#i love the community responses to the copypasta

[masteroffiyah124]

Kai from Ninjago is not the master of fire. He has never been the master of fire, and should never become the master of fire. Nothing against the pyrokinetics, but he has been a human for 10+ years. We all grew up with Kai the human and why would we let them change him for absolutely zero reason? The new writer should just create a new character that is a master of fire, not rewrite one of the best lego characters in history. Sign this petition if you agree that Kai should stay a human. Once we reach a good amount of people who have signed, I will NOT contact the new writer on instagram because thats disgusting. Let them live their lives wtf

[ftmtftm]

Do you really think its more plausable that a TERF knows the specific details of the Baeddel discourse so well that they can craft the perfect copypasta that refrences all the nuances of internal trans discourse (which I'm sorry but they don't really understand anything about our community) in such a way as to be the maximum level of offensive to the other side than the alternative, that there exists on this site a trans man capable of sexually harassing trans women who disagree with him? I

Are all trans mascs sexual harassers? obviously not. Are you responsible for that guy's actions in any way? No not at all. But I find the inistance that any sexual misconduct or transmisogyny purported to be from a trans masc is an outsider troll to be very off putting from the perspective of a trans woman. I think there is a problem of trans women being treated like sex objects by the broader trans community, (enby's trans mascs etc). The problem will never be resolved if we can't even aknowledge it exists without getting shouted down.

Yes actually because that is what Radfems on Tumblr do and have done and will continue to do for literally the entire time I've been on Tumblr.

Just being completely clear - I mentioned this already but to be extra extra clear - It was not even my original idea that it was probably a Radfem and I've directly said that. I honestly thought it was probably one of the trans guys that white knights extremely hard against the idea of transandrophobia trying to cause shit because of the typing style.

It was in fact my trans fem ex-gf and current very close friend who I still live with, who suggested to me that she thought it was a Radfem. And you know?

Her reasoning combined with my experiences with TERFs actively trying to recruit my friends and I into Radical Feminism because we're actively Feminist trans mascs - it would make a ton of sense.

You have probably not experienced this because you are not a trans masc, but there is absolutely a subgroup of Radfems on this website that try very hard to learn about trans infighting as a way to target trans mascs for recruitment.

Trans masculine people have HUGE targets on our back for Radfem recruitment on this website. It's something I've literally personally seen people fall into and detransition for. Radblr actively loves to target vulnerable, politically vocal trans mascs as recruitment targets, especially doing so by trying to pit us against each other, especially by trying to pit us and trans women against each other.

It's scary as hell. It's also not a new thing by any means. Like, "This has been happening consistently at least since 2015" level of not a new thing. So, I've learned to become very aware of it because I'm a trans masc who is a Feminist advocate who actively studies the history and tactics of Radical Feminism in order to protect myself and other trans people from it.

I'm also sorry, but there was literally an anon like that that went around trans masculine blogs a few months ago. Exactly the same premise but flipped in a "transandrodorks need to be fixed by being impregnated with girlcock" kind of deal. There was an almost immediate "we need to assume this isn't actually a trans fem and assume that it is a troll" response both internally and externally. If any of us had assumed it was actually a trans fem in the same way and projected our pain at trans fems in the same way this is getting projected onto trans mascs...? Could you imagine? The double standard would be insane.

I know this is something coming from a place of our own hurt, but where the hell was any of our support during that? What were we supposed to do besides assume that it was probably a troll? Like those are hypotheticals without real answers, but come on? You know?

Of course anything is possible. No one knows who that anon actually was. And it is an issue the way trans women are sexualized by the community, especially right now on Tumblr. It deserves to be addressed. But not in the weeds like this.

I believe what I believe based on what I know and the thoughts and feelings of people I trust. You can dislike that, you can even disagree with that, but a stranger coming into my askbox with a condescending tone isn't really going to contest my lived experiences or the shared opinion of someone I've known for the better part of a decade that easily.

[thisblogcausespsychicdamage]

What Your Dead By Daylight Killer Crush Says About You

The Trapper: You have said the phrase "I can fix him" unironically.

The Wraith: You're always a slut for a good hurt/comfort fic.

The Hillbilly: This is the same as the Wraith but you've also got at least one foot into the monsterfucking community.

The Nurse: You're into breathplay.

The Shape: Your response to the accusation “I bet you think you could fix him” is an indignant “Fix him? Why would I want to fix him? The problems are the whole point!”

The Hag: You are Grim Ghatsby.

The Doctor: You are an escaped Medic main from TF2 and your love of demented authority figures had to go somewhere.

The Huntress: You are so basic I could grind you down to a fine powder and use you to whiten my bedsheets.

The Cannibal: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of getting your motherfuckin' grub on.

The Nightmare: You know what the acronym DDlg stands for.

The Pig: You're a furry that got trapped in this realm but you don't think Huntress' paper masks can cut it.

The Clown: You think that the phrase "thicc" is too widely used these days.

The Spirit: Either you're really into tsunderes who are almost all tsun and very little dere ooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr [image of schoolgirl Spirit and FBI OPEN UP!]

The Legion: You apply polycule headcanons to friend groups with the same frequency as BHVR applies Bloodpoint rewards to buggy patches.

The Plague: You know what the phrase "Roman shower" means.

The Ghostface: You are the Tumblr Sexyman lover of Dead By Daylight fans.

The Demogorgon: You are incredibly gatekeepy about the term 'monsterfucker' and you think everyone else in this fandom who uses that term is a fraud.

The Oni: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of revenge and being swole AF.

The Deathslinger: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of revenge and you want to call an older man Daddy.

The Executioner: You're a monsterfucker but you're not nearly as gatekeepy as Demo lovers.

The Blight: You've uttered the phrase "what that mouth do?" more than once.

The Twins: You just want to settle down with your thick trad wife and raise a child together.

The Trickster: This is just the same thing as the Huntress but for mlm/K-pop stans.

The Nemesis: You believe that any sexual encounter you can walk away from is a waste of time. Also you're a monsterfucker.

The Cenobite: You are so kinky it hurts and that just makes you even more horny.

The Artist: You have uttered the phrase "throat goat" more than once.

The Onryo: You have several paragraphs of copypasta explaining the difference between Sadako and Samara on hand whenever someone accuses you of being a lolicon.

The Dredge: You're a monsterfucker who has ascended beyond any petty adherence to human-like body structure. You are not to be fucked with.

The Mastermind: You are Scott Jund.

The Knight: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of JOLLY COOPERATION!

[la-pheacienne]

Hi! You may want to know that the “if I met a white person irl I’d beat the shit out of them” is a copypasta from many years ago stemming from a post where someone praised brown eyes and someone else (white) came on the post to say that blue/green eyes are better. The response is meant to be hyperbole. Copypasta or not, nobody deserves death threats for that kind of things. That said, I do believe that a post about wanting a dark haired lover is not the place to be thirsting over light haired characters, just like a post about brown eyes isn’t the place to talk about loving light eyes. I understand it was about the characters (and also that it wasn’t your post, but I follow you and not the other person so I’m telling you) and not necessarily about light hair, but the fact that light hair was specified makes it very tone deaf. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin are so often places below their lighter counterparts by racists, white supremacists, and the media in general, so a post glorifying dark features is just not the place. Making a thirst post wasn’t the problem, it was the context in which it was made

Hello anon, thank you for this ask because this is giving me actual insight to what the hell happened.

I do remember having seen this post about brown eyes and blue eyes going around and, having brown eyes myself, I really related a lot to people being pissed about it (this is kind of irrelevant but I remember for example that throughout my childhood every single princess was blond and blue eyed and I felt inferior because of my brown eyes. I get it).

The difference is that the person that made the reblog is my mutual and I know how respectable and polite she is, I am also a part of the same fandom and I got what her point was : she basically used the contrast (original post being about dark hair soft eyes and her talking about blond hair and a man with one eye) as a joke to show how "obsessed" she is, that's it. Thing is, I do believe there is a difference between her reblog and the brown eyes-blue eyes post : when you say that blue eyes are better, you diminish the other side, yes. But she didn't literally say that blond men are better, she just made a thirst post that may have been irrelevant, but not insulting nor racist. The situation unfortunately escalated with the immediate death threat. I just know that if OP asked her to delete it for that reason, she would immediately delete it because she is always so considerate, and that sucks.

So me personally, I admit that I was harsh in my choice of words. I am new to Tumblr and I am also not American, and this is kind of important because some things are completely strange to me. So when OP was like "haha that death threat was so funny lmao" I considered that appalling. I definitely do not appreciate the practice of randomly insulting, attacking, threatening people just because you are angry and I definitely don't consider this funny, or cool or even politically relevant/useful. It's just stupid. But then again, I'm not American so I don't get it. Maybe it has a utility, I just don't get it. Some people really take some things for granted and believe that something that is funny in their context is funny in any context, and just no.

Now your ask is giving me a little perspective that I really needed, since my context is different (I didn't know where this type of discourse came from). So I guess contextualising goes both ways : using abusive copypastas for political activism will not be appreciated in every community, and likewise, adding white/blond/light feature appreciation in a post about dark features will not be accepted in every community. So I will definitely keep that in mind from now on and I am sure my mutual will too.

[aceofwhump]

I've seen several people in this community get that awful anon hate/copypasta message and I just wanna applaud this community for how well this sort of thing gets handled. You guys are so kind and patient in your responses and it's amazing. Those who have answered this anon have done so with grace, patient, and kindness. I've seen so many offering explanations when they didn't have to so so at all. This anon is firmly shut down but shut down kindly. Only this community would collectively respond to hate from someone not in the community with kindness.

I just love this community so damn much. You all are amazing. I love you. ❤❤❤❤

To whoever is sending this message: kindly knock it off and go away. Leave this beautiful community alone.

[dsmpkinfessions]

Am I the only one who feels weird about the copypasta trend???

(This is all from what I know, but as a result of the trend it is really hard to find the og posts a lot of the time)

The "dream can't love you" copypasta was directed at someone having a psychotic breakdown. Everyone on twt preaches about treating psychotics and systems better but then willingly use a copypasta that could hurt so many of them.

The "Hey wilbur" copypasta feels like a slap in the face of the 'kin community because, while we are used to people making fun of our experiences and beliefs, there were tons of people blatantly being ignorant and making fun of 'kin in general. While I don't know for sure if that shlatt was factkin or not, it still feels weird to see the outside responses to it.

Maybe it's just me, but it just feels weird. And causes me to always worry if an ask I sent or a post I make will be turned into a copypasta

[amethystblack]

>Be me, 30 year old wizard. Never had a girldfried. KHHV. Valentine's Day approaching. Parent's disappointed. Would demonmaxxing be a good idea (as in, using black magic to summon a succubus)?

