I am have been involved in my local fan community for most of my life now. As a 2nd Gen Fan, I absolutely had extra adults in the halls of the local cons looking out for me. That IS a thing in-person communities do - the whole “It Takes A Village” thing.
The thing about a village is, those extra people looking out for me all knew me personally. They were not random strangers who just happened to be fellow fans, they were friends of my Mom who became friends of mine in the process.
Everybody - including me - was very clear that children like me were not to be off running about loose if we weren’t mature enough to make sound decisions without constant oversight. For the first few cons, I stayed by my Mom’s side for that exact reason.
Once I understood my environment, I could wander loose because my Mom knew I could handle myself. Until I was 18, my Mom checked in with me frequently to make sure she knew where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, etc. and our many mutual friends at the cons pitched in to keep us both aware of each other. (By the time I was 18, I hadn’t needed the oversight for years - but it’s always good to know who has your back, eh?)
This all worked very nicely, because I could be trusted to keep myself out of trouble. Otherwise I would never have been allowed to leave my Mom’s side in the first place.
My fandom elders taught me a lot! It IS the role of community to educate our own young, collectively, and yeah, keep an eye out for the ones we know personally if we see trouble heading their way that they can’t avoid on their own.
“Can’t avoid on their own” is key.
It is emphatically NOT the role of community to sequester all young people away from the basic realities of their environment. Sheltering them instead of educating them is the opposite of protection - they won’t have the tools they need to navigate the world when they reach adulthood.
If you are not mature enough to dodge something as low risk as media you don’t like without someone sitting over your shoulder telling you what is and isn’t okay, you aren’t old enough to go spelunking through fanfic archives without oversight in the first place. That’s not on the rest of us who just happen to be hanging around in the archives, that’s on your parents for setting you loose before you were ready.
So, as a now apparently somewhat elder 2nd Gen fan to the current generation of young fans, let me do my part to help educate you by using content label tags to the best of my ability, and by saying:
If a person you are directly interacting with is making you uncomfortable with their behavior towards you, tell an adult you know and trust what is wrong.
If media you are interacting with is making you uncomfortable, stop interacting with that media.
If you are only interacting with a person indirectly, e.g. by reading their written words, or watching/listening to their recorded behavior from a distance, such that they have no access to you in return, what you are interacting with is media. Put it down, and let it go.
baratheonpilled
stormborns
janainaart
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
2087
discoholicmusic
dededos
