where. to. fucking. start.
It’s not “the defendant didn’t believe the victim was real and so he poofed out of existence.”
It’s “they didn’t believe the victim was real, and encouraged others not to believe the victim was real, so people did not treat the victim as a real person, made belittling comments about the victim, the victim’s parents, the victim’s relationship with this father, the victim’s entire family - including wishing violence against them.”
also, the definition is pretty friggin literal. like there are lots of ways to dehumanize someone, but saying they literally don’t exist is in there. like how only ever treating native americans as part of history instead of real people who exist and are struggling today is erasing them and hurts them? not intending to say that Larries are doing a similar type of damage, just be clear. obviously a much less important issue!!! but it’s not just perpetuating stereotypes that cause people to look at others as less than human, although that is often a big part of it. But literally saying someone does not exist is dehumanization and it has an impact.
Larries have to work so, so hard so they can pretend their behavior hasn’t been wildly inappropriate and harmful. But guess fucking what? When you call a child a doll, say he doesn’t exist, say his parents aren’t his real parents, and demonize his entire family in every possible way based on no evidence whatsoever, there’s actually gonna be consequences.
Telling people that a baby is a doll and using that as an excuse to mock the baby’s appearance or make jokes about the baby getting hurt, that’s… that’s dehumanization.
Insisting that Freddie’s family and life are not real and not as they seem are also a way Larries separate themselves from his personhood, so they can feel ok about making comments such as:
This post sums up the results of the way Larries and Ziams talk about the people who get in the way of their ships. This post shows how Briana and her family have been talked about by Larries. Here are some more examples of dehumanizing Larrie behavior. So much of their disrespectful behavior arises from the unquestioned assumption that Freddie does not exist. Their entire fandom is waiting for Freddie’s existence to be denied, for Louis to just drop him, which they think will have no consequences because they think he isn’t real. They think they can pick apart every aspect of Freddie’s life because they don’t think it’s real. And here’s lawyerlarrie, basically joking that they can’t be dehumanizing Freddie because… he isn’t a human because he doesn’t exist. And they don’t see how fucked up their position here is.
And you know what? Larries who don’t say these things, if you don’t like it when we point out that the way the Larrie community talks about Briana and her entire family dehumanizes them to encourage harassment and hate, if you don’t like the way people mocked and continue to mock and dehumanize Freddie to separate themselves from the reality of what they’re saying about him and his family, then maybe you should have tried publicly distancing yourself from these bloggers. Maybe you should speak out against this, instead of reblogging them and explicitly voicing your support for them.