one of my funniest internet exchanges was when a man called me a felon for not supporting everything the us government does

gonna take up on the request opening bc i love these lil blurbs you do with your moodboards! maybe "how they defend you online" esp charles and lando but if you feel like adding others its up to you !!

THE BOYS DEFENDING YOU FROM ONLINE HATE | F1 GRID

★ — LANDO NORRIS (4)

lando was streaming when you came home one day. once he heard the front door being closed and then your footsteps, he excused himself with his friends and viewers and went to greet you. when he came back, there were several texts from his friends letting him know of some not-so-friendly comments about you. suddenly, lando had something else to do and ended the whole thing. he did not tell you anything, lando simply waited until his next stream for what he wanted to do. it was very simple and definitely something lando would do; and staring right into the camera lando let the world know that if they don’t support his relationship, then he just doesn’t want their support at all. from then on, lando just blocked everyone who didn’t have anything good to say. you’re the most important person in his life, how can anyone hate you? and so, lando made a promise to himself: show the world the amazing girl you are.

★ — CHARLES LECLERC (16)

even way before you started dating charles, receiving hateful comments and messages was a common occurrence. of course your boyfriend knew about it, everyone could see what was happening just by choosing a random picture on your instagram and reading the replies. it was sad, awful. but you didn’t want charles to do anything, you stopped him a lot of times because you didn’t want to bring too much attention into the whole thing. charles loves you and that is all that matters to you. it was, well, okay… until things became a little to real, a little too much, and charles couldn’t sit back and do nothing. so with a little bit of help from his team, he managed to write a very good and long statement about the whole thing. there were mixed opinions but things quiet down a little. and you weren’t happy at first, but something as simple as seeing your comment section hate-free made you forgive him sooner.

★ — OSCAR PIASTRI (81)

oscar is a man of very few words and never engages in online drama or gossip. if and when he’s online, oscar just wants to see cute and funny videos. he’s a formula one driver and people should only be interested in that part of his life, but he knows that will never be the case. however, he’s still surprised to see various comments around twitter about you. they are not about how beautiful or intelligent you are or how happy you seem to make oscar with your pretty smile and sense of humor – not that they would know that. not that they deserve to know that, either. some part of him wants to reply to those people who definitely don’t know you, he’s angry, disgusted. and the rational part of him tells him to simply don’t say anything because they don’t deserve it. so, oscar just clicks to make a new tweet and begins with a simple phrase “you don’t know anything about me or my life…” and so on. maybe he sounded a little harsh, maybe things will get worse; he couldn’t care less, as long as you’re not mad with him, he can live with being the center of the drama. oscar will never let anyone disrespect you.

★ — MAX VERSTAPPEN (33/1)

max doesn’t care what people think and have to say about him, that ship has sailed a long time ago. but he can’t ignore when people say mean things about you, he just can’t, so, he doesn’t. max replies to every single tweet and comment on both his and your instagram that he sees, he goes directly to the point and if he’s mean then, who cares? maybe it’s a little bit childish but he doesn’t care, max will not allow anyone to talk shit about his girl. and if he needs to make a video or do an interview or whatever he needs to do to make people understand that you are part of his life and forever will be, then he will be more than happy to do them. max is almost never online, so when all of this happens he makes sure to make time to be online, to post a picture of you on his instagram story, to post a photo of your vacation together on his feed, to say how much he loves you via twitter, to mention you when he has the chance during an interview. he loves making you blush and seeing you trying to hide your smile when you see all those things. max also loves pissing people off.

★ — ALEX ALBON (23)

alex tries to be friendly. when he sees someone say something not good about his girlfriend, he doesn’t hesitate to prove them wrong and defend you. he knows you’re more than capable of doing it and has seen you doing it before; he loves it. but there’s this something inside of him trying to break free and just let everyone know the funny, pretty, amazing, kind girl he’s lucky to call his girlfriend. so, alex lets it free and goes liking, retweeting and replying to every single comment about you and how shiny and nice your hair is, how you seem to make alex so happy and how he’s always smiling around you (he makes sure to let them know why is that), how lucky alex is to have you by his side, and so on and on and on until there’s nothing more for him, until he can’t think about the mean things people said, until you are laughing next to him and calling him obsessed and kissing him like your life depends on it.

★ — DANIEL RICCIARDO (3)

daniel chooses a catchy song and changes some of the lyrics, then sets his phone down and sits with a big smile and his guitar. when the video starts, he simply says “this is dedicated to all of the assholes thinking that is okay to hate on someone’s girlfriend just because.” and then he starts singing. there are a lot of bad words and cursing and long pauses looking directly into the camera without losing that big and pretty smile he has. daniel then uploads the video to all his platforms with a little paragraph about why bullying is bad and why you should mind your own business because he’s not that interesting anyway and it won’t make him break up with you because some trolls are practically begging him to. he ends up getting in trouble for not consulting with his team before doing what he did, something that has him going viral, so viral that people outside of formula one and people who don’t even who he is talk about it. exactly what he wanted.

★ — MICK SCHUMACHER (47)

the moment mick has to hold you in his arms as you cry because you’d read something mean about you, it’s the exact moment he decides to do something about it. he doesn’t want to cause drama or make things worse, so, it takes him a little while and some long calls with his sister to know what to do. mick puts the poetry classes you two take a few months ago to good use and writes the most beautiful and romantic poem you and everyone would ever read. it is about you, about his love for you, about what you mean to him and everything he likes about you. he posts a little phrase to his instagram stories and sets a time and day for when it will be posted it. when the day cames and you get to read it, you end up crying again but for a whole different reason. it’s not that you didn’t know mick loved you but it’s the gesture, the time he spent doing it, the fact that he wanted to do it and wanted the whole world to read his love letter to you, something that will forever be there.

© VERSTAPPEN-CULT ⎯ do not repost, translate, plagiarise or claim any of my works as your own.

rapper!connie first run in with fashionvlogger!reader was…interesting. you answered a question from a fan on twitter who asked if you could style one rapper who would it be? you replied saying, ‘connie springer, his music don’t match his style. he dressing like a regular hood nigga when he should be dressing like a bad bitch with a dark lair. pisses me off.’

eren snorted when he seen the tweet and sent it to connie. at first he was a little offended and was about to clean you right on up, but when he saw the comments agreeing??? he had to find out why your opinion mattered so much. so the the first thing he did was tap that instagram link. 550k followers. hmm. he seen that plenty of his celebrity mutuals followed you. 

                           hollowsoul

followed by thegirljt, gunna, liluzivert and others. 

when he tapped on your pinned photo he almost drooled at your beauty, your body, and the outfit you were wearing.  you indeed had that shit on to the T. connie caught himself scrolling through your feed as his anemic ass shook ice into his mouth. you sure did have a love for all black outfits. 

he taps on that message button and types in two words. ‘style me’ 

your phone lights up as you stir around the meat in the pan. you put your glass of wine down to pick up your phone. 

instagram 

new message 

you tap on the notification and it takes you to the dm. you didn’t really have a shocked reaction, but you were surprised that he even bothered to to dm you. connie was semi private. he has moments where he’s very active on social media then he becomes a ghost. 

‘sure long as your okay with me vlogging’

connie puts his cup of ice down beside his feet warning his dog, Choppo, to not touch before replying to you. 

‘i don’t mind. you free on friday?’

   ‘i am’

ight let’s meet at the outlet mall on Lafayette @ 1 then. you mind if me, my friends, and security come?

 okay sounds good and i don’t mind at all.  see you on friday x

trust me you were less boring in person. connie was lacking in first impression as he was late to you guys shopping date. 

you didn’t mind though, you were right in dior trying on sunglasses. “how these look y’all?” you ask your camera. “i don’t know they’re kinda cunt..” you say looking in the small mirror. you didn’t even notice connie and his crew walking in and walking towards you. 

“i like them.”

you look behind you, seeing connie and his friends. connie took you in while you were distracted and you were better in person. you were in an all black outfit, of course, and you looked fucking beautiful. 

“they’re cute right?” you smile looking up at the 6’1 FINE ass dominican man. one thing that  also irritated you about connie’s style is that it doesn’t emphasize his face. connie face card was something different. He had beautiful features, hazel eyes, low lids, some pretty plump lips, and he was pulling off a buzz cut like david beckham in the 2000’s. not many people can do that. 

“yeah, sorry I was late. had to drop my sister off to her dance practice.” connie says you wave him off, “oh I'm not worried about it. it gave me time to think of what stores i want to go to.” you say taking your glasses off. “hey it’s nice to meet y’all,” you said looking at the two men behind connie. eren and ony. they weren’t a group but they put out some collab albums. those albums were heat, and was always playing when you were working out or cleaning. 

“we’re starting here by the way. can’t go wrong with dior. do you have a favorite fashion brand or designer?” you ask connie as you walked over to the men’s section. 

