hot take: if you can’t tailor your internet experience to protect yourself from things you find distasteful or triggering with the tools provided, you’re either too young/irresponsible to be online or you enjoy upsetting yourself to play the victim.

while there are plenty of places and ways to carve out your own safe spaces online, the internet as a whole is not your safe space.

use the block button. utilize tags, filters, mute... fuck, use the report button if you really think someone’s in the wrong.

i write this as someone that had deeply triggering phobias as a child/teen. it was the inadvertent exposure i’d always face that ultimately helped me push past them - but i absolutely would have utilized the tools available now to protect myself from that if i could have.

so why people choose to intentionally expose themselves to things that upset them, just for the sake of being upset or angry, i’ll never understand.

be smart, use the tools you’re given and protect yourself. /end