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quibbs126 · 3 months ago

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Yesterday I saw someone on Twitter mentioning the babyfication of Bumblebee in the fandom, and that's been somewhat of a thought in my mind before, so I figured "eh, might as well write my own thoughts on the matter myself". Though in a tumblr post, since Twitter has a character limit and I don't feel like doing a thread

So yeah, that's what this is

Why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much in the Transformers fandom?

Disclaimer though: I'm only really touching on the shows and movies and how they might contribute to the issue, and only the ones I've seen, so no Unicron Trilogy or RID 2015. And probably not much on the live action movies either since I remember them very little, just design things. I've also not read any of the comics, so they aren't weighing in either

I'm also not claiming I have the definitive answers, just some guesses based on my own understandings. I'm very socially inept, so I could be completely wrong. It's also why I'm not touching on the fandom side much

My friend told me to put a "read more" tab on this after showing her what I was doing, and yeah I probably should. Take note that this is an absolute monster of a post, this took me hours to write. So be warned

But yeah anyways, let's start this

Oh right, I should probably start with what I mean by "babyfied", so we all are on the same page here. The biggest things I think are making Bumblebee a teenager or child, whether in interpretations of canon material, AUs of official series, or people's own versions of the Transformers (though note the most damning one here is the first one, seeing a canon Bee as a kid, specifically when it is not shown that he is one. The third one is completely fine, it just is a symptom I think), and then also basically just making Bumblebee Optimus' son, or Elita's, or Megatron's, or a combination of characters; basically, just making Bumblebee someone's kid

I'll be tackling it in a general order of the shows/movies and how they contribute to the issue, starting with:

G1 cartoon

So in g1, I will admit, I think I can see Bee and Optimus having some sort of father-son relationship, at least in moments; like Attack of the Autobots which is where Optimus and Bumblebee have that iconic little hug

But I mean also, Optimus just kind of generally has paternal vibes in g1, he feels like everyone's dad. I think it might just get magnified with Bumblebee because Bumblebee is small and probably has the "cutest" personality of the Minicars, so it's just him from that group. And also, he's got a cute little Beetle car as his alt, which factors into it

He also does seem to have been written with the idea of him being younger, at least that's how the toy description feels to me

He was also Spike's best Autobot friend, and as I'm pretty sure Spike was supposed to be the young teenage human for the kids to relate to more, that probably helps with his youth factor

Though he is still functionally an adult. But I don't think the problem is as bad here, since let's be real, people mostly remember g1 for the nostalgia, iconic moments, and being the origins of the franchise; people aren't really making g1 AUs outside of that one person with the Orion Pax and Megatron knowing each other AU

So from the start, he's always had this, but I don't think we can call it an issue at this point. But it does bring in some of the main factors in the babyfication of Bee, namely:

He's small, which can give the impression of younger

He generally is one of the younger bots, even if he's still an adult

He tends to be the main friend of a human protagonist, who generally tend to be kids or teenagers

These will show up again, so keep them in mind. Now, let's move onto our next show, 23 years later

Animated

So in Animated, Bumblebee is yet again, one of the youngest members of the main cast, though this is specifically told to us, like how Sentinel, one of Optimus' contemporaries (and TFA OP is meant to be on the younger side of his variations too), was Bee's drill sergeant, as well as just Bee's general behavior

He is also the smallest member of the main cast, which can contribute to the feeling of him being younger

He is also friends with the human protagonist Sari, who is an 8-year-old at the start of the show, and the two of them tend to go along with each other's crazy schemes, rather than Bee trying to be responsible with Sari; that's more Optimus' job.

What I didn't pick up until way later than I probably should have was that Bulkhead is around the same age as Bumblebee, thus making him also one of the youngest members of the cast. Which honestly in retrospect, makes a lot of sense with how he's written, and him also being one of Sari's closest friends. I think why I didn't pick up on it while watching however comes from two things: 1, he's like the biggest member of the main cast, which doesn't immediately make me think he's one of the younger members, even though younger people being big is something they can be (I mean my brother's like 6 feet tall and he's not even 15 yet), and then 2: Transformers Prime Bulkhead, aka the one from the show that might be more popular than TFA, is very much an adult, and that was the Bulkhead I knew. So I didn't know he was supposed to be younger

We'll swing back around to Prime later, I think it's one of the main contributors to the issue, but keep in mind that interpretations from popular series tend to stay in mind and bleed over into other shows and their versions, even if that's not how they are