“uhm nike?”

“nike..? you know what i’m just..i’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that.“ you say shaking your head in disappointment. ony was laughing to himself in the background cause he could hear it in your voice. 

“what’s wrong with nike?” connie smiles as you picked up a dior sweater. “well first off all nike is a sports brand i’m talking about a fashion brand like rick owens, true religion, moschino. 

“what’s a moschino?” connie scrunches his face and he was dead serious. 

“do you know who jeremy scott is? law roach?”

“are these random white people?”

you looked at connie like he was a little lost baby, pouting your glossy lips. “aw you are so cute.” you pinch his cheek. “this is my favorite part. teaching you the ins and out of fashion.” you smile pushing an outfit into his chest. “go try this on.”

connie found out that you were a bossy little thing. if he didn’t like something, “oh well too bad you’re getting it anyways.” ony and eren enjoyed seeing him get bossed around as he was usually the demanding one in the studio. you had fun telling connie stuff about fashion and how to put together a good outfit. 

connie left that outlet with a new wardrobe, friend, and crush. a very big crush that his friends noticed. the way connie blushed like some nerdy school boy every time you’d hype him up. you noticed as well and found it absolutely adorable. 

“do that lil pose that you do. period!” 

you enjoyed Connie's presence. He was a mix between laidback and hyper. like when he got comfortable around you, he got to cracking jokes. even joking you. picking up some ugly ass cowgirl boots and saying, “this looks like something you’d like.” and you’d just give him a little playful glare telling him to not play with you. 

you left Connie with a homework assignment. learn how to use pinterest and make a pinterest board. 

christmas kids 👥 | ms47 x fem!reader

..fans caught Mick and his gf arguing and it blew up on twitter. Reader starts soft launching right after and mick posts a life update. What happens now?

PLS READ NOTE!!

notes: final part!! hope you guys enjoy this series as much as I do cz it was loads of fun and giggles while making it🤍🤍 Thank U! For all the support. rmbr! y/n's song choice for her ig stories are a very important part of the plot. Enjoy reading🫶🏻

previous parts : lovers rock 🫂!! (pt1)

not allowed 🗣️!! (pt2)

a year passed

-twitter-

..

ke11s.kierz started a live!

comments section •

hillary_browk don't worry girl, he was not worth it anyways😒

superior.sainz what's your problem? he doesn't want u so quit whining on Instagram live.

jennieslover You're so much prettier than her! I've seen her account and oh my oh my! 🤢

y/ns.lovebot damnnn are you THAT insecure..??

leclxrcsfanf1 girl u be saying that as if u dont look like Sid from ice age bffr☠️

mickschummy20 quit it omg!!!

yourusername & mickschumacher joined the live! say hi 👋

..

..

yourusername

liked by mickschumacher , danielricciardo and 42,691 others

yourusername it's been great 🪷💐🫧

view all 57,494 comments •

mickandyns.lvr i'm glad you're doing good queen 👑

bestfriendsuser lookin' healthy bae 👩‍❤️‍���‍👩

mickschumacher glowing as always.

liked by yourusername

f1lovr_obsessed._ THEY'RE INTERACTING AGAIN. MOM AND DAD ARE BACK TGT

chuck_leclerc98 my parents.

landonorrrisss04 y/n, you're so lana del rey coded 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

yourusername 🤭🤭

landonorrrisss04 QUEEN REPLIED. im going to frame this moment goodbye.

..

mickschumacher

liked by charles_leclerc , yourusername and 97,527 others

mickschumacher I love my life.

view all 89,421 comments •

mickschummy20 hold on.. sunset,beach and flowers?? this is so similar to y/n's recent post from 2 days ago!!!

ashe.luvsyou stop this is so cute

yourusername 🌅💐🖼️

liked by mickschumacher

zara_lpmicknyn PARENTS.

leclerc.lvr they're definitely soft launching. @yourusername @mickschumacher

sainz_loveb00t LMAOO TAGGING THRM IS WILDDD

superm4xxx_x not you tagging them omg😭

..

few weeks later

mickschumacher added to their story!

seen by carlossainz55 , juanmanuel and many others

..

yourusername

liked by yourbestfriendsuser , arthur_leclerc and many others

yourusername 🤔🤭

view all 32,102 comments •

arthur_leclerc 😊🫶🏻

yourbestfriendsuser cuties i tell you!

mickscm.118 is that mick?

f1editszfanx i dont think so, seems like Arthur.

ralph.kims019 GIRL?? GET UR EYES CHECKED.

leclerc.lvr praying its mick 🙏

..

yourusername tweeted for the first time in a while!

-end-

finally!!

tysm for reading this series i appreciate all the support and i love u all soo much!! Also dont be afraid to request!! my requests are open and i'll gladly do them🫶🏻🫶🏻 (i only do social media au's 🤭) . lmk what u guys think and as always, likes, comments are reblogs are so very much appreciated 🤍🤍 xx, b💋

Surely with how popular you are you would have had a few cancelling attempts, but you're drama free. How? I thought you'd be target number 1 with TERFs.

So the thing is, people on the internet have and do try to wreck my life! But it's true that I get less of it than a lot of other women, and I often ask myself (and them) this same question. I think it comes down to a few factors. In no particular order:

I'm white and thin

I don't post selfies very often

The Philosophy Tube Jutsu: I never use my platform to say anything bad about individuals, so I don't make enemies

I'm British

I don't put my pronouns or the word 'trans' in my bio. I mention it if it it's relevant but to a casual troll looking for someone to go after there are more obvious targets

My brand: in terms of online content, my brand is 'Educational and Compassionate.' I try to be even-handed and listen to all sides and never be angry, and people are maybe a bit reluctant to get mad at someone who does that? In terms of acting, my brand right now is 'I'm Trying Hard and I'm On My Way Up!' which I guess people like?

I have a posh accent

I don't make online content about video games

I'm pretty enough that men like looking at me but not so hot it makes them angry

I transitioned in private before I came out publicly. I knew that when I did I'd get a lot of backlash, so I pre-emptively muted LOADS of words in my comments section and wove a kind of digital safety net

I'm so busy that I often miss whatever the discourse du jour is and don't get involved. As a wise woman once said, 'Do Not Tweet.'

I deliberately dress and present myself as 'classy' in public-facing stuff

Most of my content is scripted, so by default it attracts people who like to sit down and listen

Philosophy Tube is literally all about critical thinking and not taking things at face value. So if a typical Philosophy Tube Subscriber sees a post that says 'I saw Abigail Thorn kicking a puppy down the street!' they're more likely to stop and think, 'What's the evidence for this?' This means that when there are hate campaigns and lies spread about me (and there are, from time to time) my core audience sees through it and sticks around

I have very good mods! Big shout out to all the lovely people on r/philosophytube and all the people who moderate my livestream chats!

I have a social media manager who can look out for hate and pre-emptively guard against it

I don't hitch my brand to other people. I sometimes do little collabs or appear at events with other creators but for the most part I fly solo. That means if another creator blows up or posts something awful I minimise my chances of cancellation-by-association. I'm friends with lots of creators but for the most part I keep it behind the scenes (Learned this one the hard way!)

I'm not a sex worker. Those people get hate like you wouldn't believe - the sex workers I know are the toughest folks I've ever met!

I'm not very fun to bully! I do get death threats and hate campaigns and people make fake porn of me and libel me and all that stuff - literally every day - I just never talk about it publicly so trolls don't get the satisfaction of seeing me get upset. I just mute and block and move on silently. When I have to talk to a lawyer or the police about someone causing a problem, I handle it behind the scenes

Platform size. When TERFs in British media go after someone they tend to pick on people smaller than them, cause they're bullies.

I built my platform slowly, so I've had time to adjust and get used to how it impacts my life

People have tried to cancel me in the past and it's blown up in their faces, e.g. the Trump Transition Tweet Incident and the B*ck A*gel Affair.

To be absolutely clear, a LOT of this is luck and privilege. I'm not trying to blame the victims of online harassment: yes, some of these factors are things I choose to do but not everyone is able to make those choices. It's also the unwinnable game of respectability politics: yes I might get less hate because of the way I dress or whatever, but fundamentally that won't protect me if I get arrested and sent to a men's prison. These things aren't a substitute for a more just distribution of power. There's also this final possible factor:

It just hasn't happened yet.

How ZZH's Instagram account was compromised

aka the question that's been plaguing us all since last year. But now we have enough info to put together a theory. (As always all this info is thanks to the hard work of QV and her friends. I'm just compiling)

During 813, Xie Yihua's son, Abner, said in a comment on Bilibili that ZZH's instagram account isn't actually his. It was set up by staff when ZZH was still under the management of his former boss, Yu Zheng, and that the phone number that was registered to the account doesn't belong to ZZH.

This means whoever has access to the actual phone number can reset the password and take control of the account.

