#tumblr app PLEASE. i have to accidentally get embroiled in bug discouse. bugcourse if you will

[elftwink]

re: "moralizing disliking bugs" I believe this is a strawman reference to people saying it's bad to say that specific pest bugs are a "worthless species," ignoring the key role they play in their ecosystem. not to drag you into any discourse, it's just that i have seen this whole conversation play out

see thats my feeling too, bc all the bug content i see is like "i love bugs theyre so cool 😎 🪲" "🐞 [photo of bug] here's what kind of bug this is!" and occasionally "i wish people would respect bugs more for their vital role in the ecosystem and stop reacting with automatic fear and disgust without knowing anything about the insect in question" or even "i wish people would stop saying cruel things about bugs when i mention my interest in them, and if you talked about any other animal this way it would be obvious why that isn't appropriate behaviour"

but the post in question specifically said it wasn't about those people, and that talking about their role in the ecosystem was NOT what they were complaining about. which implies a person who specifically is claiming that you are a bad person if you personally dislike bugs for any reason

i have NEVER seen this implied person and their position is inherently ridiculous to me. my impulse is to immediately agree with you and say this is a strawman of posts asking you to interrogate your own fear of bugs because so many people really do not know anything about insects and say things like "kill it with fire!!" when they see a perfectly harmless creature that moves in a way that makes them slightly uncomfortable. to me, defensiveness of this request is the biggest reason you would be compelled to make a post about how you're not a bad person if you dislike bugs and bugs can be dangerous and you have good reason to be scared (because to me this is so obvious it need not be stated. like if you brought up dog attacks in every discussion about dogs. just not relevant so it feels like a deflection)

but... if you showed me a post that literally said "you're actually a terrible person if you hate bugs btw yes even if you're allergic yes even if you're literally currently in the hospital getting treatment for an extremely serious insect bite if you don't love bugs you ARE going to hell and all the bugs will be in heaven and the live ones will dance over your grave when you die which is hopefully soon" id be like 'yeah of course you'd be on here'. like. typical opinion in the replies of a post with 25k notes. but also that's how i talk about people who dislike carly rae jepsen so. actually i think i made my hypothetical post too funny because i would reblog that if it was on my dash

what im trying to say is: because of the nature of this site i cannot rule out that there does exist people who will send you anon hate for your personal dislike of bugs—even if you express it on your own blog without bothering anyone who does like bugs and making several disclaimers about the importance of bugs to the environment and what have you—even if ive never seen them and cannot imagine anyone sincerely acting that way. because people on this website sincerely believe a great many opinions that would literally never naturally occur to me. what i will say is that i hope this person and i continue to travel onwards on our journeys, blissfully unaware of each other forevermore