But back to Bumblebee, things generally aren't super different between this and g1, other than the fact that he and Optimus don't have much of a parent-child dynamic, and that this Bee definitely is on the younger side in canon, though probably still an adult? I'm not sure, but he can't mentally be more than like, very early 20s. But it happening again does reinforce these ideas of Bumblebee as a younger bot

In fanon, I don't know if the TFA side has this much of an issue, at least nowadays? I see him get shipped with Blitzwing and Prowl plenty, and I don't see him as Optimus' kid, other than like one time with the "9 months in my womb" meme, and him being an oplita kid, which might have just been for the joke and also TFA Elita was yellow, so eh. But I'm also not too big on the TFA side of the fandom anyways, so I could be wrong

So before we get to Prime, I just want to sidestep into the movies that were also coming out at the time

Bayverse/live-action movies

Now I can't say much on the writing front with Bee, since I have not seen any of these movies in a hot minute, outside of the first hour and a half of the 2007 movie. I will say though, based on what I saw of Bee there (aka mostly his car shenanigans), that is not a child, that is a sassy little bastard man. Though that could be because Bay was trying to market more to like, teenage boys and trying to make him "cooler"

But anyways, what I wanted to talk about was his design, and how it contributes to the babyfication issue

The Bay movies gave Bumblebee a redesign, looking pretty different from his original design (though that goes for pretty much everyone except Optimus)

The thing I notice most with these movie designs is how round they make him, specifically with his eyes, being so big and round, especially later. While it was probably originally just a reference to bug eyes, it makes him cuter looking, more innocent. I think by Bumblebee, they were trying to capitalize on that in the movie, making him seem cute and non-threatening in certain scenes so Charlie knows he's not a danger. Which makes sense, but it does contribute to the problem here

And in general, he's a lot rounder I think in his design. And while I'm not expert on shape language, I think I can gather that more round shapes leads to him looking more friendly and less threatening and cuter in our minds, and "cuter" leads to "younger". That's why I keep bringing up "cute" by the way, forgot to say earlier. Cuteness tends to be associated with youthfulness and thus younger characters more

And in general with Bumblebee, him being yellow, a bright color more associated with joy and optimism, and thus youth, and generally having a more optimistic and extroverted personality (though not necessarily in the Bay movies, though I can't say for sure) again leads into him being younger. Now it probably came from the fact that bees are yellow, thus he's yellow (and also black), and his personality came from that bright color. Actually the name probably also comes from the yellow color scheme, but you get it. His color scheme and personality lends Bee to being a younger character

Back to Bayverse, it did change Bumblebee's alt mode from a Beetle to a Camaro (again probably to make him "cooler"), and I think since then, Bumblebee's basically always been a sports car, outside of explicitly g1 referencing things. So it does tend to take away the "smaller" aspect of what makes him seem so young, as he's more average sized now. But the youthful connotations don't necessarily go away

This is also (I think) what started the trend of Bumblebee losing his voice, being replaced with either radio/movie clips, or just beeps that the characters can understand. Now while I'm not too sure how this affects him in Bayverse, as I haven't seen much of Bee proper in the movies in a long time (the first half of the first movie is pretty much just car Bee), and since I know he can still talk in some way, it does mean you focus less on his dialogue and how that characterizes him, and more on his appearance and actions (at least in robot mode). Or he just doesn't talk, and you can have your own interpretations of what he's saying. And as mentioned prior, his design tends to make him look cuter, adding to the issue. I'll get more into this in Prime, since I am familiar with Prime, and he doesn't talk at all there

He's also again, I'm pretty sure one of the younger bots, despite probably being an adult. We'll go over that more in Prime

I don't think I have much else to say on these movies, so to go over the general points, this seemed to cause a bit of a shift in Bumblebee's portrayals. He got a bigger alt mode, so he's not tiny anymore, but he got big round eyes that make him seem cuter, rounder features, and he lost his voice, which means you can fill in the gaps in what he's saying in your head

Now, let's get to the real meat of this, and I think the biggest cause of this all:

Prime

I hope I didn't hype this section up too much. But I think this is where all the things conglomerate into the main factors of Bee's babyfication

Bumblebee is not the smallest bot, but the smallest is the female motorcycle bot, as opposed to his sports car, so. He is the youngest Autobot, and bot in general outside of I guess the Predacons, until Smokescreen comes in in Season 2, who is also considered young. He and Optimus have a close relationship, that given their age differences, could be read as paternal. He's got the big round eyes of Bayverse and a generally round design, which we've already discussed as to how it contributes to the problem. He also does not speak at all, only using beeps that we the audience cannot understand, until the finale. His designated human friend is the youngest human companion here, and the most child of them, being only 12. All these factors combine to create the most "baby" Bumblebee so far

