On Otherkin And Cancel Culture
In the effort of being clear, I have personal experience with the topic at hand. I write this in an effort to spread awareness of the behaviors that I've witnessed.
It's also worth noting that I am speaking solely to my experiences in the Otherkin communities online, and that any prescriptions are to be taken in said context.
My experience with the clumps of Otherkin communities is transitory. I'm a nomad. From one community to the next, I move. If a community dies, I move. If something particularly egregious happens that I cannot stomach, I move.
I have always searched for a place to call "home" in these communities, and these places for one reason or another lack what I need or desire. Often it's that activity dwindles down and that eventually a server "dies" of natural causes. In one or two occasions, it has been due to acts of a moderator or "public figure" of the server; whether that is something that I disliked personally, or something that affected the reputation of the place and thus caused a rift in the membership.
Within these communities, I have found a sense of tribalism. You are With, or you are Not. You cohere, or you leave. What brings us together is a sense of being Something Other, and sometimes some people are too Other.
This lines up squarely with my last big post, on "Kinnies" and discourse. Regardless of what the individual uses the term for, and regardless of whether they may learn about themselves as part of the group and cohere quite well, the clumps of community have sometimes decided that this was too Other for them. They don't fit into the tribe, so it's time to boot them out.
In general, as long as people are being respectful about it, I don't see a problem with server staff deciding what the focus of their server will be. It's when members decide this, or when people deign to be disrespectful and act without empathy in the process.
Something else that I've witnessed is more sinister in outcome. Most people who don't fit a particular tribe will find another to join. People who have been publicly called out and shamed over any number of behaviors will not.
The topic of the day is Cancel Culture. Hot words, hot topic. Strap in.
If you have substantial evidence, making a call-out post may well be worth it, especially in the more predatory circumstances. This typically involves a manifesto - a long document detailing clearly the transgressions and the evidence that proves that these transgressions happened.
A call-out post may come in two other forms:
A post is put out warning people away from someone. This can range from a paragraph to a few paragraphs, perhaps with a picture or two but sometimes without anything more than anecdotal evidence.
Someone says something in a community space, warning persons away from person X.
In both cases, there is little or no evidence of a transgression other than what one or possibly two people felt happened. There may not even be a criminal act involved. In this digital age, people are more than fine with getting angry over a minor argument and making it into something more.
Why is this a problem? Because people tend to trust their peers with their (social) safety, and don't engage in critical thinking as a result. This implicit trust allows people to share things like "x person did y thing, don't let them hang around". Short statements proliferate far more readily - if you've been on Twitter, you know what I mean - and the discrimination spreads.
When the discrimination is by an admin/mod or by someone who knows them well enough, it can spread through a community space without any real effort involved.
So, the target gets called out for their actions. What happens next?
They may be removed from the server or community with or without due process.
They may be ostracized from other community spaces as word spreads.
Individuals who find themselves vexed enough will assert their right to "keep others safe" by talking to people who associate with the target.
The above behaviors may even occur in a form of intervention, wherein language is used to encourage the target's associates to drift away in one manner or another.
Seems fair and all, but have you asked what kind of Justice this is? Here are consequences of our actions, in order:
Removed the target's ability to learn from their mistakes or argue for or against their issues.
Removed the target's ability to create new associations and learn to integrate into the community (or communities).
Allowed the target to take harassment for their actions.
Allowed the target's associates to be interacted with or manipulated in favor of reducing the assumed effects the target may have on others, which incurs stress and potential little-t trauma on the associates.
Allowed the target to have their associates removed from them, whom may have been able to interact with and understand the actions of the target in a way that allows them to communicate to the target about what happened.
In short, we've punished the target in a way that may not be befitting of the crimes, and we've done so in a way that removes their path towards reformation.
That's Retributive Justice. It creates suffering for the sake of suffering, making spaces "safer" but eliminating people who could contribute to the spaces we share.
It's something that has happened to a friend of mine. Someone who was outspoken and sometimes quite brash in certain communal spaces, but who endeavored to improve the lives of people around them. The consequences for their "actions" have been severe, and people felt it necessary to intervene in my personal life as a way to get at theirs.
I have watched as my friend lost friends, lost people to communicate with and to understand the world through. I saw them lose access to the only place that was willing to host them in the first place, all because one or two people in charge got a bug up their ass over baseless allegations.
My friend lost the opportunity to argue their position, or to reform...if indeed there ever was one.
In the process, I lost my ability to trust in them. Fears, doubts, and traumas were stepped on without a care because the intervening individual "cared for my safety" ... despite only talking to me once or twice, a year or two ago. I've been having to work hard, to journal and process how I felt while trying to understand the motivations and the feelings on the other side.
Shame and blame don't create reform. They merely allow us to create suffering for the sake of our own suffering.
Be wary of anyone who would shame or blame someone else without evidence to back it up. Especially if it's someone who holds a position of power in the social space(s) you inhabit.
