Hey so I have a big rant I want to share with the Pazzi community but I'm too shy to post it from my account, so if you feel it's appropriate, can you please share it in the tags?
I just wanted to start by saying how sad I am to have read so many post about how many Pazzi fans have been so affected by the trolls and I just wanted to say something that might help people. First, it's important to acknowledge that I get that even with supporting the girls, parasocial relationships could be dangerous and I'm glad some people are taking a step back. You can't be so invested in other people's lives to the point that what they do or don't do affects you personally so deeply. But at the same time, it's important to understand that representation does matter, especially within the queer community. Coming from a generation where you would hide your sexuality and dealing with the shame and fear of being rejected just for loving who you love, seeing young Pazzi love each other so loudly and essentially getting the high school sweethearts queer love story that we barely even get in novels and movies, it means something to us. And it's ok to find their story inspiring. They kept their faith, stayed humble through fame, love in a way we barely see even in straight couples, like these girls truly are showing what true love is. And it's not performative. That's the thing that gets me the most. I find famous couple who stay private prove that they are truly in love because they aren't doing it just so others could put their relationship on a pedestal. Their love is real and they don't need validation from anyone to keep building the future they want. Not to compare but if you all have noticed, it's often the couples who are the most affectionate in public that end up having the biggest secrets and horrible breakups while acting perfectly in love in public. But these two, choose themselves and their family above all else. It's not performative and this should show you guys that it's real.
Also, I've been thinking about this for a while, but the Pazzi fans are NOT the reason these girls went back into privacy. The Pazzi fans were there, making tik toks and overanalyzing every little interactions way before the girls decided to come out officially as a couple. And Azzi was directly interacting with the pazzi content by liking tik toks, wearing PB merch, liking comments that would be considered a little parasocial, speaking about Paige in her podcast. She clearly loved the support from Pazzi fans. She was finally able to love her best friend outloud and was happy that others celebrated them too. Paige with the few post she made about them, was also playing around with Pazzi fans. I think it was their way to say, we appreciate the love and support. She knew what she was doing with the story with the 🥵 emoji lol. So to me, they understood where the love and support came from. When you are a part of a marginalized community, you know the importance it is to represent that community and how important it is for people from said community to have hope and good role models cuz it's not easy to fight for your right to exist freely in a world that tries to take away your right to do so. But, unfortunately, the trolls got loud, the rumors started actually working and many people started to fall for them. They had to go back into privacy and I don't blame them. They knew how the discourse would be worst after Azzi was going to be drafted number 1 and they realized they didn't want their relationship to over shadow who they are as basketball players. And also, notice when Paige mention what is hard in being a public figure, she mentionned the trolls, she never mentions people who support and are excited about them. They even liked some of the "parasocial" tik toks about their relationship. So it was never about that. I think they enjoyed the Pazzi fans until trolls started infiltrating the space. And then Pazzi fans went way too hard trying to prove the relationship instead of just enjoying the little crumbs. It all became way too messy on either sides.
This brings me to my last point. Letting the trolls win, letting them take this away is so sad because it's giving them power to make this space negative. These are miserable people, and misery loves company. They don't care about Paige nor Azzi, they just want the fans to turn on them and take away the love and support the girls are getting. They are happy whenever people admit what they are doing is working and how they are making people second guess Pazzi. That's all they want. And that's why they are so loud in moments like this weekend. Remember, we live amongst literal psychopaths, people find joy in unimaginable things and if we let these people take over and inflitrate our minds, we are in a bigger problem than we might think. In today's world, where queer rights could be taken away at any time, we should really protect little communities like this one. There are little queer girls who were ashamed of who they are and thanks to pazzi, they realized how beautiful love truly is and how they can also have the fairytale love story that only seem true for straight couples. I just want everyone to not forget the foundation of this community. It was to support the girls, their relationship and letting them know how much they mean to us. Love should always be louder than words and when you choose to keep loving and supporting even when the hate gets loud, you are helping break the power these horrible people think they have. The only way to do that is to allow the love and support to be louder than anything else. Louder than media shade, louder than the trolls, louder than the hate and the doubters. This is the whole point of a community. No matter what the outsiders try to do to bring us down, we stay close together and never stop to be loud with our love. That's the only way to win. The trolls have no place in this community, block, report, let then talk their shit cuz it's a direct representation of where their heart is at and they have to deal with the fact that they find joy in hurting others. We should look at them with pity and wish them healing. But we need to keep doing what we are doing. The work isn't done just because more people are comfortable coming out. The older queer folks who made it possible for us to be where we are did their part, now it's up to the next generation to make sure that the next Pazzi to come out with their relationship, don't have to face what our girls did. The only way to allow this is by letting the trolls know, they will never win. Stop trying to prove them wrong and just enjoy the beautiful love story and whatever the girls want to share with us. As long as we can all do that, I promise you, the joy and love from this community will be restored.
Thank you for being part of the solution, to keep having this space available where people can just show love and support without fear or judgement. This is what we need more of, and I hope people find a way to keep making this community a safe space and we find a way to reclaim it from those who are just mean spirited people.