The fact that some people actually blame tumblr shipping culture for the reason men can’t show intimacy to each other without being perceived as gay is fucking mind boggling to me

PSA: Shipping & Fandom Culture.

I've been pretty quiet for the most part but this topic has been eating at me for a long while now so I wanna speak on the matter. I'm WELL aware that being in a fandom / fandom culture is toxic and has it's issues. Basically every fandom has it's problems, which is expected because like.. there's so many kinds of people on this earth. We're all bound to have our own thoughts, feelings and opinions. Everyone has a right to want to share those kinds of things, but you know what's really unnecessary? Shitting on a ship so much, saying that you want a certain character to DIE, and overall just being a petty person about it. It's one thing to not like a ship, but going around and doing that is so not necessary. I've seen it in so many fandoms it's insane. I'm well aware GumRob is not everyone's cup of tea. I know very well that Pokeshipping is shit on because of Serena. I've seen the fights in the Paw Patrol fandom over the "Skase" ship. I've seen so many Oc x Canon artists get ridiculed for ever 'daring to put their oc with someone in the canon'. I've seen.. a lot. Been on the internet a long time. Just let people enjoy their ships. (so long as it's not a harmful one, which let me be clear, GumRob is NOT a harmful ship.) For example; I've outwardly said I don't like JulRob (not calling it the other name.) but here's the thing. When I see JulRob art, I don't start commenting how 'bad' it is or shit on the artists' art of it. None of that. I simply scroll and move on with my life. Why should I make someone feel bad for their ship if it makes them happy? Why is it so necessary for you to feel the need to shit on that when you don't need to. I don't understand. I will NEVER tell someone that I dislike/hate their ship if it makes them happy. Hell, if an artist I follow posts a ship I don't like, but the art is still good? I'll tell them their art is good. You CAN compliment something without agreeing with it. Lmao, it's not hard. And also, it's not "fake" to do that. You can be nice to someone and their art even if you don't like the ship itself. I've seen cute Penball art and complimented it, even if Penball isn't my main ship. I'm not being 'fake'. It's not hard to be nice. It's really not. If you're an adult and you go around doing that? Grow up. Hell, block the tags if you need to. Stop being so miserable that you feel the need to spread your misery elsewhere. Go look in a mirror and grow the fuck up. 'scuse my French but I just.. I don't understand. (I mean, I get it, it's the internet, it's inevitable.) Which yeah, that's another thing, I'm well aware that the internet has always been like this. Fandoms are always like this. Ship wars are so common it's not even funny. I can't think of 1 fandom that doesn't have at least 1 shipwar, if not multiple. I know that me complaining about this really isn't going to change anything, but I hope the message at least gets across. Let people be happy, how fucking hard is that? It's not, so grow up. TDLR; Stop shitting on people's ships that aren't harmful and let people be happy :) It's not that hard.

Early MCYTblr Interviews: conarcoin

today's interviewee is conarcoin, runner in the 2020 MCYTblr elections, founder of gay castle, mod on the mcytblr-confessions blog, and MCYTblr veteran! below is a transcript of the questions and answers.

Q: You’ve been in MCYTblr for a long time, and participated in a lot of MCYTblr events, so let’s work our way through them. Can you tell me a bit about what 2020-2021 MCYTblr was like for you, or anything that immediately comes to mind when you think of it?

A: 2020-2021 MCYTblr was a shithole, but it was a shithole I made some really good friends in and I don't regret that period at all. I regret some stupid posts I made, sure, but overall? Nah. 2020 MCYTblr was always filled with drama as it was a transitional period - it was primarily made up of what we now call "truthers" and the scattered remnants of SMPblr, and that sort of caused a culture clash. I'm immediately reminded of the time I got into a huge drama for having the url "transtubbo" in 2020, which one ex-SMPblr user was not fond of. Also a lot of posts made by straight up weirdos like that one infamous "sex god whore" post.

(the url "transtubbo" was not a truthing thing, but a DSMP thing, but this was a time when truthers were still everywhere in MCYTblr and the divide between RP and real life wasn't as clear, which is how I ended up in hot water)

Q: I understand that you started and ran the “gay castle” discord server. Why was it created? What was your experience running it?

A: Gay Castle's still alive and well after 3 years. Me and a friend made the server in September 2020 due to being tired of the drama in another server we were in called Sleepyheads. It's a personal friend server, so we just invited people we thought were chill to hang out and have some laughs. I honestly would call Gay Castle my internet family, they're a wild bunch and we've had so many great times over the past 3 years.

Q: What was it like running the mcytblr-confessions blog? Do any confessions stand out to you from memory?

A: mcytblr-confessions is the child of me and like 10 or so other members of Gay Castle. The experience is mostly mundane, just queueing and deleting asks. We do get a lot of asks that get deleted due to breaking the rules and such, but it hasn't been particularly drama-filled or anything. There's way too many confessions that stand out to me, but personal favorites of mine will always include the Foolish peas anon, the Highcraft church anon, and the one about AustinShow calling anon Greg instead of their actual name.

Q: If my memory serves, you ran in the October 2020 MCYTblr elections. Who did you run as? What was your experience being a part of it?

A: I did, alongside a friend at the time who went by Fakenoblade. I don't remember too many details from that period of time. We ran as "Potato2020" and didn't get very far but we had fun. Cecilia (bless her heart, we're still mutuals even though we don't talk often) can do a really good Technoblade impression, so in call we had her say some funny lines that we edited into a promotional campaign video. Fun stuff.

Q: Are there any other events that stand out to you?

A: The day a bunch of content creators joined in 2021, mostly smaller ones. That was around the same time I became friends with Erin (@itselectralive), who is still one of my closest friends to this day and an absolute sweetheart. She got me onto a SMP she helped run called Balls SMP, which crashed and burned, but I had fun and met some cool people.

Q: Do you remember any of the main discourses/dramas that went through the community?

A: Apologist discourse, obviously. I didn't engage with it - I honestly didn't care for either c!Tommy or c!Dream - but it's hard to avoid it. Shipping discourse and boundary discourse. Honestly, I can't remember anything more specific besides the more general dramas.

Q: What do you remember most fondly from that time?

