#this turned into an anti twitter post but my god i hate fandom on that site

[valyrfia]

Carlos fans trying to say Carlos experience racism and xenophobia are literally insane…… He is a white Spaniard, that’s why sometimes I can’t stand f1 fans honestly

Not to continue my "fandom on twitter is batshit" hate campaign but this is COMPLETELY a twitter fandom type of problem and becuase it's specifically such a twitter fandom type trait it so clearly marks who is an F1 fan and who is just into F1 because it's the 'thing to be into' and 'content to consume' after the DSMP collapse or one's favourite kpop idol having to do military service....

But it remains batshit. As someone who did the entire DSMP experience on twitter I can speak from experience when I say that fandom on there is this writhing mass of angry echo chambers that are so far removed from reality it's staggering. I would be willing to bet my savings that NONE of these accounts have said a single word about the way Yuki is treated by his team or the literal incident at border security the other day–you know–ACTUAL racism and xenophobia.

Also all Europeans hate all other Europeans. It's in our nature. Every European country has derogatory terms for every other European country because of wars fought centuries ago. It's part of our charm. "Maybe try asking him in Spanish" is hilarious actually, and one I'm definitely going to steal for casual ribbing.

[utilitycaster]

Wow your Orym tags really are an eye-opener. You are totally right and now I understand the bitterness about this character a little better. I've seen a lot of "...but C3 is supposed to be this and that" takes and I guess a lot of people think they are owed a certain storyline?

Yeah. People feeling as though they're owed a certain storyline is not new nor exclusive to Critical Role; it's been pretty common in fandom for years (see this excellent post that I still think about). But the particular blame being placed on Orym is a fun new twist on this theme.

I'm sure there's people who hate Orym for other reasons; shipping wank is another very common form of entitlement to a particular storyline. I must admit when it comes to Twitter I think some people just yell random lies out into the void to hear their own voice because there is no underlying logic to any of it. But I do think a large number of people who have been blaming Orym for everything for what is now the majority of the campaign are doing so because he has consistetly refused to entertain the idea that Ludinus makes any valid points from the start, and the narrative has pretty much only rewarded him for that.

A lot of people really thought that Campaign 3 "all bets are off" didn't mean like, messing with the narrative structure (they hate when that happens by the way. they acted like Downfall and the Solstice Split and the fact that this has been a very plot-driven campaign rather than one about character backstory are all fucking violations of the Geneva convention the way they carried on, and I say this as a person who can complain) but rather that Critical Role, a D&D-based fantasy, would shed those pesky two previous campaigns of canon (unless of course earlier canon helps them make a point. I truly cannot believe someone made like 5 alts and harassed me and all my mutuals for an entire evening over hypocrisy for...liking one ship more than another when these idiots exist) in order to become some kind of deeply pathetic "French Revolution Except Instead Of Kings It's Gods" historical re-enactment.

We're at the point where like, nothing has validated them and everything they've claimed the gods have done, Ludinus or the Weave Mind have done like, tenfold. As mentioned, the people who were like "oh my god STOP SAYING HUBRIS anyway obviously Bells Hells would NEVER see the gods as relatable" just watched Laudna and Imogen be like "wow, they're flawed and conflicted and a fucked up family just like us." I shit you not, I saw someone criticize FCG's relationship with the Changebringer because "he had to work for it" as if that's not like...how literally all relationships work if you're not an utter black hole of entitled self-absorption. The Kreviris Imperium wants to straight up colonize all of Exandria but they turn a blind eye. There's someone out there talking about putting Rashinna's head on a pike for being willing to endanger the poor Ruidusborn children that...Liliana (probably to some extent coerced by Ludinus to be fair) could have left alone to live out their lives on Exandria. People genuinely channel some anti-abortion "but What About The Disabled Children? Shouldn't Pregnant People Be Forced To Carry And Parent Them" style arguments at Alma's "hey, we have people delay birth for like half an hour so their children don't have The Psychic Migraine Disorder That Made Imogen Possibly Suicidal". The arguments have devolved into "well, canon isn't real" and "but the status quo" as if there aren't ALIENS FROM SPACE SPEAKING AT THE DRAGON VATICAN. How STUPID do you have to be to think that wouldn't change the entire world. Or, to get back to this ask, how desperate are you to maintain the illusion that you are going to get a wish-fulfillment campaign that never once existed? So yeah. They blame Orym because otherwise they have to blame literally the entire cast, and themselves.

[ruthlesslistener]

I got harassed because of you. Because you declared anyone who doesn't headcanon the Knight as a child to be sus. So thanks. Hate how you seem to be the "headcanon/lore expert" these days, to the point where no on else is allowed to headcanon differently from you. All the hk antis seem to cite you as their "reliable" source always, even outside of tumblr.

i. turned on anon yesterday. What. how did you find me this quickly already.

