On haters roaming the Interwebs
In one of the fan communities that I'm part of - you'll know which one if you're following it as well - there was posted a somewhat heated outburst over an apparently innocent picture appearing in the comm. There had been some fooling around with pictures of red pandas accompanied by a short story text, you know how it is with fanpeople. This red panda is a character we all know and love, ha ha, how adorable. Completely innocent, fluffy and good-humoured. Then there was another post, where someone posted a picture of the character in question with a red panda tail. Again, we went ha ha, how adorable.
Except one person, who apparently blew a fuse over seeing this character with a computer-manipulated red panda tail. This person went "LEAVE THE FURRY KINK OUT OF THIS FANDOM FURRIES ARE DISGUSTING!" I didn't know what furries were, so I looked it up - there's an article here.
Of course, this could have been a misunderstanding; the fuse-blower could have understood the picture of the panda-tailed character as furry-kink (even though it wasn't, and little more consideration wouldn't have gone amiss), and is of course within their full rights to state that they don't much like furry-kink. Nothing wrong with that. But it was so violent; so rude! There was swearing and mentions of sexual functions, and several other fans - me included - were quite offended. We're not used to haters in that particular comm; we're normally a very friendly and inclusive bunch of people. At least, that's my experience.
What I want to know is, why did this person feel the need to come and spread hate in our lovely, lavender-tinted community? Come to that, why did people constantly feel the need to give me hate when I wrote in the Prison Break fandom, calling me a psycho just for writing slash? Why did people get rude when I said that John McClane (Die Hard fandom) might use Internet Explorer for his beginner's tutorials, going off on me for "not doing my tech research"? Why do people act like jerk-offs on Twitter just because they can't be seen, and why did the Warriors for Innocence (yeah, I still have a grudge against that band of narrow-minded pests) decide to spread hate when they should have been fighting for a good cause?
In short, why are the haters so numerous, and why do they always surface whenever someone dares to think a little outside the box or be honest?
I can almost understand that people began hating on me when I wrote T-Bag/LJ fic, because one party is considered underage in the States and yadda yadda yadda. Almost. I guess if you're homophobic and don't understand that other countries have other rules for sexual consent, then my fun is your fail. I can almost understand that someone would take offense to that, though why they bother to spend so much time and energy on it is beyond me. But what could possibly be offensive about someone attaching a red panda tail to a character and going, "Tee hee, I ate too much sugar and now I'm making up fun stuff!"? There is nothing - NOTHING I TELL YOU - that should offend anyone in this situation, and yet people insist on bringing hate to the table.
I've had hate thrown at me from almost every conceivable angle at some point in my life - as I expect everyone has, at least everyone who's not completely square and normal in every way. And it got old the first time; how many times can you get a kick out of telling someone off for nothing? Really. How many times will you rub your hands together with glee at calling someone a sicko just because they like different music than you? How often can you get indignant because some people actually like gay sex? And does it really feel that great to go off on someone for expressing their honest opinion about something? I refuse to believe the haters don't get tired of being haters!
Flames. Name-calling. Anonymous posts keeping an argument alive weeks after everybody else wanted it to stop. Badly spelled comments going "OMG YOU SUKC GO DYE PLZ I H8 U!" Journals getting spammed with hateful comments, journals getting deleted because some religious fanatics can't get over how many times the word GAY is used per entry. Founding admins getting kicked out of their own community because other people don't like their material (know what I mean, Meatball?).
What is this? Seriously. We don't all agree on what's kinky and what's boring, what's fun and what's stupid. But if you read a story that's specifically labelled "Slash" and you immediately start calling the writer a sicko for liking gay sex? If you go off on someone for making an innocent little manip with a tail, beard or funny hat in it? If you go to the trouble of creating an account specifically for being a jerk-off and bother other people who are trying to enjoy their online time? Then you just haven't understood how the internet works, nor how people normally relate to each other. I would bet a hefty sum of money that not one of these haters would have the balls to act like they do online, in real life. They hide behind a username and spread hate, apparently making sport of being a pain in the Internet's backside.
