamic, celebrating the strong bonds that brought them there. But then you have this little community of people, and I'd say while they know that they SHOULDN"T do anything romantic with the characters, the coding for romance and sex is in the head of a good like 99% of humanity, so when a romance or kink trope gets floated in this fictional context, falling through the mindscape in the shape of a hypothetical story, about half or more of these people don't go "ugh" (because they're romance-repulsed), they go "oh I can use that, that's a fun way to celebrate the bonds between people, I just have to clean it up a bit" (because most of humanity is fine with romance actually), and then they strip the blatant romance or sex out of it to make it Okay To Use, and then they write a story using, like romeo and juliet crimeboys (platonic), or cuddle pollen batfam. To grab an example of a glaringly romantic trope and a blatant kink trope that I've seen repurposed into platonic spaces.

And then in this community of people, every time someone does that, the temperature of the water in the pot they are all in ticks a little higher, because these tropes that someone grabbed from a romance novel or a kink page are now circulating in this platonic space as normal tropes that we all use, and other people use the tropes without really thinking about their origins, and that's how, like, hypnokink gets normalized. Or non-consentual cuddling (extended edition). Or smelling each other on each other's skin. Or fated mates platonic soulmates. All these things that if you're not in the fandom and enviroment, you read out of context and go "this CANNOT be platonic"— but they mean it to be!

And as you say, this is a perfect enviroment for conditioning yourself into certain kinks, because on the one hand you're moving in this space where there's a lot of non-sexual kink around touch and consent and restraints altered states and dehumanization (and sometimes more) happening ALL THE TIME, and you start to get the warm and tinglies at the climax of the story even if the climax of the story is someone getting tied up, and at the same time knowing that you shouldn't think about the blorbos kissing doesn't mean it's not gonna happen. It just means that it's super ilicit and illegal in your brain when it happens. But boy is it happening now, and these characters are so important to you and their bond matters so much to you, and—

Cause you are here cause you like thinking about the bonds between blorbos, and romance and sex and associated tropes are really compelling because as a society we've had about 11,000 years to refine our storytellling about them, so you just keep sinking further and further into the bonds between the characters, using all these tropes, and as it turns out, you're doing it in a space that means you're gonna come out of it with some kinks.

So. Yeah.

Saluting you over in the batfam mines. I hope the babies come out of it okay.

[minafeu]

Hi! I’m a day or two late but I wanted to give my opinion RE: shipping Tubbo. I did my best to make sure I don’t sound mean/critical but I apologize if I do come across that way.

I think the most important thing for any sort of shipping and something that’s kind of been in place since the dawn of shipping but especially in early mcyt shipping (as someone who was there!) was to keep it AWAY from creators. If that meant using unique tags, keeping it on sites they’re not on, etc. that’s how it’s done. Not that it didn’t happen once in awhile but generally it was considered extremely rude to ask a creator’s boundaries about this sort of thing up until relatively recently, as it meant they were being forced to discuss something they may not even want to be thinking about. The blending of community and creator and so many young creators (many of whom were IN fandom spaces!) have kind of colored that a bit and made it a bit murky, but that used to be the general consensus. However, Tubbo has seemed to relax a bit about some of the shipping now that he’s an adult seeking his own relationships and not a kid, and sort of implied he scrolls past if he sees it. I’m sure a proper tubbling could provide more links of what he prefers, though.

On the age gap thing, while it CAN be a red flag, there are plenty of healthy, wonderfully functional relationships between 20 and 30 years olds. NOT TO SAY THATS ALWAYS THE CASE! There are plenty who use that age gap to leverage power over the other party. However, two consenting adults who have a lot in common or have built a trusting relationship can result in a perfectly healthy, functional relationship. I understand the caution, I really do, and that caution is good! But trust that relationships come in all shapes and sizes and are just as messy as other parts of life.

Again, just my thoughts and you’re free to disagree with my points. You’re also totally free to block the Tubbo shipping tags, and filter it from your ao3 search. I also hope I don’t sound rude or critical, and if I do I’m really sorry. Have a great day!