Anyways, another announcement just to make this potently clear to anyone stupid enough to treat a tired college student with a neurodevelopmental disorder as some sort of pariah of headcanon/lore expertise: i said that headcanoning the knight as an adult was 'sus' in a half-hearted jokey manner right before i went to sleep late at night based on bad porn takes that i came across while scrolling twitter and nothing else. Then when my friends were like 'uh wait no more interpretations exist' i went 'oh shit my bad, i still dont like it bc of personal tastes tho so please dont flood my inbox about it again, but its fine'. I don't even believe in anti rhetoric either, I'm constantly reblogging why they're fucked up and their harassment campaigns are wrong and dangerous, so idfk why they'd consider me as a reliable resource

Also, why the fuck would anyone take me as the lore/headcanon god?? Nothing about what I do is special. I don't even care that much about my own headcanons, almost all of what I find fun about the fandom is comparing and contrasting my headcanons to those of other people's because I love seeing what they get up to. As for canon, literally everything I loredig about is in the game already, I'm just rambling about it through my own perspective as someone who likes to do media analysis. Nothing about what I do is special or should be treated as such, and I always talked about my hcs/interpretations as someone who assumed that people knew they were just that: ramblings and nothing more. I love different hcs, I just sometimes don't click with others because of my own weird squicks and triggers

Also also: I don't post my headcanons outside of tumblr and what I write on my ao3 in my fics, so idk how you want me to somehow control the rabid freaks on other websites. I'm not doing this to be an influencer, gain popularity, or broadcast some superiority complex. In fact, I've actively spent the entire duration I'm in this fandom worrying about bothering people with my hcs/ramblings, but posting them anyways because if I don't talk about it then it makes me want to chew my own leg off. The main reason I've not been talking about it on my tumblr and have only been passively rbing hk stuff recently is specifically because I'm trying to avoid causing that sort of damage again after this whole disaster

[caelumsnuff]

i find it kinda interesting that the similar-sized ~smaller fandoms I'm in (a certain twitch streamer, various interactive fiction pieces, certain DnD podcasts/shows), you're allowed to put constructive criticism in the main tags (obv hate will always get people riled up) of the work, but Redacted Audio fandom if you go 'Xavier only seems to have gotten introduced to die; we should have seen more of Lovely's difficulty after turning; Imperium!Asher & David's in Cataclysm felt like overpowered a lot (for a couple that weren't initially a thing in season one of Imperium) especially over Imperium!Milo & Sweetheart's current relationship, etc lol...people get upset, they block, no one interacts.

Idk if Erik deleting the Bright Eyes storyline just frightened people into rarely even offering slight notes (which I know some people were annoying about having an unlikable listener), but it's odd. Everyone seems hesitant to give this man anything but glowing praise for everything. Everything lol. He mentioned thinking of himself as a writer first and previously wanting to be an author, but I wonder if he would even be able to incorporate notes from a professional developmental editor (or even try to). I think he could accomplish a lot by even running plans through with a critique partner or two.

Isn't it odd? Ive been in a shit ton of fandoms, but ive never been in one that is like this staunchly anti-critique/anti-analysis. It's strangely cult-like in the way that voicing dissenting opinions, expressing differences in interpretations, or analyzing the work in a way that is more critique driven rather than theory driven gets you shunned. HUGE swathes of hate mail, death threats, suicide baiting, and so on and so forth for daring to not listen to the Word of God or not consuming the plots and messaging on a surface level. I feel like some of these people never developed critical thinking skills. Hell, this fandom will even hates on you for... liking the villians???? The purity culture in this fandom bro....

I do think the aversion to this stuff is bc of the bright eyes and fred situation, at least in large part. But iirc the reason those videos got deleted was because everybody was arguing over who was really in the wrong. I wasn't participating in redacted fandom spaces at the time, but i know the discord was up back then, so it probably has something to do with Erik actually seeing the bickering. No one can convince me he didn't leave the discord for similar reasons. He's probably not on tumblr or twitter or tiktok or ao3 or whatever fucking hellsite looking at our opinions. And shit, even if he was, that's on him bro. The idea that expressing dissatisfaction, dislike, critique, or otherwise not accepting being spoonfed how we're supposed to feel about the work is somehow going to make him delete content is wild.

Said it before, but if he's that sensitive about his work being critiqued, he should not be posting his art online. And i don't mean that in a mean-hearted way, if seeing people not like/critique your art makes you want to hide it or puts pressure on you to change it, you shouldn't put it up online. Protect yourself from the emotional distress yanno? That's one of the reasons i don't post my own drawings/paintings online. My art is very personal to me, and despite knowing im a very good artist, seeing someone not like it or make fun of it would hurt a lot. So i only post my fics online. At least for now.

Anyways, thank you for the ask. I totally agree, its interesting. And fucking weird.

[peppertaemint]

Oh my god sorry! I didn't know that! I of course assume that this is bs then. I'm sorry for bothering you with that question! I wasn't trying to be mean or anything, I just wondered if that was true since I usually block OT4s and I saw that you kinda knew them and I had heard that they were, so I was really confused. So sorry that I asked, and so sorry that they are going through this. Fandoms can be so toxic sometimes. I'll probably log off for some days, but I'm really sorry.

Lots of love! Take care!

Hi Anon,

No apologies necessary. I just have to be really careful when I post here. It's easy to contribute to the harassment of others, even if you don't intend to. 💕

I'm posting this since the names aren't listed. It's always good to take a few days and log off. But it would be really interesting to know where you heard this?

These writers were targeted in a very specific way, mostly on their fanfics. I didn't realise that this was becoming some sort of rumour that is being spread around, which is quite alarming.

In the fanfiction community, it's pretty rare to come across people who are actually OT4 or something like that. Those kind of weird divisions happen mostly on Twitter, where people want to make an identity out of hating someone. And just in case you hadn't experienced it before, people use this kind of thing to hurt and damage others. I've been called a solo this, solo that, anti, racist, et cetera, when I can I assure you, I'm none of the above!

it's just a way to get fans to turn on accounts that are perceived as popular. And people usually do it because they're jealous. Why someone would be jealous of a blog or fanfic writer I have no idea. 💀 but that is what happens. I've seen it happen over and over again for years now.

