So, the recent shit with Kero and seeing how many vocal rational people seem to be leaving the 'fandom' as a whole lately has been getting me thinking. I've been a vocal opponent of people who baselessly bash on furries and such for the longest time, and I've sought to try and be a good example to people outside of it. To take it upon myself to not act like a teenager in high school, or someone so sensitive that they can't handle criticism or have a serious conversation about touchy matters. One such example of this was years ago in Second Life, where - in a Star Wars RP community - I went to bat for a group of Amaran (Extended Universe fox people) players who were basically being trolled and shat on every day. The people I spoke to told me that I was the first one of that group (despite being the newest member there) who'd even tried to sit down and just talk to them to work things out. And in all fairness, I saw how big of a dick the rest of the Amaran players were being to them to deserve that treatment. Thing is, the conversation was had, and a lot of the animosity cleared up. Simple as that. it was tough and unpleasant - but in the end, everyone was better for it.
Fast forward to now. It seems no one is capable - let alone willing - to have conversations any more. If you have an opposing viewpoint and you don't change immediately on any grounds other than "I said so", you're labelled a bigot, Nazi, Russian bot, and whatever mixture of -phobe and -ist that the person can string together. We have people dragging identity politics and Tumblr-tier gender shit into the community in staggering amounts. We have actual, literal communists. He have actual zoophiles who rape actual animals.
And we, as a community, need to do something - and we need to do it soon.
What do we do, though? That's a question I've been asking myself for a long time now. What can we do? I think, to answer that, we need to look at how we got here.
I've always viewed the community from my earlier days (I joined Furaffinity back in December of 2006; 12 years ago, only a few months into being 18 at the time) as a sort of...'refuge' for like-minded individuals, both in regards to our shared interest in anthropomorphic characters and in regards to largely being social outcasts. The community always had a feeling of "letting things slide" and "letting people be themselves", which in of itself is not a bad thing. However, I think it sowed the seeds of what we see today. I think that the concept has been perverted over time, from just trying to be nice to each other to any criticism whatsoever being seen as bullying and a personal assault on the individual, with no room whatsoever for a middle ground, nuance, nothing. It's turned into a "if you're not 100% in agreeance with me then you're a horrible piece of shit" mentality. The idea that people don't have to grow up and change at all has been fomented in the community for the longest time, and now even others my age are on the same emotional level as the high schoolers and such who join the community every year.
This needs to stop.
We - as a community - need to mature, I think. not in the sexual way, but in the social and mental way. Yes, some of us have mental illnesses and conditions, myself being one of them. But instead of trying to find ways to cope and improve, it ends up being a shield and an excuse because of this "you don't have to change" mentality. We let shitty, impetuous behavior slide online and outright degeneracy to unfold in the public eye because of this (con goers who go around fucking even though they have HIV, people who fucking dry hump each other in hotel lobbies or jack off in the elevators, etc). People in this fandom are emotionally stunted (and I'm not declaring any innocence on my part, either. I'm 30, and I still have things to learn), and I think we - as a whole - need a wake-up call.
We need to grow up.
We need to mature.
We need to change.
But we need a plan.
Unfortunately, this is where I run into a road block - and where I turn to all of you for help. If a group were to form in the fandom to try and 'clean up' it's image - combat the childish behavior and the degeneracy that happens at cons - how would you go about it? What measures would you implement? How would you handle problem people who refuse to change, or people like Kero who go too far? How would you achieve this without totalitarian measures? I ask because - quite frankly - things are getting bad, and I'm having a hard time thinking of alternatives to literal gatekeepers to the community.
What are your thoughts?
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5 years, 5 months ago
11 Nov 2018 05:50 CET
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