Thank you for your explanation and I just checked tubbos boundaries and he has expressed discomfort with shipping outside of what he has made personally canon along with not enjoying nsfw/shipping fanfiction. He hasn't expressly state that he doesn't want it to happen as he knows people will write it either way but he is uncomfortable with it.

Also, the whole age gap thing stems from my parents having a 6 year age gap and it being entirely awful for both of them. I understand it can be good but 30 year olds and 20 year olds are in differnt parts of their lives and that disconnect can make it hard to have a good relationship with someone. Along with people who write age gaps can sometimes write age gaps weirdly(or I may just have trauma from being an aphmau fan haha)

I can't simply block the tubbo shipping tag on tumblr(where I look at most content) as it'll still show up because people can sometimes slip stuff like that in sub consciously and not tag it.

Again, thank you for writing that all you didnt sound rude or critical it was very kind and understanding and simply an explanation. I just am mainly concerned with the heavy shipping that seems to happen in this fandom and the disregard for the basic decency of not just shipping everyone with everyone especially when the banter is typically seen within their other friendships and outside canon interactions(I forgot to mention in my last post how it was typical for sbi to flirt just like tubbo with others and it just seems as a tubbling for a few years now that its what he does when hes comfortable with someone.)

[felinedetached]

An Ao3 Tag Guide: Tagging in the MCYT Fandom

The main thing about Ao3 is that they are entirely reliant on volunteers to take part in what they call “tag wrangling”, which is the group of people who organise a few things, namely:

— What tags mean the same thing, and which tag should be the “main” tag for that collection of tags; — Organising tags into Parent Tags, Metatags and Subtags — Creating and placing new fandom tags — Changing the names of tags when it is evident the main tag used is not the one listed

The Ao3 Tag FAQ can be found here.

For fandoms like Hermitcraft, where a fandom tag is already existent (Hermitcraft RPF), the main issue is with things like tags containing the names of creators or solely being the names of creators, when this is not what the fandom wants. There are two ways to change this:

1. Get at least one Hermitcraft fan to volunteer as a tag wrangler. Ao3 regularly opens volunteer applications for new tag wranglers, but tag wrangling is quite a lot of work! If you’re willing to do this, and help Ao3 with tag organisation, keep an eye on the admin posts on the Ao3 home page and check out the OTW volunteer page here!

2. Refuse to use the tags with the streamer’s real name in them! Tag your fics as “Mumbo Jumbo” or “Stressmonster” instead. Your works will still show up under the main tag, but it’s likely that with a concentrated effort, the main tag will change to fit the one most used! *note: this will also work for Dream SMP!

For fandoms like Dream SMP, which is both comparatively new and has fans trending rather young, we don't have a dedicated Ao3 fandom tag. We are instead classified entirely under Video Blogging RPF, and also don’t have a representative amongst tag wranglers! Someone volunteering as a tag wrangler would be extremely useful, especially in creating a fandom tag, but would also only really be helpful if we decided on consistent tagging rules to use.

As a result, I have created a tag guide for Ao3 with the purpose of separating Dream SMP RP content from RPF of the streamers, as both do exist and they are seperate categories! People looking for RPF usually aren't going to want fanfiction of the characters, and vice versa.

This will, however, only work if we as a community work towards posting under these tags together. The reason nothing has changed so far is that we're so scattered in our tag usage as a fandom, with most of us just using the Video Blogging RPF tag, so the wranglers don't actually realise we need or want a different one.

Please take a look at the tag guide, and consider using it! I am also open to suggestions on different tags, if there are better options to use.

[snailsnfriends]

just putting this out here even though I know most of you don't like him either: if you still support callmecarson or are planning on supporting him when he returns please do not interact with me or my content. what carson did was incredibly gross, and I personally do not want people who support him to interact with me.

I generally suggest that none of you interact with his content at all. do not welcome him back into this community, especially the mcyt community. there are way too many minors in this fandom; it's not safe. and don't hit me with the "people can grow and change" shit. you can't groom a minor and then argue for growth. you can't just move on from something like that. carson's friends stopped talking to him and charlie took legal action. carson is not a safe or trustworthy person. this isn't a product of "cancel culture." his friends were not "fake." this is the product of grooming minors. this is the product of someone taking advantage of his young fans. do not welcome him back with open arms. do not put yourself and others in any kind of danger. remember the victims, and do not interact with me if you still support him.