So please take some time off, but don't give up. What I try to do is just not believe those report accounts & those people who just like to stir up trouble by accusing people of things. Most people have no interest going round accusing people of anything because they've got better things to do. 

[whoopsies-daisies]

Klaus Stan’s r such massive pussies and over dramatic lmao they cry over someone saying they dislike that flop but turn around and trash every character without even tagging it as anti whatever, like literally every character has been slandered to death in this fandom including my fav my god they acting like it’s the end of the word if U didn’t tag it as “ klaus negativity”. Like imagine how the Ben Stan’s felt when klaus Stan’s was dragging him and not tagging it as anti Ben, or how Lila Stan’s felt after season 2 when literally half the fandom was hating on her or even Allison Stan’s after season 3 OR EVEN LUTHER STANS LMAOO. Or viktor Stan’s like the aunt of slander I’ve seen on Reddit twitter and TikTok like all u gotta do is scroll lmfao Klaus Stan’s r so sheltered they would never survive in the real world

OMG THANK YOU, THIS!!

because I see slandering of characters in the main tags all the time and you expect me to change my tags? Like I've never seen anyone else use anti character tags. Yeah it must be annoying scrolling through your fav's tag to see nice posts of them and then see slander of them but guess the fuck what? Literally everyone else who sees that just scrolls past or blocks the person. Ur right like they're so fragile. Imagine harassing someone for expressing slight dislike for your fav

[olderthannetfic]

An anecdote from the horrid trenches of twitter: I recently made an NSFW account to post my naughty thoughts and art to and separate it from main, where not everyone may want to see it. I mostly focus on my fav, who died at 16, and the character I ship him with, who doesn't die in the canon media.

At first, I didn't feel particularly affiliated with any genres or groups of NSFW accounts, but then, a whole fiasco went down when a very loud minority of his fans started tweeting about how wrong it is to ever write or draw NSFW of him because that's sexualizing a literal child, or, God forbid, you ship him with a character who would've been the same age as him had he lived but who was introduced when they were already 18+. The global fandom never really cared about my fav, but they picked up this drama and used it to hate on him even more for having "pedo fans". They act like it's sexualizing a prepubescent kid character, which I could understand the squick for, but they're very different niches in my opinion. Finding an older teenaged anime character hot is something that's far more common and accepted in 'normie' fan spaces, so I'm surprised they treat both with the same level of gravity and disgust.

(The funny part is that they also hardcore ship him with a character who didn't die, so by their standards, isn't that also pedophilia once the survivor turns 18 and still thinks of a 16 year old romantically? 🤔)

And just like that, because my fav died a little over a year too soon, I get lumped in immediately with the people that these fans consider extreme deviants and freaks despite the stuff I write and draw being extremely vanilla and often ageing him up because I prefer an older design. Ageing him up is just a sign that you were attracted to a child and wanted to see them having sex, you vile, sick being, so that's just as evil! Of course I will start to affiliate with NSFW accounts that post stuff that I don't care for if the antis are going to equate shipping a 16 year old who honestly looks like he's in his 20s to be as extreme as for example kidnapping torture porn. No shade to the latter at all, but the two are on quite a different level of what is conventionally considered dead dove and stuff that absolutely needs extensive warnings or that would shock the average person.

I'm glad that by the merit of the fav being an underage but pubescent teen, antis automatically already will feel disgusted by my NSFW account and I won't suddenly get "wait you SEXUALIZE a literal fetus?" in my replies. Still, they are pushing everyone except the purest, most 'legal' (lmao what even is an illegal ship), most vanilla out of their group and they'll be surprised when the tumbleweeds roll through their spaces because they kicked every sinner out. My fav's sexy. Fuck off, let me consider him sexy.

--

(The funny part is that they also hardcore ship him with a character who didn't die, so by their standards, isn't that also pedophilia once the survivor turns 18 and still thinks of a 16 year old romantically? 🤔)

Mysterious how they always notice the "immorality" when it's a rival ship.

[shieldofrohan]

Your posts are once in a blue moon and thanks for dragging our old American grandpa Grrm . I understand D&D are idiots but the fandom's incessant urge to placate Grrm as an emblem of wokeness when some of his stuff scream problematic and how what he tells in interviews is contrasted with what he writes makes me roll my eyes . The only difference is D&D are idiots whereas Grrm is sharp but also oblivious . Btw he shouldn't have released that Targie book . It's so badly written and I hope that the writing and plotting doesn't end up rubbing somehow on Twow if it ever gets released . Also thank you for dragging Ned . Idk whether you are aware of recent fandom wank but apparently Sansa stans are gatekeeping the fandom just because we happen to criticize fandom favorites . Also love love love your no nonsense idgaf butt kicking attitude . Stay safe .

Hello Anon,

Wow thanks for your kind words, your message made my day :)

Previous asks about this:

X1

X2

X3

One time I wrote this on Twitter:

The problem with not being able to finish a series for 25 years is that your audience & what that audience was looking for in that story change in time. In the end the story you started to write might not meet the expectations. Especially if you aren’t writing a timeless series (~lotr).

This is why I believe that Martin is doomed to finish an outdated series which will never satisfy the readers/critics truly. Racist/sexist undertones & other problematic aspects of these books might have been overlooked in 90s/00s but they will be considered huge problems in 20s.

