Anti culture is so intoxicating to many people because it enables you to rant 24/7 about something irrelevant you viscerally hate, but in a "smart" way, in a way that makes you feel intellectually superior and as if you're doing something productive for society. (THREAD)

In 2009-2013ish I was into True Blood. I was (obviously) an Eric/Sookie shipper and I hated Bill Compton and Bill/Sookie.
Actually - I didn't "hate" them. I just found the ship utterly tedious AND I wanted Eric/Sookie to happen.

Incidentally, and in hindsight quite conveniently, Bill was depicted as a textbook abuser. If you're familiar with True Blood, you'll know why. We're talking about an incessant stream of lies and manipulation, of pretending you're a "good" vampire when you're not, plus -

+ setting up the heroine to be brutally beaten by two local rednecks so you can play the hero and give her your blood (which is essentially a magical drug) to make her sexually addicted to you (because you were hired by a cruel vampire queen to "procure" her), -

- and other stuff, including a graveyard sex scene that was described by the actor who plays Bill Compton as "borderline rape". TL;DR Bill was A LOT, and if I'm in the mood for a good laugh, I wonder what today's antis would say about him -

(though, ironically, I think some of them would unironically stan him, given their penchant for lazy surface-reading, blatant ignorance of tropes, and worship for Nice Guys whose best facial expression is dismay at the thought of the sexy villain seducing the heroine)

We, Eric/Sookie shippers who had read the books, were aghast at how many people thought Bill was the perfect romantic lead. So... we kind of started a Discourse.
That was WAY before the anti phenomenon took off.

Lots of Heavy Meta was written. We analyzed every little detail of the show, searching for clues and symbolism that Bill was, in fact, Abusive Boyfriend 101 and not the (admittedly kinda dull) typical gothic romance male lead it was probably supposed to be in the author's plans.

If you search my Tumblr, you'll see evidence of that. I do not disavow any of those discussions. They taught me a lot in terms of how to analyze a visual medium and look beneath the surface. And I still very much despise the character Bill with every fiber of my being.

But some of the tones and arguments in those discussions are a sort of precursor to today's anti culture. And in that sense, I'm not proud of having been a part of that fandom scenario.

Back then, it felt like we were starting a new and incredibly crucial discussion over the way Abusive Traits were depicted as Romantic in fictional male leads. (It was around the time the Twilight discourse started to explode, btw).

(In our defense, though, we were nothing like today's antis - we stanned a bad boy, Eric, who was depicted as the villain to Bill's "hero", and who was always nothing but brutally honest to the heroine, but also a huge softie deep down. Ben reminds me of him a lot)

The point is - having all those Reasons to hate Bill Compton and denounce the Bill/Sookie ship as abusive felt validating. Intoxicating. It kept us coming back for more, spending thousands of words over it. We felt like we were Onto Something,

and that the more we'd go on, the more women would start questioning how stale and manipulative some classic romantic tropes were. (with what I know now about villain romance tropes, I would offer a completely different analysis -

- BOTH Bill and Eric are variations of the monster husband /death personification trope, but from different angles. A lot of romance tropes are subtly subverted/deconstructed with Bill, and played adorably straight with Eric - but that's for another discussion).

The point is, I KEPT COMING BACK BECAUSE IT FELT VALIDATING, BUT IN THE END I JUST WANTED TO BE ABLE TO TALK SHIT ABOUT A SHIP I PERSONALLY DESPISED FOR RATHER SHALLOW REASONS (it bored me to d*eath, lmao)

It wasn't deeper than that. Or, to say better: we *made* it to be deeper than that because we enjoyed the discussion, we found it intellectually stimulating, and it helped cement a community. It was also an excuse to discuss real life issues through a fantasy lens.

I have zero trouble understanding anti culture and why it's so seductive. Truth be told, if I were in my early 20s and my nOTP was a designed target, I'd probably drink the kool aid happily and with no remorse.

Nothing is more invigorating than believing you Hate Something For The Right Reasons and getting a free pass (if not sudden internet popularity) for spewing pseudointellectual bile over a minor fannish phenomenon nobody in the real world gives a shit for.

But here's the sad truth, dear antis: sooner or later, your honeymoon will be over. Your favourite franchises will betray you, over and over again, making your nOTP kiss no matter how "badly written" and "actually not romantic at all" you try to convince yourself it was.

Worse, you'll grow up and grow out of it. You'll grow tired of the same old stale arguments. One day, somebody will brutally lift the veil on how irrelevant your pseudo social justice squabbles over fiction are, and you'll have no counterargument and deflate like a balloon.

Or, if you're lucky, you'll be seduced by exactly the sort of male character or fictional dynamic you spent years crusading against, and your so-called friends will turn their pitchforks on you, while you desperately try to move the goalposts on what counts as problematic.

Anti culture is, at the end of the day, just profoundly lazy and self indulgent. Like most fandom activities, it's about the thrill of experiencing vicariously & in a *safe space* something that IRL you can't afford or would be punished for.

Unlike most fandom activities, though, it's not harmless or without RL consequences - especially not in the form it has taken now. For us, it's the thrill of loving a monster. For antis, it's getting to be deeply intolerant and nasty under a righteous cause and banner.

It's a *perceived* safe space, because internet provides anonymity and allows them to not see us as human or real people at all. But the lines they cross are real, and it's a terrifying training ground to develop an *us against them* worldview that's DEEPLY reactionary.