#and not a commentary on where the line should be drawn for 'acceptable' vs 'unacceptable'/(un)ethical content

[spearheadrampancy]

every time i come back to fandom spaces - like, the concept of A fandom at all - it seems like everyone is just so... hostile.

and yes some of the things that people are getting riled about are legitimate concerns and stuff, but it seems like everybody is just at each others throats more and more. feels like fandom is less a community and more a kind of label that some people present as some army rank or something.

i dont know. there's just something really sad about it. to log on and see shit like "if you think the princess would ever dare to wear a PURPLE 🤢🤢 skirt instead of the PINK one she is always seen wearing then you should kill yourself and i mean that genuinely." all the time. from all fandoms. from fandoms you didnt even know existed. from fandoms youve been entrenched in for years.

over the last couple of weeks i had started to wonder why i slowly felt less and less comfortable with being in fandom territory over the last 10 years, and i saw a post today talking about how tumblr itself is generally just hostile in the worst way and it clicked. it isnt really a fandom specific issue, it just happens to be prominent in fandom. it's not just a tumblr issue, or even an internet issue though. people on a day to day basis talking to their friends make jokes that are genuinely so aggressive and violent; there's some level of normalisation at play. i'm not sure where it comes from. there's something to be said about how it probably isnt healthy that we're constantly surrounded by news of Yet Another Moral Failing somewhere in the world, how there's a latent anger at everybody and anybody in every direction.

i'm not saying we're in the wrong to be angry at the world. i just think its sad that we've turned art and appreciation into a battleground for some reason.

fandom used to have rules like "dont yuck someone else's yum" and a whole litany of other phrases. but now everyone is just hostile all the time. it sucks. makes me want to stay far away.