A: Honestly? Just early Gay Castle and also liveblogging the L'Manberg Election. That night was so much fun, one of the most vivid memories of that time period I have.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A: You guys should watch SMPLive. Not really, it's aged like piss and several creators ended up being freaks but it's still got a lot of funny jokes and interesting lore (believe it or not). From what I have seen, its fandom is the root of a lot of MCYT fandom's most obnoxious behaviors, but the people who are left and still care about it are really cool. It turned 5 this month!

thoughts about the giggle in no particular order because it's the episodes which im disappointed by that make me write about them

the ep felt very disjointed. various elements barely sewn together. something something toxic political internet culture and media driving people mad, also humanity is shit and rtd is somehow in his smug liberalism phase in 2k23, also the doctor needs to settle down and heal, and face his guilt over abandoning and/or being the cause for his companions' deaths. i guess. and here are creepy dolls which get defeated by just.. brute force (in an admittedly funny scene, but still)

so the first big element in this soup of ideas is the "people going mad corrupted by media" plotline. let's look at that shall we

why was the toymaker doing this? not just in-universe, but how is it his thing at all, like, conceptually? there was something said about how he "made everyone win" in the "game of the 21st century"... k'. it's just there because rtd wanted it there without much consideration about how it would fit the character.

the satellites mind-controlling people around the world is from the master's plan in season 3 finale, the archangel.

what was that weird story beat when kate was like "we can't shoot down the satellite because it belongs to another country and we have to ask permission :((" and the doctor was like "i permit it!" and she emphatically thanked him for that? like... thank god there is this higher power which can rule it necessary for the international organisation (from london tho) to do whatever it needs! to save the world of course

the commentary on ~society~ seemed trite, boring, cringy, patronising, heavy-handed and instantly dated.

so then there was the 1925 subplot. thematically sort of about how the uhh father abandoned his family (i think?), so that's sort of like the doctor abandoned his companions. realistically it's about the creepy dolls

"the doctor abandons his companions" and "the doctor gets his companions into danger so he should be sad about it" and "the doctor never settles down and it's his tragedy" im just tired of this. am i getting old lmao. idk i was nodding off during these dialogues. was there anything new to say here? on all these topics which have been talked about a lot? isn't all this just cheep "feels" and "depth" generator at this point

"am i just too old for this" was my general thought after watching the episode. i mean, i was enjoying the previous ones! i guess i wasn't too old for the star beast lol. i wasn't too old for being excited about the wonderful meep puppet! so this can't be it. but i just watched this scene of a craaazy villain doing his Iconic dance (Best Scene OMG So Camp!!1) and i was simply bored. i didn't even want to ship him with david tennant. am i the grinch?

am i too old for the mystery boxes. for "the one who waits" or whatever, and i think there were some other ohh mysterious things set up for the future. i mean we all know we're gonna be disappinted, right? we all know the it's gonna be crap? and i think moff has successfully put an end to "mysteries of the season" shtick with the hybrid arc. no more mysteries. no more season arcs with cryptic words. stop. staaahhp

im not even gonna talk about "handy 2.0, even more contrived this time". my brain just blanks. it doesn't want to take this information in and dedicate even a second to it. i'd rather think about the international law around unit and how it applies to the satellite situation

overall, i found this episode the weakest among the three specials. i ended the previous two feeling good, while this one left me disappointed. sadly, it's often the last impression which counts. while the previous two episodes had pulled me in, this one left me wondering again about whether the tennant regineration was a good idea in the first place. oh well. but im not losing my hopes for the next season yet!

the good omens meta post

this is not going to be very nice, and it will contain all the spoilers

I am a Good Omens book fan. Moreover, I am a Good Omens fandom fan, a fanfiction reader and writer since before the show ever came out. Also, I love Michael Sheen and David Tennant so much that I watched all three series of "Staged."

So when I say I found the show disappointing, I don't just mean as an adaptation, but as a piece of media that has to stand on its own feet. I know, for any viewer who wasn't invested in the Aziraphale/Crowley beats of the first season, it was basically unwatchable. I know because I tried to get a lot of non-shippers to watch, and the only people who could enjoy it at all cared about the love story at its heart. That's okay. It's nice when things are made for us.

The thing I love about shipping culture, and fan culture, is that it's a corner of the internet where soft-hearted people with big feelings and the desire to indulge in those feelings can be together in community. It's a place where we can intellectualize those feelings, or simply scream together. I've been in fandoms for more than two decades, oh my god. It's one of the only places I feel wholly seen, and totally accepted. (I mean, I've been a victim of online bullying, but who hasn't?) I deeply love my fellow fans. We are so creative, so sensitive, so observant. I really love us: what we make. What we do. How we speak. How we interact with media and transform it into something greater than the sum of its parts.

That's how I feel about Good Omens fandom. I think the works this fandom makes-- the art, the fic, the everything-- are overall of a higher quality than the book and the show. And that's okay. Some fandoms are like that. Not everything is eternal art, perfected to the highest aspiration of the medium. It's still valid. It still counts. It still carries a lot of meaning, for me personally and I know for you, if you're reading this.

I say all of this to contextualize why I felt season two was so genuinely mean-spirited. It felt cruel. I am a major fan of fan service, and I love being a fan who gets serviced. But this fan service reminded me of the book "How To Date Men When You Hate Men," in that it might well have been subtitled "How To Service Fans When You Hate Your Fans." It pointedly retconned moments from season one where people had written the most fill-in fics, e.g. having?????? them go???????? to a nightclub?????? AFTER A BLITZ BOMBING?! You know what people in London did after a Blitz bombing?! They hid in their homes or shelters with the blackout curtains on the windows until daybreak! I couldn't help but feel the zombie Nazis plot (what was that?!) was being used to make sure there was no room for the formerly ambiguous night after Aziraphale fell in love. After season one, fic writers had imagined hundreds of little sexy rendezvous after the Blitz bombing scene, but no more. Now, they can't be canon. In fact, nothing set in the past 6,000 years can be canon, now. So much of this season felt engineered to poison the sweet little ambiguities of season one, and you will never convince me it wasn't intentional.

I think it's important to say what we all know: fan activities like fanfiction and fanart are extremely femme-coded behaviors. Regardless of your personal gender identity, fanfic writers are majority female, and the other activities fans perform (making fanart, cosplaying) tend to be gendered (in the media and by outsiders) as somehow female. It's important that we acknowledge this even if it isn't true-- it's similar to the ways that careers like teaching and nursing are feminized, regardless of who actually teaches and nurses. This is also extremely important to acknowledge because women are PAINFULLY underrepresented behind the scenes of television.