..no? what.. what do i...

so i googled several parts of this ask to try and see if it was a copypasta or something and i found nothing, so i’m going to boldly assume this is not a troll ask

but in the process of doing that, i have also learned that like all of these terms are popularly from incel communities and ijusthhbruh, that’s such a bad look. like, okay, just by associating with that part of the internet you are basically automatically making most people distrustful of and uncomfortable with you, but let’s set all that aside, all right, let’s just forget about what anyone else thinks and focus on you.

it’s always been my belief that if you want people to like you then you have to be a person who is worth liking. tautological, right? but if the community you choose to surround yourself with is that one, one that is even down to its very namesake based around an ideology of self-victimization, you are not doing yourself and your personal growth any favors. the ideas put forth in those circles encourage one to offload the responsibility for their well-beings onto others instead of actually trying to be a better, more likable person. and as far as getting a girlfriend specifically, if you want a relationship that is built on mutual respect then it is counter productive to feed yourself the content and ideas of a community that is notorious for its extreme misogyny because that is going to damage your ability to genuinely respect women.

if this is a problem that you actually want to fix, then you have to start by fixing yourself. 30 is not too late to start making positive changes. and getting out of those circles is probably step 1.

what kind of person do you want to be? based solely on your own actions and character-- not how anybody else reacts to you.who are your role models?how can you help others or be a positive part of their lives?what can you do to bridge the gap between the reality and your ideals?what can you do to show yourself the love and respect you’ve missed out on?

[bunny-carrothunter]

Observer Anon here. Your answer, as respectful as its tone was, seems to say, "Leaving the fandom is an overdramtic reaction. Just don't cross the lines this fandom has decided are unacceptable, and you should not feel uncomfortable in this space." Unfortunately, that's not how these things work, at least not in my experience. I am of the belief that these issues, for example, the Yandere Tobey concept, are not black and white, yes and no issues. I do not believe a space for 13+ users need be managed like a space for children aged 7 to 10 years. Frankly, I am still appalled that aging up Tobecky to teenagers and writing about mature topics, whether sexual or violent, in their relationship, is considered unredeemably and unambigiously terrible. How do fans imagine fanchildren come to be? Granted, children don't have to be the result of intercourse, but they can be, and it seems ridiculous to outlaw the action of speaking of that. I understand that many Wordgirl fans have traumatic histories regarding immature adults in fandoms for children's properties. Those adults' utter lack of boundaries and their often malicious intent toward vulnerable youth are inexcusible. Abuse of real world people, especially those unable to fight for themselves, is wrong, but... again, children have no business on the open internet at a young age, and young teenagers should be educated in internet safety. How is the failure of our society to provide this education taken as evidence that adult spaces have no place in fandom for children's media? Why must the Wordgirl community be an implict symbol of this inconsistent, hypocritical agenda against unofficial, unlicensed creative works using children's show characters to discuss or explore mature topics? I see the outrage against EC extremists, as well as the bi/transphobia used to silence those who support "het" ships, yet I see the same fandom members claim to be uncomfortable with portrayls of Becky, Tobey, or really any character but Miss Power becoming violent. Hell, in this fandom, it is seen as morally incorrect to consider GGG and episodes like it as part of canon! And yet I am told that if I do not 100% believe in the rhetoric of this fandom, I am not welcome. Sure, one can keep silent on their opinions and thoughts on these complex and emotionally-charged matters, but for how long can someone last in that situation? It feels disingeniuous. People would not want to be friends with someone who does not live by the rhetoric. It feels as if someone is a sheep dog that, in fear of being perceived as a wolf, dresses in sheep's clothing. It is all these emotions, all these feelings of being an imposter, that makes someone like myself feel that it would be best if I left. Yet, it seems I have reached a point where if I were to cut ties with this fandom, a fandom who has been nothing but loving as long as I wear my wool, my departure would cause even more problems. I feel trapped. It seems it is only a matter of when I leave rather than if I leave, despite my completely lack of hope that I can, in fact, properly disconnect myself from this community on good terms, or even with a shred of my diginity left.

It... hurts, to think I have to leave. I will miss this community dearly. Leaving behind all my creative ideas and the lovely conversations about Wordgirl and the wonderful show it is will be extremely painful. I really do not want to become a controversial figure. I cannot handle the stress from such a thing.

I get out of work and come home to a novel in my asks.

Mah dude, I had to re-read this a couple of times and I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say. I feel like I got send a copypasta.

Internet safety for minors? Of course. Should we play a part in guiding them through it? We could, but not our responsibility either. The Wordgirl fandom luckily has the advantage that while not small, it’s not AS BIG to where a problem can spiral out of control.

The gore/violent content in the fandom... yeah it’s very much present. And I will repeat myself that artists can only go so far and do so much to prevent their undesired audience from reaching that content, altho I will say tagging should be something to keep in mind when doing so.

Wolf in wool? Yeah, also agree. I know so many people in this fandom that have said, created or done something that would get them blacklisted or at least disliked if it got out. And no, it’s not THAT type of action or content, if you’re wondering. So everyone is just wearing their own type of... wool, and I feel silly as hell saying it like that.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to whatever each person finds acceptable or not in their own perspective. I’ve had friends that have gotten into quarrels because of different ideas and beliefs and it does hurt me, but I know each person is different.

At least that’s what I tried to understand from this ask.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

What the hell happened to creepypastas?

Whether it's Gilgamesh or urban legends, the art of storytelling has been around for thousands of years. In the case of creepypastas, just replace the campfire with a computer screen.

For those that have never experienced this internet genre of storytelling, creepypastas are horror-related stories, images, or videos. The name is based off the term "copypasta" because the stories are typically copied and pasted all over the internet. 

But over the past few years, the popularity of the genre has dwindled after tragic events caused the community to reel itself back and stifle creation. 

SEE ALSO: 17 terrifying creepypastas guaranteed to keep you up at night

Despite its struggles, creepypasta hasn't quite met its own horror movie ending, but rather turned into something else. Shifting from its home in the corners of the /x/ board of 4Chan and r/NoSleep subreddit, the genre has made its way to TV screens across the country thanks to Channel Zero, a SYFY television series created by Nicholas Antosca that expands on the plot of creepypastas on the internet.

The early days of creepypasta 

Some older and popular creepypastas include Jeff the Killer, a serial killer with no eyelids and a terrifying smile who murders his family; and BEN Drowned, a story by YouTuber Alex Hall that revolves around a haunted cartridge of the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. 

Hall included videos of the ordeal to further enhance the creepypasta.

"I saw that a lot of creepypastas only had one element to them — the writing — and I felt that if it had a visual component as well it would make it that much more engaging," Hall wrote.

Jadusable encountering an in-game statue that's supposed to be Ben

Image: jadusable / alex hall / youtube

BEN Drowned follows the story of a college student who goes the username Jadusable. The character buys a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask from a mysterious old man at a garage sale, that turned out to be haunted by a malevolent spirit named Ben. 

"The genre itself was still pretty young when I wrote it in 2010," Hall wrote. "I didn’t know what it was at the time. I saw a few creepy video game stories in the wild, and I wanted to try my hand at writing something similar. It just happened to evolve organically from there."

A glitched version of Link that appears when Jadusable starts up a game file.

Image: jadusable / alex hall / youtube

Creepypastas get bigger—and more visual

The infamous Slender Man creature — who was birthed from a creepypasta — helped propel the community into the spotlight with his unnaturally elongated limbs and pale face lacking eyes, mouth, or a nose. Slender Man got so big that he had video games, YouTube web series, and a feature film based on him.

For content creators like Adam Rosner, making YouTube videos based on this figure was a cathartic hobby that eventually grew into a fully fleshed out web series called TribeTwelve. 

"I started making videos back in 2010," Rosner said. "That type of raw horror was something that really appealed to me. It's a lot of what creepypasta lore really is." 

Rosner's TribeTwelve series was well received by the community. In the series, Rosner plays the role of Noah Maxwell, a college student who is being tormented by a group of evil entities known as The Collective, and of course, Slender Man.

"When I started out I didn’t have a big plan," Rosner said. "I only wanted to have a few episodes and have a joke ending. But then people started posting in forums about my stuff, and they were really into the plot and visuals of the series." 

An image of The Collective from TribeTwelve

Image: Courtesy of adam rosner

As one of the large figures in the "Slenderverse," Rosner joined the ranks of other series creators like Marble Hornets and EveryManHYBRID, whose YouTube channels are dedicated to creating Slender Man videos. 

Creepypastas take a dark turn

In 2016, a 12-year-old girl named Katelyn Davis livestreamed her suicide on Live.me. According to a blog post Davis wrote in December 2016, she had fallen in love with the the character Ben from Hall's creepypasta. 

"I NEED his love. I NEED his warmth. It has been several months since I last spoke with him," Davis wrote. "He went by Ben Drowned. He claimed that he was the real Ben Drowned. Right now, I don’t care."

In an interview with Kotaku last year, Hall commented on the event.

"I don’t feel responsible," Hall said. "I feel like if it wasn’t my story, it would’ve been something else. Someone would have impersonated someone else or whatever, from another story, to lead her down that path or whatnot."

Davis' suicide was not the only tragedy surrounding creepypastas. Perhaps the most infamous case  came in the form of an attack by two young girls in order to appease Slender Man.

In 2014, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, lured their friend Payton Leutner into the woods in Wisconsin where they stabbed her 19 times and left her to die. All of the girls involved were 12-years-old at the time of the attack.

Multiple reports during the incident highlighted the girls' obsession with the creepypasta figure as a motive. Because of this, many felt Slender Man and the creepypasta community were guilty by association.

One of the two accused attackers in the Slender Man stabbing appearing in a courtroom hearing on Nov. 12, 2014 in Waukesha, Wis.

Image: WAUKESHA FREEMAN, CHARLES AUER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thankfully, Leutner survived the attack after she dragged herself to a nearby road and was found by a cyclist. She was taken to the hospital to recover from her injuries, and her attackers were tried as adults in a court. Both Weier and Geyser pleaded guilty of attempted homicide. Weier was committed  to 25 years and Geyser was committed to 40 years. Both of the teenagers are serving their sentences in psychiatric institutions. 

"The stabbing was pretty discouraging for a lot of people," Rosner explained. "It felt like a lot of media outlets were looking for someone to point a finger at, and they just didn't understand the community at all."

Considered these two tragic events both involved young children, the community was hit hard. 