I won't stand for it. The next time I get a flame, the next time a hater gets in my face, I'm going to log their IP address and ban them from my journal, report them to every maintenance there is, and post said IP address in my public journal so everyone will know what a jerk they really are. The internet may be for porn, but it is NOT for rude trash with nothing better to do than to try and ruin my day.
Except one person, who apparently blew a fuse over seeing this character with a computer-manipulated red panda tail. This person went "LEAVE THE FURRY KINK OUT OF THIS FANDOM FURRIES ARE DISGUSTING!" I didn't know what furries were, so I looked it up - there's an article here.
Of course, this could have been a misunderstanding; the fuse-blower could have understood the picture of the panda-tailed character as furry-kink (even though it wasn't, and little more consideration wouldn't have gone amiss), and is of course within their full rights to state that they don't much like furry-kink. Nothing wrong with that. But it was so violent; so rude! There was swearing and mentions of sexual functions, and several other fans - me included - were quite offended. We're not used to haters in that particular comm; we're normally a very friendly and inclusive bunch of people. At least, that's my experience.
What I want to know is, why did this person feel the need to come and spread hate in our lovely, lavender-tinted community? Come to that, why did people constantly feel the need to give me hate when I wrote in the Prison Break fandom, calling me a psycho just for writing slash? Why did people get rude when I said that John McClane (Die Hard fandom) might use Internet Explorer for his beginner's tutorials, going off on me for "not doing my tech research"? Why do people act like jerk-offs on Twitter just because they can't be seen, and why did the Warriors for Innocence (yeah, I still have a grudge against that band of narrow-minded pests) decide to spread hate when they should have been fighting for a good cause?
In short, why are the haters so numerous, and why do they always surface whenever someone dares to think a little outside the box or be honest?
I can almost understand that people began hating on me when I wrote T-Bag/LJ fic, because one party is considered underage in the States and yadda yadda yadda. Almost. I guess if you're homophobic and don't understand that other countries have other rules for sexual consent, then my fun is your fail. I can almost understand that someone would take offense to that, though why they bother to spend so much time and energy on it is beyond me. But what could possibly be offensive about someone attaching a red panda tail to a character and going, "Tee hee, I ate too much sugar and now I'm making up fun stuff!"? There is nothing - NOTHING I TELL YOU - that should offend anyone in this situation, and yet people insist on bringing hate to the table.
I've had hate thrown at me from almost every conceivable angle at some point in my life - as I expect everyone has, at least everyone who's not completely square and normal in every way. And it got old the first time; how many times can you get a kick out of telling someone off for nothing? Really. How many times will you rub your hands together with glee at calling someone a sicko just because they like different music than you? How often can you get indignant because some people actually like gay sex? And does it really feel that great to go off on someone for expressing their honest opinion about something? I refuse to believe the haters don't get tired of being haters!
Flames. Name-calling. Anonymous posts keeping an argument alive weeks after everybody else wanted it to stop. Badly spelled comments going "OMG YOU SUKC GO DYE PLZ I H8 U!" Journals getting spammed with hateful comments, journals getting deleted because some religious fanatics can't get over how many times the word GAY is used per entry. Founding admins getting kicked out of their own community because other people don't like their material (know what I mean, Meatball?).
What is this? Seriously. We don't all agree on what's kinky and what's boring, what's fun and what's stupid. But if you read a story that's specifically labelled "Slash" and you immediately start calling the writer a sicko for liking gay sex? If you go off on someone for making an innocent little manip with a tail, beard or funny hat in it? If you go to the trouble of creating an account specifically for being a jerk-off and bother other people who are trying to enjoy their online time? Then you just haven't understood how the internet works, nor how people normally relate to each other. I would bet a hefty sum of money that not one of these haters would have the balls to act like they do online, in real life. They hide behind a username and spread hate, apparently making sport of being a pain in the Internet's backside.
I won't stand for it. The next time I get a flame, the next time a hater gets in my face, I'm going to log their IP address and ban them from my journal, report them to every maintenance there is, and post said IP address in my public journal so everyone will know what a jerk they really are. The internet may be for porn, but it is NOT for rude trash with nothing better to do than to try and ruin my day.