Also how on earth did Abner know the details of the IG's account's security (or lack thereof)? Did his mother tell him? We already know Xie Yihua is ZSJ's handler.

On June 2020, ZZH posted on his IG after months of inactivity, and in the comments section he thanked a woman named Virginia. We can infer from their convo that he had lost access to the account sometime ago and that this Virginia helped him gain access again.

Based on ZZH's IG activity, he did stop posting for a few months and only started posted there again when he started filming WOH. That's when he thanked this Virginia person.

There's an interesting comment under Flora's tweet saying that when they first read this, their interpretation was that this Virginia helped ZZH gain access to his account by setting up a VPN for him. And I was the same. That's also how I initially interpreted it, that ZZH wasn't able to access his IG because of the Great Firewall. But with all the info that has come to light, it looks more like ZZH was unable to access it because it was set up by someone else, with a number that didn't belong to him. And Virginia probably helped him by contacting whoever it was that had access to the account in Yu Zheng's management.

So if all this time ZZH's IG account was under the control of someone from Yu Zheng's studio, how did it wind up in the hands of ZSJ's team?

Recently, Yu Zheng was seen promoting the hat from ZSJ's brand. (Photos from bluebird and QV)

It's worth noting that Yu Zheng doesn't seem to like ZZH very much. He interacted with a ZZH anti and implied that it's ZZH fault Zhao Ge did not air. So why is Yu Zheng promoting "ZZH's" brand if he doesn't even like him?

The person Yu Zheng interacted with literally has the username 'zzh liar' and is an active ZZH anti.

And for those who don't know what Zhao Ge is, it's the show where Yu Zheng asked ZZH to come back for additional shoots while he was still recovering from his knee injury. This is widely understood to be the reason why ZZH's knee was messed up for good. More details here.

Zhao Ge was already running into problems way before 813. The script had a lot of elements that likely got it into trouble with the censors, plus in December 2020 more than a hundred industry folks signed a letter calling for a boycott against Yu Zheng and another person for being notorious plagiarists and all around shitty human beings. If it's not the script that sank Zhao Ge's chances of airing, then it's Yu Zheng's awful reputation as a plagiarist amongst his peers. Even before 813, the chances of Zhao Ge airing were not looking good.

Yu Zheng was brought to court by Taiwanese author and producer Qiong Yao for plagiarizing one of her novels, and a Beijing court later ruled in her favor. He was ordered to pay her millions. So you know...Yu Zheng is quite literally a criminal. That along with the script is probably why Zhao Ge will never see the light of day. ZZH should actually be the angry one here because his knee was pretty much ruined forever just for a shitty drama that will never even air.

A document that was circulated amongst ZZH fans last year and associated with him can also be linked back to a lawyer that once worked on Yu Zheng's legal counsel. Coincidence? Maybe. But it's interesting how many times his name comes up in relation to ZSJ.

And this is just personal speculation but I wonder if Yu Zheng was pissed when ZZH blew up after he was no longer within his management, and he could no longer reap the benefits of ZZH's fame for himself. Remember during the WOH concert ZZH mentioned that a lot of old friends suddenly came up to him after WOH's success, asking for all sorts of favours and whatnot, and then him apologizing for not being able to attend to them all. Looking back on that, it's interesting that a lot of people involved in the scam had more or less a connection with ZZH in the past. The Chens from the teashop, Xie Yihua, Zhang Su, Xiao Chu Nada, etc. And now Yu Zheng.

So yeah this is it. Yu Zheng's involvement with ZSJ was the last piece of the mystery behind the compromised IG account.

for my mental health i need hcs of bella ramsey x fem or gn reader with words of affirmation love language ‼️‼️

hi guys i’m back to feed you some more bella content ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ hope i did this right and that u guys like it :) also tysm for the requests

listen listen!!! after taking a shower she would 100% leave sweet compliments on the foggy mirror for u to read. will add ‘kiss your s/o’ to your to do lists.

will text/send photos of random things that reminds you of her throughout the day. she does this especially when she’s on set and you guys can’t talk much. they have your favorite snack there? sends u a photo and tells u theyre thinking of u. lots of i miss yous, love yous and that she can’t wait to be home to see u again. “text me abt what you get up to today babe” “pedro is making fun of me because i’m apparently such a simp for you, he is absolutely, in every way, correct ;).” “i saw a butterfly today n it reminded me of the pretty tattoo you have”

will watch u like the weirdo she is when you’re getting ready in the morning. sneaks up behind u and repeatedly attacks ur face with kisses. “i have the most beautiful gf in the world” “omg i love this purple eyeliner on you, it rlly suits you” “your curls look really defined today, the new conditioner you got is so good!! my beautiful bby”

is the type to whisper compliments in between kisses. yk like corny spelling out of i love you in between pecks? yep, does that. “i really really like you” “my darling” “mine” “you’re so cute” in between kisses hehehe.

spam texts you when you send/post a photo. in your dms/comment section screechingggg!! my mans is DOWN BADDD. needs and loves to comment “first” on ur posts. they actually make up most of ur comment section. “BABE IM DYING YOURE TOO BEAUTIFUL” “so glad we’ve advanced technology so i can stare at this photo 4life if i want to” “you+this dress= my death”

randomly tweets a photo of you, captioning it “this is my darling, be jealous, gn”

very validating when you’re upset and talks you through it. thanks you for speaking up and communicating abt anything that’s been bothering you. SPILLS THE TEA WITH YOUUU. you have a co worker you hate? she hates them too. listen to me when i say she is on ur side, she is shocked and they’ll even remember stuff you’ve previously told them to add to the fire. best bf frr “thank you for telling me babe, i’ll really keep it in mind next time, i’m so sorry for hurting your feelings like that” “it sounds like it’s been difficult for you to complete (insert task) you’ve been working through it so well :)” “he said what??? yeah like he’s one to talk, go go! continue tell me more i’m invested” “babe you’re honestly so right, this is why i always listen to u”

definitely acknowledges you so so much when you accomplish something. will go on about how proud they are of you, how well you’ve done and how wonderful it is. big or small, bellas on her way to pour her heart out to you. would be unbelievably encouraging throughout the process too, telling you to keep going and trust the progress. “you’ve got this babe, go on :))” “that drawing is absolutely amazing, you’re so talented omg look at the details” “you submitted your assignment?? ahead of time?? that’s my girl frr” “these cookies are amazing, thank u sm for baking them ughh give me a hug you’re the best baker ever, they’re so soft!!”

you guys will be facetiming one night when shes away in a different country for filming. she’s been gone two months and you really miss them. you get a bit emotional talking abt it and they really listen, telling you to let it out. just before you guys hang up they tell you to look at the last drawer of your jewellery box. turns out she wrote you a letter before she left, many letters in fact, for when you really miss them. you can’t help but sob reading it. she attached a polaroid photo of you guys kissing at bottom of the page. she’s so incredibly kind in the letter, telling you how wonderful its been getting to know you these past few months. "hehe youre probably crying from how nice im being" istg this mf even teases you in writing. when you're finished you call her back, they immediately burst out laughing at your blood shot eyes, “hahahhs i knew you’d cry”. sneaks in a ‘you look so pretty even when you cry’. tells you they have more hidden around your room and that when you need it she’ll tell you where you can find more ʚ(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )ɞ

goodnight!! if i made any mistakes, no i didn’t. byebye!!

hello! I don't follow you but I've seen your post about the fact Tumblr is banning trans women, black people and censoring posts about palestine for no reason float around, I had no idea that was happening, so thanks for pointing that out, but also, do you have more info on that? This might be a huge ask but this is such a strange and sad thing to hear about and I want to know more about it if that's okay.

hi anon! i would like to point out that i'm not one of the marginalized groups being censored by tumblr (as i'm a white, american transmasc) and i recognize that i'm very privileged to not have been censored and have the ability to speak on this, with resources predominantly gathered by trans women and people of color, so in future i would reccomend you ask someone who is a victim of transmisogyny/racism by the tumblr staff. that being said, i'll do my best to educate you and point you in some good directions. if anyone else wants to add anything that i missed to this, or correct any mistake i've made, feel free to do so!

tw for transphobia and screenshots of explicit calls to violence (there will be a clear TW so you know where it is.)

if this gets my account exploded, it’s been real.

the most recent example that made site-wide news was banning the transfemme user predestrogen (also known as rita) who was undergoing transphobic harassment and mass false-reporting for sfw pictures (here's a second tumblr user i found undergoing the same kind of harassment and here's a second account of rita's experience with photomatt from a friend of hers). she reported these threats and false reports, to no avail (as a post here details matt's response to terfism), and got pissed off and made a VERY obviously joking post about the site's ceo mattphoto’s car being exploded with hammers. this was very clearly one of the absurd joke threats tumblr is known for. this resulted in predestrogen getting banned, with matt nearly calling the police on her, and furthermore, followed onto twitter by matt.