Despite setbacks, creepypastas move to TV

Despite the backlash and decline in new stories, Nicholas Antosca saw potential in the genre, and revitalized the dying genre through his television show, Channel Zero. 

"We wanted to honor the genre and give it our own twist," Antosca said. "The original stories are very short and it's necessary to bring a lot of stuff into it, so we wanted to give them more life with characters and a larger plot."

An image of "Pretzel Jack" a creature in the new season of Channel Zero

Image: courtesy of syfy

Channel Zero expands on creepypastas by using it as a platform to create an entire universe, characters, and a plot lines based off the original stories. 

The show has been received well by critics and audiences. It's slated to premiere its fourth season, Dream Door, based on a creepypasta that was posted on the NoSleep subreddit last year. All of the original authors of the creepypastas were credited and paid.

"I have faith in the genre," Acosta said. "I think as long as people have fears in the modern world, they’re going to continue to read, write, and watch this stuff."

Image: courtesy of syfy

Will creepypastas continue to thrive?

At the moment, creepypastas are still being produced online, but not nearly at the same rate as they were previously. There also haven't been any standout creatures recently, such as Ben or Slender Man.

"I haven’t really seen too many newer ones crop up organically," Hall said. "I think a lot of the really popular ones came out in the first half of the decade and we’re waiting for the next big author out there to put their own spin on the genre."

Although the written aspect of creepypasta has declined over the past few years, the versatility of the internet has allowed it to retain its spooky value regardless of medium. 

"It has a ridiculous amount of variety," Rosner said. "The community has so much to offer and I don't think it's ever going to go away, it'll just change forms."

Image: courtesy of syfy

Whether it's on TV, in a YouTube video, or written form, you can't escape a good urban legend or spooky story. As long as there are innovators in the community producing quality creepypasta for the internet, the genre is set to keep us up at night for more years to come.

"I’m excited to see where it goes in the future," Hall wrote. "I think there’s someone out there with an idea involving multiple mediums that’s going to set the internet on fire and I can’t wait for him or her to realize it."

WATCH: These super-realistic robots are creepy as hell

[alittledropofheaven]

On the internet, where people become data and popularity is conveniently quantified, it’s easy to learn what a community values most. Twitter embraces celebrities and #brands. Reddit stans for Barack Obama and elaborate pop-culture GIFs. Quora is an asylum of techies questioning their morality and their stock options; its second-most-upvoted answer is a “soul-satisfying” account of a sales bro helping a homeless man.

On the Bodybuilding.com forums, the two most popular threads of all time are not about deadlifts, intermittent fasting, or maintaining motivation. They’re about women. Specifically, women Bodybuilding.com members would “love to pound.” While one thread features pictures of “petite/slim girls” and the other of “athletic girls,” both are an endless stream of lightly Photoshopped near-nudity and predictably lecherous comments. Both have been viewed almost 3 million times. And both are on the lone section of the Bodybuilding.com forums that’s explicitly unrelated to fitness: the Misc.

“Participate at your own risk, some content NSFW,” reads the description of the Misc. on the forums’ homepage. “U Aware?”

The number of people who are Aware, it turns out, is over 16 million. As of January 2018, these members of Bodybuilding.com have made more than 137 million posts on the forums, including 90 million on the Misc. The forums first became active in 2000, a time before Wikipedia and when “Skype” was neither app nor verb. Myspace—Myspace!—didn’t exist until three years later. The Misc., as the predominant section of an internet community with such immense popularity and longevity, has cemented its place near the top of Google’s search results for any query imaginable. To appropriate Rule 34, if it exists, there’s a Misc. thread for it. Online, at least, the Misc. is inescapable.

A cursory scroll through the Misc. reveals what it has in common with the still-popular internet communities it predates, Reddit and 4chan. There are the memes, comics, copypastas, acronyms, and slang recycled endlessly in a digital echo chamber largely devoid of moderation. There are the forum members—Miscers, they call themselves—who post, and post in, intentionally incendiary threads about whether tongue rings scream “cum dumpster” and how “Crossfit is gay,” then fan the flames for entertainment’s sake by doubling down on their inanity. There are moments ofuproarious, absurd, gut-busting idiocy. There are ideology-clarifying usernames (RICHSTRONG, MinisterOfLust, weightsb4dates, WishIWasJawBrah, MericaThatsWhy) and statement-making profile pictures (deliberately titillating yet invariably off-putting abdominal shots, monochromatic selfies, strategically underlit bicep closeups). There are trolls surely seething and/or laughing maniacally, their keystrokes like machine-gun fire, as they launch poorly punctuated ad-hominem attacks and, at their most destructive, encourage people to commit suicide. There are sexists, racists, xenophobes, and homophobes. There is the sense of being in a parochial, patriarchal madhouse where decorum has gone to die.

What emerges, when you spend enough time on the Misc., is a ghoulish portrait of a place that embodies the white, male id currently at the helm of S.S. America. The Misc. is a stone-faced Uncle Sam with Popeye’s forearms and a cocked pistol in each hand. It’s a screeching bald eagle with a foreign Bad Thing in its talons. It’s everything that defines America’s bro culture, magnified and weaponized. But it’s deeper than that.

“Bro-merican” culture is largely defined by the stratification of power and status, both real and imagined. So, too, is Bodybuilding.com, where a power imbalance is embedded in the structure and design of the site’s forums. Unlike on 4chan, where all posts are anonymous and ephemeral, or on Reddit, where the grand sum of a user’s upvotes has little value, Bodybuilding.com members’ reputation points, or “reps,” mediate and deeply influence community interactions. While reps are similar to Facebook likes—weighted such that getting either “repped” or “negged” by a user with hundreds of thousands of reps will drastically affect your own rep count—they function as the Misc.’s de facto currency. Your rep count is displayed next to your every post. It’s like your bank account balance flashing on your forehead whenever you speak.

Bullying by those with power (high-rep Miscers) and obsequiousness by those without it (low-rep Miscers) is rampant. Getting negged by a high-rep Miscer means potentially becoming a “red,” a user with negative reputation points, displayed beneath your username as a gradated red bar as jarring as a stop sign. If you’re a red, you’re a second-class citizen. Your posts might as well come with a disclosure: “I’m a worthless idiot. Please listen to absolutely nothing I say.”

The opinions and caprices of high-rep “green” Miscers, then, dictate the forum’s personality. Any Miscer brave enough to post contrarian ideas—including, and especially, those that are liberal and feminist—is often negged into oblivion. Bad joke misses the mark? Negged. Sincere comment comes off as sarcastic? Negged. The Misc. is an echo chamber in which “greens” are given a megaphone and a gun.

But in contrast with Reddit and 4chan, the Misc. has been filtered through and molded by bodybuilding subculture, a set of beliefs and customs rooted in the many manifestations of stereotypical masculinity: egotism, aggression, hypersexuality, über-competitiveness, entitlement. Insecurity, intolerance, misogyny. Bodybuilding, after all, is not about functional strength but about vanity and surface appearances, how masculinity is projected to the world. It fosters narcissism by trading in cosmetic superlatives: the highest bicep peaks, the most vascular calves, the most extreme V-shaped back.

The Misc. applies this dog-eat-dog frame of mind to every topic. Everything is a masculinity- or dick-measuring contest. Including, of course, the actual dick-measuring contests, because Miscers are nothing if not cripplingly aware of their own inadequate manhood. Swears and slurs are censored but their creatively misspelled phonetic workarounds are not, which makes for a forum full of “kunts” talking “chit” and menacingly telling each other to “pepper your angus” (prepare your anus). The most recurrent insults all concern perceived masculinity, or lack thereof. “U mad bro?,” a popular retort, juxtaposes one-of-the-guys slang with the notion that showing emotion means demonstrating debilitating weakness. A real bro doesn’t get mad, he only gets testosterone-fueled revenge.

Near the bottom of the masculinity totem pole are “low-T beta manlets”—that is, short, shy, effeminate guys. Lower down are “phaggots,” a word that gets tossed around the Misc. like salt at a Sichuan restaurant. Lest any Miscer think you’re a “phucking phaggot,” all posts about personal care, fashion, home decoration, or how to look like a certain actor/model/bodybuilder are appended with “no homo.” Yet shaky Misc. logic dictates that even if you’re a gay man, there’s still someone you genetically out-alpha and who is, therefore, below you: a woman.

While the entire internet is teeming with horny men whose dark loneliness and insecurity wears the cloak of misogyny, they seem to be especially vocal, and in especially high numbers, on the Misc. Every other thread is a depressing question (“Think she’s faithful to him?”) or a charged statement (“Drunk Sex > Sober Sex”) about women—their bodies, hitting on them, their innate tendency to cheat—and sex—where to find it, how to go “no contact” after having it, why she is fucking him.

The Misc.’s ties to PUA (pickup artist) forums and Reddit’s /r/TheRedPill, a perniciously misogynist, anti-feminist Reddit community dedicated to “discussing sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men,” are as well documented as they are unsurprising. One of PUA’s most frequent suggestions is to acquire “inner game,” or self-confidence through self-improvement. Miscers, being on what is ultimately a bodybuilding forum, have inverted that mantra—they’re going from the outside in. Look good, feel good.

Other elements of the manosphere, from cries of societal misandry to sexual techniques like kino escalation and shit-testing, permeate the Misc. All women are “thirsty sloots” to be conquered, their emotions and physical well-being to be toyed with for internet strangers’ entertainment. When, to the forum’s delight, a Miscer posts about a sexual conquest in lurid detail—a surefire way to rack up the reps—the verbs employed are barbaric: “took down,” “smashed,” “hit.” To have “oneitis,” or an obsessive and unrequited crush on one woman, is to be afflicted with a masculinity-destroying emotional disease, one that can be cured, naturally, by sexually subjugating another woman. Regardless of whether a Miscer is successful or is rejected in the pursuit of sex, the response is the same: “Sloots gonna sloot.”

Despite the Misc.’s obsession with women, it has the latent homoeroticism you’d expect of a website devoted to a male-dominated sport in which bronzed, muscled competitors get smeared with oil and put on thongs before preening onstage in front of other men. This is no more obvious than when discussing a “Chad.” While there is a 5,000-post thread asking what, exactly, defines a Chad, the consensus is that he’s shorthand for a tall, built, strong-jawed, big-dicked, thick-haired, financially successful, athletic, confident, funny, sociable man who, because of these eminently desirable qualities, has his pick of the XX-chromosome litter. You look at a Chad and say, “This guy fucks.” (The prototypical Miscer might be a “Sheldon,” minus any TV-driven connotations of high-level intelligence.) Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski is a stone-cold Chad. Chad Johnson of The Bachelor is a Chad, and not just in name. It’s no accident that “Chad” is one of the most generically white and straight names imaginable, nor that archetypal Chads are nearly always white and straight. The etymological origin of the name Chad is the Welsh word cad, meaning “battle,” a fact that would surely delight Miscers to no end.