(I just added a picture since I felt like I needed to. But there's not much to talk about design-wise that wasn't in the Bay section)

First up, the age thing. I keep saying that Bumblebee is one of the youngest bots in the casts, even though he's technically an adult. This is true, in part because as far as we can see in canon, Transformers don't really have "child" stages, they're just born adults. And they don't really age; or well, they do, it just takes millions and millions of years to do so, so they're functionally immortal. So, they don't really age like us humans, physically and probably mentally too, given they skip the young child years. So I mean like, technically speaking, Bee's an adult, it's not really clear where that translates into our perception, so maybe he's more mentally a child? I don't think I'm making sense here, maybe ignore this section

But he is younger, and particularly in Prime, he's in a team of bots all much older than him. If I were to put them in mental human years, I'd say he and Smokescreen are probably somewhere in their early 20s, while everyone else is probably like, 35+. Bee is notably younger than his peers, and we are made aware of this fact. And this makes him appear even younger than he is

If I were to make a comparison, and maybe this is a bit random, but take Mouthwashing for example. I may never have been super knowledgeable of the fandom, but I am aware that Daisuke is like, 22, while everyone else on the Tulpar is 35+, and that makes him feel so much younger by comparison. He's only just started his adult life, compared to the far more experienced adults around him. And while I didn't see it, I do think I remember seeing people talk about how people kept portraying Daisuke as younger and more innocent than he is when he's a 22-year-old man. I also remember someone comparing the portrayals of Daisuke in the fandom with another character from another series (I think it was Omori?), who was the same age as Daisuke, but because that character is the oldest of the protagonist group, everyone else being children or teenagers, he was portrayed super differently to Daisuke. The other character had to be responsible and make mature decisions, while Daisuke is allowed to be silly and reckless. The point I'm trying to make here is that age, and how a character is portrayed and interpreted, is relative to the characters surrounding them, with the characters on the extremes sometimes getting exacerbated because of it. This is true in real life too, but for the sake of analysis

Bumblebee is the youngest member of the Autobot team (at least until Smokescreen), and thus, he feels even younger as a result. This is probably also helped by the fact that there's no Decepticons around his age either, everyone around Bumblebee is a full-grown adult by comparison. And his close relationship with Optimus, who is meant to be one of the older bots in the group, feels very paternal, which serves to make Bee feel again younger, like he's Optimus' son. Which I like here, but it furthers the issue

And on the topic of him just feeling younger, let's bring up Raf. Bumblebee is again a friend of a human protagonist, but in Prime we have 3 main humans, ranging in ages but all in grade school, and each one has an Autobot they're paired with. And Bumblebee gets Raf, the youngest member at around 12. Due to Raf's youngest member status and technically not being a teenager, he is, as I said before, the most "child" of the group, even if they're all technically children still. I thought he was 10 until I double checked and saw he was 12, and honestly, I feel like he feels younger than Sari did, who was only 8 when we met her. Probably because unlike Sari who had no human friends, Raf does, both of whom are older than him and treat him as such. It's the relative age thing again

But back to Bee, unlike with the other humans and bots, Bee doesn't act as the responsible adult, but more of a friend for Raf, though not nearly as chaotic as TFA Bee and Sari. They aren't causing trouble; they're just having fun and cute moments. There's again, the cuteness factor that probably contributes to the young feeling he brings, but it also serves to make Bumblebee not feel as much as an adult. Arcee is definitely an adult with Jack, and Bulkhead particularly gives me responsible adult vibes with Miko, at least on some occasions where they aren't indulging in fun, reckless behavior and Bulkhead has to get serious with her. They're responsible with the kids, even if they slip up at times, and help them learn things. But Bee doesn't have that with Raf, probably because Bee can't talk and give him the lesson. Raf also doesn't cause much trouble on his own and has Ratchet for that

Which segues me nicely into Bumblebee's lack of voice in this show. This was a carryover from Bayverse, since Hasbro was still trying to have synergy with the movies at that point. But instead of radio clips, he just beeps, with the other bots and Raf just being able to understand him, even though we the audience don't. And because of this, we never know what he's saying, and he also just straight up doesn't have a voice for us to gauge his age with. Thus, it's up to us the audience to fill in the blanks in our imaginations. But with all of the discussed factors of him being cute and young, we can just end up interpreting him as younger because of it. It's also again, probably because he doesn't talk. It's like R2D2 and BB-8, who only speak in beeps, but because they're cute, we see them probably as much cuter than they would be if we knew what they were actually saying (R2 especially)