[memryse]

i ordinarily do not make “discourse” posts or anything related to dream on here at all since i stopped posting dsmp but i feel the need to express my disgust with him and the defence he’s getting. having spent the last couple of days talking to many former dream fans who now feel even more unsafe in the community because of all of this, i can’t in good conscience not speak out for my friends. (note: this is not actually discourse, hence the quotation marks. this is a discussion of racism and other issues.)

you are allowed to criticise content creators. yes, don’t be an idiot who spends all their time looking for things to get mad about, or post mindless hate at all really because that’s lame, but it should not be a “natural consequence” to expect harassment for disliking a creator. that is an incredibly incredibly dangerous and irresponsible narrative to be spreading, especially for someone who is the current most popular minecraft youtuber whose fandom has a reputation both in and out of mcyt circles for being notably toxic.

doxxing is a big deal. it is natural to be afraid of it, and realistically, you should worry about it if it happens to you, no matter your follower count. even if nobody physically shows up at your house, that doesn’t eliminate other dangers: the most glaring example i can think of is a closeted person being outed by somebody finding their parents’ social media. again, this is downright irresponsible for someone like dream to be saying, especially in the wake of the person he replied to going private out of fears of doxxing because of their precarious and unsafe living situation.

having an “edgy” past is not something you get to pat yourself on the back for growing out of and then forget about forever; that is the bare minimum, especially when you have an audience of many poc who already do not feel that the community is inclusive, because antiblackness and other forms of bigotry run rampant in it. they now feel even more unsafe knowing that the face of the mcyt community downplayed his racist and islamophobic jokes as being a depressed teenager. i am a person who believes in personal growth and change, as both a technoblade fan and somebody who made antisemitic jokes as a young teen. but the first step of growing as a person is to admit what you did wrong using the real terminology for it and not trying to make it seem less bad than it was, or that it was okay at the time. it wasn’t okay. if you’re not able to condemn your own past actions as being racist, and feel the need to justify or downplay them in any sort of way, you have a lot of personal growth left to achieve.

[redwinterroses]

You hit the nail on the head with the ageism in the mcyt community. It's so frustrating to feel like I'm being pushed out of fandom spaces for being over the age of 18 because I'm not shocked that this CC had kids or this CC is 40. I'm not even old! I'm 26!

I get that there are a lot of younger viewers now (which is great! new fans are amazing!) but it seems that many don't realise that for most CC's that this is just a job and a job most have been doing for years now.

Like the absolute boom that happened with the dsmp doesn't happen very often, especially with CC's that young. It was an explosion in a bottle which makes people forget that all the other CC's that have been building up their audience for years are also going to be older.

Anyways that's my rant. I don't know, I'm probably just a grumpy old fart now and feel like shaking my fist a kids to get of my lawn lol

*gestures at all the above* Thank you for continuing to smack that nail head-on.

I'm not comfortable explicitly stating my age on the internet -- but I'm old enough to not be comfortable explicitly stating my age on the internet. I don't even have it on my Facebook. (I'm old enough to have a Facebook. XD)

But I only got into Minecraft in the last two years, only started watching mcyt in the last year or so, and only joined the fandom proper in JUNE. I didn't grow up with this stuff -- I fell in love with it as an adult. It's not a kids-only thing.

(Heck, I'd make the argument that video games in general are equally-if-not-more aimed at adults than children but that's a rant for another day.)

So you have people like me, who came to this thing as adults, and you have adults who have been in this realm for decades, and you have people who are fans who have been playing video games their whole lives and Minecraft for at least ten years... And yet somehow it's shocking to the point of viral posts that not everyone in this fandom is under 18? I just don't get it.

And I do understand WHY the fanbase tends to be young -- if only purely because kids have more time than adults to indulge these hobbies. My (much) younger brother is still young enough that he can get done with school and play games for hours before dinner or bed. I've got to fit it in between two jobs and all the other things that come with being an adult. I get that. I get that the Hermitcraft fanbase has a pretty young baseline because they're family friendly and parents are cool with their kids watching the hermits.