The Misc.’s resident Chad is an Australian bodybuilder known by his Bodybuilding.com handle, Zyzz. In early 2010, Zyzz began regularly detailing his “aesthetic” lifestyle on the Misc. As the so-called and self-proclaimed “king of aesthetics,” and with the zingy catchphrases “U mirin’ brah?” and “U jelly?,” Zyzz became the preeminent demigod of the Misc., where he and his “Aesthetics Crew,” acolytes similarly lacking in shirts, body fat, and social grace, were #bodygoals and #squadgoals come to life. Pictures and videosof Zyzz fist-pumping shirtless in public, wrapping his tanned arms low around the waists of nipple-pastied ravers at festivals, adopting a Herculean pose while standing in a shopping cart—these were the icons of the Misc. religion. When Zyzz died of a heart attack in 2011 at the age of twenty-two, his death became the sixth-most-searched death-related topic in Australia that year. His Facebook page, still regularly updated, has over 400,000 likes.

Zyzz’s masculinity showed itself in vain but harmless demonstrations of grandiosity, but other headline-making Miscers have expressed theirs through violence and morally indefensible acts. Gable Tostee first became a Misc. star by posting screenshots of his Tinder and text conversations with women he “rooted,” or had sex with; he entered Misc. lore after creating an ill-advised thread titled “Regarding the balcony tragedy” in the wake of news that one of his Tinder dates had been found dead from a fall from his apartment balcony. (Tostee was later acquitted of murder and manslaughter.) A Miscer known as YaBoyDave secretly filmed himself having sex with women—“whale-smashing,” in Misc. parlance—and posted the videos on the Misc.; he served 10 months in jail and is now a registered sex offender.

Still worse was Luka Magnotta, a wannabe model whose desperately misguided attempts at fame led him to asphyxiate kittens on camera and, later, live stream the brutal murder and dismemberment of a Chinese student while music from American Psycho played in the background; he was arrested at an internet café in Berlin, alternately surfing for pornography and reading news stories about himself, and it was later revealed that he’d posted on the Misc. Most infamously, Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara shooter, was active on the Misc., starting threads like “Why do girls hate me so much?” and “I’m tired of seeing losers with hot chicks.” In the latter thread, he recalled being “disturbed and offended” by seeing a “short, ugly Indian guy driving a Honda Civic” with a “hot blonde girl in his passenger seat.” It’s the bro’s classic sense of entitlement: Why should someone less masculine than me have what I know I deserve?

Miscers reaching toxic masculinity’s most violent nadir are mercifully few and far between. Yet the obvious connection between these people is one shared by the vast majority of the Misc. They’re young, white men whose social and sex lives are marked by absence or humiliating rejection, and their worldviews have likely been shaped by those failures. Rodger, for one, admitted in his autobiographical manifesto to having “never even kissed a girl.” He was an “incel,” or involuntarily celibate. “Not getting any sex,” he wrote, “is what will shape the very foundation of my miserable youth.”

A pervasive negative sense of self, of disappointment about one’s past and simultaneous anxiety and hopelessness for one’s future, is to the Misc. what the iceberg was to the Titanic: visible if you know to look for it, destructive if you don’t, and lurking below the surface all the same

The running joke about Miscers is that they’re all sad, awkward, forever-alone virgins who don’t lift and are on the only non-fitness-oriented section of a bodybuilding website because they can’t get their shit together. It’s revealing that one of the Misc.’s celebrities—there’s a 24,000-word condensed version of his “saga” on a fan-made website dedicated to him—is a weird, often clueless Everyman. He’s neither egregiously out of shape nor conventionally “aesthetic,” and his videos show a distinct lack of social awareness, a trait cultivated, presumably, by a life spent behind a computer screen and under a barbell.

Users of other Bodybuilding.com sections and other internet communities entirely propagate this idea of the Misc. as a cesspool of beta males with hopelessly futile aspirations of being alpha. “They have to be some of the most insecure dudes out there,” a Hypebeast forum user said of Miscers. On another forum, a user wrote that the Misc. is “filled with people [who] make fun of autism, while at the same time they themselves complain about their jobs, women, etc.”

More often, however, the call is coming from inside the house. Miscers reveal their vulnerabilities and problems in earnest with critically self-aware, self-deprecating posts. There are countless threads about “beta” topics like being a virgin (a Google search of site:bodybuilding.com “virgin” yields nearly 70,000 results), undergoing hair loss, not knowing how to normally interact with women, and giving up entirely. The Misc.’sRelationships and Relationships Help sub-forum would be more aptly titled “Sex: Help.” The “Depression Discussion and Support Thread Part III” thread is “stickied” by moderators at the top of the Misc., indicating that it resonates with the community; “Part II,” before it got so long that a new thread had to be created, had 10,000 posts and 1.6 million views. After the two aforementioned pornographic threads of “petite/slim girls” and “athletic girls,” the most-viewed Misc. threads are one about “Beta/cringe” moments of social awkwardness and another that documents the 350-pound weight-loss journey of a Miscer named Wetbreasts. For many Miscers, undoubtedly, browsing those threads is either motivational or like looking in a mirror. Or both.

It might appear counterintuitive that unconfident, sex-deprived, socially awkward young men would congregate—by the millions—on a bodybuilding website. But that paradox is precisely what’s responsible for the Misc.’s enduring allure.

It goes like this: A young guy thinks that improving his body will improve himself, that lifting weights will make him more confident, which will make girls like him more, which will make him happier, which will get him laid. And so on. In search of guidance, he finds Bodybuilding.com, where, after analyzing fat-to-ripped or skinny-to-jacked transformation stories, he ends up on the most popular part of the website: the Misc. But in the Misc. he finds a different kind of self-help: a vibrant, active community of like-minded guys. Guys who’ve felt inadequate and lonely and somehow less than manly, who’ve struggled with women and friends and money and body image, who’ve laughed at internet jokes and self-referential image macros that no one found funny, much less comprehensible, in real life. With a newfound sense of solidarity, this young guy wades deeper into the Misc., a community that gets him, his worldview increasingly shaped by this bodybuilding subculture, his mind warped by the community’s devil-may-care, “LOL, nothing matters” ethos.

It’s this last quality of the Misc. that Miscers themselves most readily use to characterize the forum. They see the stupidity of getting worked up over little green internet squares. They don’t take themselves seriously—it’s a motley crew of dudes on a bodybuilding site, bro—so nor should anyone else. Their attitude, one adopted from the bro culture with which they’re intertwined, is predicated on actions not having consequences. Break shit and someone else will pay for it. Get blind drunk, scream offensive things in public, and your boys will carry you home. Sexually harass or assault a woman, more than one woman, dozens of women, and you’ll still be revered, promoted, elected. You’re just “bro-ing out,” man, be easy, be chill, have a beer, have a protein shake.

“bro that forum is a fucking laugh man, just need a sense of humour,” a Hypebeast forum user wrote, in a thread titled, “The misc section of the bodybuilding forums is full of clowns.” If you’re young, white, and male, with a sense of humor shaped by the internet and a sense of privilege shaped by, well, everything else, the Misc.’s “clowns” can certainly be hilarious. But the further you are from that in-group, the more those clowns start to look like a horde of disturbing, misogynistic Pennywises.

Zyzz was once your standard insecure teenager with bad hair and spaghetti-thin arms. “I remember feeling like a little bitch when I was out with girls, walking next to them and feeling the same size as them,” he said in an interview. Becoming “aesthetic” hid a profound insecurity. His no-fucks-given attitude hid a fierce desire to be wanted.

Miscers see only the mirage. To them, Zyzz was living, walking, flexing proof that an average guy could eventually open the door to the HBB-filled alpha-male kingdom by gaining confidence and an aesthetically pleasing body. But the king is no more. And not every guy in search of personal fulfillment finds the key to that door by picking up a barbell. Not every young, white male who’d otherwise troll Reddit or 4chan becomes, through bodybuilding, the type of bro who doesn’t spend time on internet forums because he’s too busy crushing it, whatever “it” is, in real life. The Misc.—an online fraternity of the average and awkward, a safe space of the resentful and lustful and doubtful—is for the bros still searching.

[0l0x]

To troll a troll

There was this major asshole in a subreddit i used to frequent who used to reply to literally EVERY single thread with some stupid hostile comment. The dude clearly had no life whatsoever because it was like he sat there all day every day refreshing the 'new' page just to leave a comment rambling about how sjws are ruining america or some shit, whether it was relevant or not.

And of course people weren't smart enough to ignore him, so the entire subreddit just devolved into everyone arguing with him and every thread turned to shit. It damn near ruined the entire community.

I made another account just to fuck with this dude because he was clearly nuts and i didn't want him to stalk me. I had a "1 reply" policy with him, where i would reply to him once per thread and then abandon ship.

Because i noticed that he would respond to EVERYTHING with these angry 10 paragraph rants about how he's smarter than you and you're just a brainwashed liberal cuck and blah blah. I never read more than a couple sentences of his shit.

So I'd use my 1 reply just to say "i fucked your mom" or something and he'd of course spend at least 20 minutes constructing this monster of a long-ass reply that barely had anything to do with anything.

They weren't even copypastas. Each comment of his was an original work of "art".

I loved the idea of this miserable hateful bastard raising his blood pressure and wasting precious hours of his life writing these huge manifestos about how black people and gays are destroying america in response to a comment like "haha ur a asshole".

Anyway i think he got shadowbanned because I haven't seen him around lately. I always hoped for this day but now that it's here, i kind of miss him.

Or I miss trolling him, at least.

[thedegenerateasexual]

another big old fuckin rape warning jfc

incest warning too i guess? lmao this book

AN ENTIRE FLASHBACK CHAPTER im not ready

four days after the first encounter and kate hasn't made another move - "But she hadn't moved from the lifeguard perch all week, hadn't even spoken to him. She'd just watched him like a hawk, gaze trained on him, as he'd stroked through the water. One by one the other swimmers had left, and he'd remained behind, torn between disappointment that she hadn't done it again, and complete and utter relief that she was staying away from him."

and then she does: "He swam lap after lap beneath her scrutiny. Then, just as he did one last flip-kick and headed for the stairs in the shallow end, he felt the vibration of her approach in the water. And then she was swimming alongside him. He couldn't believe it. He didn't know what else to do except to keep swimming. What was he supposed to do? ... He thought about all those human, adult things that he hadn't done, that she obviously had—get a job, have a car..."

so then they stop swimming, and she takes his hand:

She smiled at him, much more shyly than he would have expected. She looked down, then peered up at him through her lashes.