To maybe go off on a weird tangent, I think child characters tend to be seen more as objects than people, or I guess objectified more, since they don't have fully developed brains and personalities and are less likely to be able to hold their own in a fight. They're things to be protected and loved and angst over, while all they need to do is be there and be cute. I think the lack of voice ties into this in a way, I just don't know how to explain it, other than like, because they took away his voice, we can see him as even cuter and child-like instead of the grown adult he is. Infantalization, that's what I'm trying to say. I think that's term for all of this, but you get what I mean by "babyfication"

Especially because at least for me, when Bumblebee did get his voice back, I started seeing him more as an adult, because he could actually talk and had an adult voice. Yes, him learning to take more of a leadership role in Predacons Rising is also a factor, but him having a voice now is part of it too. But he only got it back in the finale and the movie, so you spend pretty much the entire show with voiceless Bumblebee, and what comes with that

I think that wraps up everything about Prime Bee's portrayal, but now let me get into why I think overall, it was what really caused this baby Bee thing to stick

Like I said prior in the Animated section, the more something's repeated, the more it sticks, and these traits of Bumblebee being the youngest have been consistent throughout the series we've covered. Not to mention, I just think personality wise, this Bee feels the youngest/child-like, though again, it probably has to do with his company and lack of voice. And also, the fact that he's well-behaved, like how people want children to be

So, by this point, this interpretation of Bumblebee is stuck in our minds as how he is, younger than the rest of the team

But I think another big thing is that Transfomers Prime is probably the biggest series in the fandom, at least show-wise. G1 was influential and Animated is still popular, but no show comes close to the amount of popularity I see for Prime stuff, particularly their brand of megop or for their Decepticons in general. The only thing I've seen come close is Transformers One, which is also the newest one and what brought new people in during this wave, so who knows if it'll stick forever. I'm not sure where IDW stands though, because I know that was big too

If I had to attribute Prime's success in the fandom to things, I'd say it's because plenty of people around my age (20s-ish?), who are definitely online and on social media, grew up with Prime (though I will note that Transformers tends to have an older fandom than I'm used to), the fact that for a long time, Prime was easily accessible in its entirety on Netflix, long before the streaming wars (and this is how I watched the show), it generally has good writing and animation, it feels like it had a complete story, unlike Animated which had Season 4 cancelled, and Frank Welker and Peter Cullen were back as Megatron and Optimus, making them feel more "definitive". Among probably other things I'm missing

But the point is, Prime is big, and it'll take a lot to dethrone it, outside of possibly some TF One sequels sticking the landing after the first movie. But that's not certain at the moment

And like I said before, popular interpretations tend to bleed into other series and interpretations, even when they don't entirely fit. There's a reason when people want Knock Out in another show, they basically want more TFP Knock Out, design and character wise, or why Breakdown was in Earthspark without the other Stunticons. Or why people basically try to recreate the g1 backstory when making Skyfire and skystar for their stories, even when I'm not really sure versions of Starscreams would ever be scientists. Why Functionism will show up in fanfics despite something like TF One not really having a place for it outside of the cogless thing. Why people will instinctively ship megop across continuities despite it not working as well in some (*cough cough TFA cough*). Why Megatron and Optimus have largely had the same backstories for ~15 years, with One being probably the most different, but still the same general beats. It happens both in canon and fanon, but it definitely happens

So when Prime Bumblebee is portrayed as young, and probably intentionally, it sticks in our minds that Bumblebee is very young and usually will be. He's like Optimus' son here, especially since he explicitly is younger than him. He's cute and friendly, even if he can get into trouble sometimes. He's just a little guy

And by this point, the franchise was like, 30 years old. There's been a number of series, and a lot of the general staples of the series had been set and remain today. I'd argue Prime is the last of the "foundational" series in this franchise, at least where we are now with it; we could end up going in another direction in the future. So it's gonna be hard to just change how we see the characters here

The shows after

I won't go into each one in detail after this, because let's be real, this is long enough already. And again, I don't think at this stage, anything other than One has left as much of an impact on the fandom/series

We're skipping over RID 2015 since I haven't watched it, but I do think it's one of the shows with the least of this problem. Probably because he is at least initially surrounded by characters his age or younger, so the age relativity isn't a factor

Cyberverse actually has Bumblebee around the same age as Optimus here, not being notably younger, but that holds true for everyone in that series; basically everyone here is the same age, outside of like, Cheetor. I don't interact with the Cyberverse fandom enough to know how it fares with Bee there, but given he's a main character, probably more than Optimus, he's probably doing fine?

