Periodic reminder that you are not immune to reactionary radicalization through fandom.
We all know the âjokesâ about how old bronies either came out as queer or became fascists - except theyâre not really jokes, and a lot of the queer ones admit to having been in the pipeline before they came out (some in a way that implies they never totally got out of said pipeline and donât understand the gravity of it),
GamerGate was an entire right-wing reactionary movement that was - and this is not hyperbole - partially responsible for turning fascism into a âlegitimateâ position by the American Overton window, composed entirely of people who feared losing their fan spaces,
Weâve had terfs right here on tumblr dot com BRAGGING about how useful fandom is as a recruiting space,
TJLC was a big pipeline for acephobia on this hellsite in particular, when people argued that headcanoning Sherlock as ace was inherently homophobic because it was denying a TOTALLY GONNA BE CANON (while the creators were promising that it wasnât going to be canon) gay pairing, and puritanical, and just HAVING that headcanon was saying that people COULDNâT ship Johnlock, all in the interest of a âfakeâ sexuality and âpretending to be oppressedâ and oh whoops there you went,
We see people who all but center their fandom activity and identities around figuring out which people in predominantly queer fandom spaces are SECRETLY PEDOPHILES AND GROOMERS, acting consciously or otherwise under the assumption that predominantly queer fandom spaces are just massively infested with them in a way that other spaces are not for SOME reason, who twist the definition of âpedophiliaâ in these spaces until it covers shipping a 17-year old fictional character with an 18-year old fictional character, or a 30-year old with a 45-year old, or including an autistic character in a ship, and drawing two 17-year old characters kissing constitutes âchild pornâ, and who unironically say we should bring back the Hays Code and Censorship Is Good Actually And Our Problem Is We Donât Do It Enough and this often becomes a pipeline to âsex ed is child abuse; people shouldnât even know what sex is until they turn 18; you need my consent to wear certain outfits in public if I see them as sexually charged, and Pride SHOULD be an assimilationist sideshow for our corporate overlords family-friendly party with no sadness or anger or ESPECIALLY acknowledgement of sex allowedâ,
Weâve seen otherwise progressive people defend literal hate symbols in fanart when pushback against the above brand of reactionaries gets corrupted into zero-nuance âitâs us vs. them so anything they donât like is Goodâ,
Even outside of those examples some of the most vicious, unapologetic, blatant queerphobic abuse Iâve seen in recent years hasnât come from right-wingers but from LGBT+ people, dressing their deep, violent, seething hatred for queer people who arenât exactly like them in a thin veneer of progressive language, who have become so convinced that theyâre the main character of the fucking universe that they think writing or enjoying a queer story that doesnât resonate with them is more queerphobic than sending a queer person who writes or enjoys such a story countless rape and death threats and denying their identity,
Weâve seen these examples again and again and again, and we keep seeing it again and again and again, so I am once again on my knees BEGGING people to recognize that this is not Something That Happens To Other, BAD People, or Something That Happens To People In BAD Fandoms, or Something That Happens To People On The OTHER Side Of Perennial Drama; this is something that CAN happen to you.
These things are the result of the fact that fandom is, by nature, a place of heightened emotion and if you donât know what to look out for that is very exploitable; you need to know the methods people use to do this, simply Being In The Right Fandoms or Liking The Right Ships is not enough.
So, if you see someone trying to convince you that you have the ONLY valid approach to any specific character, or ship, or show, or whatever, that your ship is activism and your fanfics are praxis, and liking something else or liking the same thing differently is Only For Bad People, that is the single biggest red flag that YOU NEED TO RUN, THEYâRE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT WANT
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