brilokuloj

There's some people in the comments saying "fandoms have always been like this" and others saying "No, it's worse than it was." And both are to some extent right. Fans (or at least a small percentage of fans, and the larger a fanbase gets the larger a group this will describe) have always been Like That; but they did not always have the level of access to creators and actors that they have now.

The notion that a performer needs to be constantly available to public scrutiny, that their personal information should by default be available to any rando with google, is pretty new. It used to be that actors would only be expected to engage with the public on limited, specific, and controlled occasions, usually with security provided. Now they're being asked to rawdog exposure to the mob 24/7 on their own.

(Also, production companies have always always always been exploitative cowards, just to get that straight; reading the biographies of literally any actress from golden Hollywood years makes that clear. It's just, again, more public now.)

My poor, sweet orange boy Dunkin is not very bright and loves to eat things he shouldn't. About a year ago, this guy ate a Nerf dart and required major surgery to have it removed. Well, I guess he's done it again and we don't even know what it was he ate this time.

Dunkin here has a perforated, infected colon and required major surgery. I am on Social Security SSI and make less than a thousand dollars every month, and am legally restricted from making more. So far, with all of his bills added up, we will be paying over $4000 for his treatment. My roommate Lucas has been kind enough to organize this gofundme page to make an easier, singular place to donate for Dunkin's needs.

Please. Things have been worse than I can articulate recently. We only recently finished paying for Dunkin's previous bill, with all the incredible help of you Tumblrinas, but there's no level I will not debase myself to keep this cat alive.

even if it sucks, even if they're saying things you want to refute, even if you think refuting will help things because Everyone Will Understand if You Just Speak Clearly Enough. even if you want to vent publicly because you think you deserve that much, acknowledging them is almost always the wrong move. you're just pouring gas and making sure that those couple little sparks turn into a fire. and all of them love to see you upset, not just the nazis threatening rape. sucks when it's your own, but hey, hurt people hurt people!

engaging is bad for a few different reasons. the first is that these people feed on attention. reply publicly, and that will give someone enough juice to make a new account every few days for a year plus, sending you paragraphs of insults mixed with strange accusations. whereas if you'd ignored them, maybe that obsessive phase would've only lasted a couple weeks. genuinely, you can create your own stalkers by reacting.

the second is that by engaging publicly, you're platforming them. even if you just post literal puppies and rainbows, there will be people hate-following who are pissed off about how many notes your latest puppies and rainbows photo got (because if you got more notes than them, it's punching up). they will see you engaging with harassment and go, hey, I can do that too! and that's how you get harasser mitosis.

platforming also has another problem. most people are good, but by the sheer quantity of people you'll be exposed to online, some will be malicious. if you are refuting something incorrect ("I never killed that man because I wasn't even in Florida on that day!") they will go right to the original slander ("they killed that man in Florida"), copy/paste, and spread it. or they will forgo the copy/pasting and just let it mutate in their memory so that it's a whole new thing by the time they spread it ("they killed several men and women in Florida, and also California").

currently, I'm in the 'block everyone who could potentially hate-follow and harass me' phase, but there is also some danger to that, because people see blocking as you acknowledging them, which (depending on the person) might be enough gasoline to rev them up. but it does at least provide some barrier, because making new accounts to block evade takes a modicum of energy, and if they're continually starved of further interactions, that energy will eventually fade.

Between having to pay to get a new starter motor for our car AND unexpected therapy bills, we're strapped for cash in an uniquely bad ways. We have had to drain our already meager savings and have virtually no money left for the rest of this month.

Here are some really good images of my cats for attention retention:

I know money is tight for literally everybody, but if you have so much as a dollar to spare, please consider sending it to this Paypal address so we can continue to get our cats food and also ourselves food. Thank you.

[email protected]

*stares at cosmo* *drools*