I love Grrm as a writer because man has a style and courage. Yes sometimes he is edgy but he also has the talent. His magic in writing shows itself in small details, creating characters, plot setting (foreshadowings) and subverting expectations but sometimes he pushes the edge a little too much to create those magic/to show his talent.

For example; whole Unkiss subtext is a smart way to show trauma but on the other hand hiding trauma in subtext is problematic.

Another example: Cersei/Dany turning into their awful husbands. A complex characterization but still problematic.

Another example: Not giving an anti-T*rg POV in the books, it hides the villain status of Dany and other T*rgs but also it is problematic.

I think he could have earned my respect even more if he just could own the fact that he created a typical but nuanced White Savior with Dany. Whitewashing her arc/story makes me think that is this man so oblivious to his own story? (Also yes sometimes what he says and he writes doesn't match) And at this point I have to believe that his old age and him being an American might make him oblivious. Not a crime but people might drag him for this.

Btw I also think that people blame D&D a lot to make Grrm a victim but show was always a cheap copy of the books and characters even when George was involved. As a Sansa fan, I hated most of the scripts of first 4 seasons so I don't think D&D were the only ones to blame. And people (I used to too) blame D&D for not having Arianne, Aegon etc in the show but it seems to me that George wasn't even able to give many details about main characters so I doubt that he could have given enough material about Arianne, Aegon, Connington, Victarion etc to create a full story. He really should have finished his books LONG AGO.

In my opinion, having a TV show before finishing the books was a huge mistake.

AND it feels like he learnt his lesson. LOOK at him finishing F&B book so fast... The most unnecessary book in the history of literature. Twoiaf was more than enough for DoD story but he still wants HBO's money. Sorry but he lost my respect a lot after that book.

That book was unnecessary, writing was awful and what was the reason? And I am afraid that they will make T*rgs look like cool but poor guys and the world doesn't need to feel sth for white ugly slavers, nuke lovers, incest f*ckers, imperialist sh*ts with god complex.

T*rgs fans behave like a cult for a reason. Tell me, are we not dealing with enough bad guys who see themselves superior right know all around world? Why are they making more shows about such risky characters? This is a bad idea but it is what it is. People are tend to worship such characters and stories and I find this scary. But Georgie loves money. Whatever. Zero respect.

Ok I am in this fandom since 2012 (? was active in 2014-2016 and later in 2019-) and tbf I used to talk shit about many fan favorites and yeah their fans would be angry but they wouldn't go rabid and start massive bullying chains so I think social media encourages people to have a cult mentality and it ruins everything.

You as a fan should decide what kind of fandom experience you want to have and you should try to create your own safe corner without touching the toxic side.

Thank you so much for your kind words again.

Have a nice day and stay safe.

[levyfiles]

Noting that you wrote a twt thread supporting Watcher for giving lgbt youth just a little tiny fraction of their revenue for reluctantly splashing there shit w/ rainbow aesthetics and they even used a line from Shane acting so weird around a person for saying they're bisexual. Like are you kidding me? Even you didn't find that funny! how can you feel good about yourself? are you that braindead about your perfect Steven?

Ohhhkay. To start off with, congratulations, your ask was the least abusive one lambasting me on this topic so yours is the one I've decided to give a platform to.

So, as someone who has been present with Watcher since their launch, I can attest that I and many others were actively campaigning for pride merch the moment we knew we could make suggestions. When we heard the merch shoot was coming, I and many other fans were thrilled they were finally unveiling a line that was specifically like a love letter to us. We wanted to enjoy the thing we liked while also enjoying the fact that a company loved its supporters right back and knew to express that every other day of the year. Queerness is deeply interwoven in so much of their content, the people they have on as guests, and they, I have said this in my tweet that offended you so, they have queer employees who they are paying well to whom they, unlike most companies, ensure have appropriate holidays and full benefits! And then of course, this calls into question why so many of us are adamant about not forcing people to out themselves in defense of engaging in queer culture and media until such a time that we find it inconvenient?

Let's put the rest under a read more because I got a lot to say.

Secondly, the entire premise of the discourse over rainbow capitalism and its harms is that the companies that are guilty of it are not only conglomerates who with one hand peddle the gay aesthetic during June but with the other turn around and donate to organisations and lobbyists who actively seek to harm and destory the lives of queer people all over the world. Watcher is a company we watched being built from the ground up and watched push through the most devastating year for small businesses because they took care of their employees. During an AMA on their discord, at some point, Katie confessed that she thought she would be out of a job last April but they powered through this and even offered to pay Matt Real for work he was rendered incapable of doing due to the pandemic. This is not even a hugely established company with loads of investors. They have done what they can to keep afloat while also pressing the largest efforts toward making their audience feel included and accepted. It is also a big deal that they work with a supplier for their merch that is not only on board to make the best quality of the Pride merch they can but willing to match their donation. That's a whole 30% of proceeds (some of which go to Gianthugs anyway).

Thirdly, the saying. I would challenge you to actually go back through my old asks and posts about Shane's reaction to Tonya and find where I didn't even find Shane's saying funny. I think the way he said it and the timing of his delivery is in keeping with how deeply he wants his audience to know where he stands and it should also tell you a lot more about how absolutely terrible Shane is at weighing in on discourse next to his cofounders; if I can take us back to some older discourse about Shane's very obvious silence during the anti-asian hate campaign as well as BLM.