here is the tumblr post in question that started everything.

here's one of MANY tweets of matt's to rita, and to do your own research a post i found with multiple more of them.

following users to a platform without them mentioning you? IS REALLY BAD. he deliberately searched for that account and sent multiple replies back to predestrogen. and hey, while we're here, he also..stalked the tags for a little while LMAO and kept replying to random users.

as you can hopefully see, this is very obviously a joke threat. "i hope your car is covered in exploding hammers" is not a credible threat of violence. all of this over..this post.

you don't even need to take my word for it. here is a dropbox folder of screenshots of his that you can personally look through.

please note that this is ONE recent example of a disabled trans woman being banned without violating the tumblr terms of service in the sea of many trans women and people of color who have likewised been banned despite not violating TOS, unlike a few that i can find within about three clicks from my post that went viral. i have reported both of the below replies openly calling for violence against immigrants in the comments of this post already yesterday, and they have not been removed.

tw: explicit calls for violence.

scroll past this section if you do not want to see them.

these are not joke threats. i don't think i need to explain why talking about shooting immigrants is really fucking bad. i’m aware that tumblr has to deal with a large number of reports, but i hope you can recognize the absurdity of exploding hammers being banned and having the threat of a police call and followed on a different platform while actively calling for death to immigrants remaining unchanged at the time of posting this.

tw ends here.

while we're here, have some receipts of matt being not exactly pro-palestine.

to show that this is not a one-time thing, here's him following a zionist on this platform. funnily enough, from math that i could be wrong about..

the right screenshot says transmascpetewentz reblogged with the pro-isreal comment eleven days after its original date, feburary 12th, which means feburary 23rd. which happens to be the same day photomatt followed petewentz. i am not saying matt followed petewentz because of this post, i just noticed a coincidence.

i encourage you to do your own research, ask trans women and people of color on this site, and come to your own conclusions, anon. i hope this could help point you in a helpful direction.

There's been a recent stirring on here about and twitter on the topic of cooking skills, where a lot of screenshots have gone round of people talking about how hard the idea of cooking even basic things is to them, often due to a lot of anxiety about recipe amounts or a sense of discouragement about the time involved to do all the steps. I myself am someone who really didn't start cooking for myself until I was an adult, and who had to build up literally all my cooking skills from ground zero while doing so. A lot of the comments going round in those tweets and screenshots are extremely relatable to me; I was in exactly the same sort of mindset for a long time and a lot of these thoughts being shared, especially related to time allocation, are still challenges that hold me up in the kitchen (severe ADHD does NOT help things). I have been the person to whom ' a single quesadilla' felt like an impossible ask, and I was that person probably like, a couple years ago at most. I'm still way closer to being that person than I am to being a confident cook. So I'm speaking from a place of real sympathy to folks in these screenshots when I say; if you're reading this and this is where you're at right now, the best thing you can possibly do is to try your hand at cooking anyway.

Learning to cook is a lot like learning to ride a bike or play an instrument; it is a skill that can only be learned with actual hands-on practice. But like riding a bike especially, it's a blessedly hard skill to lose once you have it, and it's a skill you'll pick up faster than you might anticipate.

Pick something very straightforwards, something you like, know you could make multiple times in a row and not get bored of, and make it those multiple times in a row. Throw in new recipes as you get confident. Keep at it, even if you fuck up. And you WILL probably fuck things up at first, and that's ok; but for every thing you learn not to fuck up, there are a dozen things you will learn that it's ok to fuck up. A lot of those initial fears about using the right amount of water or the wrong pot to boil an egg will fall away within two or three times of trying it! The first time I steamed mussels (my favorite thing to make) I was terrified of what would happen if I didn't follow the directions exactly to the letter, and now that I've successfully steamed them multiple times I have a lot better sense of what's actually worth being scared about (not the amount of garlic i put in not matching the recipe amount, for starters). The first time I made chicken adobo it took like 3 times longer than the recipe said it would, but I was able to identify the parts that took me extra long, think about what was making that happen, and streamline my prep the next time. It's since been SO much easier. The amount of positive growth I've noticed in cooking skills just from trying my hand at these recipes a couple times is amazing. All of the little adaptations I've made that have improved my skill and confidence in the kitchen could not have happened without actually getting into the kitchen and fucking around, but I will also say that a good cookbook can be as indispensable for someone new to cooking as a good textbook would be for any other subject. I really recommend this cookbook (which is free in pdf form but also has a great section on equipping your kitchen in the print version!) for its advice on how to grocery shop and pantry build alone, recipes aside.

Jasico prompt for @butt-puncher based off this tweet

---

Leo peered over Jason's head. "Who's XghostkingX?" His chin came to rest on Jason's shoulder. "Sounds likely a freaky dude."

Jason swiped away the notification and kept watching the dog training video Piper sent with the caption "You" and a pink heart emoji. "Just this guy who sends me recipes." Jason frowned as the video ended and typed a quick rebuttal back at Piper that just because the dog was a golden retriever did not mean it was him. "I don't know him."

Leo's breath went hot against his cheek. "Then why," Leo said, drawing out the "I" sound for as long as his breath lasted. He rolled over, locking his head backwards over Jason's shoulder, face to the curling and finally inhaled. Coughing briefly, he continued, "is he DMing you?" Leo flicked his cheek. "What, he is a potential booty call?"

Jason scowled. "I don't do that, Leo."

"You should," Leo huffed. "I got pegged on Tuesday by a hottie boom-booty and her boyfriend. All with the sweet send of a "You down to clown?" meme."

Rolling his eyes, Jason shifted ever so slightly and grinned when Leo slid off his shoulder and crashed to the ground. "You give all aroace people a bad name."

From the ground, Leo swatted at Jason's ankles. "Just because I don't get the attraction part doesn't mean I don't know what good feels like. And there are some angles only the thick fingers of a college football player can hit, alright?'"

Jason snorted and opened up Instagram. He switched to the messages section and clicked the top one. A link to a recipe popped up. Above it were a thousand other recipe links. No messages, no words, no comments.

Just other people's posts.

Jason didn't know who this Nico guy was. It was spring break in his sophomore year of high school. His step-mom dragged them all out to some meditative retreat that banned all use of electronics. It was supposed to be some kind of spiritual cleanse. All Jason remembered was doing yoga, eating really bland meals, and Thalia sneaking out of their room through the window in the middle of the night and coming back six hours later smelling like weed and wearing someone else's bra.

She had a lot more fun than he did.

But when he finally got his phone back, he had twenty-three messages from XghostkingX, all recipe posts from different accounts. He checked out the account, trying to figure out who "Nico" was. But the account was private. He checked out the recipes too. They weren't weird. Seemed like completely normal recipes. Bread, pasta, Mexican dishes, Indian dishes, pastries, keto, high protein, vegeterian. Pretty much everything except Italian.

Which Jason found interesting. He wanted to ask about it but...

He turned and flashed a sprawled out Leo the messages. "They're just recipes. He started sending them to me when I was on that no-phones thing with my family."

Leo snatched the phone from him and begin scrolling at top speed. "Wasn't that, like, five years ago?" Jason shrugged. Leo stared at him unamused. "Seriously, man? And you haven't said anything?" He shook the phone. "You don't even know this guy!"

Jason reached for his phone but Leo rolled away, spring up to his feet. "Leo, give me my phone."

"Just one second," Leo said, very clearly typing something.

"Do not talk to him, Leo!" Jason shouted, shooting out of his chair and towards his best friend.

"I'm just gonna hit him up!" Leo yelled as he scrambled away on his gangly twig legs. "See what's up!"

Jason grabbed a pillow off his bed and hurled it at Leo through the doorway. Leo squawked loud, without dignity, as it beamed him in the back of the head and knocked him down. Darting through the doorway, Jason threw himself over Leo. All the air fwooshed out of his lungs.

Grunts and grounds filled the air as they wrestled for the phone. Leo curled inwards of himself. Jason rolled him over onto his back. Leo kicked at him. Grabbing at his legs, Jason pinned him down and started tugging at his arms. He ripped the phone of Leo's hands and sat on his chest in retaliation.

Leo spread his hands behind his head and fluttered his eyelashes, before wheezing, "Why, why Mr. Grace, you're so forward."

Jason shoved his foot in Leo's face. Leo shouted and slapped it away with spluttering indignation. "Fuck off and suffocate, Valdez." He turned to his phone. His heart exploded in his chest. Panic induced upwards his throat. "Oh my fucking gods, Leo." He shoved both his feet into Leo's face again, kicking at his jaw.

Ignoring Leo's protesting yells, Jason scanned the string of messages in the chat. The first one started off okay. Yo, who is this? Then they slowly began to deteriorate into complete nonsense. Probably as Jason and Leo were fighting over the phone.

Crap, crap, crap, he thought, as he began typing out apologies.

