I am actually begging some people to just let some spaces exist untouched by real-world issues and horrors.
Like I've lost count of the amount of times peaceful game or fandom servers have been ruined by people stampeding in with political rants, bitching about world issues, demanding internal activism, demanding vent channels so they can whine about their shitty parents, ect.
Like. Respectfully. Not every single space has to be inclusive of and welcoming of outside topics. The real world sucks. We don't needed to be reminded of that absolutely everywhere.
Psychologists have talked about this extensively. In order to repair the damage caused by the stressors of life, your brain needs to have down time in which it is not being stressed. It needs to be able to turn off sometimes and turn down during others. That's how your brain processes stress enough to regulate cortisol production and let you get through whatever it is without being on-edge the entire time, all of the time.
At some point we will, as a society, have to unlearn this idea that if you're ever caught not thinking about something serious, you must not give a shit about others. Your mind is not designed to constantly be stressed.
Your body also isn't, btw - prolonged stress without breaks is linked to all kinds of cardiac problems.
Not only will it not kill you to let the Pokemon Unite server or Naruto/Sasuke server just be about Pokemon Unite or NaruSasu, it would actually benefit you to do so.
If you won't let a place be peaceful for someone else's sake, at least do it for your own.
My "hot take" of the day is that "Don't you dare look away!" is the younger generation's version of "Finish your dinner, children are starving in (poor third-world country)."
I understand the sentiment, there are atrocities happening across the world, and it is horrible, and we all want to DO something about it. I don't think you are wrong to feel that way or to try to help however you can. But feeding yourself a constant diet of graphic images and descriptions of these atrocities and writhing around in agonized guilt and sadness and anger doesn't actually help the people who are suffering, any more than kids stuffing themselves to clean their plates puts food in the mouths of people who are starving. If you want to help then by all means find a some concrete way to do, but also step back. Making yourself miserable 24/7 because of the bad things happening in the world will not help anyone.
I felt differently about this at one point, then started having climate/world events-related panic attacks and realized that the constant barrage of doomsaying and hopelessness was actually TREMENDOUSLY harmful to me psychologically. I realized I could be informed but not overwhelmed, that I could care and act according to that caring without constantly being reminded of every bad thing happening in every corner of the globe. Filtering what I see and engage with has not made things worse for the world, it only means I have somewhat fewer panic attacks now.
Loud reblog
