hi vaguely serious messy post about hermitblr and new members and just. letting everyone know that weâve had history with cc interaction on here before that i think would be useful for people to learn about
Trafficblr/Hermitblr has seen a lot of growth lately, largely in part from people migrating over here from the DSMP side of MCYTblr. This in of itself is completely fine! New people jumping onto the bus with us are always welcome, and the growth of the community as a whole is really nice to see.
However, I have noticed a lot of these newer blogs sharing the same very specific behaviours, and if possible, Iâd like to just make a few things about the community and our history clear. Because this isnât DSMP, and the CCs here handle content creation and their own fanbases very differently to them.
While Iâm not going to go in-depth on 2019 since I donât have nearly as much information about it as other people do, I would like to say that back then, Hermitblr was kind of an active war zone. It was comparable to how Hermittwt is now, with infighting about shipping and similar topics being the norm (however in Hermitblrâs case many of these argument were far more personal due to the smaller fandom size). What I want to point out specifically however, is when one of the CCs, Cleo, was thrown into the community infighting. I donât remember the specifics of it, but she was sent an ask asking about shipping, and her opinions on it, and eventually dealt with so much backlash that she was forced to leave the site entirely (this post here has a slightly more comprehensive summary, if need be).
Iâm just a little concerned, because there seems to have been a slight increase in that demographic of people recently. Specifically, members of the community who want to rely on CCs to dictate what happens in fan spaces; for them to give us bullet point lists of what their exact boundaries are for every single situation.
This rarely ends well. As in, it almost always just causes infighting and hostility. There will always be people making content that will âbreak boundariesâ, regardless of any creatorâs wishes. However, this is usually mitigated by the fact that many of these CCs arenât on Tumblr (at least not anymoreâŚ.mostly). The problem arises when members of the community attempt to act as Heroes Of Justice, and go out of their way to send asks to other blogs, informing them exactly of how theyâve broken the boundaries of some 40 year old adult. This is all despite the fact that said adult willâŚ.never see whatever post went against their wishes. It just encourages policing and this weird superiorityâŚ.thing, where despite the lack of content creators, people are still fighting to make sure that the site is clean from any possibly upsetting posts.
I say this all while also acknowledging that many of the creators in this sphere also donât have a very comprehensive understanding of how fandom interacts with their âcharactersâ. To them, âshippingâ has always been RPF, and there are so many other aspects of the community that simply canât be explained easily, as they havenât been immersed in this culture like we have. This is to say that asking for âboundariesâ is likely to get you a very confused and unhelpful answer, as the Hermits have always had a very different way of interacting and viewing their fanbase than the DSMP creators do. There is no âc!â or âcc!â to them, to put it simply.
Essentially, the Hermits are adults. Theyâve been doing content creation for years, and I can guarantee you theyâve seen worse things in their lives than art of their Minecraft character kissing another Minecraft character. Theyâve dealt with this shit before, and if they wanted it to stop, theyâre free to make a post about it whenever want. And yet, they havenât. They leave fandom up to us. Boundaries and rules and infighting and justâŚall of that? Letâs leave it to the Twitter users, please. Post what you want, make sure to tag your posts correctly, and weâll all be fine.Â
Also, while Iâm going to try not to rehash any discourse about inviting CCs to Tumblr, I also do just want to implore you guys to consider that the environment on Hermittwt is partially the way it is because of the active presence of the Hermits there, with people flocking for attention or a single notice, and obsessively checking posts to make sure theyâre not potentially âboundary-breakingâ and such. Please just consider that many people are here to avoid the dynamics of that site. Tumblr is a site for fans, not for the CCs. So we create content here for ourselves, and not for them. Having creators join almost always leads to the culture of their fanbase on here changing, with content posted in the maintags being catered more towards them rather than the fanbase. (This isnât to say that they canât join!! But at least keeping in mind why many of us are here in the first place and weighing that against potential CC interactions would mean a lot).
I fear that my point may have been lost a little bit, but I hope my explanation at least brings a little bit of light to why many members of the community here are wary of Creators coming over to the site, and also of how many newer blogs tend to treat the CCs. Hermitblr has had some really bad history in the past when it comes to this stuff, and seeing newer fans bring over similar ideas from DSMPblr just worries me a little bit.
TL:DR - JustâŚplease treat the Hermits like the adults they are, and keep in mind they have a very different dynamic with their fanbases to the DSMP creators. Asking for âboundariesâ and granting CCs control of the fanbase will likely lead you nowhere; attempting to police fanspaces here just brings up bad memories of times when Hermitblr was a much more miserable place to be in. Plus, if you want CC interactions, please just go to twitter. Nobody here wants to deal with an attempted âcleanseâ of the site to make it more palatable to CCs.