Sorry for that, it was my friend, he was wondering why you keep DMing me even though we don't know each other. He sent the text and closed out of the app before planting both feet beside Leos face and flaring down at him.

Jason bonked him again then twitched as his phone buzzed. The notification read XghostkingX sent you a message. Leo squirmed under Jason's weight. "Did he respond? Is he telling you why he keeps sending you messages? Is he hot?"

Leo batted his eyelashes Sweetly. Jason bonked him on the head with his phone. "I am going to eat you one day, Leo."

"I don't care what you do to me, so long as I get to come first," Leo said.

Jason swatted at him as he opened up the text.

Haha, no problem. I was wondering when you were going to say something. I'm Nico. Sorry for all the recipes. I was sick with the flu and couldn't remember how to save them to my notes app. I meant to send them to my sister, but I messed up on her username. I'm dyslexic. Powered through it but it does get worse when I can't think straight. Actually using speech to text right now. Filling in the punctuations after the fact. Anyway, you never said anything so I just kept saving there here to refer back to. Kind of easier than opening my notes app all the time to be honest.

Another text popped up. A picture this time. Followed by a series of more pictures. All of food. Jason recognized some of them from the recipes he'd clicked through out of curiosity. The plating was different. A little less professional, but they looked just as good as they had in the videos.

Some of the photos had a cute boy in the background. He presented the plates with a shy look on his face. His dark shaggy hair was pulled back in a few photos.

Some of my successes, the next message read.

Quickly Jason texted back, Is that you?

Yeah, Nico's reply read. My sister took them to send to my grandma in Venice. I usually just photograph the food. I have other pictures on my page. You can follow if you want.

Jason didn't hesitate before replying, Okay.

He clicked Nico's username and hit the follow button before waiting patiently. A second later the page opened up for him. Nico had a lot of pictures of food, dogs, paintings. There were few pictures of him as Jason scrolled mindlessly through his accounts. The ones that did feature him were always flocked by two other girls - one white and tall, with a braid tucked over her shoulder and fierce eyes, the other short and black with a wide smile, typically tucked under one of their arms.

Jason clicked on a picture of what looked to lasagna roll-up but much fancier and sent it to the chat. That looks good. I don't remember seeing a post for it.

That's my grandma's recipe, Nico typed back. It's a chicken cannelloni. Trade secret though. Can't give it to you. There was a brief lull before another message popped up. But I could make it for you, if you're interested. Make up for spamming you these last five years. Laughing face emoji.

Jason paused. Then, Does it travel well? Who knows if the USPS will keep it fresh.

My dad lives in the Bay Area, Nico replied with a laughing face emoji. And I'm here for the next couple months. Another brief pause while Jason's mind caught up with the air in his lungs. If you didn't want people to know where you lived, you shouldn't post pictures of yourself at university. Congrats on your win by the way.

A deep heat crossed Jason's face. So Nico had checked out his page? What did he think of the personality Jason exhibited through carefully selected photographs and captions? Did he think he was cool?

Beneath him Leo was still struggling and wheezing. Jason ignored him as he typed. I'd be creeped out, but that cannoli thing looks too good, so yeah, why not?

Nico's reply was a cute smiley emoji. Here's my number, he wrote. Call me when you wanna come over. Takes a while to make the pasta from scratch but I'm sure I can keep you entertained. Another smiling emoji.

Jason swallowed around his rising emotions. Sounds good. I'll let you know when I'm free.

A thumbs up and another smiley face.

Finally, he slid off of Leo's chest and landed on the hardwood floors. Leo inhaled dramatically then coughed rapidly before flipping over to his stomach. He groaned as he pushed himself up to his knees. Jason exited the chat.

"So, you getting that dick or what?" Leo drawled. Jason shoved him back as he laughed deliriously.

"Shut up." He pushed up to a stand and dragged Leo off the floor. "He's gonna make me one of his recipes."

"Ahh, dinner date."

Jason cuffed Leo's shoulder before wrapping him in a headlock. Leo laughed boisterously and didn't fight back. Instead he licked a long line down Jason's arm. Jason rolled his eyes and pinched his ear before letting him go.

"It's not a date." He smoothed down his shirt and began looking through his calendar. "He's just trying to make up for spamming me these last five years."

"Uh huh," Leo said, with a twinkle in his eyes that Jason sometimes loved and sometimes hated.

"Yeah, uh huh," Jason muttered back.

Another notification popped up. Without a second thought, Jason clicked it. A picture of a small cake with elaborate icing work and chocolate drips. Nico was in the background, crouched low so all you could see was his face, flour in his hair, a little bit of icing smeared on his cheek. He was smiling wide, eyes glancing up at the person taking the picture. Underneath the photo were the words, For dessert?

Jason hearted the photo immediately and wrote, Sounds good. It looks delicious.

Leo leaned over his shoulder. "He does look pretty delicious."

Jason swatted him away, cheeks burning. "Fuck off, Valdez." Leo cackled behind him before jogging back into Jason's bedroom. Jason turned back to the photo. Nico did look really nice. Messy in a cute way.

Maybe if Jason played his cards right, he could score more than a free dinner and a cute dessert.

I think what sells today more than anything is hype.

The top song today is a song called Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter. It is horrendous to say the least but every Taylor fan thinks it’s great so it must be.

Stan Twitter is about feeling good about yourself by living vicariously. It’s about feeling a sense of achievement because the artist you stan is topping charts, it somehow creates a sense of validation.

My cousin who is a heart surgeon migrated to US and the thing he said he noticed the most about Americans is that they seem to be taught from when they are young to keep repeating that they are the greatest. That’s what they take the most pride in, it’s not any sort of personal achievement, it’s just being born in a specific geography. It is culturally very different to other countries.

I saw a tweet from one of Harry’s fan where they called him the greatest performer and it was just a clip of him running from one side of the stage to another pumping his arms as if he had scored the winning goal in a World Cup final. It was very jarring to me to look at. There was no grace, no beauty. It made me think, why does this person think this is the greatest spectacle in the world? Have they really not seen any performer be better than this? Maybe they find this extravagant celebration of an imaginary achievement enticing because they relate to it but at the end I think it’s because of the hype around it.

For now I am very happy that Louis has claimed to not run after the hype. He has not done a single thing musically since his first album which has made me question his intentions. That may change in the future but atleast for now I can see only growth in his music.

I kept nodding my head to your ask because I agree with so much of it.

The political philosophy of “might makes right” is having the most catastrophic, morally repugnant exhibition on the international stage right now. Members of the USA Congress and Senate proudly encourage racism against immigrants, transphobia, misogyny, the limitation of reproductive rights, and many are ready to welcome back an ex-President who tried to overwhelm federal law with vigilante violence.

Social media can be destructive to many creative arts. Literacy and close reading of the creative arts are considered esoteric and cringey these days.

The New York Times pop music section is basically a marketing extension of big labels and huge artists. They’re less obvious than Rolling Stone but really not that different. They run the same glammed up, superficial fluff pieces that would be laughable a generation ago.

One thing that both the Euphoriazine review of Live and PositiveSteven (YouTube reactor) commented on is Louis’ self-criticism:

The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

Remember back in 2019-2020 when interviewers would ask Louis to describe how he felt after releasing the album, and he used the word “relief” repeatedly? It seemed as if he was the main gatekeeper of his music— and then he turned around and found Walls not up to his standards. This is a man who has never said a negative thing about colleagues, ex-bandmates, or fans, but he chases perfection as if his life depends on it.

Do you remember an IGTV that Louis posted when Walls came out, that showed him holding the first pressed vinyl of his first solo album, and he choked up, saying softly, “History.” Then he quickly cleared his throat and said, “Sorry.”

I think about that moment all the time— Louis’ internal and external struggle to finally have something to show for his work, his intelligence and creativity, but feeling so incredibly exposed.

And so far, Louis has never, ever disappointed. Faith In The Future exceeded every single expectation and was miraculous in first listen. Live shows that our first experiences were spot on. He will never disappoint.

JKR stooped to a new low by literally denying that the holocaust had a detrimental effect on trans people and saying that she won't consider Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe's apologies as if they even apologized to her lol (and why should they?)

Literally Daniel, Emma and the rest of the Harry Potter cast don't owe her anything. She made the books but Tom Felton said that she was very less involved in the making of the films if I remember correctly. How is she standing up for women if she spends five years belittling transwomen and transmen?! She has a huge platform and she's putting it to good use by making a marginalized community feel even more unsafe. Please don't prove me that she isn't a transphobe because there is ample amount of evidence that she is a huge one and she's not even a feminist lol.

Literally feminism started with gender being performative by Simone de Beauvoir saying that no one is born a woman, but they become women. Yet JKR and other trans exclusionist claiming to be feminists stress on "biological sex" as a way to exclude transgender people! Why?? Thank God I don't use X anymore, or stopped following JKR after her "people who menstruate" tweet, or have never been a crazy Potterhead and only was interested in Harry Potter through the movies. But I really admired her when I was younger! Why JKR WHY??!!