Though I have to admit I personally find it weird when Bee gets shipped, because surprise, I too have some amount of the babybee influence on me too. I mention it here because there's genuinely nothing wrong with shipping Bumblebee and Windblade here, if anything it makes so much sense; it's just that I can't get out of my head that Bee is supposed to be younger, and thus, shouldn't be shipped

I know nothing about the War for Cybertron trilogy

Earthspark Bumblebee is another case of being hit with the baby beam the least, which I think is attributed to his role as the Terrans' mentor. Once again, he is put as an older character instead of younger, and even more so than RID because he's the main adult teaching our young child protagonists. The age relativity is working in his favor this time. Most you're gonna get is him being called megop's child of divorce, but those two are old anyways

So far, canon wise, it doesn't seem that bad

But then we get to One, which is where I think the problem is really rearing its ugly head. See, B-127 is never said to be younger than the rest of the quartet, he's assumed to be the same age as them. Heck, you could maybe even see him as a bit older, given his odd knowledge and having been in Sublevel 50 so long. But B is constantly portrayed as younger than the rest, being the child of divorce, but actually more "child" this time, him basically being Optimus and/or Elita's son (Megatron is another parent too), despite no indication of such a bond in the movie outside of just being friends (even less so with Elita, whom he has the least screen time with of the group), or just straight up being made into a child or baby for the rest of the group to parent, despite it taking out a member of the group, especially when again, he is not said to be younger

But it keeps happening to him because it's the new popular series and some are coming in with prior expectations and knowledge of B and his relationships, that Bee must always be baby, and probably because he's very energetic and hyper and probably neurodivergent, which has a history of getting characters infantalized. Not saying everyone who sees him as younger is problematic or ableist for doing so, just that this probably contributes on some level to why it's so widespread

I think I've covered all my points at this rate. Are we finally done? Can I go do my schoolwork? Sorry, just random, I've been here for a while

So, to summarize, why does Bumblebee get babyfied so much?

Because Bee has a long history as being young, he's put around older characters who make him feel younger by comparison, he's got a design that lends him to be seen as cute and young, especially in the most well-known depictions (I mostly mean g1, Bayverse and Prime here), the fact that the show were all of these traits are at their biggest is also the most popular show, and thus influencing people's minds going forward that this is how he should be, even when it doesn't fit so well

And I don't think this mentality around Bee is going away anytime soon, and it isn't necessarily wrong to make Bee a young bot, but I think we should acknowledge that sometimes it's trying to fit a square in a round hole, it just doesn't fit as well, and we need to be mindful of that

#finally I'm nearly done #this went on so long I'm not sure I covered everything #or that I said things the way I meant to say them #and I worry I'm presuming too much #but hopefully this was good and somewhat accurate or at least informative #hopefully I'm not dead wrong here #some weeks ago I meant to post some observations on TFP Bee and how he was at his most “baby”#but it felt like too much complaining so I never posted it #but that tweet got me back into the mentality and made me feel like I could write this actually #I did not expect it to be so long #it is nearly 2:30 I was supposed to do schoolwork today #I also have an event from 6 to 8 so even less time #hopefully I didn't squander the day #but yeah enjoy please #transformers #transformers g1 #transformers animated #transformers bayverse #transformers prime #transformers one #since that was the last big point #bumblebee #tf bumblebee #analysis #character analysis #fandom #long post

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where-the-water-flows · 6 months ago

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If you know how to do it you can use someone’s phone number to find their full legal name and home address. It’s just a bit of Google and knowing what websites stores this kind of info. Saw your tags asking how a phone number could verify someone’s age

So, I appreciate you dropping into my askbox to pass that info on - genuinely, it's kind of you - and I can see how my tags came across, but what I actually meant wasn't 'how can you find info on someone just with their phone number??' -- I actually do exactly that kind of thing in my day job pretty regularly, and I have to conform to a lot of real strict ethic constraints that uh, bluntly, random discord moderators...do not.