Fewer women than men actually get to make the art that eventually inspires fandom. There were no female writers on Good Omens. There were no female directors. The cishet male creators, by which I mean to include both writers and the director (of Sherlock infamy, by the way), have no cinematic or narrative vocabulary for the androphilic gaze. [That's the gaze that sexualizes and objectifies men, a term on loan to me from a non-binary academic friend. It's the gaze we use when we write m/m slash. This is a larger discussion, but the reason you have predominantly femme writers and consumers of m/m erotica is in part because it is a break from the male gaze-- there is no man objectifying a woman in these stories. You might have a queer identity, too, and that might be part of it, but the fact is that one of the appealing functions of m/m erotica is the absence of a woman being objectified. We, the readers, get to do the objectifying-- in complete and utter contrast to most media. It also bears reiterating that regardless of your gender identity and sexual orientation, you exist in a world where Western media is constantly feeding you film and television from the POV of the male gaze. That is why m/m erotica especially, and to some degree f/f erotica, is transgressive, by the way. It's also transgressive to just find more than one man hot, because we're not supposed to.] Anyway, creators like the men who made Good Omens might really think they speak our language, but it will always be a second language to them, and a lot of nuance gets lost. In my opinion, that's why the kiss scene was so devastating. It was joyless.

I know people will say (and have said) that it was joyless and passionless in service of the angst, but fanfic readers know: having even a second of passion followed by the angst makes the pain that much sweeter. It would have made the conflict, and the cliffhanger, even harsher. The writers and director behind that scene do not understand what every fanfiction writer with a vibrator knows. They fundamentally do not understand us. It breaks my heart to say it, because I don't think it has to be true across the board, but I felt it so strongly with Good Omens, season two. I felt so strongly that they were trying to speak our language without having the humility to speak with us, to understand us. They understand us only as viewers and as consumers. They don't understand us as collaborators, because they don't think they have to collaborate with us. But fans are, in a very real sense, collaborators-- collaborators in making meaning, and collaborators in making other people money. Understanding that symbiosis is what transformative works are about. This season felt like it was intended to remind us that these characters are not ours. We are welcome to play in our own sandbox, but we are not a part of theirs. And if the show had bothered to hire any femme creatives, there may have been someone above the line to bridge the gap between what they thought they were doing and what we took from it.

I also can't help feeling that we're being held emotionally hostage to get the ransom money of a third season. IMO, the second season was genuinely bad television. Like, sincerely appalling storytelling. I'm talking about everything before the kiss, too. (I can't even discuss the kiss right now.) The so-called "mystery" of Gabriel's memory was nonsensical. We had no reason to care and the "clues" we followed were incoherent until the finale. It wasn't a fun mystery we could follow, and let's be honest, we were all just there for the Aziraphale/Crowley moments. Even those moments were wasted, imo.

What was the purpose of the magic show and the miracle blocker? Was it just for all the sexual double-entendres of giving and receiving and shooting guns? Because, I mean, I love a good dirty joke, but what was its utility in the structure of the season? What did we learn? Did anyone change? Did anyone go on a journey? It failed at every screenwriting 101 lesson I've ever been taught.

Why even have Crowley and Aziraphale setting up the lesbians if the lesbians aren't going to be set up? Why have a monologue about how you can't force two people together just because you want them to be together? That whole storyline felt like subtext (and not particularly subtle subtext) of the author stubbornly wresting narrative control from fans.

And it was FILLED with squandered opportunities. One of my favorite moments was Crowley referencing humans in the rain confessing their love a la Richard Curtis movies. Wow! What a beautiful set-up for his confession later in the-- wait, you're not even going to use that perfect set-up? OK, but you're going to do a set-up, right? Oh, you're not? You're just going to have the lesbians tell Crowley that he and Aziraphale have "never REALLY talked" and think that's a set-up? Girl, I guess!

I don't think on the basis of writing, Good Omens season two earned a third season. I would be very surprised if it got one. And if it doesn't get one, that's frankly justified! No one is going to watch this show who isn't there for Aziraphale/Crowley, which-- again-- are my people. But we are simply not enough, and a good show knows that it has to engage both shippers and casual viewers. My guess is that they don't get a third season, because no one but us hardcore fans will watch that trainwreck again and again, and then Ne*l Ga*man and the actors will do some kind of staged reading of a third season-ish script for charity or something to tie up the loose ends. I'm old-fashioned in that I think you should use the money and time and resources you've been given to tell a story, not just set up a story. I feel like fans are being held emotionally hostage to push Amazon to pay the proverbial ransom of a third season (and it is a ransom, it does line pockets that are not yours or mine). I feel like Ga*man made that explicit in some of his Tumblr posts!

Which is not to say the show might not have been more successful if indeed it had been the pure fan service everyone is saying it is. But also, it wasn't pure fan service. This was not an exercise in giving the people what they want. It was an exercise in asserting narrative control, which to me is the opposite of what fans want, need, and deserve.

🔥 shipping fandom 🔥

I have a variety of thoughts on this because I’ve seen a lot of discourse about it lol. I think shipping itself is like morally neutral like it’s not inherently good or inherently bad to get invested in and create writing or art about fictional romances, whether canon or not, but I think a lot of the frustrations that people have with the general culture surrounding it are fair to some degree. I think sometimes people act a bit overly superior for not engaging with it, but it’s true that some people can be very vocally defensive of it in a way where they refuse to confront the fact that creating sexual content about children is bad and there’s often a lot of racism and stereotyping that goes on as well, and I consider a refusal to acknowledge those things and a “let people enjoy things” response much more of a red flag than an inflated sense of self-importance over not engaging with it.

Also when people complain that people can only engage with stories through the lens of shipping, while I think that can be a bit of an over generalization because those things aren’t mutually exclusive and lots of people do both, there is certainly a subgroup of people who say they only read or watch stuff for the romance and it’s not just a case of people making up a person to get mad at imo. I think it’s one manifestation of a larger problem on the internet where people latch onto a specific type of content (sorry I hate that word I’m trying to find other ways of saying it), whether it’s late night comedy shows or memes or action games/stories, that provides a form of instant gratification and then tend to engage with lots of stuff through that lens to the exclusion of other things even when it’s not really appropriate or ends up being very limiting, and get overly defensive in response to valid criticisms of aspects of the genre because it’s become such a big part of their daily life. I’m sympathetic to having a short attention span because I struggle with it a lot too, and I don’t think it’s a problem exclusive to literature/reading or fandom as it exists on Tumblr (although that’s the form of it that you likely run into the most if you spend a lot of time on here so it’s reasonable to be frustrated with it), but I do think the overall trend is something that should be challenged on an individual and cultural level.

Yoyo what's up. I'm new to your channel server hopper.