"What you must think of me," she murmured.

His heart was pounding so hard he was sure that she could hear it. He had no idea what to say to her, and he also had no idea how to get out of the pool without embarrassing himself.

Except . . . he didn't want to get out of the pool. He wanted to kiss her.

"There's something about you," she whispered. "I've been thinking about you all week. I tried to stay away. I mean, you're a student and I'm . . . well, I'm not a teacher. But I'm close. To being a teacher."

She swirled her fingers through the water. "And this really isn't my style, you know? I don't come on to men like this."

Men. She thought of him as a man. He licked his lips, completely tongue-tied.

what kills me about this is that this is what he does in the show when confronted with kate, or other things that make him uncomfortable (jennifer) - when derek can't think of the right thing to say he goes dead fucking silent. he just plain stops talking. & i'm like devasated at the idea that it's a lifelong habit 

and then, this is the most manipulative part:

"I wish you'd say something," she murmured. "I'm kind of dying right about now. I'm sorry if I misread your intentions. I won't bother you again."

His intentions? Misread them? He was baffled. But then he thought about all the looks he had thrown her way. How he'd glanced up at the lifeguard tower every time he'd made a turn to head down the lane. Maybe he had been sending out signals.

THAT'S TEXTBOOK GASLIGHTING JESUS CHRIST HE'S SIXTEEN

it gets worse! she "assumes" he has a girlfriend and pretends to be all shocked when he says he doesn't because he's "so handsome and all" and then says "look this is happening in such an awkward way i dont mean to crowd you im just drawn to you i cant rly explain it" exCUSE me oh my god and then adds "but i don't want you to think i'm just after, well, YOU KNOW" THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE but he's sixteen and never had a girlfriend so he doesn't know any better!!!!

so she asks if he wants to go for coffee and show her around and then adds "we'd have to be careful bc outsiders wouldn't understand" i'm pretty sure they'd understand just fine :///

like i knew it was like this but im still so outraged on his behalf jesus

and he's thinking about how he doesn't know any coffee places in beacon hills bc he spends most of his time out of the community but SHE says:

"I think we're both having the same thought," she murmured. "Privacy."

Privacy, as in being careful not to be seen together while they were hanging out? Or privacy as in . . . oh, God, was she serious?

"So we can get to know each other." She pondered a moment. "Would you think I was too forward if I invited you to my apartment? Just for coffee?"

and he's like panicking running through his options bc he wants to go but he's supposed to meet laura and there's only one car - she offers to drive him home, and oh, wouldn't she just love to know where the hale house is - but eventually he just says he needs to check in with his sister first - and she's like, "laura hale? oh dont be startled i made some discreet inquiries about you" and it doesn't trip his creep radar bc he doesn't have any life experiences but holy fuck that's like right next door to stalking

as an aside i don't like how they use wolf as a verb in this book it's weird - he began to wolf, his eyesight wolfed - like nah. no thanks

uhhhhh so derek asks laura to pick him up in 3 hours and she's like "whats in it for me" and he's like "i wont tell dad i saw you frenching josh" JOSH THEIR COUSIN??

the exact words were josh was peter's sister-in-law's kid

that's, uh

i mean that means peter's brother's kid, then, right? which means laura and derek's blood cousin???? alright then

oh god kate came in the locker room in JUST A TOWEL while he was talking he can't get a minute away from her

laura's like "ur gonna go do something slutty with a human aren't you" THIS IS CONTRADICTING SEASON 1 CANON LOL derek never told anybody about kate! laura is super weird in this book if my 16yo little brother was about to go sleep with a teacher i would never be so chill about it

Oh, sweetie, getting your attention is like shooting fish in a barrel, Kate thought as she drove Derek in her car to her apartment. It was across the street from a bar, which, from her point of view, was convenient for when she wanted to hang out with the grown-ups. She was wearing a pair of jeans, heeled boots, and a black low-cut cashmere sweater. I can practically hear you slobbering. It's like you're a big puppy dog and I am a juicy steak.

this dialogue.......

i wasn't like, having the worst time reading this book, it wasn't actually that bad, but jesus

oh my god

"The thrill of this new hunt raced through her. The euphoria of the chase. She never, ever got tired of dangling herself in front of males of all kinds. It was no accident that in ancient Greece, the deity in charge of the hunt was a goddess—Artemis. Beside her, Derek "Aquaman" Hale had his head resting on the back of the seat and his eyes closed. He was really good-looking. This was not going to be the most difficult thing she'd ever done in her life."

good GOD 

so she offers him a drink, and starts with coffee, but quickly escalates to wine: "I like to have a little something to unwind after I'm at the pool, you know? Lucky thing I live across the street from a bar." She said that to goose him a little, remind him she was a woman, with a woman's needs.

and that he's sixteen.

now she's talking about how she doesn't even know if derek and the hales are the wolf pack she's looking for: She had her orders, but she had to be sure. Kill werewolves, and you were a hero. Kill people, and you were a mass murderer. The group she was involved with had detected werewolf activity in Beacon Hills, and she just had a feeling about the Hales. Of course, there were several other large families in the area that might make up the pack she was seeking. Derek's furtiveness and hesitation might have nothing to do with her assignment. There were reasons other than being a werewolf for not wanting to bring home someone who was way too old for you. It hadn't dawned on him to question the motives of a pretty woman who was coming on to him. He believed what he chose to believe.

apparently she has some tragic backstory w/ this? "Menwerewolves and humanswere so simple. They always assumed you wanted them. Some fat man on a couch burping and watching cage matches? Oh, yeah, you wanted him. A guy who threw you around the room and accused you of cheating on him? Oh, yeah, you wanted him. Like a hole through your heart. But the good one? The one that you really did want? A flash of rage roared through Kate, but she kept it at bay. She could feel it trying to take over, like a wolf scratching at her door. Rage was not her enemy. Rage got the job done. In ancient Greece—land of Lycoan, said to be the first werewolf—men who pissed off the goddess Artemis were ripped to shreds by her hunting dogs. Several times a day, Kate dreamed about ripping various people to shreds. Of course, she never acted on it. She left that for others much less able to control their savagery." see, like, if derek wasn't 16, i could buy bad men in her life leading her to want to use men like this, but derek is a boy and she talks continuously about how innocent he is, so like...no slide

i know i'm just doing a lot of copypasta rn but it speaks for itself: "She watched as Sweetie Derek politely moved a packing carton off her sofa and sat down. What a body. Still boyish, but with the sweet promise of a truly splendid man. If she was right about the Hales, Derek would never become a man. Just as he wasn't really a boy. He was a monster hidden inside a human disguise." that aligns pretty well with the "they're all just a bunch of dumb animals to me" shit she talks in 1.11, also, "Sweetie Derek," this is so horrible

she finally pours them wine and leans against the counter to "give him a view" - "She waited for his response. He was staring at her body. Wanting her. Intimidated by her. She loved it." like this is SO BAD AND EXPLICIT she really does just love that he's young and unsure it's FUCKED

so then we switch to derek pov, and they eat like a light lunch of sandwiches with a long awkward silence, and he does a lot of internal monologuing about how cool it would be if she could come home and meet his family and be her mate

which like...i know how teenagers are but he met her five days ago. tbh real grooming, which is definitely what she's doing, takes longer than that, but i guess we were going for brevity here lol

(in this book derek's dad is the alpha? but in season 3 talia is, so i guess they changed werewolves then to be matriarchial like hunters)

like, she's asking him questions about himself - lucky number, favorite color - she asks him if he believes in fate. he keeps clamming up and she keeps trying to get him to talk so she finally asks about his swimming and he blurts out that there's just so much pressure, even though he can't really tell people about his "double life" and she like IMMEDIATELY responds with "yeah ofc there is hs is so rough like the ppl you have to hang out with some are still like babies and some are all rown up and ready for the real world like you" like...this is classic grooming techniques

and he's like flattered and think she's mega hot but he's also really nervous, and when she leans into his space and asks if he's ready: "He set down his sandwich. His heart was about to burst out of his chest. His body was quivering and trembling. He felt as if he were burning up." and he does say yes so i assume they banged but THANK god the chapter cut to black

[writterings]

GOd i just saw your list of the bs fthe fandom did and can i ask about a couple(a lot) bc i still dont get them like shiro loves you baby or future blue lion, gremlin pidge? pining keith?is he pinning?? what did healing pod didnt do what,,? which copypasta why why is bobs burgers on the list

oh god here we go

prepare yourself, anon

shiro loves you, baby - someone who works on the show (like a minor animator or smth, no one important) drew a thing of shiro staring at the screen with the caption “shiro loves you, baby”. then in the tags they wrote “he’s looking at keith”. of course, both the anti and sha/aldin communities lost their shit over this for different reasons. but it also turned out to be trace over of lance during the bonding moment scene so like...even though it caused a bunch of drama its really kinda laughable. 

future of the blue lion (or w/e its called) - basically a post theorizing that lance’s comment of “when i die i want my brain put into an AI system” was foreshadowing how the blue lion will get “injured” and lance will have to transfer his life force/brain into it to save it

gremlin pidge - she is smol and green like a gremlin. ergo, gremlin pidge. as for air vent gremlin pidge, it became a common comic trope to draw her crawling through the air vents because she’s the only one that fits.

pinning keith - the fandom was really obsessed with keith pinning after lance and they still kinda are

what a healing pod can’t repair - a popular fic where lance was dying so blue swapped life forces with him and they were in each other’s bodies. a lot of angst, a bit of klance, but ultimately a happy ending. 

copypasta - people on respective sides of the age discourse would get anons saying ridiculous stuff so everyone’s response would be “make this a copypasta”

bob’s burgers video - please watch this

[samanthasroberts]

The 10 Most Difficult-to-Defend Online Fandoms

Oh, fandom. So passionate, so partisan—and, too often these days, so prolifically peevish. From Tumblr and Wattpad to more mainstream platforms like Twitter and Instagram, online communities have served as rallying points for stan armies: obsessives who comb over every interview and shred of non-news for information about the object of their adoration. But increasingly, fandoms' emotions have been curdling into a different kind of potion; something petty, entitled, conspiratorial, even abusive. So on the occasion of San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest fan events in the world, it's time for some tough love.

