Thread. On the growing subject of callouts and conflicts in the community, i'd like to take a moment to point out a study by anti-cult counselor Steven Hassan called the BITE Model. It's worth checking out, even if you don't involve yourself in "drama".

https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/ 

I highlighted points I've personally seen the most out of our community lately but they're all things to pay attention to. Certain points exist more prominently than others, maybe you've noticed things I haven't, I encourage reading the unhighlighted points as well.

This stuff always looks innocuous on the surface, i'm sure a lot of folks see it as "more drama about pup gear/babyfur/feral art/etc", but when you read the way the people who are saying these things are talking, the loaded language and manipulation they're using, it's worrisome.

Because it's causing a lot of fear, and shame, and hostility towards eachother. It's causing unrest and a growing tension between people who were otherwise getting along, and they're using loaded language to shut down anyone who challenges them.

If you do anything they don't like, you're a pedophile/zoophile/predator/etc, and if you see those accusations and challenge them then you're an apologist, or you must be a predator to. You can't be a good person and oppose these folks, you're just "hiding how bad you are".

And it's being downplayed exactly as we think it is. "It's just fetishes, get over it". But when the behavior starts as "calling forms of fiction inherently predatory" and escalates to "you're a pedophile if you like/support it, and you're a pedophile if you disagree with me",

Then we see the greater issue. When "predator" no longer means "predator" but means "anyone who does something i don't like or supports someone I don't like or just disagrees with what i say", and the people saying this have thousands of followers, that's dangerous territory.

It doesn't look dangerous until it is. It just looks like harmless weirdos or mad ex-friends, like "oh they're just mad about pup gear again, who cares". But we're seeing a growth in this behavior, and it's becoming more aggressive and more hostile.

When Burned Furs was around in the fandom, people weren't calling workplaces and doxxing people for their web presence and fictional interests. They weren't massively bombarding conventions demanding things be censored or changed. They had a lot less power than folks do nowadays.

And if you think i'm being crazy and exaggerating a small issue, i'd first say "then you haven't had people lying saying they had 'private confessions' that you were a violent predator and bigot", but i'd also say "we weren't calling everyone pedophiles five years ago".

The issue has been growing quietly, and if you aren't affected then it often looks silly. It's always just "drama" until it isn't. It's drama until people start getting run off the internet, spiraled into mental health issues as a result. People are being hurt by this behavior.

I've noticed a large shift towards shame and isolation in a lot of folks. People don't enjoy this community as much because they don't feel safe existing visibly in it, they're afraid of being "called out". They're afraid of ever disagreeing with people "bigger" than them.

And when these "big" folks are using fear, aggression, lies, manipulation, things like we see in the BITE model, then I think it shows this issue is growing a lot bigger than "drama" and is something more people should be addressing seriously, before more people are hurt by it.