Damn why do the incest ships somehow have better pun names that most ships I've seen? Wtf. I degrees. And agree, nu-fandom is overall soft and PC to the point they've shot themselves in the foot a couple times here and there either being so aggressively PC they are actually offensive and rely heavily on stereotypes only to turn around and say stereotypes bad. Or they are too faux pass in their attempts to seem progressive, idolizing white passing abled body lesbians or trans woman while leaving out anyone who doesn't fit that or biting at anyone who points out their homophobia, transphobia, ablesm, racism, and so forth.

Example: pretty sure one of the differences between earth and alternia is factual speaking the woman generally have more power than men? It's a queendom not a kingdom afterall, plus Karkat implied this a few times that men in troll culture are generally seen as weaker and emotional than raw emotional power houses that women are seen as. Or whatever, he calls nerdy violent things girly when they're seen as manly on earth.

Which means the earth equipment of Vriska breaking Tavros's legs is the earth equivalent a transman breaking a cis woman's legs because she's everything said transman wanted to avoid being because of toxic masculinity and social pressure to not be seen as weak period.

And in this light suddenly Vriska doesn't seem so progressive afterall. Hell even without the flip floppy lens, a trans girl breaking a cis dude's legs and the bullying him for being disabled even though she is the reason why he's disabled... Also not cool, it's just which would obviously get more backlash and why. But Vriska gets a pass because she's a girl, regardless if she was trans or not. That and like, have you seen the internet? It's filled with Vriskas. People who bully physically disabled people for being disabled but claim they're forward thinking and progressive. Looking at you TikTok and Twitter!

Also I'm sure black Jewish people do exist, but people are so quick to ignore the fact that ethically at the minimum, regardless of implied religiously, the Striders and the Lalondes are all Jewish. I've only seen blogs that mention it in like deep dives or random ass trivia. Like hey fandom, your gothic rose of the rose Mary duo is infact Jewish. Gothic Queer Jewish rep??? Hello????? They hype up the fact she's POC, or heavily headcanoned by the dubious canon epilogues era of canon writers to be but...like no mention of the fact she's Jewish. Ever.

Also the fandom hates pale skinned minority groups period, not everyone who has pale or general light 'white passing' skin is white. Asian people and Latinos who are white passing exist, for example. But they also LOVE to make the "good" characters (or loved by the fandom collective anyways) that they declare POC coded lighter skinned than their direct family who is seen as 'bad' which they make darker skinned in turn. Example is Meeneh is often depicted with Darker skin than Feferi in the fandom like a lot.

And you know it's not a fanon copying 'problematic' canon problem because this shit is happening exclusively in the fandom where it's common place to give trolls toned skin based on their blood color, or to imply they'd be POC or whatever if they were human I guess??? All the while all the trolls across the board in canon have the same tone of grey skin.

Why do the fuck the fandom has to throttle canon for being racist only to turn around and be actually racist themselves??? The fuck?

It is often the hypocrisy. The nu-fandom claims believe they are progressive, but don't see the implications of racism and sexism they would create themselves. To go far as spread misinformation on saying things like "Gamzee and Meenah are black caricatures in the webcomic". I'm just here like....why?!

People get bullied irl all the time over fiction. Hell I myself was treated like utter subhuman scum for by my peers for being an anime fan growing up. They treated me like a monster. I get really jealous when I see people being open about their niche/fucked up interests and nobody have a problem with it.

I would actually hazard a guess that culture has become more liberal and "you do you" over the last decade or so. My fairly conservative corner of Alabama has actually liberalized to the point of "I'm supposed to care about this because??" coming up in a number of culture war conversations. Conservatives will always be assholes and a lot of kids are assholes (I was definitely treated as the weird kid in school - both because I'm Native and I was very into Warrior Cats), but overall... a lot of adults don't care anymore.

I think a lot of Fandom drama is minors not understanding that adults usually have other concerns or adult fans who need to get off the internet. Minors are generally going to take fandom things (like shipping) more seriously than adults and that's a good thing! It's part of growing up and forming your unique concept of morality! When it crosses the line, though, is harassment, doxxing, sui bait, and swatting.

It's also normal to feel jealous. You might want to talk to a trained professional to work through your feelings if they really bother you. I'm in no way a professional, though, so I won't ramble on too much about that.

Sorry if this is a rambling mess. Thanks for your comment!

quiet post just bc i saw some Discourse on my dash and felt like putting in my opinion but not bothering the ops.

tw: abuse / child abuse / rape / cnc / grooming

OK SO first off was an anon sending an artist a link to an article about why ahegao (that tounge out, cross eyed sex face) was "problematic"

i fucking hate the term problematic and internet cancel culture as a whole. that's pretty much this entire post.

yes, i admit i am a white person inserting themselves into a conversation about the abuse asian people receive. this Isn't My Place. whatever.

the article quoted some twitter posts by asian people sharing their stories of the abuse they received specifically regarding ahegao but also racist stereotypes as a whole. i'm not trying to downplay the fact that these people were abused/groomed/etc by racists. shit like that happens. it sucks. ahegao originated from a child rape fantasy manga from the 80s. these stereotypes do exist, and it does contribute to some racist abuse. but overall i don't think it's that big of a deal

it feels like the same conversation people have regarding ~problematic~ topics in fiction, ie: rape/cnc, pedophilia, incest, murder, etc. just because someone is into a fictional incestuous ship does not mean they endorse that in real life! just because someone reads a detective novel does not mean they want to go out and murder someone! it's all fantasy. yes, there may be some people out there who take this fiction and attempt to normalize it, there are people out there who take hentai too far and beat women over it. it's a shitty situation! racists and abusers should be stopped!

idk i cant think of a good closing statement now but tldr: ahegao face being declared "problematic" and thus banned from the internet is stupid

next thing is a small comment re: the fandom shit that blew up in the arcane (lol show) section of the internet

jason spisak (va for one of the main characters that a great many people (myself included) simp for) posted a (poor) cosplay of himself in character. somewhere in the tornado that followed, it apparently came out that he is currently dating a 22 year old fan, while he himself is in his 50s. he has subsequently been "canceled" because of this

my take: so fucking what! they're both consenting adults (technically, before anyone comes at me with the 25 brain thing) and also, people griping about "not pandering to people who have a parasocial relationship" how bout you stay out of his fucking business? who gives a shit who he is or isnt dating. its the damn nerd equivalent of people screaming about the kardashians. just stfu