In all honesty I can't stand terfs! I don't want them or even hear of them because they're so dumb and unbearable! Do they even know that transgender people KNOW about their biological sex and they don't transition out of a whim! Transitioning is a very lengthy and difficult process for fuck's sake! And there are even many transgender people who don't transition medically, maybe because they don't have the money or their bodies aren't suited for it. Still terfs love to misgender them and put on their dumb logic of "biological sex" on them. There was one proud terf who called a content creator who was a transwoman a "man" and constantly misgendered her on her YT channel! I'm not gonna name that terf or that transwoman because I don't want to promote that terf's content and her comment-section seems culty because there are hardly any people (or no people) disagreeing with her or even calling her out! Maybe because she deletes comments? It's fucking scary! And she basically boot-licks JKR and Posie Parker (urgh this woman!)

Plus there WERE fans who were transgender that connected to the Harry Potter books on such a personal level and admired JKR so much, only to find out that she's such a big transphobe and would stick to it! Can't imagine what they went through or are going through!

Anyways, thanks for reading through my rant if you did. If a transphobe is reading it, please back off.

NMTDaily: A Wild Hero Appears

- It makes me a little sad that Bea tweets out this video with “meet the prettier version of me”. You’re beautiful in your own right, Beatrice, and I don’t think Hero would want you to compliment her by putting yourself down. This moment starts to show Beatrice’s insecurities, in a very teenage-girl way. It feels very accurate to that time of life for sure.

- What’s interesting, though, is that this tweet, where Bea thinks of herself as less pretty than Hero, is a direct parallel to and reversal of the moment in a future episode when Claudio tells Ben who he likes (Hero), and asks what Ben thinks of her, and Ben says he prefers her cousin, naming no names. These lines are adapted from the play. Now, I’m not going to say it’s good or ok for the guys to be comparing the girls to each other, even unintentionally, and of course Beatrice has to develop her own self-confidence outside of what anyone else thinks of her. But it is very sweet that at the time she makes that self-deprecating tweet, Beatrice already, unknown to her, has someone who looks at her before anyone else, who always thinks she’s the prettiest girl in the room. It’s just that even he doesn’t know it yet! Ben has thought Beatrice was gorgeous since long before he could admit it to himself, and that just makes me happy.

- I bet Hero’s “you’re not so bad looking yourself, Bea” is her answer to the tweet. She’s too sweet even to directly address it.

- Hero reading TFIOS is so incredibly 2014. (I can also tell she’s an actress and isn’t actually reading it right now because she’s that far into the book and she isn’t SOBBING. I’ll never forget how hard I cried and I’m not afraid to admit it.)

- “Hero it’s Darcy on a horse” being the thing to get her attention is hilarious and adorable and how many Jane Austen Movie Nights do we think she and Bea have had? Definitely some!

- Hero is adorable and we love her enthusiasm and many many video ideas 😆

- there are so many amazing quotes in this episode. “room tour. room tour. ROOM TOUR”; “I am very proud of the witty capabilities of 3-in-the-morning me” amazing.

- Bea is starting what’s essentially senior year in April at a new school. That has to be stressful. Good that she seems cheery about it. I’m sure she’s not at all worried about who else is in her classes…

- Now I want lemonade! Lol. But US lemonade for me. Research is telling me that NZ/Aotearoa lemonade is just basically lemon soda, like it is in the UK, as opposed to the US lemon juice + water + sugar situation. I hope Bea gets to try US lemonade on her travel year. It’s so good when it’s good.

- the Hersula origins! “She’s so lovely I catch myself wanting her to insult me” 💕

- Shoutout to the NMTD Fandom Revival Discord for catching the fact that Bea’s line “what is this cake even for” is a reference to the TARDIS cake Ursula shared on her tumblr, showing that Ursula and Hero surprised Bea with the cake for no reason at all, they’re just that sweet and lovely!

- A brief aside: Ursula’s tumblr has been lovely. She’s posted lots of desserts including one that she said is her dad’s specialty, so now I headcanon that she likes to bake because it’s something she and her dad do together. Ursula lore!

- Poor Meg. It’s tough to be an early bloomer, and you can tell the girls know they shouldn’t be making fun of her for it. I’m glad Hero told Bea to stop, but she was still going along with it and was the one who said the “Queen of Scream” line. We know they’ll learn, though.

- I also notice the link to Ursula’s first video in the description of this episode is now broken and goes to a page that says the video doesn’t exist. Fortunately VOX POPS is alive, well, and next in the playlist. Interesting how links break over time.

- This episode is apparently from before the characters start answering YouTube comments, I checked the comment section. That’s something I’m interested to see whether the NMTDaily emails will highlight, because I remember the characters’ comments being very fun to read! Good for immersion too!

- I’m embarrassed to even admit this, and I blame growing up without cable tv or video games, but I’m just now realizing this title is a Pokémon reference. This show was always even nerdier and more full of pop culture references than I realized! Excited to see if I find anything else I didn’t get before!

💖🥭🦩

About What Happened From Feb 7-9th

Hey everyone, I’m making another post and I promise it will be the last time I talk about this here, unless there’s a huge update. Since last time it was emotionally driven and I wasn’t in a good headspace I thought I would make another now that I’m in a better mental state and can think more clearly.  

For those who don’t want to read this insanely long post, here is a summarized version: February 7th Kevin uploads a sponsored video on Hogwarts Legacy. It brought a lot of transphobia into the community and it turned on each other. On February 9th Kevin wrote an apology on his subreddit and it has a mixed reception. 

With that out of the way I would encourage you to read the full post as I go into more detail, analyze Kevin’s post and also touch on the video itself since I did watch it when it was uploaded. 

Some trigger warnings will be needed for this. 

TW // transphobia and antisemitism mentions, topics on or related to suicide.

Should also mention that I am only trans, not Jewish, so I cannot speak on their behalf. But since HL has heavy antisemitic themes it would be unfair to leave them out of the conversation.

I am documenting this so it is not forgotten and we can learn from it. There may be things I missed and can add if I am informed. This is also all mostly from my perspective as a trans guy who was very active in all sides of the community during this, not just the subreddit or YouTube comments. 

A recap of the situation:

- February 7th at 12pm Pacific Standard Time, the video “Being a bad wizard in Hogwarts Legacy” by Call Me Kevin is uploaded. It is a sponsored video. 

- Within minutes of the video being posted, the comments become very toxic. People express their concern and/or disappointment that Kevin would promote that game to his audience. People in the replies tell them to off themselves or call them 41%ers, referring to the suicide rate of trans people.

- r/CallMeKevin discusses it in the comments of the bot post and the discussion is mostly respectful.

- The hate then spreads far into the community starting with the subreddit.

- A user wrote an open letter to Kevin about all of this and the comments were horribly transphobic with several upvotes and the thread gets locked. 

- People take to twitter to discuss it and fights break out there as well. The amount of tweets covering it makes the situation spread far outside of the community as outsiders also share their thoughts.

- Other subreddits, specifically trans ones, also cover what happened to what was once a safe space for trans people. 

- February 8th, 12 hours after the situation begins, Instagram account cmk_things, which is run by three trans admins, makes a statement. The comments on that post also become horribly transphobic, thus spurring on the hate to the CMK Instagram community. 

- Allegedly, Anna_Chess is also harassed about this. 

- February 9th at 5am PST Kevin makes the subreddit post titled “A letter to the CMK community”. It has a mixed reception with some forgiving him and others not. 

- A much smaller scale fight breaks out between the people most affected by this and people calling them soft for not wanting to immediately accept Kevin’s apology. 

- By the end of the day things begin to finally calm down. The worst of it has ended.

End of timeline, for now (but I hope it doesn’t continue unless it’s positive). 

Needless to say, this entire situation was horrible for everyone involved. I truly don’t want it to happen again and we can all learn something from this, which is why I have documented it. Next I wanted to analyze the post Kevin made to the subreddit.