Lastly, the Steven thing. Just. Really? I hesitate to engage over this particular brand of hate because it lacks conviction. Moreover the fact that you took a broad leap from your transgression with Shane to try to pin that on Steven is so transparent to me. People will write endless disclaimers about why they're so weird about Steven simply because he's religious and religious trauma is a thing and believe me when I say that I know how that feels as a queer mixed person who grew up firmly esconced in the brainwashing of fundamentalist christianity but then again, I find that more of the prejorative weight of historical harm practiced by the christian church was perpetrated by white colonizers and somehow and in someway people take Shane at face value. It's almost as if the weight of a community's actions can only be demonstrably forgiven with the future actions of their descendents.

Earlier today I saw someone ask one of the people pushing the "Steven is homophobic" campaign that if they really think Steven hates queer people wouldn't that make Ryan and Shane guilty by association and the person actually replied "no because grown adults are allowed to have different opinions than other grown adults even if they're friends with them" which?????? That is the exact reason the twitter teens got so mad at Steven lol I'm reeling. Guys, just do better. Actively interact with nuance please. Step away and afford yourself the luxury of participating in conversations with other queer people that isn't black and white and for god's sake, if your last defense to people disagreeing with you is to cite the way they enjoy fandom as your thinkpiece, maybe you're not really fighting in defense of marginilised people; maybe you want to center yourself in a campaign that makes allowances for you to bully and harrass people.

[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.

[janiedean]

I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

[shangyang]

so, let's talk about the lindsay ellis video?

alright, first thing, if you haven't seen mask off, which is lindsay ellis' video on the events that took place around 2 weeks ago now, i've just linked it above. it's around 1hr40mins, and bodes watching, since a) ellis makes very good points about what went down surrounding her deactivation of her twitter account and b) i am not here to recap ellis' 1hr40min video. why not? i really, really don't have the patience to, and i think if you're reading this, then you've seen ellis' video already.

anyways, first things first, a TLDR; i agree with ellis on the main point of her video. what happened to her in the aftermath of the tweets was largely abusive and vitriolic, and when she says that it escalated from "valid criticism" to "dogpiling and abuse" very quickly, and while she was asleep; she very much has a point, and is correct about it.

that's your TLDR on this. if you take away nothing else, by god, let it be that.

so let me start this off by admitting that in my own, initial response/posts/whatever about the raya incident, i didn't really talk about the bad faith criticism, the hate-mobbing, etc. that happened in the wake of ellis' initial tweets. largely, that's due in part to the fact that i wasn't looking at those responses - they didn't really cross my TL, because for the most part, i tend not to follow people who respond like that to any situation. (they tend to be antis. and i really don't want to see anti rhetoric or like, 13-16 year olds on twitter on my timeline to begin with.) so i'll correct myself here: though i stated that the large amount of criticism was "valid criticism" i was wrong in that regard. i didn't know the full scope of the response to ellis' tweets, and it was my mistake for not looking into it further before making that generalization.

throughout her video, ellis does address the meaning of her statements; that, in the end, they were meant to talk about the narrative similarities, not exactly the cultural similarities. to be frank, i still think the comments ellis had made were very easy to misconstrue as talking about cultural similarities, but at the same time, i'm not really looking to start talking again about the broader issue we have with comparing asian fantasies to ATLA. i said it in my initial set of posts, but that is not an issue that starts and ends with lindsay ellis -- rather, that's a greater issue with the US entertainment/media industry and american media consumption.

but i digress. i disagree with lindsay ellis on a lot. i think there's validity to looking at her videos and her statements and how they can impact marginalized communities, since she's a rather large figure in her particular area of youtube. i don't agree with a lot of her takes! i think it's safe to say that we rarely see exactly eye to eye with a lot of people who run in similar media/ideological circles - in the end, you have your own opinions that are shaped by your unique experiences, and that's natural. but, she makes a point about this weird standard of purity culture we've cultivated online over the past decade or so. ellis is right to criticize the fact that these mobs - for lack of better terminology - are never really seeking to influence real change; rather, what they are looking for is performance, and they turn inwards to their own communities because "the shameless can't be shamed". so i think, when ellis talks about this, and the fact that these mobs then turned to youtubers associated with her, to demand they "denounce" her, she's right.

fandom, fan, and creative spaces are oddly, and almost violently divided - especially on a website like twitter, which is the current axis on which fandom activity turns (sorry tumblr). the term "twitter mob" has practically made it into mainstream jargon, and that's really for a reason. we see this in fan spaces, where artists and writers get run off twitter/sent death threats/doxxed for creating problematic content. we see fiction being equated to real life as if there isn't actual nuance to the issue - and as if that nuance isn't a point of continuous study in both psychology, sociology, and media studies.

so, i suppose that's to say: i stand by my disagreements and gripes about ellis' tweets, as an indicator for a larger problem. but i don't condone death threats. i don't condone mobbing people, nor do i condone mass harassment. and that is what happened to ellis, no matter the fact that i was unaware of it, and i was remiss in mentioning that. i think, even if you were hurt or upset by the raya tweets, or it irked you or you disagreed, there is merit to watching mask off, if only because ellis' arguments about the increasingly violent and vitriolic approach online communities take to disagreements and small "slights" - and i don't even know if this can be called a slight insomuch as it is more of a...insensitive moment? - is concerning. we ought to be concerned.

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[kaypeace21]

can you maybe stop telling people what they ship and what they don’t ship.. i swear you’re so fucking stubborn. and if you wanna defend mike so damn much then do it cause i bet more then half your followers hate him. it’s the way you clearly don’t see how many bylers hate mike and love will do you SEE the problem here??