(tbh i havent actually seen a whole lot of this discorse, i just got whiffs of it when it broke but it has also been bugging me)

actually yknow what i do have some thoughts abt this i wanna get out not only abt danganronpa but problematic media as a whole and to start i do think the reason dr is so rife with discourse about being Problematic or not just has to do with the history of how the series came overseas and it does lead to a larger discussion on how to engage with media critically i think. like for dr you had to be the Dankest of Weaboos to get into it when it launched, with a whole ton of overseas non-tld stuff slowly coming in for about 2-3 years before it actually got popular here, and the series' specific style of playing with tropes, stereotypes, the artstyle, all of it just kind of conglomerated into a very recognizable and love it/hate it type series where the fanbase was mainly a whole bunch of impressionable progressive teens, and really just being on this age group with a shifting internet culture is part of whats made dr endure for so long as a memorable series. you had people growing up and out of it you had people being very into it people being very against it and a lot of the discourse surrounding it was infamous bc dr DOES have problematic aspects to it but (and this part is very important) those unfortunate aspects arent what the series is about, and the venom came from trying to reconcile that. i feel like a lot of modern internet culture has this issue with reconciling the problems of their media because so much modern progressivism is performative and the fast nature of this culture means people have to sanitize themselves as much as possible lest they face the horrible loss of internet clout. people either take misplaced embarrasing pride in ~denouncing problematic media~ or are entirely uncritical of media with problematic elements as a way to defend it and generally both of these are unhealthy ways to engage in media, not even mentioning stuff like shipping culture and peoples staunch refusal to engage in media unless they can ship things in it, or how people just run with a shows base concept and make millions of au concepts out of it without really appreciating what the media is about. and look, people are free to enjoy/engage with media in any way they want, if someone wants to make 15 million coffee shop au fluff fics about whatever new movie came out they can do that, but the problem with those mindsets come from when inevitably they step out of that bubble and have to engage with other media critically, it leaves them unprepared, because the fact of the matter is that no media is truly unproblematic. there will always be some failing people can find, whether at fault of the creator or audience, theres no perfect pure piece of media out there, and where this really comes into play is when making the distinction between problematic media, and media with problematic elements. problematic media is stuff like hp or aot, where the inherent racism/sexism/transphobia/etc is a CORE, DEFINING PART of that series’ themes, vs media with problematic elements (like dr), where they’re unfortunate side effects. does it suck that theres racism/sexism/transphobia in dr? absolutely. should it be excused/overlook? no. is the racism/sexism/transphobia what the series is about? absolutely not. another good example i could point too is fate bc anyone who knows even a little about fate knows that, unfortunately, theres these problematic aspects in every corner of the series, but the reason theres such hardcore fans is because those problematic aspects arent what the series as a whole is about. this doesnt annul any discussions on these problematic aspects, and moreover its actually IMPORTANT to have these conversations because theyre a part of critically analyzing media, but overall its a matter of taking the good with the bad. no one is holding anyone at gunpoint to like anything or excuse anything, and you can just Not vibe with a piece of media, but people arent evil for liking media with problematic elements. and really instead of picking fights its important to be able to engage critically with any type of media and make peace with any problematic elements whatever media you may enjoy might have in them by actively being aware of these problems and being open to discussions on these issues rather than taking these criticisms personally and denouncing any criticism altogether. theres absolutely nuance to this btw depending on the vast variety of different media franchises that exist but overall being uncritical of media as a way to either denounce it or defend it is ultimately a losers game for both and only hurts any type of meaningful discussion to be had, especially with the assumption most of the time that liking media with problematic elements = excusing these aspects. please just be critical with media and be kind with people

Hey, bestie! Not ship/fandom related, so if you dont want to answer it, it s understandable. But i was wondering, how you have been holding up mentally and psychologically with the pandemic so far?

OH HI BESTIE😂okay wow heavy question lol but alas why not overshare to strangers on the internet, am I right? Who better to listen🌚putting a wee read more thingy cause I don’t wanna clog up people’s dashboards ahisshsvdsb

Honestly, I’m glad enough that my family and friends have stayed healthy and well throughout the pandemic and we haven’t lost people like I know many families have suffered. I know some others haven’t been as lucky and honestly it’s heartbreaking to even think about❤️

Uhhh in terms of mentally and physiologically?🤡oh bestie cannot say I have done well in that sense. I went through two of the most important years of my high school education in lockdown and it fucking sucked ass. Nobody was prepared for the shit show Covid brought down on us but god the schools were just shocking and it felt like at times they didn’t mind things slipping even if it was at our expense?

I really struggled with online school and it really fucked my grades over, which kinda sucks when you’re a person who puts all your purpose and worth on academic achievements, ya know? It was just extremely shitty because I had set goals for what I wanted to do after school and the next thing I know I’ve been rejected from all my unis and the exams are cancelled and the school are using shitty class tests to determine our grades? Not exactly a great feeling. And I think my parents just didn’t know how to handle it either and taking a gap year or going to college just made their desi brains go “FAILURE! DISAPPOINTMENT!” cause that’s unfortunately how it usually is in our culture.

But I think the pandemic did make me sit back and be like “oh shit you need to do something about this” and so I did have a moment of venturing into some medical help for my mental health because let’s be real, the pandemic stirred that shit up in the worst way possible. And I got an official diagnosis of anxiety and depression, rather than just anxiety which was what I thought it was💀uhh tried some medications, they were shite but hey ho, so were the GPs so we are kinda just…ignoring that for the time being

I did put a lot of self-worth on the uni and grade situation, and honestly it made me feel so fucking shit about myself. I was dealing with my parents saying things about how I didn’t try properly or saying to my little brother not to be a failure like me. And it sucked big time because I love my parents and I know the extents they went through to put me and my siblings through private education to give us a better chance, and those shit grades made me feel like I wasted their money, ya know? It was just an overall shit experience that made me feel like I didn’t really wanna get out of bed anymore and it honestly made me push away a lot of people because it felt like everything revolved around uni and that shit just made me feel down af, it was hard to be happy for people so I’d rather just distance myself so I didn’t ruin their mood.