Kevin’s Apology Post Link to the post if you haven’t seen it: https://www.reddit.com/r/CallMeKevin/comments/10xu9ot/a_letter_to_the_cmk_community/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf  In this section I wanted to touch upon this more since the wording of it confused me at first, but now that I am feeling better mentally I can properly comprehend it. This is all coming from the perspective of a trans man who’s been a very active community member for 3 years and an active viewer for 5 (and also was an A+ English student who did these a lot). I am not meaning to defend him or anything, rather just explaining it from how I see it. It starts off with him saying he is sorry and that he wanted to explain it from his side. In the next one he wrote “I'm not sure how this whole thing was covered in other countries but as someone who does not use social media this boycott was pretty much invisible.” I am from Canada and this pretty much wasn’t covered at all except online in places you’d only see it if you were from a minority the game impacts, so I will give him that. However, you’d think a gaming YouTuber would at least try to keep up with what’s going on in the gaming world. Kevin also wrote “I'm surprised that I've not heard any discussion within my recent streams or on my comment section given the scale of it.” There was discussion of it, though it was usually just one or two comments or were in places Kevin wouldn’t have seen it. During the stream on February 5th there was a conversation in the chat about it that did get missed where someone asked if he was going to play it and people started saying that they hope he doesn’t for obvious reasons. Though I understand why it was likely missed, Kevin wasn’t reading the chat much as he was playing with other people when it happened. In the next paragraph Kevin wrote “I had also heard of there being a boycott of some kind on the game but honestly assumed this was not a big thing, every other day I hear of someone/something being a problem and I just don't engage with that news.” So he admits to hearing about the boycott after saying it was invisible to him? Strange. Sometimes these things aren’t huge issues as the internet does like to blow things out of proportion (I mean, just look at this situation haha) but oftentimes it is serious and should be treated as such. I wouldn’t be surprised if he heard about it early on before the weeks leading up to the launch and made an assessment based off of that, but on the other hand, I still find it really strange how he didn’t know about how serious this was. Again, you’d think a gaming YouTuber would keep up with these things. Other ones I watch do, like RTGame and Kwite/Kwote. “When it comes to boycotts in a general sense I would disagree that buying something is endorsing the view of everyone involved.” Is the first line of the next section. To an extent he is right, not the devs’ fault that Rowling is a shitty person. Though giving your support to things like this gives the companies involved more incentive to continue, which is one of the reasons why the boycott happened. The problem also wasn’t entirely the fact he played it, rather it was the fact he was paid to promote it to his audience of viewers who were impacted by the game and how his community turned on itself. There is another line in this part that I pretty much have the same thing to say about so I won’t repeat myself, but it’s along the lines of “but JK Rowling wasn’t involved.” Kevin then addresses the comments. The first two statements have no issues, he is correct. Not everyone is as informed as others are. In the third one he explains that usually when his videos are promoted to an outside audience it does get more hate than usual. That is pretty standard for YouTube. He then explains that this time the hate was amplified by the situation and he disabled the comments on the video, which is good on him. Kevin ends this section essentially saying he doesn’t support people attacking others for who they are along with his community because “from my experience [the community] have been the most kind and supportive group of people.” I do a little gatekeeping here, I always have. I believe that genuine fans of CMK wouldn’t be transphobic or antisemitic. Though a lot of the bigotry came from inside the community with users who were either active subreddit users, had CMK related usernames and/or pfps or were usernames I recognized from previous kind comments I got on my artwork. I guess it was the 1% Kevin left out when he said 99%. Kevin then explains how he can see why someone would be on either side of this situation, which is probably not the best thing to put in an apology letter to your community after alienating them and, albeit unintentionally, enabling transphobia and antisemitism to go on. It’s not really a good idea to be neutral on things like this as one side will assume you’ve taken the other’s side and vice versa. It’s like he doesn’t want to make a definitive statement. I know he probably didn’t mean it like that but the way he worded it makes it sound like such. The final part is about how he doesn’t want to put out any more hate and apologizes about everything. When I first read it I actually started crying about the last line, probably because I was at my lowest during the situation and it was 5am. I didn’t sleep at all during those two days. The last line was “I'm sorry for any hurt I've caused you, I have felt terrible knowing I've hurt a group that have been nothing but nice to me.” I am glad he said something as I was very worried he was just going to remain silent or only apologize in a reply thread on Twitter where only a few would see it (like last time). Part of me wishes he did a bit more but I’m satisfied with this. I never once believed he would endorse this behaviour nor did I think he was transphobic. He made a huge mistake that has ruined his reputation and the trust his community had, he’s going to have to work hard to rebuild that. I’m a huge believer in that you can accept an apology but not forgive anyone for anything they may have done. I personally did accept the apology but haven’t forgiven him yet. He shouldn’t have done this in the first place and this situation could’ve been avoided. Though once more time passes and things calm down more I imagine I will. I am in a position to make that call, I am a transgender man who was targeted during this situation as I was very vocal about it. Though I’ll return to the community soon, I have projects that I started before the situation that I don’t want to scrap. I’m just glad that the worst of it is over, we can only improve from here. If Kevin is somehow reading this then I have this to say to you: I know I seem harsh but I don’t mean to be, though sometimes the truth hurts. I genuinely hope you learn from this and I know you never meant for this to happen in the first place. You’ve never come across as that type of person to me. For a while I’ve relied on your content and community as an escape from the real world that was nothing but harsh to me because I’m not the perfect cishet neurotypical catholic woman my family wanted. I would’ve hated for it to all end over something like this. Please, don’t let it happen again. I don’t want to see you become known as a YouTuber who prioritized money over real human lives instead of fictional. And also, skill issue tbh.

Not sure what else I expected from my favourite clueless cishet. It’s sad how he is the only YouTuber I watch who did apologize for this. All the others doubled down and I had to unsubscribe. Grateful Kevin didn’t go down that path.

My own apology: Now I want to take some time to apologize for the confusion that I have caused. I will admit I was not okay mentally when I wrote all those things and I said things I didn’t mean. I also understand that my words could’ve been easily misinterpreted, which did happen. I reek of undiagnosed bipolar disorder and I also have autism. I usually try to not let that fuel anything I talk about online but sometimes it gets the best of me. I’m not trying to use that as an excuse, rather it’s an explanation to why it happened. I will do my best to not let it happen again. I’m sorry. The video itself: I did actually watch the video. I wanted to so I could see if there was any mention of the controversy and so I wouldn’t make assumptions. I watched it while in a call on a Discord server I’m in. We all shouted “KEVIN NO” when we got the notification and continued to shout that once I said it was sponsored. The video itself doesn’t have many issues, aside from the obvious. It was an unbiased look at the game and didn’t feel any different from other CMK videos. If I am going to be honest, I would rather have Kevin do a video on it than someone who’s very clearly biased and the “I bought this game to own the libs” type. Though I still preferred there to be no video at all. He’s also not the only Irish Lad to do a video, Terroriser and Nogla also have and I’m not surprised. Its a video I won’t ever be watching again though. The first CMK video I actually hated watching. 

Addressing comments: During this I have gotten many comments and messages as I was very vocal during this and I’m also a fairly well known user. Even if you’ve never heard of me you’ve likely seen the things I’ve done. I wanted to publicly address them as it offers more insight to the situation. The most common one I’ve gotten were things along the lines of “You should’ve seen this coming” because he’s played the other Harry Potter games. Yes, I did see this coming. I knew he was going to play Hogwarts Legacy and I warned people that it would likely cause a divide. I never thought it would be this bad, I thought it would just be an argument on the subreddit again or something. If it was just a regular video that didn’t cause this mess I probably wouldn’t have cared as much. Another was “but Kevin played the other ones, does that mean those are bad too?” No, in fact I used to recommend Kevin’s videos to people who still wanted to consume Harry Potter content without supporting a TERF. I was never into HP growing up but I still loved his videos on it. Those games are old and you can’t buy them new anymore, so him buying them isn’t supporting J.K Rowling. It also wasn’t entirely about the fact he played the game, it’s the fact he was paid to promote it to a community that is harmed by Rowling’s actions and it turned his once kind community horribly transphobic and antisemitic. That was the issue. “But don’t you have more important issues to focus on?” I see where you’re coming from with this but do you think we have that kind of power? Also, what group of people are making these anti-trans laws? Definitely not trans people. We are doing what we can to tackle those issues too, trust me. There’s only so much we can do. I guess it only becomes an issue when it slightly inconveniences you. “Why are you so soft?” “You can’t hold onto this forever.” “He apologized so get over it.” If you’re not trans and/or Jewish you don’t get to make those calls. When I say “trans” I am using it as an umbrella term, it affected every non-cis person in the cult too. What happened was absolutely fucking horrible and it’s understandable to why we aren’t quick to forgive Kevin and the community. We had our trust completely broken and it takes a while to heal from that. You wouldn’t be quick to forgive someone either if this happened to you. What someone does is not up to you to decide, if some choose to never forgive him then that’s their choice and we have to respect it. “I wish he would take down the video though.” I do too, but since it’s a sponsored video he likely can’t as he’s bound by a contract. If he breaches the contract he can be sued and he’s not winning that lawsuit from Warner Brothers. A situation like this has happened before where he took a sponsor from Activision/Blizzard while they were being sued for allowing sexual harassment to go on, so I hope this doesn’t become a continuous pattern. Hopefully he learns his lesson this time.  “But people were harassing him!” Where? Fucking where? I mean sure there may have been a few extreme people but all I saw were people expressing their disappointment and getting called slurs for it. The only people being harassed in this were the people who spoke out. I’ve been sent death threats, told to “join the 41%” and purposely misgendered because people thought I was attacking Kevin. Trans rights, until it means your favourite YouTuber gets criticized for enabling transphobia. “It’s not that big of a deal.” How fucking privileged and/or oblivious are you to see all this happen and go “eh, not a big deal”. As ridiculous as this all was, it was a huge deal. Huge enough to damage Kevin’s reputation online and, well, you know the rest.  And these comments weren’t addressed to me but I thought they were funny. Basically people congratulating Kevin for “not going woke”. Like, the existence of his sims and GTA RP series invalidates your entire sentence. You gotta be new to the channel or something or you think Grognak the Destroyer is cis or Jim Pickens is cishet. I also just hate that phrase, woke. 