First, a note: this is a look at toxic strains that exist within a larger fandom, not an indictment of a given artist or person. Fandom is a pure and precious thing, and no one should feel conflicted about being invested in a pop-culture figure or property. If you express that investment by being a worse person, though—treating appreciation like warfare, demanding dogmatic purity tests, attacking people, or seeing yourself as some kind of a crusader—than it's probably time to take some time and re-assess things. We're sure nothing in the following catalog sounds like anything you've done in the name of fandom, right? Enjoy Comic-Con!

10. Barbz (Nicki Minaj Fandom)

The Barbz are a fiercely loyal sort. Case in point: In April, upon the release of Invasion of Privacy, a writer for British GQ explained how Cardi B had adopted Nicki Minaj’s style in a much more accessible way. “Nicki intimidates; Cardi endears,” she wrote. Minaj disciples responded with an all-out attack. The GQ staffer was flooded with malicious tweets, ranging from the direct (“I will kill u bitch”) to even more direct (“You better to delete that before we get your address and start hunting you and your family down!!”) The following month, the Barbz turned on one of their own when a self-proclaimed fan wondered aloud on Twitter: “You know how dope it would be if Nicki put out mature content? No silly shit, just reflecting on past relationships, being a boss, hardships, etc.” (Minaj took it further and DMed a disgustingly petty reply to the fan). For Barbz, fandom doesn’t allow for dissent—even when it's not dissent but a valid, healthy appraisal. This may come as a surprise, y'all, but love and criticism are not mutually exclusive.

9. Swifties (Taylor Swift Fandom)

Generally speaking, Taylor Swift’s fans aren’t bad—they just really love Swift and tend to be a little over-the-top about it. And most of the time, that’s what fandom is. (Also, this is a pop star who sends holiday presents to them; she’s earned their devotion.) But within that group, the “Bad Blood” singer has a few bad apples. There are those who go after Hayley Kiyoko for daring to point out that she shouldn’t be criticized for singing about women when Swift sings about men all the time. (Swift actually agrees with Kiyoko on that point.) There are Swifties who get bent out of shape when she doesn’t get nominated for enough awards. And then there are the white supremacists—fans Swift seems to have done nothing to court, but pop up anyway. Yeah, the ones who call her an “Aryan goddess”? Those are the ones who give her a bad reputation.

8. Zack Snyder Fans

Look, Zack Snyder's hardcore supporters have it rough. Or, well, they think they do. They’ve hitched their wagon to a star that occasionally blinks out. He’s made some OK movies (Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen) but he’s made even more that have been trashed by critics: Sucker Punch; Man of Steel; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That's led to a persecution complex among more than a few of his stans. While this kerfuffle has died down a bit with Snyder's step back from the spotlight—recently, he has shifted focus to make iPhone movies and produce the DC movies rather than direct them—the coming years represent a reckoning. James Wan’s Aquaman and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman sequel are headed to theaters, and the receptions they get may determine whether critics have complaints with all DC movies, or just the ones with Snyder behind the camera. In the meantime, though, his own personal justice league will be there to defend it.

7. Rick and Morty Fans

Yes, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland created a funny, smart, challenging (god, those burps) cartoon. Yes, it delivers a bizarro Back to the Future ride through both spacetime and genre tropes. Yes, it's the most STEM-conscious animated show since Futurama. But sweet tapdancing Pickle Rick, you've never seen a TV fandom more noisome than this one. There's the "this show is so smart normies don't get it" self-congratulation that's so over-the-top it became a copypasta meme; there's the propensity to doxx the show's female writers and generally be such venal stains that Harmon despises them; there's the mass freakout after McDonald's ran out of limited-edition Szechuan dipping sauce. (Yes, that's correct.) While Adult Swim recently renewed the show for 70 new episodes, there's going to be quite a lull before anyone sees a new episode—here's hoping the fans grow up a little bit in the meantime.

6. #TeamBreezy (Chris Brown Fandom)

It’s been almost a decade since reports first surfaced of Chris Brown’s violent abuse of then-girlfriend Rihanna. Since then, Rihanna has rocketed to pop superstardom while Brown’s career has strided along, aided by a loyal following that borders on enablers. Despite an earnest-seeming redemption tour, reports of Brown’s violent behavior continue to bubble up: Brown’s ex-girlfriend filed for a restraining order; Brown went on a homophobic Twitter rant; Brown punched a fan in a nightclub; Brown locked a woman in his home, without a cell phone, so she could be sexually assaulted. (Brown’s camp denies that last accusation.) Yet, Team Breezy generally attributes such reports to misinformation and "haters." Fandoms are built on stand-by-your-man loyalty, but at some point it becomes impossible to love the art in good conscience. If the #MeToo movement is any indication, the times have changed since Rihanna’s bloody face headlined gossip sites. Willful ignorance is no longer an acceptable choice.

5. XXXtentacion Fans

On June 18, outside of a Broward County motorcycle dealership, 20-year-old Jahseh Onfroy was fatally gunned down by two assailants. At the time of his death, Onfroy, who rapped under the moniker XXXTentacion, had already amassed a rare kind of fame: He attracted deep love and even deeper hate with a ferocious mania. The allure of Onfroy’s dark matter inspired the type of fandom that spills into violent obsession. A recurring source of vitriol for the rapper, and an easy target for his rabid fanbase, was his ex-girlfriend, Geneva Ayala, who filed multiple charges against the rapper (including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, and witness tampering). When it came to light that Ayala created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for hospital bills due to damage inflicted by Onfroy, his fans bullied her into exile: forcing her to delete Instagram, hacking her Twitter account, harassing her at work to the point that she was left with no option but to quit, and shutting down her GoFundMe (it was later reopened). Having made a name for himself on Soundcloud, where he often engaged issues of mental health in his music, Onfroy willingly embraced his demons (he once called himself “lil dylan roof” on Twitter, referencing the Charleston shooter who murdered nine parishioners in South Carolina in 2015). But even now, in death, XXX is a reminder that extreme fandom has the power to blind people to the blood on their own hands.

4. Logang (Logan Paul Fandom)

Let’s get this out of the way up front. Many, even most, of Logan Paul’s fans are literal children. And so if you ask us who is really responsible for their bad behavior, we’re going to have to say the fault is predominantly with Paul and, you know, other adults. But the Logang (or the Logangsters, depending on who you ask), like Lil Tay, are inventing a new category of internet villain: the terrifying baby troll. They do all the things adult trolls do—parrot back the sexist and racist things Pauls says, stalk him outside hotel rooms, and harass and troll the “haters” daring to criticize their deeply problematic idol—but they’re kids! So you can’t really fire back at them without being a jerk yourself. Listen, Logang: all Logan wants to do is sell you merch. He’s not really your friend. Can I interest you in a puppy video?

3. Bro Army (Pewdiepie Fandom)

First rule of non-toxic fandoms: Don’t call yourselves "bro," don’t call yourselves an "army," and definitely don’t call yourselves the Bro Army. People might assume you’re a bunch of flame-war-loving trolls who think girls are icky—and where YouTuber PewDiePie’s fans are concerned, everyone would be absolutely right. It’s not just that they’ve stuck with the Swedish gamer/alleged comedian as he peppered his videos with racial slurs, rape jokes, anti-Semitism, and homophobia for nearly a decade (though that’s bad enough). It’s also that they insist that PewDiePie somehow isn’t being hateful at all. Oh, and if you quote their hero back at them, they’ll wallpaper your social media accounts with thoughtful messages about how you suck—for years.

2. The Dark Side of Star Wars Fandom

The most recent eruption has been a hilariously non-ironic campaign to remake The Last Jedi, but that's sadly just the latest in a long line of online grossness from the entitled Sith-heads who are so keen on reclaiming the Star Wars universe . Somehow, Gamergate has come to a galaxy far, far away; hectoring, harassment, even death threats aimed at director Rian Johnson. To be clear, this is a tiny (if vocal) subset of Star Wars fandom, which on the whole is as joyous and inclusive as the universe is finally becoming. But to to quote our own Adam Rogers:

"Everyone has a right to opinions about movies. Everyone has a right, I guess, to throw those opinions in the face of the people who make those movies, though it does seem at minimum impolite. Everyone has the right to ask transnational entertainment companies to make the movies they want, and if those companies don’t respond, to stop giving the companies money. But harassment, threats, jokes about someone’s race or gender? A Jedi would fight someone who did that stuff. The Force binds us all together. Hatred and anger are the ways of the Dark Side; they may bring power, but at a cost. It harms individuals, debases the people who do it, and it breaks the Fellowship. In the end, the cost of that power will be powerlessness."

1. Elon Musk Acolytes

"Always punch up" is a good life motto. You’ll accomplish a lot by speaking truth to power; dissecting the misdeeds of a relative unknown, though, makes you look like a tool. That’s why, despite the plethora of dark and toxic fandoms that flourish on the fringes of the internet, the group that tops our list of nasties is devoted to a person at the internet's very center: Elon Musk. To his fan club, Musk is so much more than a charismatic artist, a talented musician, or, hey, a flawed but successful tech entrepreneur—he’s a messiah, a vestige of an age of retrograde masculinity, when a reasonably successful man could expect his ideas to remain unchecked and his words be read as gospel. And Musk wields his one-man metaphor status (and his 22.3 million follower army) to whack out any dissenting opinions. “Because before he commented on my tweet, it was floundering in relative obscurity,” science writer Erin Biba wrote in a piece for the Daily Beast. But after Musk’s dismissive response, Biba found herself drowning in hate mail and abuse. By letting his mob pick over opinions he does not like, Musk is able to control the narrative, playing up investigative reporting on Tesla’s poor labor practices as a misinformation campaign—or even, in some recent deleted tweets, insinuating that one of the people involved with the Thai cave rescue efforts is a pedophile. It’s bad to be thin-skinned, and terrible to play the underdog, but playing it while you ignite a million-man bullying campaign is reprehensible.

More Great WIRED Stories

Sex, beer, and coding: Inside Facebook’s wild, early days

Sci-fi invades Netflix—as they both invade your home

The worst cybersecurity hacks of 2018 so far

Microsoft’s big bet on a tiny-computer future

How Silicon Valley fuels an informal caste system

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Related Video

Culture

How To Battle Trolling Ad Hominem Attacks Online

An internet troll's favorite way to argue? Ad hominem, of course! This is your guide to spotting bad arguments on the internet and how to fight them.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-10-most-difficult-to-defend-online-fandoms/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/the-10-most-difficult-to-defend-online-fandoms/

[adambstingus]

The 10 Most Difficult-to-Defend Online Fandoms

Oh, fandom. So passionate, so partisan—and, too often these days, so prolifically peevish. From Tumblr and Wattpad to more mainstream platforms like Twitter and Instagram, online communities have served as rallying points for stan armies: obsessives who comb over every interview and shred of non-news for information about the object of their adoration. But increasingly, fandoms’ emotions have been curdling into a different kind of potion; something petty, entitled, conspiratorial, even abusive. So on the occasion of San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest fan events in the world, it’s time for some tough love.