However, I think coming back onto tumblr and using it more often and even starting to write and post helped a lot this year. I’ve always loved writing, it’s an escape for me and it was really needed during these times. And I’ve met some wonderful, amazing people through this little app and have a bunch of people I speak to every day on this blog even through anons which is honestly just brilliant, I do love our wee corner of the internet❤️

Even three years on since this mess began, I still have shit days and it still sucks. But I’m human and I’m learning and I’ve made a new life plan that’s a little different from what I had dreamed about since I was 12 but hey, different can be good sometimes and I’m honestly trying to just take it one day at a time :)

When you first got into mtl, did you think you'd still be here? Also what is your overall opinion of how the fandom/community has changed since the early days?

oh man that's such a good question :O

i always wanted to hope i'd still be here? but a few years in i definitely started feeling my interest wane, and i spent so much time away from the fandom that i kinda just assumed the magic had run its course. BUT THEN DGHDFG

and yeah, to me, the fandom has changed sooooooooo much. and really just all fandom in general has gone through some really surprising changes, most for the better. in mtl at least, there used to be a LOT more acceptance of just really, really abhorrent concepts and humor. granted this was the cultural hellscape of the mid-2000s, but still. i was definitely guilty of it, too, but i grew up, and there came a point in time where i got on deviantart and removed a few of my older works because they were insensitive and wrong. i'm really glad that fandom as a whole nowaways takes more care in how they approach certain subjects. trigger tags/subject warnings are used with SO much more prevalence, which is so nice.

i do think back then there was generally a more welcoming atmosphere? we were all just weird little people trying to grasp on to other weird little people because the internet was smaller back then and there were less places for us to find each other. but at the same time that welcoming came at a price because it meant allowing some things that, in hindsight, were revolting and didn't belong in a fun fandom environment and probably made some people feel very uncomfortable and, ironically, unwelcome. so i am glad the fandom puts its foot down now about stuff like r*pe used thoughtlessly as a plot device and in*est/un*erage ships.

that said, current fandom can go a little too far with the feet-putting-down sometimes. like assuming someone must be such-n-such way because of a character they like. oh you ship those two (adults) together, you must think it's okay to ab*se people. what?? it's a bit much sometimes @__@

i am really glad i came back though :) i've changed, the fandom has changed, and it's been a really wonderful experience overall

Early MCYTblr Interviews: Anonymous

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harley Quinn anon here; It's seems they were both targeting both the writer and the bi person around the same time the whole 'Ivy is a lesbian' discourse started, it just happens the bi person was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It just one of those thing that got blown out of proportion (as always on the internet). I guess the people angry at the writer maybe got too involved with the DC alternate universe comic DC Bombshells where they made a few characters lesbian instead of their current canon sexuality? (I'm trying to figure out why a bi character existing isn't the right type of 'gay' for some so called fans) I do agree with you on the Winn side of things In regards to the Supercorp thing; The other shows made by CW are absolutely terrible at writing romances for both het couples and lgbt couples (Riverdale). And in general their overall storytelling is rushed and rarely consistent with with their characters (*coughs* Kara being capable of kicking her cousin's arse *coughs*). So as much as I love Supercorp, I know the CW would just make it shit as the show is now (thank god for fanfics) Lar Gand aka Mon El and tv Mon El aren't the same person in a lot of ways. Same with Maggie Sawyer; in the comics she's a divorced lesbian with a kid. They've kept some of his hot headedness but really, as someone commented on the previous ask, he is Superman's Dick Grayson.... up until the rebirth canon... they did the Legions real dirty including my boy Lar Hell even in the recent comic canon (not rebirth) on Prime Earth Lena Luthor is a decent person (she hasn't committed crimes unlike her alt earth), though I think she has cancer or something? I'll double check that Anyway, I guess I'm just annoyed about the petty bullshit and just how the CW has handled all of their DC content. It's an unnecessary shit show during a pandemic :/

We love cancel culture... It's beautiful, how people take htings out of context and blow thing out of proportion to hate on the others and even don't give them space to learn things or dunno, change their minds or simply having different opinion that still can be correct.

I remember the Bombshells and them making some version of Kara lesbian and dating Lois and that was used as a proof sc endgame. That were the easy years.

I don't watch other shows, so I don't know. Sometimes i see Avalance on my dash and most people are happy about them, but some complain. You can't make everyone happy, I guess. But I have zero knwoledge about other CW shows (minus SPN, LOOOL)

But you know, CW in general sucks in the shipping and couples department. Is there a show that made them right?

As for the storytelling, especially in SG, I blame Jessica and Rowner (Rovner? too lazy to check). They both had zero knowledge or LOVE for comic books and it shows. Gossip Girl Woman should have not have been involved in a show based on comic books, end of story. They seriously have no idea what to do with KARA, not only every other charcter.

On the other hand Kara kicking Kal's ass was in AK's era (fuck him very much). Am I the only one annoyed how Kara's biggest strenght is her personality, compassion etc? And that her physical strenght is important and yay for kickng asses, but that's not the core of her strenght???

Yeah, I know they fucked up Mon Mon and he is not like his comic book selves, but I still I enjoyed him very much. Still annoyed how they erased his allergy easily, because him struggling with health is one of his nice flaws in the comic, ignored the Daxam - Krypton issues and made it "Daxam bad, Krypton good" thingy and erased his historian-engineering kinks? Plus, Imra???? I can't imagine being a comic book fan and not breathing fire.

The worst thing is Chris would absoulutely NAILED that Mon-El TT

Somewhere she was decent but on wheelchair, I think and of course we could have not gotten that.

I think you are not teh only one.

It did, and I feel you. Also, it's super nice to exchange thoughts with not typically butthurt sc stan here, so thanks :D

Your take on cancel culture and stan culture?

Oh boy, oh boy, it's happening.

Alright, let's talk about toxic people on the internet. And keep in mind that my opinion goes beneath the mcyt community. I feel the same about the kpop community and any other community that is famous for having lots of toxic people. 

Also, keep in mind that this is my opinion about these topics, I don’t intend to offend or misinform anybody. I might be wrong, and if I am wrong indeed, please help me correct any mistake that I’ve done.

Cancel culture

Before ranting about its toxicity, let's understand what it actually means and how it works.

What is cancel culture? 

Well, according to Wikipedia, “cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person” (source). 

Basically, cancel culture is the process of ceasing offering support to a public figure after saying or doing something that is considered objectionable or offensive. 

In theory, cancel culture is a good thing that helps the victims speak up and properly defend themselves, as well as preventing other people from doing the same mistakes. No harm done to innocent people, just a way of saying why a certain person or a certain company has done something that really hurt a category of people. Some even say that it’s an exercise of free speech.

However, while a culture that encourages calling out inappropriate behaviour is important, a culture that is quick to cancel and reluctant to forgive is something that divides the internet and starts wars in the trial of defending an opinion that is not shared by every single person on the internet, thus becoming the thing that its purpose is to defeat. (a vicious cycle of hatred)

So why is it toxic?

From my point of view, I don’t think that cancel culture is a toxic thing in theory. But the way people actually use it is what concerns (and bothers) me. 

