its kind of distressing how you can tell a lot of people see popular indie artists and writers and such as like "a Celebrity but one which i stand a half decent chance of bullying to death"
And they hold them to much MUCH higher standards as well. They expect them to be perfect paragons in every regard and never slip up in the tamest mildest way even once, while faceless multi-million dollar conglomerate productions get a pass for all kinds of heinous stuff, and mainstream celebrities (especially straight white cis male ones) are applauded for showing the most basic glimmers of decency.
I have been reflecting lately on the standards of 'professionalism' that people expect from indie creators, and realising that really, no matter how you try and dress it up, it's not actually reasonable to expect any human to be able to sustain being viscerally hated by that many people at once. That level of vitriol and dislike is difficult for anyone to handle. The only solution for creators is to basically withdraw from where they have unfiltered access to fan reactions, and have someone else moderate all that for them to limit their direct access.
There's a lot of talk about whether or not it's reasonable to hold them to this standard and that standard, of course, and what should get a free pass and what should not, yet when it comes down to it, I think the most important thing to remember is very simple: it's never acceptable to pile on and send hate and insults and threats.
People conducting themselves respectfully and actually remembering there's another person on the other end of things, and not gleefully jumping onto a hate bandwagon would solve most of these issues.
It's not a coincidence that it's often minorities that have to go the indie route either, and not a coincidence that they're the ones targeted.