This is the 5th anon message (in 1 day) you sent me.and you’re not stubborn? I’m not the one who has sent 5 anon messages in a row? Why don’t you just chill out and ignore me. You’re this pissed cause I said your hate to Max was unjustified. I kindly pointed out max didn’t make El spy on Mike - like you claimed . El spied on mike in s2 - before she even met Max. Then you got infuriated that I pointed out that all the flaws you claimed were about the elmax friendship were actually just flaws with mileven. Some of you hate on Max just cause you saw her as a hindrance to Mileven. Then in the second message you got pissed and brought up byler (which I didn’t even bring up in the first post!) Cause you just ... wanted to fight about byler despite totally being a byler shipper? Specifically said if mike was actually gay and dated el before he realized he’d be “an ass”. And if el and mike were confused about thinking they loved eachother when they didn’t “they’d be the worst characters ever.” Then brought up Will being bad cause he called El stupid (which was projection cause right after that he called himself stupid 4x). 3rd message went on a tangent about how much better and nicer mileven shippers are and that you ship both byler and mileven. And 4th message just go on about how Will was horrible to El, and max did horrible things in s3 , and that bylers hate on mike all the time , and elmax sucks. And now this. Yes you totally ship byler and aren’t just a mileven who got pissed that my 1st comment criticized your ship . So then in the second message brought up byler randomly to try and critique it. And just got pissy when called out as pretending to be a byler shipper and not getting the answers you wanted 😂 you can ship mileven. I’m not stopping you .

Also , I’ve constantly defended mike. And called out bylers for the hating him in the past. I literally defended mike when you claimed him being gay and dating el before hand would make him “awful”. You clearly don’t follow me and probably just believe all the lies mileven shippers say about me on twitter 🙄 . I’ve even told other bylers that the way Mike treated El was worse than Will. At least mike apologized to Will. Mike never apologized for lying- to El. And I still said that mike hate is unjustified countless times (cause he’s a kid)! Kids make mistakes! And especially cause I explained Mike saying (In the garage) “ it’s not my fault you don’t like girls “ was projecting his own gay feelings on to Will. Similar to how Will (in the garage) saying El was “stupid” was projecting his own feelings - why Will called himself “stupid” (4x at castle byers) after their fight in the garage and this comment about El. But you get angry at the concept of byler / projection so... that won’t help.

Past comments:

Part 1 (their first Max message/my response ) part 2 (second message/ my response ) part 3 (comments 3-4) . In this annoying ass saga 😂

Now please - move on . I only didn’t block you to prove how unhinged milevens get when you don’t block them . Look how angry you’ve gotten . This bylers is why you have block milevens -they just don’t give up and get angrier and angrier 😅

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update: 6th message

I said for you to leave me alone. Not mike. How was that not clear? Also he’s a fictional character- what are you talking about?Oh my god .😅 You can do whatever you want on your own blog-just stop spamming me.

Mileven fan base (who are predominantly straight) use homophobic talking points and slurs to discredit byler / queer st fans . Many of us have gotten messages calling us the f and d word. Then milevens constantly private message bylers ,minding their own business, and call bylers “stupid” or “delusional “ ( or straight up sending de*th t#reats) . ( When these bylers are in their own tags -minding their own business- and don’t cross tag mileven at all ) . Bylers rarely go on to mileven posts that gush about mileven and then make jokes about how horrible the ship is and how delusional it’s shippers are (in said mileven post). Milevens do that all the time - they’ll go to a random byler post , only tagged byler , and make such comments about the byler ship/shippers . They also personally insult people for shipping byler and not mileven. Like me. Many mileven anons sent me messages making fun of my autism cause I shipped byler and said I’m not allowed to talk about byler /analyze the show cause I’m autistic and incapable of providing anything meaningful to the fandom because of my autism(all while hypocrically saying it’s ableist for anyone to think El isn’t ready to date yet). And bylers have the audacity... to in turn!!! Not like your ship and critique the issues with the (fictional) pairing using canon evidence in the show . And rarely send any direct messages/personal attacks to people who ship mileven . We criticize a ship - milevens directly message and attack the opposing shippers . There’s a difference between saying In the byler tag “mileven (the ship) is bad” or even an offensive blanket statement like “mileven shippers are blank” vs a person directly messaging a random individual who ships mileven and saying “you’re stupid for shipping mileven.bla bla.” A lot of the mileven fandom doesn’t seem to know the obvious difference when playing the victim. 🙄

And now you say byler is shipped just cause it’s “2 hot boys.” Which is yet another anti byler/pro mileven talking point.  You don’t ship byler (you’re just a mileven troll -move on) . Also-Ew - they’re kids. I’m an adult lesbian who actually likes well developed relationships - especially if lgbt. That’s all. And I’ve already criticized other bylers for some of their questionable heteronormative behavior and creepy fetishistic behavior of the characters/actors.  Also Bylers usually like El -more than milevens like Will. We don’t like mileven cause we see it’s bad for El’s character development and mental health. We care about El and think getting to know the real world and herself is better than rushing into a relationship (before she’s actually ready). But, y’all hate Will over a few comments he’s made. And I’ve seen milevens say they want Will d*ad or even say they wish he never came back from the upsidedown. And that’s just cause you’re threatened he’ll ruin mileven. Ya’ll are projecting . YOU EVEN SAID bylers make you not like Will as much- in a diff message. But go off.   (And leaaaave me alone ). Blocked you cause you have no self control to do it yourself .😂

[xthewhiteravenx]

I'm so upset and disappointed in the SnC fandom on Tumblr. I usually stay out of things like this but I cant hold it in any longer. I want to say first that this is not an attack on any single person nor is it an attack on the tumblr fandom. This is things I've seen across posts and asks and the general collective aura coming from this fandom. You may take it however you like.

