"Because, my love, I'm still a musician at heart."

I like to think I made a tiny amount of difference in the OFMD fandom (this was very much a group effort, though).

90% of the people involved in OFMD are wonderful human beings; in the heyday, 10% couldn't stop being at each other's throats, starting harassment campaigns and even doxxing people. As a fandom, we're largely lumped into two categories: The Gentlebeardies, and the Izzy Canyon.

There was a point where some of us decided we wanted to fix things. People started quietly talking in vague terms about the division being counterproductive.

I ended up on a voice call with someone who was a GB for a few hours, even took notes about grievances they shared about canyon folks. After that, I made an effort to take those grievances seriously, and I think that was the most important thing I did?

Because from then on, even though I was still disliked by a lot of people, there were also people who would talk to me about seeing the effort folks were putting in. It was still two sides, except there were a couple of people that, yeah, we had our 'allegiences', but it's like some folks started trusting some of us to be fair? I don't want to overstate my role here, and this took a lot of time, too.

Things never got perfect; there's still a division, although part of that is just differing interest, and long term communal damage from the initial ongoing harassment. But things got better, and I like to think choosing to understand the pain that was being directed at me, maybe it wasn't my responsibility? But then, what are we all, if not collectively responsible for the communities we're in?

not trying to call anyone out directly; people can say what they want, and are free to disagree on the fundamental themes and overall perspective on the show.

the timing just feels so high school.

If OFMD was a musical... Izzy's big S1 number might be something like this.

Art, music, instruments, by me

I'm also relatively newish to the fandom by comparison and tried to give canyon people a chance but the persecution complex is off the walls. One of them linked to a substack article written in like 2022 that was supposed to be proof of how the canyonites are the real victims and the only thing they had was the instance of a shitty person doxxing an izzy stan. That's the only valid example they had of "harassment," and people rightfully called that person out. Everything else the article listed was exactly what #486 mentioned: the unforgivable crime of being blocked by people. Of not being listened to. That's it. That's on the same level as being doxxed to these people. They feel so entitled to everyone's attention as they stand on a soap box screaming about izzy that to ignore them is cruelty. No shock a character like izzy attracts these kind of people, given how pissy he gets in the show when he's not respected or regarded at all.

#499.

If you truly, actually would like to know about the harassment the canyon has dealt with, I'll share some screenshots from the bluesky thread I posted about on here a bit ago.

Each screenshot is a different person, quoting the initial bluesky post.

1

2

3

4

5

6

...

I understand the impulse to deny these accusations, because it can be hard to think that people would actually do things like this over a fictional character—and it can be hard to believe people we dislike.

But please, when we talk about harassment, we're not talking about disagreements on show analysis. We're talking about people who took those disagreements as a moral imperative to attempt to remove us from the fandom entirely, through the threat of violence.

...

90% of the fandom doesn't want things to be this way. But the 10% who try to paint whichever side in a negative light in order to justify this kind of harassment? Those people are not your friend. I don't care how good their fanfic or art is.

People who facilitate harassment are a negative impact on the community, and need to be called in by the people "on their side," the people they respect, and held to a higher standard. Or barring any willingness to change, community leaders (discord owners, event facilitators) need to take steps to protect the community.

...

Link to the full thread, the quote tweets of which have become something of a small archive of the harassment that happened.