As we reach the end of this really long thing I originally typed up at 8pm on a Friday night on a Google doc, I wanted to take a moment to thank a few people. It was a horrible situation for everyone and it reminded me that the genuine fans were still out there. Thank you to my friends and partners who supported me and came to fight for me. Thank you to everyone who sent me kind messages and/or left nice comments on my posts and art. It gave me the hope I needed. I hope someday we can restore the cult to what it once was, but it won’t be an overnight process nor will it be the same again. Despite everything, I stayed behind and watched everything happen so I could document it. If the cult was coming to an end I wanted to be there for it. I’m glad it didn’t. If you don’t want to come back then that’s completely understandable. I think we need to follow Jim’s rules more with the first one being “Be kind to everyone.” The cult was the only safe space I had for the longest time as I grew up in an extremely conservative area with an unaccepting family. I also sorta grew up watching CMK as well, I discovered him when I was 14 and I turn 20 later this year. His sims series was my first exposure to queer content and it made me feel so validated because I thought I was the only one who thought it was weird that guys can only like girls and vice versa. I would roleplay as Jim once with other members of the community and realize that being referred to as a man felt right. The community would pay to draw the characters in maid outfits and fund part of my legal transition. They would always come to defend me whenever bullshit happened because a few users got offended by a pride flag or a fursuit. CMK is a pretty big part of my life and I was very heartbroken when all this happened. Still am. I cried so hard I pulled a muscle somehow, that was neat. It’s poetic in a way that I made the last post on the subreddit before this shitshow happened. What happens before a storm? A warning, usually. I was the warning for the upcoming storm. My arrival in the cult was a prophecy. That or it was just a massive coincidence, that is more likely.  - SnowfallWarning/Big Jimbo Pickens

Oswald gets a Twitter and it goes exactly how you would expect. This is a joke. Oswald is terrible here.

Ed: "We need a new strategy if you want to get reelected as Mayor."

Oswald: "No we don't. I always win."

Ed: "You've lost favor with the 18 to 30 demographics. My projects show that you're probably not going to win."

Oswald: "So what? Open a new park for the kid to play in?"

Ed: "Comments like that need to stop. Social medial is very popular. Most don't watch the news anymore. You could make an account and post your policies and interact with them."

Oswald: "Fine I'll interact with the poor."

Ed: "On second thought, I'll run it for you. You don't have to do anything."

*3 months after Ed made Oswald an Twitter. It is a very formal and boring Twitter. It oozes fakeness. Ed is mad that his plan isn't working. Oswald has just figured out the password.*

Oswald: "This doesn't sound like me at all! What are these replies?"

"Hi Ed."

"We know Oswald doesn't know how to use the internet."

"If you're going to post for Oswald you could at least not make it sound exactly like your twitter."

"Edward we know you are dying to post riddles, do it."

"How much do you guys want to bet that Oswald has no idea that this exists?"

"#LetOswaldTweet"

Oswald: "So much for Ed's plan, outsmarted by the general public. Oh wait. There's a news section on here?"

Oswald clicks the news tab and immediately sees a tweet with a picture of Ed and a man he has never seen before.

"Nygma's new fling?" The text reads.

Oswald immediately pushes the blue plus button and starts a new tweet.

"Edward Nygma is a whore." And pushes tweet.

Oswald then shuts his phone off and falls asleep on the couch without another thought.

3 hours later.

Ed: "Wake up!"

Oswald awakes to find a very angry Ed and Oswald's assistant.

Ed shoving his phone in Oswald's face: "What the actual hell is this?"

Oswald squints at the screen now blasting him with a bright light. When his eyes finally adjust he sees his Twitter profile.

Oswald: "I'm connecting with the younger generation." Oswald shrugged.

Ed: "This is not what I meant and you know that! I told you I'd deal with it!"

Oswald: "Yeah you were really connecting with three likes per tweet and no retweets... whatever the fuck that means."

Ed to the assistant: "I'm going to kill him."

The assistant: "...well I hate to say this but Oswald's tweet went viral."

Ed: "Yes it can be seen as a disgusting disease."

The assistant: "No it's a good thing. 300 thousand likes, 70 thousand retweets, and 95 thousand comments. You're both now trending on Twitter. #EdIsAWhore, EdIsntAWhore, and OswaldHacked. Are all trending."

Oswald: "Hacked?"

Ed: "They're debating if someone broke into your account and started tweeting like they were you."

Oswald: "Like I could get hacked."

Ed and the assistant walk away to discuss what to do. They're still in the room just farther away from Oswald.

Oswald taking offense to the hacking comments decides to prove it is him. As Ed argues with the assistant, Oswald takes a picture of Ed and quickly types a new tweet.

It takes 15 minutes for Ed to notice what Oswald has done.

Ed: "OSWALD COBBLEPOT WHY IS MY ASS TRENDING ON TWITTER?"

Oswald: "This app is great."

Ed: "What does this even mean?"

"That tweet was as real as Ed's ass"

Oswald: "They needed to know as mayor I cannot be hacked. I'm too strong. I gave you a complement. Your ass is real, is it not?"

Assistant: "That is harassment."

Ed: "Why did someone reply with your picture that they edited with a yellow sponge licking me. What does that even mean?"

Oswald: "What?" He quickly starts reading the comments.

Ed reading off the replies:

"God damn."

"I see why Oswald thirsts for Ed."

"Oswald is down bad for real."

"I could fix him."

"Good for him."

"The riddle suits aren't doing you justice."

"I could make him worse."

"Can I vote for Ed's butt?"

"RiddleDaddy"

"I'm about to risk it all."

"You guys shouldn't be thirsting for him. Aren't you afraid what Oswald will do?"

"His ass is worth it. See you all on the otherside."

"Maybe Ed isn't a whore. He can't help it if everyone wants a piece."

"Yall need therapy."

"His ass is a 10 but he constantly says riddles."

Ed: "Wow. I didn't know I was this popular. You know what? This was a good move. Your assistant says you're up 12 points."

Oswald: "Fuck that! How do I delete this? Why do they all want you? That isn't allowed! Of course you'd be into this you God damn attention whore."

Ed: "This is your punishment. Deal with it. I changed the password."

Oswald: "Ed no!"

Ed: "I have 3 thousand new followers. Cool."

Oswald: "They just want picture of your ass. They don't care about your riddles!"

Ed: "You don't care either."

Oswald: "I love your stupid riddles! Delete your account and tell me more."

Ed: "...No."

Thank you for making that poll, and for all the reminders you give to comment more. I've been meaning to comment as much as possible since last time this came up, but your reminder made me realise how much I'd slipped into the habit of not, recently. I'm sure there will still be times where I just can't think of any words, but thanks to you I'll definitely be commenting a lot more again now!

I'll be honest... I'm getting very discouraged by that poll. :/

The number of people who have answered "I never comment" is disappointingly high. And I understand the explanations of spoon-lackage and social anxiety people have left in the tags, I truly do, but at the same time... Man. I had hoped maybe the fandom was better than I suspected.

Tumblr is full of posts that encourage artists and talk about being understanding and supportive of the people you get content from, and posts extolling the hermits in particular to the heavens. But somehow there's a disconnect between "talk about how much I like this person's content" and "actually let the person know I enjoy their content." So... what good is that support, really?

No wonder people like Iskall and Mumbo and Wels and Cleo (and, not hermits, but Zloy and Lyarrah, very recently) will point out how discouraging it is to get negative comments and tweets all the time. If a large section of their fans (assuming the percentages hold relatively true outside of tumblr as well) never comment at all to express enjoyment, the haters are the loudest voice out there.

I dunno, man. I'm still letting the poll go, and I'm glad for the people who have said things like this ask: that they're going to try to comment more, or that maybe their nervousness isn't justified. That's awesome! But the massive majority that apparently never offer any meaningful reaction or feedback whatsoever is... yeah. Disheartening.

With the support and love that people always claim to show on tumblr, comparing themselves especially to reddit, I thought mcytmblr was better than the toxicity that we see there. But being silent really isn't any better than being negative, and it just makes it look like everyone agrees.