In its current form, anonymous and fuelled by negative emotions, cancel culture has the power to destroy a person’s career in a matter of minutes. There are no gray areas, just the white and black pack mentality: “I am right and you are wrong”. 

The subject of the cancelation becomes “cancelled” for disagreeing with a certain opinion, and the cancelled one feels like the whole world is hating them. No one can argue that going through a cancellation, no matter how big or small it is, can severely affect one’s mental health and leave them scarred for life. 

Cancel culture, at this point, is bullying someone famous without facing the consequences. We are already used to surf the web and stumble across someone’s cancelation over something that not even in our wildest dreams we would be able to imagine otherwise. 

I think that all of us are familiar with a stupid cancelation, like canceling someone over a burger that somehow became the sole reason of obesity (see: Dream MrBeast burger). We can’t help but laugh at people trying to cancel someone for a stupid reason. 

But, unfortunately, not all of our cancelations are stupid or laughable. There are people cancelled over their physical aspect or them not being political active, people cancelled over being friends with certain people or over saying something that is now considered to be slightly offensive a few years ago. The ones who are under the spotlight can’t make jokes or take decisions by themselves, they are supposed to be the marionettes of their fans. 

(I do not intend to say that all cancelations are bad, but I’m trying to highlight how the majority of the most recent cancelations are out of place. If someone actually tries to actively harm your minority, your beliefs etc. you should call out that inappropriate behaviour, but without purposely harming that person as a means of payback) 

There is also a toxic behaviour that I’ve noticed in a cancelation: the “I forgive you”/”I don’t forgive you” phrase used by people who have no right to do so. If you are part of the minority who has been hurt, then you have every right to forgive or not someone for saying or doing something hurtful towards your minority. 

But if you are not a part of that minority, shut the f*** up. By speaking on behalf of a minority while you aren’t part of that minority you take away the right of actually addressing the issue from the people who are part of that minority. You can support them from the sides and let them express their pain with their own voice. They perfectly capable of addressing the issue, they need your support but not you taking the spotlight away from the actual problem.

What is my take on cancel culture?

I think that there are more civil ways of resolving an issue without actively trying to destroy someone’s career. Instead of cancelling that person, we could educate them (but not in that harmful way I’ve seen on twitter) on the subject and on why their words or actions are hurtful. 

We should remember that we are all humans and that every human makes mistakes. Don’t forget that children learn by making mistakes. And while I’m well aware that we are not talking about children here, you should also be well aware that we are talking about actual humans with feelings. 

Cancelation should be the last weapon we use, but only if that person refuses to give an apology and educate themselves on the subject. 

Overall, don’t. Just don’t cancel people. Don’t attack people on the internet. Don’t try to harm people on the internet. 

Some of you might disagree with my opinion and I’m open to criticism as long as you can help me educate more on the subject.

Now let’s move on to the other topic

Stan culture

Before I start talking about this one, I’d like to point out that stans actually scare me, a lot. 

What is stan culture?

“Stan culture describes an online phenomenon in which communities of stalker fans, or stans, engage in overly enthusiastic support of a favorite celebrity online (called “stanning”), including at times vehement, coordinated attacks against detractors and critics” (source). 

Basically stan = stalker + fan. 

There are also people who say that the word stan comes from Eminem’s song “Stan” which tells the story of a crazed fan. I do recommend listening to the lyrics of this song if Eminem is not your cup of tea, it’s a good intake in what stan culture was at the beginning of 2000′s.

To be honest, I don’t have anything more to add at this section. Anything more I’d say would, in the end, be the same as what was already stated. (but you can see my opinion on it with more comments at the end)

It stan culture toxic?

You have to live under a rock if you had never seen a stan on twitter or tumblr. You usually recognize them by their profile pictures, the content they share, their posts and their ready to argue behaviour in case you insult or disagree with the ones they worship. 

I’d like to point out that there is a fine line between a stan and a fan: stans know no length when it comes to defending their object of worship and often have really toxic ways of expressing their opinions, while a fan is there just to enjoy their favourite content without engaging in harmful discussion and hate speeches. 

This topic is filled with controversy. In essence, stanning should be a means of showing support. The majority of them don’t even realize the toxicity they spread only after leaving the fandom. 

The real problem here is the moment when they engage in conflicts without entertaining the thought that they might be wrong. Anything they do is right and their object of worship can say or do no mistake. This extends to the point of sending death threats and even doxxing. 

For those who don’t know about doxxing, short for dropping dox: doxxing is an internet slang that means to publish personal information (of an individual) on the internet. You can find more about it here.

With no intend to disrespect or disregard one’s religious beliefs, you can say that stanning is like being part of a religion. The stans are the extremist people who practice that religion, while the fans are those who practice it from time to time (eg. like a Christian who goes to Church only on Christmas and Easter - me). 

In the end, stan culture is toxic to both the stans and celebrities. 

Is there a connection between stan culture and cancel culture?

They are both toxic internet cultures, this one is right for sure.

From what I’ve noticed during my short timed stay on twitter, a lot of cancelations are made by stans from the same community or different communities. 

I’m part of mcyt community, so I’ve seen a lot of Dream fans and Dream antis fighting over the past months, trying to cancel each other and harm each other. It’s mental seeing people actively trying to do these kind of things just because they love or hate a certain person. Of course that we can’t tie the situation to a certain content creator. 

I know that his also happens a lot in the kpop community where stans are in a constant fight to destroy the career of each other’s favourite idol group or bias (someone's most favorite member of an idol group). 

What is my take on stan culture?

I feel like I need to repeat myself: stans scare the s*** out of me. 

It’s like their sole purpose in life is to support someone and don’t have the basic sense of boundaries. A lot of problems arise with this: like shipping people who are uncomfortable being shipped with, intense sexualizing (sexualizing the minors is the worst from my point of view), creating drama and intentionally ignoring real world problems just to make their favourite person(s) trend, and the list is so long that I feel like I’d create a record on tumblr for the longest post if I go on. 

We are talking about some weird adaptation of Lord of the Flies where children raise each other on the internet. It’s like a cult and they are brainwashed into believing what everybody else thinks. And the worst part is that I don’t think we’ll ever get better from this, things are only going south to heaven. 

I might be wrong and biased, so I do expect someone to help me understand these topics better, but for now these are my firm opinions. 

I’d also like to clarify, once again, that in the religion example I’m not making fun of Christianity, I’m just using it as a means to help people better understand my point.

