This might be a hot take but F1twt is half to blame for how the fandom barriers have broken down.
Giving engagement to admins who post baiting things like lestappen etc. Posting rpf publicly on a platform that is algorithmic where it is known admins and drivers are. It's not a funny joke when they do lestappen bait, it's a marketing tactic and it's honestly insulting to fans. Same with other ship duos that admins know will get engagement. I get comments on my fics asking about what Verstappen.com would think in universe and I'm like???????? What are we doing? I do not write fic for people to talk about these admin accounts. I don't think it's funny at all when admins wink and nod at the rpf side of things.
That reporter pointed out that tweet just popped up on his timeline. This is exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid. Which is why that person should not have posted that ss to begin with.
There is of course blame to be placed on a reporter who chooses to actively engage with those kinds of posts.
But we have got to remember that twitter/X is not a safe fandom space for rpf, and if you are posting rpf there you cannot act like you didn't see this coming. That reporter isn't in fandom, he hasn't bought into the social norms we've established. Expecting anyone from the outside to act a certain way is not realistic, and this guy is exactly the kind of bad faith actor we want to avoid drawing the attention of.
Again I will reiterate that he should know better than to even touch a post about rpf, and his moral puritanism is also a part of this. But this would not have even come up if a fan knew how to keep things on ao3.
If you like rpf and want authors to continue creating do not discuss ao3 and rpf outside of fandom spaces. There may be fandom on twitter but that does not mean it is a fandom space.
I saw people telling this journo to not engage and that he's crossing a line. Which he absolutely is(seems to have visited the site more than once which is a whole other issue). But not the same kind of comments for the user who posted screen shots from ao3. You need to tell people that's not cool when they do that. We are in charge of maintaining the fandom space, which yes involves telling other fans when they are acting out of line.
This case illustrates that posting like this on sites like tiktok and twitter are only going to be fodder for the wrong kind of people to make the worst faith takes. He's using this to talk about Russian conspiracies and all kinds of other wild takes.
And finally, I can't believe I have to say this, but you are not protecting fandom spaces by posting this kind of thing on ao3. We do not want to draw more attention to the site, especially from guys like this. You are only going to prove the point he is making to his audience about rpf and the community around it.
But all the attention is on this journalist when if someone had told that fan to maybe keep that private or that its not cool to post that kind of thing publicly on twitter this wouldn't have happened. It's about prevention not damage control. Keeping fandom in fandom spaces is never going to happen if you simply expect people outside of those fan spaces to never look. That isn't a reasonable expectation with how algo driven sites work. The solution has to happen before it reaches people like this.
As of now this tweet is still up. After everything that's happened this person didn't think to maybe delete this tweet that is drawing the exact wrong kind of attention to our little corner of the internet. It's one thing to post this, it's another to keep it up even after that journalist has been attacking people over rpf.
Do not go and attack this person. But in the future remind people who post this kind of thing that this kind of post is violating the fandom rpf social contract. It's not cool. We don't do this if we want to keep enjoying this hobby.
Rpf needs to be cringe again to the point people are afraid to talk about it in public. I am hoping this whole thing will be a learning experience for people. But thus far it seems twt is just trying to drama farm as usual and doesn't actually care about fandom.
Keep fandom in fandom spaces, and twitter is not a safe fandom space.
To be so overly clear. I am not in any way defending this journalist. He seems like a piece of shit and he should not be touching anything talking about rpf. That is not good journalistic practice. And he's clearly acting in the worst possible faith. This is just to illustrate that this whole situation is the kind of thing so many fans have worked to avoid, just for people on twitter to go and cause more mess. It's exhausting.
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