as a nearing 30 adult who was a child - a literal 12 year old child - when I first experienced online fan spaces, I can say this is an absolute crock of shit. let me tell you what I learned from being in fandoms for over half my life:
while you now are spoiled by growing up in a comparatively safer internet age with increased content controls, we were told outright that it was NOT safe on the internet. some of us go by nicknames we’ve had for 15 years bc we weren’t supposed to share identifiable information.
you all live your lives online because it’s become such a normalized thing, and you’ve been conditioned to feel safe here, so when you see something that you consider unsafe, you see it as high treason because anyone dirtying your cushy online experience must be a criminal.
if i saw content i didn’t like for whatever reason (whether it was uncomfortable, illegal, etc) the only thing i could do was to ignore it - leave that website, wait till the chat moved onto a diff topic, whatever. i simply shut the hell up, bc i knew the risks of being online.
the joy of the internet as we know it today is that things are customizable. the systems aren’t perfect, but i can still find and see more of the content i want, and block and avoid most content i don’t. we didn’t have that back then. this is a great new tool! please use it!
growing up online has also fooled everyone into thinking the world is smaller bc everyone is so connected. please remember that there are billions of people with billions of ideas, and they will never cater to you. learning how to deal with that is an important life skill.
find people and spaces with content you like, and stay there. that’s what WE did back then, and that’s what we continue to do today. it takes much less effort (and is more fun!) to do that than to go on puritanical crusades, i PROMISE you.
you can argue that some things are legitimately harmful or dangerous or whatever, and i won’t disagree, but I also won’t say it’s worth the energy you’re putting into tearing it down. you’ll never get rid of all “unsafe” content. it has survived longer than you’ve been alive.
should the internet be safer, or at least better about personalized content control? yes. does this mean there will still be content you dislike? also yes! either way, you have the options to block, mute, blacklist, or log the fuck out. it worked for us, it’ll work for you too!
keep in mind: people who post “problematic content” are not the ones bombarding people, camping out in their mentions, mass attacking anyone. they’re not shoving their content in anyone’s faces against their will. even if it’s problematic, no one’s forcing you to engage with it.
last thing before i mute this thread in case puritanical children start crying in my mentions: you can’t control everything and everyone on the internet, only the way you keep yourself safe and the way you react to things. develop some common sense or stay on barbie dot com 🤷🏻‍♀️
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