Vox article about the infamous wall of tags fic.

tl;dr at the end

What it’s about and why we care / article quotes:

All that, by itself, isn’t enough to make STWW remarkable — not on a website as wild and unpredictable as AO3. Yet the fic has become impossible for many AO3 users to ignore thanks to a unique quirk: Its author has linked it to more than 1,700 site tags (and counting).

Guides to how to block the fic have cropped up. For example, I use a Chrome extension that blocks fics with too many tags (you can specify how many tags is too many — I picked 50); there’s also simple site code that you can add to your custom site “skin” to block the fic completely from search results, as well as other workarounds.

But the usefulness of these options is limited. Site skins only work for logged-in users. Website extensions don’t work on mobile. Many other workarounds aren’t compatible with adaptive technology like screen readers used by disabled people and others — and if you think having to scroll past the tags on a phone is obnoxious, imagining getting stuck on it while a screen reader laboriously recites all 1,700 tags out loud.

(Emphases mine.)

My take on this specific fic:

I was sympathetic when I thought that maybe the author is just unaware of what they’re doing - but they have been made aware, they know exactly the effect they are having on other users and the community at large, and they’re still doing it.

[The author] acknowledged the controversy around their fic but emphasized that they were operating completely within AO3’s rules. “If AO3 has a category or a big red warning checkbox to say ‘click this to read crazy fics’ then I should put my fic in there,” they joked. “People are free to search (my) fic or exclude the fic using tags.”

Virtual1979 also remained steadfast when I pointed out that their fic was breaking the site for disabled users, stressing that the onus should be on AO3 — not them — to make enforceable site changes.

So now my sympathy’s all dried up. I do not remotely believe them when they say they aren’t a troll. Maybe they truly didn’t start out trolling, but they were repeatedly asked to stop, told about the impact they were having, and have themselves admitted on their Twitter account that they are laughing all the way to the bank.

A tweet they have since deleted - I did not think to grab a screenshot. So here is a screenshot of them saying they routinely delete their own Tweets, and their reaction to people who ask them to stop over-tagging their fic:

Maybe they started out as a well-intentioned new poster, unfamiliar with AO3 or how tagging works. And knowing fandom, I’m sure they faced some harassment for it. However, given they’ve been repeatedly asked to stop, and explicitly told how they are negatively affected so many other users’ ability to interact with the fandom and the website as a whole...and do not care, and continue to keep at it?

Freedom of speech gives them the right to be an asshole, but it also gives me the right to call them an asshole.

But, I do understand why AO3 isn’t banning them, and I agree with AO3′s current decision not to remove this fic. There needs to be some deeper changes, but banning this specific author or fic right now would likely cause more problems down the road than it solves right now.

What is the line for “Too Many Tags”? What would it mean for authors of non-anthology works? What impact would banning this over-tagged fics have on other over-tagged-but-not-as-badly fics? What will it mean for our culture of curating your content and experiences if blacklisting tags gets compromised due to such limits?

I’ve been frustrated by over-tagged fics before, and I certainly hope this will make other, well-meaning, good-faith authors reconsider decisions while compiling anthologies of their disconnected works going forward. Neither of these mean fans should expect AO3 to respond to mob rule and ban this fic.

My take on this article beyond this specific fic:

I disagree with the implication from the article that this is related to fandom’s longstanding issues concerning racism (and other -isms and -phobias) in fanfic. After all, the vast majority of fandom’s racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. isn’t tagged. At most, you can expect that certain ships or tags probably mean there will be certain racist tropes.

This does a disservice towards fans of a ship who don’t partake in or propagate those racist tropes - I myself included in that group. I routinely got comments on my fic from people who expected me to use racist tropes and fanons because of the ship tag on my fic, as these tropes were (and really, still are) so strongly associated with the ship. More importantly, there is no reliable way to tell from a fic’s meta-data whether there will be something in the fic the author doesn’t identify.

The fundamental problem with racism in fandom is not “people are making these racist things” but “people refuse to acknowledge these things they are making are racist” - and AO3′s meta-data is entirely self-identifying.

If an author does not think their work is racist, then they will not tag it as such, which means the rest of us will have no way of knowing until after we’ve already read the racism.

“Curate your own reading” is very applicable to things authors are willing to identify and tag in their own works - such as kinks, violence, etc. But if it is something the author did not intend, and does not agree with/identify, then readers who oppose it cannot curate against it.

Which is why I find this paragraph so misleading, specifically the part I bolded:

Throughout 2020, during sustained discussions across social media about structural racism and other toxic elements in fandom, AO3 users repeatedly requested that the site add basic features that could help users avoid involuntarily engaging with fics they found toxic or harmful. For example, currently there’s no real way to officially sanction a writer who includes racist elements in their fanfiction — the site’s abuse policy FAQ doesn’t mention race, and there’s currently no way to “warn” readers about racially charged elements in a fic. (You can warn readers about other controversial fic content, like character deaths, non-consensual scenarios, and underage characters.) And there are many readers who’d like to avoid engagement with fics and authors they deem to be racist.

These are tags an author can add onto their own work...but readers cannot warn other readers about an author’s work! And to be clear, I think that’s a good thing overall - readers being able to add their own tags to someone else’s work leaves way too much room for abuse, which would happen far more than readers warning other readers about things the author refuses to identify or tag. My point here is that apart from “how to deal with works and authors you already know are assholes”, there is no connection between this specific fic and its ensuing mess, and the broader problems of pervasive racism in fandom.

The only thing the wall of tags situation and the fandom racism situation have in common, at least in relation to AO3, is that fans want to block certain authors or works whom you already know are assholes. This, the Vox article got right.

However, there are many, many ways to be an asshole other than racism. There are many reasons to block specific works or authors besides racism. There are many types of abuse and harassment besides racism. Acting as if “blocking toxic works or people” is inherently and automatically about the on-going discussions about race in fandom reduces racism to individual acts and actors, and ignores its nature as a systemic problem.

tl;dr

While there are work-arounds to avoid that fic with 1700+ tags (and others), these workarounds are very limited in their helpfulness.

Author has the right to do this, but freedom of speech also gives the rest of us the right to call them out for their poor behavior. I 100% believe they are now an intentional bad-faith actor / troll, even if they did not necessarily start out as one.

Despite my disdain, I understand and agree with AO3′s decision to not remove the fic or ban the author, however much I hate them both. All of AO3′s decisions have ramifications and implications beyond the immediate situations they are made for. This one fic/author should not get to chip away at AO3′s mission against censorship.

Apart from the very broad nature of blocking toxic people or abusive works, I don’t think this situation has anything to do with racism. Implicating individual behavior and tagging as a related referendum is reductive to the systemic nature of fandom racism.