Toiled long hours in the ontology mines with a friend to make this. Criticism will not be accepted

why do i feel like the aot fandom as a whole is becoming more and more toxic 🥺 i hate seeing this once peaceful place be filled with hate and shipwars and just pointless discourse...like i feel very protective of this fandom in a way bc i’ve been here for like 7 years and though there’s been ups and downs everything’s still been pretty chill and stuff but this last year has just made it very tough to be around here. idk if it’s cuz of covid or s4 or the manga ending but like why is this happening?

also that troll really made me just...sad. cuz i’ve never seen that shit here and idk what kind of brainrot is affecting ppl nowadays but i’m just so tired of this. can’t people just behave? like WHAT is wrong with you?

Sorry you’ve been having such a tough time with fandom recently Anon.  To be honest, it you’ve managed to avoid drama, hate and shipwars for the last seven years you’ve done really well.  In my experience there’s always been a low level of toxic wank in the SnK ship fandoms, which flares up from time to time.   The Serum Bowl was a case in point.  That was definitely one of my worst fandom experiences to date.  The recent troll was more of a minor annoyance than anything else.  Trolls like that come around periodically, they’re not the first I’ve seen, and regrettably they probably won’t be the last.  They’re very unoriginal and easy to block and ignore.  They’re welcome to scream as much as they want on their own blog.  That's their business, not mine.  They’re not going to spoil my enjoyment of my fandom.

I’m not really surprised that passions are running high right now, given that the series has come to an end and a lot of fans are having to come to terms with the fact that actually their ship didn’t become canon.  I’m not sure when shipping became a competitive blood sport but it’s more than a little tiring.  I thought the whole point of fandom was that you could ship whoever the hell you want, regardless of canon.  I can absolutely understand fans hyper-focusing on every little interaction between their favoured pairing, that’s cool, but trying to disprove the ships that are canon seems like a pointless exercise to me.  If you don’t like the canon ships, that’s fine, just ignore them and do your own thing.  Arguing with other shippers is a futile exercise.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that social media in general and fandom in particular has become a lot more toxic in recent years, and there’s been reams and reams written about the myriad causes of this.  I particularly liked this recent thread on @olderthannetfic that discusses changes to fandom dynamics and demographics. 

There’s no doubt that antis have been responsible for a huge surge in harassment. Although I haven’t seen too much of their bullshit here in my little Eruri corner of tumblr, I’ve been utterly appalled by their behaviour on twitter, where popular artists have been targeted, doxed, and outed in ways that have had a very real impact on their physical safety and mental health.  I’ve lost count of the number of antis I’ve reported on twitter for targeted harassment and the worst thing is that most of them are kids.  Purity culture has a hell of a lot to answer for.

It’s very easy to get dragged down by the toxicity of fandom, but there’s a lot you can do to control what you see, who you interact with, and who interacts with you.  I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but my approach to curating my own fandom experience is:

Mute and block without hesitation.  I have all kinds of tags muted, not because they’re offensive, but just because I have no interest in seeing them on my dash.  And don’t be afraid to block any blogs that post content or opinions that you don’t want to see.

Don’t go into the tags if you know you’re going to see content that annoys or upsets you.

Don’t get dragged into ship wars, no matter how tempting it is prove that your ship is right and the other ship is wrong.

The best course of action with Anon hate is to ignore it.  The kind of people that send anon hate just want attention; don’t gave them that satisfaction.  If you feel you do have to respond, ridicule is your best weapon.

If you see targeted harassment or behaviour that could potentially cause harm to real living breathing people, report it immediately.  Most platforms have channels for reporting targeted harassment.  Twitter responds fairly quickly to reports, tumblr…not so much.

Lock your own accounts down if necessary.  Turn off asks, and if possible limit your followers to people you know and trust.

And most importantly, try not to let the haters spoil your enjoyment of something you love.