What I was actually getting at is the fact that, assuming the hypothetical server is just using a phone number as age verification (and doing data broker/google search on that), how in the hell is it controlling for someone doing what people under the arbitrary age limit du jour have been doing since we started implementing this sort of check, ie, lying like rugs and supplying info for someone in their family/social circle instead who is older than [whatever age].

like. sure. maybe you get a phone number for age verification. awesome. plug that into your data broker/google/etc of choice, run your searches, and ok, it belongs to jane smith, 38 years old, accountant who lives in ballarat, she's totally fine to join the 18+ server! come on in jane, the smut is plentiful and the doves are extremely dead. Jane smith has a kid. jane smith's kid is 15. jane smith's kid isn't allowed in the server, because it's an 18+ only server.

jane smith's kid almost certainly knows their mum's mobile number.

how the hell can Hypothetical Server Mod control for 15 year old jane smith's kid putting in jane smith's mobile number instead of their own? and also, separately, how the hell is HSM dealing with the many -- many many many -- different privacy laws around the globe?

not just in terms of handling that sort of information on people (and also requesting it in the first place!), but also just. some countries you can get so much fucking info on someone! (the US. I'm talking about the US.)

some you can't. because privacy laws, because the info isn't publicly accessible, because it's not online and is only in hard copy at the local government office, because it's collated but only in a nonenglish language, because it's geolocked-- etc.

also, like. even if the hypothetical phone number brings up someone in the US, and also your hypothetical mod team has decided, y'know, fuck privacy laws, security of information and data ethics can take a long walk off a short pier, we're keeping this server 18+ or dying trying!

data brokers aren't...actually consistently what you would call...super accurate, or like, accurate at all. if you have a unique name, yeah, sure, you're probably kinda fucked! (assuming you're in, again, somewhere the data brokers focus) but like. if you're named something a little more common - say, james smith, or maria sanchez in the US- uh. well. there sure are a lot of people you could be, and some of them - most of them! - are over 18.

and ok, sure, a phone number is (usually) only associated with one person, but. you can get a lot of false positives, false negatives, and straight up 'we don't know 🤪', the latter of which is sometimes hidden by the databrokers going 'our best guess is that this person is: An Age!! somewhere between 0 and 200 years old. 😇'

again, I use this stuff for work, I can tell you exactly how inaccurate it can get as soon as you throw something like 'not based in the US/UK' or 'uses a nickname/multiple name formats' or 'isn't super online' or 'older than 65 and not turbo wealthy' at some of these - I've had more than one confidently tell me that [my wallet name] is an accountant based in darwin who makes horror films in alice springs on the side, and also, is 26, and had 2-3 kids with her husband Lauchlan.

literally none of these facts are true. like. even vaguely.

and that can of worms doesn't even get into if someone has requested to be removed from data broker databases and/or takes online privacy Very Seriously and/or is just fundamentally ungoogleable, which is...more common than you'd think. less common than you'd like, but more common than you think, even before google started enshittifying itself out of existence.

which is why when you're trying to do things like prove your identity to uhhh goverments, banks, etc, they want multiple forms of ID, one of which is usually a photo ID, none of which anyone should be sending to a random on discord, or, frankly, asking for from a random on discord, both bc my god privacy and security risk but also like. handling that information can actually have legal requirements!

anyway. extremely long ramble on the failings of databrokers over, I appreciate you reaching out to help explain and it was very kind of you anon, sorry that I have. uhhhh kind of a lot of professional feelings about data privacy and basic social engineering, by which I mean saying 'no I'm totally 18 pinkie swear' in the grand tradition of teens wanting to get into age locked areas ever, your forebears lied on LJ so you could lie on discord.

#waters words #also I have failed utterly at sleeping so. uh. *fingerguns* sorry if this is totally incomprehensible.#also yes some of these are more accurate than others etc etc you SHOULD keep your data locked tf down #and request to be removed from databases where you can #but like. y'know. there are varying ranges of how much info is on you #and also. age verification is just. it doesn't work.#you basically cannot guarantee it for something online unless you're a government department #and even then. only specific government departments.#also I will own that I am somewhat biased about this #both bc. professionally I know what these tools can usually do and also how much that costs #and bc of *what* I do and what I have previously done I am fairly easy to find on some parts of the internet #assuming you have a couple of (specific) datapoints about me.#but also. I am very difficult to google‚ generally‚ even with that info #(also yes I *am* one of said forebears who lied on LJ. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#sometimes you are 14 and carefully sprinkling in mentions of Adult Things like your coworker who has the most annoying habits #in between reading/writing/discussing filthy smut of your anime blorbos or your LOTR blorbos or your torchwood blorbos. etc.#it was what you did! you kept your mouth shut and you did your best to be passably adult.)

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