The amount of hate on here is absolutely disgusting. Ever since some of y'all decided that colbybrocksecrethideout was actually colby, it just got so much worse. You're craving his attention and see yourselves as these chosen ones cause you have him all to yourself. We dont even know if it is him! That account never came out and said so! You're assuming to fit your narcisric agenda to be acknowledged by him. I'm well aware that my mutual lonely-xplr said she spoke to him and I will believe her. I still have my doubts on it and I'm allowed to as such! If it is him, then leave him the fuck alone. If he wants the attention, he would have said it a long time ago. He will come forward when he wants to. He would have fucking promoted the account too if he wanted the attention. You all are desperate to acknowledge his privacy and space on this app for those reasons and then turn around and tag him in things? Nah honey.

And dont even get me started on the amount of body shaming in this fandom! This has been going on beyond the abs situation a few days ago. Especially against Sam! The amount of posts I've seen about hating his brown hair is disgusting. You are free to voice your opinion but when it comes to shaming someone's choices for their body like their hair, there is a very fine line. Do not shove your opinion down someone else's throat. I've even seen this against Colby (which just isnt cool especially is y'all believe that account is him) and telling him that he needs to change his hair, bring back the mustache, and stop wearing certain things? You do not control him. Let them have their goddamn freewill over their bodies! Fan culture is just as toxic as influencers culture and just as receptacle to pressure.

And I completely understand constructive criticism and the whole covid situation is just the biggest example against the whole trap house where this is completely okay. But do not single out only certain people! I've seen so many posts against Sam and Corey. Some other members will get flame but they never get the heat like Sam and Corey do. God forbid Colby gets flack for it as a member of the trap house. How many times has he and Sam been called the leaders of the friend group? Stop holding others more accountable than another. You start playing favoritism and you are just as bad as the Twitter and Instagram stans and their toxic culture.

When it comes to the discussions around Snc's lack of masks in the Montana Series, I feel as though so many people jumped the gun on that. I understand the mask wearing and I'm for a complete nationwide mandate, but in rural Montana that isnt how it is. I live 2 hours from Billings and a good portion of the people in this area are very anti-mask, all about "goin again ma rights!" Its fucking scary out here! Almost everyone has a gun! I would be scared to camp where they did on the river and go off walking! This isnt L.A. here! Of course there would be no masks in that video. Of course that lady let them into that house and of course their gonna be polite and respect her wishes. Dont put your L.A. views on rural America. They are not the same right now and even more so a few months ago in a Trump-ruled country.

Then there are the "jokes." Do understand people that even if you are trying to be funny that it will hurt someone's feelings whether it's a fan or a trap house member. Please be careful with your words. We are all human. And do not fucking say "sorry 🙃 it's just a joke" like fucking hell-- you're being just as bad as the so called influencers you hate for doing the same thing.

And the constant need to say we all support each other on this website is bullshit. When the going gets tough and we suddenly are split down the middle on views, someone always has to say "we have different opinions. Its okay!" But when someone has a different view any other day some of y'all are rather quick to brush it off. No longer is Tumblr safe to voice opinions of crustive criticism against ALL the trap house members. It is now a hate fueled gossip fest against a chosen few. No wonder Twitter is quick to latch onto us now. This started out so pure and good and well intended and a place to voice our worries and frustrations of SnC but here we all are back at high school.

I'm this 🤏 fucking close to drop it all because of y'alls goddamn need to be seen by Colby like this is a goddamn high school gossip fest and Colby is the quarterback we are all grappling and stamping on to get his attention.

[bluewavenewwave]

Can I get this off my chest? Back in 2016-2017 I was a sophomore in high school, I was taking a government class in school, and it was the 2016 election. My family has always been very conservative, and I’d always just gone along with it, but I was never actively into politics. Because of the election and my government class, I got really invested into politics. Blindly following my family’s politics, I supported Trump, started obsessively watching conservative YouTube videos, and exclusively watched Fox News. I would get home from school, get on the computer and watch about 4-5 hours everyday of videos from people like Paul Joseph Watson, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopolis, Mark Dice, Steven Crowder, Students for Life, and Live Action. And then we’d all watch (either baseball or) Fox News during dinner and before going to bed. I was literally obsessed with being conservative. I became extremely pro-life and anti-abortion, even though I was very pro-choice in middle school and freshman year. Never in my life have I ever wanted children, or really even liked kids. But to add substance to my pro-life stance, I pretended I wanted children, and told people I wanted to have kids when I was older, even though I knew I didn’t. I’ve been an atheist (and anti-theist) since I was six, but because I was so determined to be a good conservative, I started reciting the “under god” line during the pledge of allegiance in school for a few days, even though I never had before. I even tried to convince myself that maybe I could follow some form of religion. I believed in aliens, why not god? That didn’t last for more than a few hours, but I was so obsessed with trying to fit in as a conservative, I was willing to try anything. For the end of the year essay in government class, I wrote about the “popularity of the conservative movement” (yikes). My life literally revolved around politics and my entire identity was conservative. I was completely brainwashed and I didn’t know it. The thing is, in middle school and freshman year, I lived for music and celebrity/Hollywood news, and I spent most of my time fangirling over my favorite artists. My life was music. Then in 2016 none of my favorite artists were putting out new music/content, and I just got bored and looked for something else to obsess over. And I chose politics. 