First, a note: this is a look at toxic strains that exist within a larger fandom, not an indictment of a given artist or person. Fandom is a pure and precious thing, and no one should feel conflicted about being invested in a pop-culture figure or property. If you express that investment by being a worse person, though—treating appreciation like warfare, demanding dogmatic purity tests, attacking people, or seeing yourself as some kind of a crusader—than it’s probably time to take some time and re-assess things. We’re sure nothing in the following catalog sounds like anything you’ve done in the name of fandom, right? Enjoy Comic-Con!

10. Barbz (Nicki Minaj Fandom)

The Barbz are a fiercely loyal sort. Case in point: In April, upon the release of Invasion of Privacy, a writer for British GQ explained how Cardi B had adopted Nicki Minaj’s style in a much more accessible way. “Nicki intimidates; Cardi endears,” she wrote. Minaj disciples responded with an all-out attack. The GQ staffer was flooded with malicious tweets, ranging from the direct (“I will kill u bitch”) to even more direct (“You better to delete that before we get your address and start hunting you and your family down!!”) The following month, the Barbz turned on one of their own when a self-proclaimed fan wondered aloud on Twitter: “You know how dope it would be if Nicki put out mature content? No silly shit, just reflecting on past relationships, being a boss, hardships, etc.” (Minaj took it further and DMed a disgustingly petty reply to the fan). For Barbz, fandom doesn’t allow for dissent—even when it’s not dissent but a valid, healthy appraisal. This may come as a surprise, y'all, but love and criticism are not mutually exclusive.

9. Swifties (Taylor Swift Fandom)

Generally speaking, Taylor Swift’s fans aren’t bad—they just really love Swift and tend to be a little over-the-top about it. And most of the time, that’s what fandom is. (Also, this is a pop star who sends holiday presents to them; she’s earned their devotion.) But within that group, the “Bad Blood” singer has a few bad apples. There are those who go after Hayley Kiyoko for daring to point out that she shouldn’t be criticized for singing about women when Swift sings about men all the time. (Swift actually agrees with Kiyoko on that point.) There are Swifties who get bent out of shape when she doesn’t get nominated for enough awards. And then there are the white supremacists—fans Swift seems to have done nothing to court, but pop up anyway. Yeah, the ones who call her an “Aryan goddess”? Those are the ones who give her a bad reputation.

8. Zack Snyder Fans

Look, Zack Snyder’s hardcore supporters have it rough. Or, well, they think they do. They’ve hitched their wagon to a star that occasionally blinks out. He’s made some OK movies (Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen) but he’s made even more that have been trashed by critics: Sucker Punch; Man of Steel; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That’s led to a persecution complex among more than a few of his stans. While this kerfuffle has died down a bit with Snyder’s step back from the spotlight—recently, he has shifted focus to make iPhone movies and produce the DC movies rather than direct them—the coming years represent a reckoning. James Wan’s Aquaman and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman sequel are headed to theaters, and the receptions they get may determine whether critics have complaints with all DC movies, or just the ones with Snyder behind the camera. In the meantime, though, his own personal justice league will be there to defend it.

7. Rick and Morty Fans

Yes, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland created a funny, smart, challenging (god, those burps) cartoon. Yes, it delivers a bizarro Back to the Future ride through both spacetime and genre tropes. Yes, it’s the most STEM-conscious animated show since Futurama. But sweet tapdancing Pickle Rick, you’ve never seen a TV fandom more noisome than this one. There’s the “this show is so smart normies don’t get it” self-congratulation that’s so over-the-top it became a copypasta meme; there’s the propensity to doxx the show’s female writers and generally be such venal stains that Harmon despises them; there’s the mass freakout after McDonald’s ran out of limited-edition Szechuan dipping sauce. (Yes, that’s correct.) While Adult Swim recently renewed the show for 70 new episodes, there’s going to be quite a lull before anyone sees a new episode—here’s hoping the fans grow up a little bit in the meantime.

6. #TeamBreezy (Chris Brown Fandom)

It’s been almost a decade since reports first surfaced of Chris Brown’s violent abuse of then-girlfriend Rihanna. Since then, Rihanna has rocketed to pop superstardom while Brown’s career has strided along, aided by a loyal following that borders on enablers. Despite an earnest-seeming redemption tour, reports of Brown’s violent behavior continue to bubble up: Brown’s ex-girlfriend filed for a restraining order; Brown went on a homophobic Twitter rant; Brown punched a fan in a nightclub; Brown locked a woman in his home, without a cell phone, so she could be sexually assaulted. (Brown’s camp denies that last accusation.) Yet, Team Breezy generally attributes such reports to misinformation and “haters.” Fandoms are built on stand-by-your-man loyalty, but at some point it becomes impossible to love the art in good conscience. If the #MeToo movement is any indication, the times have changed since Rihanna’s bloody face headlined gossip sites. Willful ignorance is no longer an acceptable choice.

5. XXXtentacion Fans

On June 18, outside of a Broward County motorcycle dealership, 20-year-old Jahseh Onfroy was fatally gunned down by two assailants. At the time of his death, Onfroy, who rapped under the moniker XXXTentacion, had already amassed a rare kind of fame: He attracted deep love and even deeper hate with a ferocious mania. The allure of Onfroy’s dark matter inspired the type of fandom that spills into violent obsession. A recurring source of vitriol for the rapper, and an easy target for his rabid fanbase, was his ex-girlfriend, Geneva Ayala, who filed multiple charges against the rapper (including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, and witness tampering). When it came to light that Ayala created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for hospital bills due to damage inflicted by Onfroy, his fans bullied her into exile: forcing her to delete Instagram, hacking her Twitter account, harassing her at work to the point that she was left with no option but to quit, and shutting down her GoFundMe (it was later reopened). Having made a name for himself on Soundcloud, where he often engaged issues of mental health in his music, Onfroy willingly embraced his demons (he once called himself “lil dylan roof” on Twitter, referencing the Charleston shooter who murdered nine parishioners in South Carolina in 2015). But even now, in death, XXX is a reminder that extreme fandom has the power to blind people to the blood on their own hands.

4. Logang (Logan Paul Fandom)

Let’s get this out of the way up front. Many, even most, of Logan Paul’s fans are literal children. And so if you ask us who is really responsible for their bad behavior, we’re going to have to say the fault is predominantly with Paul and, you know, other adults. But the Logang (or the Logangsters, depending on who you ask), like Lil Tay, are inventing a new category of internet villain: the terrifying baby troll. They do all the things adult trolls do—parrot back the sexist and racist things Pauls says, stalk him outside hotel rooms, and harass and troll the “haters” daring to criticize their deeply problematic idol—but they’re kids! So you can’t really fire back at them without being a jerk yourself. Listen, Logang: all Logan wants to do is sell you merch. He’s not really your friend. Can I interest you in a puppy video?

3. Bro Army (Pewdiepie Fandom)

First rule of non-toxic fandoms: Don’t call yourselves “bro,” don’t call yourselves an “army,” and definitely don’t call yourselves the Bro Army. People might assume you’re a bunch of flame-war-loving trolls who think girls are icky—and where YouTuber PewDiePie’s fans are concerned, everyone would be absolutely right. It’s not just that they’ve stuck with the Swedish gamer/alleged comedian as he peppered his videos with racial slurs, rape jokes, anti-Semitism, and homophobia for nearly a decade (though that’s bad enough). It’s also that they insist that PewDiePie somehow isn’t being hateful at all. Oh, and if you quote their hero back at them, they’ll wallpaper your social media accounts with thoughtful messages about how you suck—for years.

2. The Dark Side of Star Wars Fandom

The most recent eruption has been a hilariously non-ironic campaign to remake The Last Jedi, but that’s sadly just the latest in a long line of online grossness from the entitled Sith-heads who are so keen on reclaiming the Star Wars universe . Somehow, Gamergate has come to a galaxy far, far away; hectoring, harassment, even death threats aimed at director Rian Johnson. To be clear, this is a tiny (if vocal) subset of Star Wars fandom, which on the whole is as joyous and inclusive as the universe is finally becoming. But to to quote our own Adam Rogers:

“Everyone has a right to opinions about movies. Everyone has a right, I guess, to throw those opinions in the face of the people who make those movies, though it does seem at minimum impolite. Everyone has the right to ask transnational entertainment companies to make the movies they want, and if those companies don’t respond, to stop giving the companies money. But harassment, threats, jokes about someone’s race or gender? A Jedi would fight someone who did that stuff. The Force binds us all together. Hatred and anger are the ways of the Dark Side; they may bring power, but at a cost. It harms individuals, debases the people who do it, and it breaks the Fellowship. In the end, the cost of that power will be powerlessness.”

1. Elon Musk Acolytes

“Always punch up” is a good life motto. You’ll accomplish a lot by speaking truth to power; dissecting the misdeeds of a relative unknown, though, makes you look like a tool. That’s why, despite the plethora of dark and toxic fandoms that flourish on the fringes of the internet, the group that tops our list of nasties is devoted to a person at the internet’s very center: Elon Musk. To his fan club, Musk is so much more than a charismatic artist, a talented musician, or, hey, a flawed but successful tech entrepreneur—he’s a messiah, a vestige of an age of retrograde masculinity, when a reasonably successful man could expect his ideas to remain unchecked and his words be read as gospel. And Musk wields his one-man metaphor status (and his 22.3 million follower army) to whack out any dissenting opinions. “Because before he commented on my tweet, it was floundering in relative obscurity,” science writer Erin Biba wrote in a piece for the Daily Beast. But after Musk’s dismissive response, Biba found herself drowning in hate mail and abuse. By letting his mob pick over opinions he does not like, Musk is able to control the narrative, playing up investigative reporting on Tesla’s poor labor practices as a misinformation campaign—or even, in some recent deleted tweets, insinuating that one of the people involved with the Thai cave rescue efforts is a pedophile. It’s bad to be thin-skinned, and terrible to play the underdog, but playing it while you ignite a million-man bullying campaign is reprehensible.

