once upon a time I really liked them

Someone is always watching...

the first example that comes to mind is the lolcow-esque culture on there and how people froth at the mouth at the chance to be cruel, harass and cyberbully you if you do something they deem “problematic” (which can be as simple as expressing discomfort with doubles) like it genuinely disturbs me how so many people crawl out of the woodworks to be evil toward people. obviously i’m not going to name drop but there’s a literal thirteen year old who, by his own admission, is mentally unwell and has been hospitalised, and instead of trying to help or showing sympathy or concern, they literally just troll and hate and flood his comments with vile shit. and they justify it as “he’s problematic” when really he’s just showing symptoms of being an already mentally ill young person who is under intense online scrutiny and is constantly being hounded by virulent, transphobic trolls who delight in being wicked to him.

that and self ship / oshi culture is blended together so if you don’t have a shrine or thousands worth of merchandise then some people genuinely think that you’re “not a real fan” or “don’t really love your f/o” and there’s an intense push of people trying to be “THE ___ yume” or “___ number one fan!” that part of the community is incredibly competitive. and yeah, i know that’s the whole point of oshi culture, but not every self shipper is also part of oshikatsu stuff, so to see people genuinely think that if you don’t have a massive dedicated shrine and lots of merchandise then you don’t really love / aren’t dedicated to your f/o is really hurtful to people who don’t have the money to invest in stuff like that.

and there’s so many pointless rules and bad takes if you even breathe the wrong way people will jump you. if you’re a minor you can’t have a crush on an adult character, that’s weird (no it doesn’t matter to them if you make your sona the same age.) if you’re a minor you can’t have a crush on a character who’s the same age as you, that’s weird. you can’t selfship if you have an irl partner, that’s cheating. you have to ask your irl partner for permission to like a character. just genuinely the worst takes you’ve ever seen in your life.

(and the nonsharing discourse is something else entirely so i won’t even get into that. it’s about as bad as you’re imagining.)