My life in middle school and freshman year revolved around music. It may seem a bit pathetic, but my entire life revolved around One Direction and Taylor Swift. My life had structure based around the routine music and content I’d get from them. Every year I’d get a One Direction album in  November, and every other year (on the even numbered years) in October or November, I’d get a Taylor Swift album, and every year there was at least one tour. And then in 2016 there was no One Direction tour and no Taylor Swift tour. November 2016 was the first year in a long time there was no new One Direction album. 2016 was also the first even numbered year in her career that Taylor hadn’t put out a new album. It was November 2016, my structure was gone, I was bored, and I had no new music to obsess over. But there was an election. And thus my new obsession began.

In middle school and freshman year I never truly identified politically one way or another, but I knew deep down I was liberal. I just would never admit it out loud to anyone because of how conservative my parents were and how much they always said they hated liberals. But in middle school and freshman year, I was liberal, I was a feminist, I was pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-LGBT. The only politics I ever cared about or got involved in were LGBT issues. I would write LGBT essays for school, or even just for myself. I’ve known I was bi since I was 10, and LGBT issues have always been my #1 political focus, even when I thought I was conservative. 

I didn’t switch to conservatism until November 2016. I even said to myself at the time “I know one day I’ll be liberal again”. In reality, I always was liberal, I was just desperately trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I was conservative. 

It got really bad in 2017. I spent the entire year watching conservative YouTube videos and Fox News. I think I watched so much conservative content because I was trying to make sure the brainwashing stuck. I think deep down I always subconsciously knew that I didn’t agree, but when all you consume all day everyday is conservative views, you’re going to convince yourself you do agree. I convinced myself I was conservative, I convinced myself I didn’t really care about the environment, I convinced myself I was pro-life, I convinced myself that I wasn’t a feminist, I convinced myself that I was panphobic and transphobic. I brainwashed myself completely and I still hate myself for it. I had a daily journal notebook and almost everyday in 2017 I would write something about politics, or Trump, or the videos I would watch. I think I was trying to write it down as much as possible to try to convince myself it’s what I believed. I was brainwashed but I was still trying to subconsciously fight the side of me that knew those weren’t my true beliefs. Maybe it was because I knew my parents had a habit of going through my things and reading my journals and I wanted to convince them I was conservative. 

For my birthday in 2017 in November I got Harry Styles’ debut album, Niall Horan’s “Flicker”, and Taylor Swift’s “reputation”. And I got really back into my fandoms. In 2018 I made a One Direction/Taylor Swift fan account on Twitter, and I was constantly getting content from all my favorite artists. Harry, Taylor, and Niall had tours, and Liam and Louis were putting out singles. 

In 2018 I still considered myself to be conservative, but every time I’d watch a conservative YouTube video I realized, and admitted to myself, I wasn’t agreeing with any of it. Every time I’d try to watch a video or Fox News, I’d be rolling my eyes and disagreeing. So I stopped altogether. I completely ignored politics, I stopped watching political YouTube videos and politicized news. I spent most of my time being involved in my fandoms online or watching baseball. 

In senior year (2018-2019) I became pro-choice again, and a feminist again. Part of me felt like I was lifting a horrible weight off of myself, and another part of me felt like I was admitting defeat. I’ve always been stubborn, and after two years of being brainwashed into believing I was conservative and hated liberals, it was hard to admit that I myself was in fact liberal. So I held onto the panphobia and transphobia. For a brief period of time in 2019 I was a pro-LGB panphobic bisexual terf (and yeah I hate myself for that, too). I had my beliefs but I never got involved in politics. Senior year in English I wrote my essay on LGBT issues and rights, and I don’t think I would’ve done that junior or sophomore year. During the summer of 2019, I watched MTV’s “Are You The One?” season 8 (fluid season) and it all just clicked. It was literally overnight. I stopped being panphobic. I stopped being transphobic. I stopped being a terf. My sudden switch back to liberal views really does prove to me that I always was liberally minded, and once I stopped trying to brainwash myself into thinking I was conservative, I was able to truly admit it to myself. 

I never posted my conservative “beliefs” anywhere online or told them to anyone at school, or left hate comments anywhere or discriminated against anyone. They were just thoughts in my head, and occasionally in my journals. 

I wanted to post this because I’ve spent the last year or so trying to desperately erase all evidence that I ever identified conservatively. I scratched out/covered up all my political journal entries from when I was conservative, tore up and recycled all my old school papers where I’d mentioned I was conservative, and painted over some conservative quotes/names/references on a collage my sister gave me for Christmas (that one I feel bad about, but I couldn’t bare to see those things represent me anymore). I even ripped out journal entries where I reflected on overcoming being conservative, and how I feel so much better believing in and supporting what’s right (or, well, left… get it?). I wrote that the highlight of my decade was becoming liberal again, supporting communities I’d turned my back on, and becoming a better person. I ripped out and threw those pages away because I wanted to forget I ever thought I was conservative. I want to stop pretending it never happened, acknowledge my faults and mistakes, and recognize my growth. Because I’m proud of that growth.

I wanted to create this blog to focus on politics in a healthy way, and share ideas that help people, rather than hurt them. This is not a liberal blog run by someone who has only known liberal politics and grew up in a liberal household. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who grew up surrounded by conservative politics and has spent time analyzing both sets of views, both sides. This is a liberal blog run by someone who knows just how bad conservative brainwashing can be, someone who experienced it first hand. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who wants to stand up for what’s right.