More Great WIRED Stories

Sex, beer, and coding: Inside Facebook’s wild, early days

Sci-fi invades Netflix—as they both invade your home

The worst cybersecurity hacks of 2018 so far

Microsoft’s big bet on a tiny-computer future

How Silicon Valley fuels an informal caste system

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss our latest and greatest stories

Related Video

Culture

How To Battle Trolling Ad Hominem Attacks Online

An internet troll’s favorite way to argue? Ad hominem, of course! This is your guide to spotting bad arguments on the internet and how to fight them.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-10-most-difficult-to-defend-online-fandoms/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183577966647

[allofbeercom]

The 10 Most Difficult-to-Defend Online Fandoms

Oh, fandom. So passionate, so partisan—and, too often these days, so prolifically peevish. From Tumblr and Wattpad to more mainstream platforms like Twitter and Instagram, online communities have served as rallying points for stan armies: obsessives who comb over every interview and shred of non-news for information about the object of their adoration. But increasingly, fandoms' emotions have been curdling into a different kind of potion; something petty, entitled, conspiratorial, even abusive. So on the occasion of San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest fan events in the world, it's time for some tough love.

First, a note: this is a look at toxic strains that exist within a larger fandom, not an indictment of a given artist or person. Fandom is a pure and precious thing, and no one should feel conflicted about being invested in a pop-culture figure or property. If you express that investment by being a worse person, though—treating appreciation like warfare, demanding dogmatic purity tests, attacking people, or seeing yourself as some kind of a crusader—than it's probably time to take some time and re-assess things. We're sure nothing in the following catalog sounds like anything you've done in the name of fandom, right? Enjoy Comic-Con!

10. Barbz (Nicki Minaj Fandom)

The Barbz are a fiercely loyal sort. Case in point: In April, upon the release of Invasion of Privacy, a writer for British GQ explained how Cardi B had adopted Nicki Minaj’s style in a much more accessible way. “Nicki intimidates; Cardi endears,” she wrote. Minaj disciples responded with an all-out attack. The GQ staffer was flooded with malicious tweets, ranging from the direct (“I will kill u bitch”) to even more direct (“You better to delete that before we get your address and start hunting you and your family down!!”) The following month, the Barbz turned on one of their own when a self-proclaimed fan wondered aloud on Twitter: “You know how dope it would be if Nicki put out mature content? No silly shit, just reflecting on past relationships, being a boss, hardships, etc.” (Minaj took it further and DMed a disgustingly petty reply to the fan). For Barbz, fandom doesn’t allow for dissent—even when it's not dissent but a valid, healthy appraisal. This may come as a surprise, y'all, but love and criticism are not mutually exclusive.

9. Swifties (Taylor Swift Fandom)

Generally speaking, Taylor Swift’s fans aren’t bad—they just really love Swift and tend to be a little over-the-top about it. And most of the time, that’s what fandom is. (Also, this is a pop star who sends holiday presents to them; she’s earned their devotion.) But within that group, the “Bad Blood” singer has a few bad apples. There are those who go after Hayley Kiyoko for daring to point out that she shouldn’t be criticized for singing about women when Swift sings about men all the time. (Swift actually agrees with Kiyoko on that point.) There are Swifties who get bent out of shape when she doesn’t get nominated for enough awards. And then there are the white supremacists—fans Swift seems to have done nothing to court, but pop up anyway. Yeah, the ones who call her an “Aryan goddess”? Those are the ones who give her a bad reputation.

8. Zack Snyder Fans

Look, Zack Snyder's hardcore supporters have it rough. Or, well, they think they do. They’ve hitched their wagon to a star that occasionally blinks out. He’s made some OK movies (Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen) but he’s made even more that have been trashed by critics: Sucker Punch; Man of Steel; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That's led to a persecution complex among more than a few of his stans. While this kerfuffle has died down a bit with Snyder's step back from the spotlight—recently, he has shifted focus to make iPhone movies and produce the DC movies rather than direct them—the coming years represent a reckoning. James Wan’s Aquaman and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman sequel are headed to theaters, and the receptions they get may determine whether critics have complaints with all DC movies, or just the ones with Snyder behind the camera. In the meantime, though, his own personal justice league will be there to defend it.

7. Rick and Morty Fans

Yes, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland created a funny, smart, challenging (god, those burps) cartoon. Yes, it delivers a bizarro Back to the Future ride through both spacetime and genre tropes. Yes, it's the most STEM-conscious animated show since Futurama. But sweet tapdancing Pickle Rick, you've never seen a TV fandom more noisome than this one. There's the "this show is so smart normies don't get it" self-congratulation that's so over-the-top it became a copypasta meme; there's the propensity to doxx the show's female writers and generally be such venal stains that Harmon despises them; there's the mass freakout after McDonald's ran out of limited-edition Szechuan dipping sauce. (Yes, that's correct.) While Adult Swim recently renewed the show for 70 new episodes, there's going to be quite a lull before anyone sees a new episode—here's hoping the fans grow up a little bit in the meantime.

6. #TeamBreezy (Chris Brown Fandom)

It’s been almost a decade since reports first surfaced of Chris Brown’s violent abuse of then-girlfriend Rihanna. Since then, Rihanna has rocketed to pop superstardom while Brown’s career has strided along, aided by a loyal following that borders on enablers. Despite an earnest-seeming redemption tour, reports of Brown’s violent behavior continue to bubble up: Brown’s ex-girlfriend filed for a restraining order; Brown went on a homophobic Twitter rant; Brown punched a fan in a nightclub; Brown locked a woman in his home, without a cell phone, so she could be sexually assaulted. (Brown’s camp denies that last accusation.) Yet, Team Breezy generally attributes such reports to misinformation and "haters." Fandoms are built on stand-by-your-man loyalty, but at some point it becomes impossible to love the art in good conscience. If the #MeToo movement is any indication, the times have changed since Rihanna’s bloody face headlined gossip sites. Willful ignorance is no longer an acceptable choice.

5. XXXtentacion Fans

On June 18, outside of a Broward County motorcycle dealership, 20-year-old Jahseh Onfroy was fatally gunned down by two assailants. At the time of his death, Onfroy, who rapped under the moniker XXXTentacion, had already amassed a rare kind of fame: He attracted deep love and even deeper hate with a ferocious mania. The allure of Onfroy’s dark matter inspired the type of fandom that spills into violent obsession. A recurring source of vitriol for the rapper, and an easy target for his rabid fanbase, was his ex-girlfriend, Geneva Ayala, who filed multiple charges against the rapper (including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation, and witness tampering). When it came to light that Ayala created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for hospital bills due to damage inflicted by Onfroy, his fans bullied her into exile: forcing her to delete Instagram, hacking her Twitter account, harassing her at work to the point that she was left with no option but to quit, and shutting down her GoFundMe (it was later reopened). Having made a name for himself on Soundcloud, where he often engaged issues of mental health in his music, Onfroy willingly embraced his demons (he once called himself “lil dylan roof” on Twitter, referencing the Charleston shooter who murdered nine parishioners in South Carolina in 2015). But even now, in death, XXX is a reminder that extreme fandom has the power to blind people to the blood on their own hands.

4. Logang (Logan Paul Fandom)

Let’s get this out of the way up front. Many, even most, of Logan Paul’s fans are literal children. And so if you ask us who is really responsible for their bad behavior, we’re going to have to say the fault is predominantly with Paul and, you know, other adults. But the Logang (or the Logangsters, depending on who you ask), like Lil Tay, are inventing a new category of internet villain: the terrifying baby troll. They do all the things adult trolls do—parrot back the sexist and racist things Pauls says, stalk him outside hotel rooms, and harass and troll the “haters” daring to criticize their deeply problematic idol—but they’re kids! So you can’t really fire back at them without being a jerk yourself. Listen, Logang: all Logan wants to do is sell you merch. He’s not really your friend. Can I interest you in a puppy video?

3. Bro Army (Pewdiepie Fandom)

First rule of non-toxic fandoms: Don’t call yourselves "bro," don’t call yourselves an "army," and definitely don’t call yourselves the Bro Army. People might assume you’re a bunch of flame-war-loving trolls who think girls are icky—and where YouTuber PewDiePie’s fans are concerned, everyone would be absolutely right. It’s not just that they’ve stuck with the Swedish gamer/alleged comedian as he peppered his videos with racial slurs, rape jokes, anti-Semitism, and homophobia for nearly a decade (though that’s bad enough). It’s also that they insist that PewDiePie somehow isn’t being hateful at all. Oh, and if you quote their hero back at them, they’ll wallpaper your social media accounts with thoughtful messages about how you suck—for years.

2. The Dark Side of Star Wars Fandom

The most recent eruption has been a hilariously non-ironic campaign to remake The Last Jedi, but that's sadly just the latest in a long line of online grossness from the entitled Sith-heads who are so keen on reclaiming the Star Wars universe . Somehow, Gamergate has come to a galaxy far, far away; hectoring, harassment, even death threats aimed at director Rian Johnson. To be clear, this is a tiny (if vocal) subset of Star Wars fandom, which on the whole is as joyous and inclusive as the universe is finally becoming. But to to quote our own Adam Rogers:

"Everyone has a right to opinions about movies. Everyone has a right, I guess, to throw those opinions in the face of the people who make those movies, though it does seem at minimum impolite. Everyone has the right to ask transnational entertainment companies to make the movies they want, and if those companies don’t respond, to stop giving the companies money. But harassment, threats, jokes about someone’s race or gender? A Jedi would fight someone who did that stuff. The Force binds us all together. Hatred and anger are the ways of the Dark Side; they may bring power, but at a cost. It harms individuals, debases the people who do it, and it breaks the Fellowship. In the end, the cost of that power will be powerlessness."

1. Elon Musk Acolytes

"Always punch up" is a good life motto. You’ll accomplish a lot by speaking truth to power; dissecting the misdeeds of a relative unknown, though, makes you look like a tool. That’s why, despite the plethora of dark and toxic fandoms that flourish on the fringes of the internet, the group that tops our list of nasties is devoted to a person at the internet's very center: Elon Musk. To his fan club, Musk is so much more than a charismatic artist, a talented musician, or, hey, a flawed but successful tech entrepreneur—he’s a messiah, a vestige of an age of retrograde masculinity, when a reasonably successful man could expect his ideas to remain unchecked and his words be read as gospel. And Musk wields his one-man metaphor status (and his 22.3 million follower army) to whack out any dissenting opinions. “Because before he commented on my tweet, it was floundering in relative obscurity,” science writer Erin Biba wrote in a piece for the Daily Beast. But after Musk’s dismissive response, Biba found herself drowning in hate mail and abuse. By letting his mob pick over opinions he does not like, Musk is able to control the narrative, playing up investigative reporting on Tesla’s poor labor practices as a misinformation campaign—or even, in some recent deleted tweets, insinuating that one of the people involved with the Thai cave rescue efforts is a pedophile. It’s bad to be thin-skinned, and terrible to play the underdog, but playing it while you ignite a million-man bullying campaign is reprehensible.

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