But the exclusionist nature of "this isn't normal" every time someone realizes their fave isn't their peer is wild to me and some days I just get my old lady temper up over it. XD

[lumberjack-halt]

Things that legitimately make me very happy in the mcyt and adjacent circles: how normal and chill it is for a lot of younger creators to be friends with older ones

Like this is so important I think, the older creators (I'm talking in terms of age, not necessarily as far as time spent as a cc) are able to be a good example and a role model to these younger kids, but being their friends is also hella important. It is so fucking important for people to have multigenerational friendships, and I feel like especially in fandom spaces it's become something that's "gross" or "weird" (and not without reason, some adults can be creeps) so seeing a fresh new generation making legitimate friendships with older creators is so cool to me

You're all obviously thinking of the Sleepy Bois, and you're right, they have a 16 year age gap between the youngest and oldest and it's so clear to see that they're all good friends even with that gap. There's is an obvious difference in levels of address depending on age and who's talking to who, but honestly it's usually played for a laugh, and the friendly respect is so easy to see between all of them

But I'm not even just taking about SBI or crime boys or whatnot, there's also Crumb Cuptoast and others being friends with CaptainSparklez! He's been a creator for so long and is a shining example of a person tbh, I'm legitimately so glad that he's a role model of the mcyt community and also a friend to young creators like Crumb

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post I'm just glad these people are friends with each other and can have a positive and healthy friendships with adults in their lives

[dream-critical]

if it's okay for me to send crit surrounding dreams fanbase; dream (+ sapnap n gnf) "stans" are just. such a toxic community im sorry. i only have second hand experiences with it because im simply a hermitcraft and related mcyt blog and i honestly avoid dream stuff where possible, but everything i do see is terrible. every MCC i have to scroll past like. 30 posts from dream stan blogs complaining about every team announcement until their fave white boys get eventually announced to be in the event (and even then ill see posts complaining about the team they're in).

and, certainly the worst of the two things i commonly personally see, whenever anyone i follow says anything neg about dream and co i always see them get at least a couple of reblogs or asks being nasty to them or straight up telling them to kill themselves. literally earlier i saw a post where someone just said they personally don't like gnf and at least 7 of the reblogs were something along the lines of "kys". im sure they'll defend it as "its a joke" but lol no, telling random strangers to off themselves because they don't like your fave white boy is NOT a joke, it's just being an major asshole

obviously im certain not all dream and co fans are like this, but this is literally all the behaviour i see and its so fucking concerning how this seems to be the norm. sorry i just had to rant for a moment i am so done at this point

Critically thinking and dream neg is heavily discouraged in this fandom yeah. Solo dreams stans are the worst on this front but as a former sapnap Stan I can say that some of them can get pretty bad as well.

Won't even start about gnf stans lmao everyone knows how they are.

Youre completely right though, the way this type of behaviour seems to have become the norm, especially on Twitter, when most fans are pretty young etc is very concerning.

Though honestly, with the way being a toxic Stan gets encouraged by dream I don't think it's gonna change anytime soon

[mariaiscrafting]

ahhhh ty ty ty <3

ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.

he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:

• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.

let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo

my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.

• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)

(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2

pt. 2:

Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2

Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):

Speed of Dream's rise to fame

The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase

Post-MCC HBomb stream

Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans

Manipulation & RSD

Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand

The “just a dude” argument, flipped

First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.

Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.

Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.

Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.

Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.

Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.

I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.

Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.

Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.

[castlesinchaos]

I thought about making a separate tumblr for my current minecraft/dream smp hyperfixation, but then I remembered that I have shamelessly pumped superwholock/X-men/literally-any-obsession-I’ve-ever-had-regardless-of-time-spent-obsessing onto this blog since fuckin 2013 and the only thing that makes this one different is the fact that I’m not letting myself enjoy it unapologetically. :-/

Edit: I was going to leave it at that but I think I’m going to elaborate actually.

The biggest difference between the mcyt community, and all of the other fandoms/communities I’ve been a part of for so long is how old the communities themselves are, as well as the average age of the people in those fandoms. And in a lot of cases that’s what makes the dsmp/mcyt more toxic most of the time, especially (recently) for girls. Let me explain.

