#wasp hate

So are ladybugs

Spiders are cool from a distance and serve a purpose

Bees serve a very important purpose and make yummy honey

Ants are cool as long as I don’t get bit and the way they structure their hierarchy is amazing

Wasps are useless and should be genocided

Wow! Okay so you really just saw the pro-wasp pinned post on a blog titled "Wasp Apologist" and couldn't help yourself, huh.

Here, in case you missed it the first time:

They:

Prey on pests

Pollinate plants, just like bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats

Make honey in some cases

Are not inherently evil, because no creature is

Do not have to justify their existence based solely on their usefulness to humans

Meanwhile, you:

Enjoy shitting on the hobbies and passions of others

As someone with a SEVERE phobia of bees and wasps, nothing irks me more than someone comparing their small spider/creepy crawly bug fear with my phobia. I don't mean this as a competitive thing, but what works for your FEAR (not phobia) of a centipede or silverfish is not going to work for me. Wasps are common. They are outside pretty much every single day between May and November/early December. If you are not thinking about the bug you're scared of every day, I don't want your tips. They genuinely will not work for me! I have to give myself pep talks to go outside because the second I open the door, I can see bees or wasps flying around on my porch. It can take 15 minutes to do a 1 minute task outside because I'm too scared to go outside.

You do NOT understand my phobia when you squeak a little when you see a spider, kill it (or get someone else to kill it) and go about your day. When I see a wasp, especially inside, it will be all I think about for the rest of the day. I might switch therapists because she does this by comparing the few times she deals with centipedes with mine. Our needs are so different and it feels so damn patronizing to hear her compare the two. I get that she's trying to help me with coping mechanisms, but like...they still don't work because the bug I fear is very common outdoors. It's more comparable to a person with a spider phobia living in Australia or having to walk through a bunch of spider webs every day!

It also annoys me to no end that some people with legitimate bug phobias try to...gatekeep bug phobias? How the hell are you gonna tell me I'm overreacting to a bee when you're scared of something that can't even fly? Why are you making fun of my wasp phobia and trying to push me into flowers? I don't judge when someone has a phobia of butterflies or moths, even if I'm not scared of them. I'll even help someone catch a spider if they can't, because I don't have a spider phobia.

Afaict none of our native insects sting but some of them BITE so LOOKOUT