#oops lol

"...The hell am I lookin' at, Kat?"

"Hell if I know."

"Dog- you seein' this shit?!"

well the first thing i will say is that this is not new behaviour. people have always written ships this way, and will continue to write them this way until the end of time. stereotypes persist, and so people persist in shoving characters into these boxes regardless if they fit. there are certainly contributing factors to this increased visibility, though, which i think is what makes it feel more overwhelming.

the main issue is that the internet (and fandom) used to be a lot more decentralized. the shift to centralization happened because of capitalism. the internet came to value quantity over quality. more views, more attention, more money. so they'll dump everyone into one place because that's how you get the most eyeballs on stuff, by forcing everyone to look at it.

the internet that used to be compromised of thousands of smaller ecosystems, has gradually merged into one singular ecosystem where it is more difficult (read: nearly impossible) to avoid stuff you don't want to see.

this is why you have people shrieking about spoilers and DNI lists and whatever else. you can't go outside into the world expecting everyone to cater to what you want, but somehow people will demand other people on the internet do exactly that. anyone who thinks they can control, or have any right to control, their very public corner of the internet is an idiot. you can't choose to exist in a public space then demand that the public space change to suit you.

fandom fought hard for concepts like 'ship and let ship' and 'don't like, don't read'. nowadays it feels like people no longer know or learn how to curate their experience online. younger people especially rely on algorithms to do it for them. but the goal of algorithms is to show you what will get you to engage. what gets you to look. it has nothing to do with what you actually like or want to see.

algorithm controlled feeds are worsened by those who leverage outrage and use it for more attention. people fight over meaningless shit and it goes around and around. in my opinion this is why twitter is such a cesspool, because it relies on that behaviour to keep people's eyeballs on it. it's easy to be baited. no one is immune to propaganda. once you go down that rabbit hole, it is really hard to stop.