The minecraft YouTube community is obviously not a brand new thing. There’s creators like Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, even old server players like Tobuscus, hermit craft etc. But the thing about the Dream SMP community specifically, is that DSMP only got popular in the last year or so. Specifically, over quarantine the server grew exponentially, as did its fan base. This fan base, tends to be younger people (I’m talkin 14 and under), and is predominantly male for the majority of the content creators (especially for the “largest” creators on the server (ie, Dream, Tommy etc).

Now, I’m not saying this growth is bad. It absolutely is not, the creators have put in time and effort and care and it shows in the way they engage with their communities, in the way they put out for us, the way they have tried to create a safe space for their fans. But the problem with quick and exponential growth in a young fandom ESPECIALLY when that fandom consists of pretty young fans, is that a large part of that community is going to have little to no previous experience in a large fandom. (Now, this has much harsher consequences and can lead to a lot of risk for young fans who don’t necessarily realize the need the protect their identity/personal life from potential community predators, but that’s a post for another time), but the biggest consequence I see and experience from this sort of situation is fans not knowing/understanding what is acceptable in the fan space and the repercussions of their actions.

I’m talking specifically, in what tends to be male members of the community, the use of slurs or offensive language constantly, berating other fans who do x y or z (ie, people who only watch Dream for his speed runs/YouTube videos berating people who only watch him for DSMP/lore or Vice versa), more specific to the gaming community but male viewers not respecting or validating female content creators (don’t even get me started on the way Hannah, Niki and Puffy are treated and viewed by some fans), AND MOST IMPORTNATNTLY: toxicity surrounding how the fanbase engages or participates in the community. most of this happens inadvertently or without realization from the fans doing it.

This creates a VERY tense relationship both between female and male (and NB fans because there is a large portion of the NB community who watches mcyt/dsmp), and young and old fans. Women feel like they’re not welcome in the community, they are shamed for watching and participating in the communities, they are belittled and shamed for art/writing/any contribution to the fan base they make and at the end of the day it can be a VERY hostile place for female/NB fans.

Young fans don’t have a good example of how to act or respect (both content creators and fans) boundaries, they tend to be adverse to education on the things that they’re doing wrong, and often they will continue to behave as they do until someone they respect addresses their behavior. And the problem with a predominantly young fandom, is there isn’t a whole lot of older fans to do that correcting, and when there is young fans tend to have alienated them already and therefore don’t necessarily respect them.

I also want to address that I’m not saying this is only the case for the mcyt/dsmp community/fandom. I’m just saying the conditions that created the community (short timeframe, exponential growth, predominantly young and male audience) has contributed to current state of the community. Other fandoms also had periods like this, the main difference, and where it becomes more personal for me, is that these periods of growth and toxicity happened YEARS ago, and the community as well as the people who engage in it has “grown up” a bit, so to speak. When you look at shows like Doctor Who and Supernatural and Sherlock, those shows have all been going on for 10-15+ years and the fanbase has also grown with it, overall becoming a more welcoming place and a place where fan created content is appreciated by a lot of the fanbase. (It’s also important to note a key difference here between the physical consumption of mcyt/dsmp and traditional shows like DW/Sherlock/SPN, with the latter there’s a consistent hiatus that allowed for a huge influx of fan created content like art/writing/theories. A lot of the fan base came to rely on this content to fill the time until the “canon” returned. and in doing so that put a higher appreciation on fan content and creators (which tended to be predominantly female ((something that is also common for the dsmp community)), which overall contributed to the destigmatization and toxicity surrounding fan content.)

At the end of the day I’m not saying mcyt communities or the Dream SMP community is all bad, or even irrepairable. I am saying that as a female and LGBTQIA fan, I have inadvertently internalized some of the ultra toxic sentiment surrounding participation in things like fan art, fan theories, and general fan engagement, and I want to be comfortable sharing these things that interest me and keep me engaged in the community on my blog that I’ve had for 8 years with the same shameless enjoyment that I’ve lent to other fandoms, and I think we can get to that point, it’s just gunna take some self realization from the community. Thank you for coming to my ted talk :)