Goodbye Tumblr and goodbye Formula 1 fandom
I never taught about writing a post like this, because I didn’t think I needed to give any explanation, anyway. I’m going to write it instead: I have to make some points clear before I go away. I’m not saying I will delete this blog and I’m not even saying I will never come back. I will keep on checking my account, keeping in contact with a couple of people (who anyway know where to find me out from Tumblr) and maybe even post or reblog sometimes, but I guess I’m not going to post daily and I’m not going to attend this website as I was using to do until some weeks ago.
I’m finding it toxic and I’ve always found it quite toxic, if I have to say the truth. It all started a couple of years ago, when I was attacked for pointing out that saying “Carmen Jordà is a really bad driver and doesn’t deserve to be in any way related in Formula 1” is okay but saying “Carmen Jordà is a horrible whore and deserves to die” is not a synonym of what said before. Then it came another mess in which a person who accused me of supporting racism/xenophobia for no reason ended up by comparing me to mafia members just because I share my nationality with said criminal organization. And then there was a time in which I said that caring about Hamilton wearing or not a cap during a memorial for Justin Wilson’s death without giving a fuck about who Wilson was wasn’t the best way to show respect, and I was suggested to care about “important stuff” as Vettel saying that women are more beautiful than men, instead of not important stuff as one of my favourite Indycars’s driver’s death. A lot of things happened in the meanwhile. Once I said that Lotus wasn’t sacking Maldonado “because they don’t care about his money anymore” but only because “he hadn’t money anymore” and this was perceived as an attack to Magnussen who was going to replace him. Then another time we were talking about Maldonado and someone said he never won anything in GP2 and I pointed out that he’s actually a GP2 champion, someone complained because I wasn’t respecting other people opinion, as racing results were an opinion (not the merit of getting some race results, just race results). Then Mick Schumacher was horrible and ableist because he appropriated his father’s name (are we even serious? Is he responsible for his father basically naming him after himself?, which doesn’t even same so uncommon between racing drivers) and stole his father’s job. Then Martin Brundle said something which was disliked during a live coverage and people, based on what he said, started to talk shit about his racing skills and saying he didn’t achieve anything. From top-drivers fans point of view I could even get the point, for them only who has won a lot of races or championship deserves respect from the racing point of view, but when on my dashboard I have 90% of the people cheering for midgrid drivers or teams, having them talking shit about Brundle’s racing skills based on what he says… sorry, but it’s something I can’t stand. I never liked Jacques Villeneuve and what he said, but I wouldn’t go around saying he was slow on ovals, if you can get what I mean. Brundle never won a race, but during his whole Formula 1 career he never drove a car in which drivers were supposed to win races. It also happened just once that his team-mate won a race, but going around saying that someone was a crap driver because he didn’t won in the same car in which Michael Schumacher won a race doesn’t actually mean have a concrete point. I don’t remember when, but it happened in early 2017, then, another thing happened. I found out that there were people on my dashboard who were going around saying that Ayrton Senna was killed by a sniper who shot him on his helmet keeping a gun hidden under his coat and there were people who were actually enjoying and giving credit to the whole thing (spoiler: shooting to someone who’s driving a racecar and actually killing him is more science fiction than reality and, keeping on mind the weather and the temperature of that day, wearing a coat wasn’t exactly a good way to remain unnoticed). I get that this conspiracy theory is actually written in a book or something and impressionable people could even believe in it. Never mind that I don’t see how much sense could it make, I get that when famous people die there’s always someone who believes in hidden stories about their death, but come on, admitting that a racing driver died in a racing accident is much more accurate that going around saying “he was killed because he was too much relevant” without even thinking that being a successful sportman means being a successful sportman and period, not that a successful sportman has in his hands the world’s destiny and it’s necessary to kill him before he can change the world. Okay, let’s come back. I was saying I could get people believing in some stories. The point is always the same: if I would go around saying the same thing about drivers died in recent times, I would get shit because it’s not respectful (and I agree, it would be unrespectful). Then, it turns out that you just need to go back more than twenty years and you can say what you want and it’s not unrespectful anymore, just because you weren’t born at that time, who cares that someone was. Reading people thinking they can go around saying that Senna was shot to death in the same moment the steering wheel of his car broke down, after that I saw his fatal crash live on TV and I still remember what my mother exactly said when we saw the crash, it wasn’t a nice thing to read. Then it came all the polemics about Stroll. People are going around talking about “both sides” as there’s nothing in between “he’s the best driver evahhhh” and “he’s disgusting and deserves to die”, and if you simply don’t give a fuck his haters start to hate you because they think you’re a fan of his and his lovers start to hate you because they think you’re a hater of him, just as Stroll driving in Formula 1 is the most important thing happening (which I don’t think it is, even remotely). In the end, when Coulthard made a sexist comment, it came back the exact same thing I saw a lot of times: people genuinely believing that, if you dislike a driver for what he says, he automatically becomes a driver who was never able to drive. As in this case Coulthard won 13 races, the consequence is that, according to some people here, who have to justify that a driver who won 13 races was totally crap, his rivals and drivers who actually won championships during those times were not good drivers because the late 90’s was a horrible time for Formula 1 and all the drivers from that time are crap.
I could easily stand all what I just ended to describe if my dashboard wasn’t daily full of hateful messages in which users are talking about other hateful messages. It would be childish to unfollow or block people who didn’t ever do anything bad to me to try to enjoy this space again. As I do not enjoy this space anymore, I took the decision to concentrate on the F1-related activities I actually care about and which I enjoy. I moderate an amateur F1 forum and I have a motorsport blog on another website and in another language. As the new season starts, I will give my attention to that forum and to that blog. May you enjoy this season, may everything be alright and may a lot of you understand someday that you can disagree with some people on something without being hateful towards them, especially when we’re talking about stuff as “driver A is better than driver B” or “team X is better than team Y”.
@theboastalot se succedono cose strane in mia assenza, tienimi aggiornata. :-P I mp li leggerò e comunque c’è anche twitter. XD
@elenainlovewithf1andparis presto inizierò a postare un’altra fanfic trash su wattpad e ci sarà sicuramente qualche gabbiano vero o presunto. ;-)
@ any other user: if you want to contact me, feel free to do it.
