Hey! This post is set to go up around two weeks after this blog was created. If my math is correct, I went into social research not engineering for a reason.
Anyway hi! Allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Rose You Don't Get My Last Name and I'm a current student at a university in Melbourne studying niche internet subcultures and how it intersects with the LGBT+ community. I chose Tumblr as I spent a lot of my formative years on here, first discovered I was trans on here even, and it has always had an interesting community. There's a lot of communities that, to paraphrase one post, pass underneath each other like shadows under a boat. Sometimes, those communities interact in unforseen ways that I would most liken to 4chan's April Fools Day prank in 2017.
So, for my research project this year for [REDACTED you don't get that much info >:D], I decided to look at two queer communities on tumblr and their interactions with each other. Being transfem, I wanted to look at how transfem and transmasc communities interacted. This changed quuuiiiiite a bit when I actually looked on Tumblr for the first time in years and saw that there was this whole transandrophobia transfeminism thing going on. So, change of plans, let's look into this.
So I dive headfirst in, research both and decide that in order best faciliate interaction between subjects it's best to pretend to be the theyfab boogeyman that a lot of these Tumblr transfeminists seem to think exists. Trying to be an obvious troll interacting in either community seemed to be too obviously sniffed out... mostly, at least, there were some exceptions. But being 'earnest' and interacting with the counterpart community had the most appeal. And of those being 'earnest' and part of the 'transandrophobia' community interacting with the Tumblr transfeminists seemed to be my best shot because, if I may be blunt, some of the major ringleaders of the Tumblr transfeminist were a bit to close to people like isff, patricia taxxon and talia bhatt. Way too quick to defend their defense of child predation. Not my style.
So, with the help of an American trans man in my class known as Dean, we made the character I've been playing for the past six weeks. We called him Aiden as a bit of a joke, and deliberately had him be really damn pathetic but also pitiable. Kinda like a puppy. Out of my own curiosity, I played up some of those mental distress traits that were brainstormed just to see how far I could push it until someone said something. No one did though! Really interesting data.
Unfortunately my mental fortitude is only so strong so by the second or third day I did have to start blocking people due to the amount of death threats. There is a reason I published them, and that reason is this :).
I published every ask I got by the way! Except maybe one or two because my finger slipped. Oops.
I did end up slowing down posts by the second week, that's due to a combination of Easter hols and honestly? You all being just so boring. The same insults and arguments thrown again and again and again ad nauseum. Nothing new under the sun. Really disappointing to be honest.
I do not think that I (or 'Aiden') did anything wrong by this. The stalking accusations are what shocked me the most. I don't remember looking through someone's blog being such a big deal when I was using Tumblr in 2012, 2014. My current theory is the influence of instagram and twitter on the platform but that unsubstantiated for now.
Anyway thanks for everything! I love you all and so long!
