You were all being mean. Youâre still being mean. Harry Potter helps so many people and you just donât care
i was going to respond to this in a sort of meme-magic way but i've actually got a couple of thoughts rattling around that i'd like to get out about this ask and the others that have sent en masse to me and my friends. bear with me this might ramble a little bit
in the past twenty-four hours, i have been sent a dozen hate anons, i've been suicide-baited, i've been called a childish teenager and an 'anti' and a subscriber to 'purity culture', i've lost countless followers and received cruel and transphobic dms, and my friends have been harassed, both directly and indirectly due to their association with me. i've found most of it very funny and i've tried to play it off, but i think it's absolutely a point of concern that this is all happening because me and some of my mutuals voiced some very mild criticisms of a multi-million dollar multimedia corporate franchise and its fanbase, and announced that we would like to leave it.
i've struggled on how to word what i'm trying to say and i started out trying to define it contextually, apropos of the broader cultural zeitgeist concerning harry potter and its fan culture at the minute, but i don't think that's going to work, because no matter how much nuance i try to apply to this and no matter how eloquent i am, and how many caveats i make, and how many misinterpretations of my words i put up with, you will continue to deliberately misunderstand me. so i've put it into some more productive advice-corner type phrasing instead:
you people have to stop forming parasocial relationships to strangers on the internet, and especially in fandom spaces. i am not your friend. i do not know who you are. i am not bullying you by stating an opinion about a niche online trend. i don't know who you are, and you won't leave me alone. i have never spoken to you in my life and yet my words, which are directionless and general and almost always articulated with as much nuance and complexity as i can provide them, have such a capacity to hurt you that you spend hours sending targeted harassment to me and the people i know. i am a stranger to you. bullying and cruelty involve a power dynamic which is simply not at play here. you are being hurt by what i'm saying, and your hurt may be very real, but lots of stuff hurts -- so do antiseptic and sad movies and tons of things which are not intentionally, maliciously, personally attacking you. sometimes, feeling guilt or hurt or anger or pain isn't the result or a mean-spirited attack. it's the beginning of growth.
and on that note: if you have associated so much of your sense of identity and self-worth with the media you consume that being told by a stranger you do not know that they personally feel uncomfortable associating with said media anymore hurts you this deeply, you need to stop. this isn't an insult, it's a bit of insight from someone who has dealt with destructive, unhealthy hyperfixations for years. the moment your connection to a piece of media has begun to amount in your hypersensitivity related to any conflicting opinions or beliefs about it you might see, and it has resulted in you sending targeted harassment to strangers, you need to step back and pull yourself out of it. i know it's hard. but you don't have much of a choice if you don't want to spiral into a deep, consuming depression at the end of all this, when you have milked the fandom dry of content and its hype begins to stagnate and your friends all leave (provided you have them).
all of this began with a two-paragraph post in which i explained that i will be leaving the fandom in the next few months due to my personal belief that producing the content i am producing is unethical. i have repeatedly been called sensitive, reactionary and childish since, but quite honestly, the real sensitivity lies in the inordinately violent response to a very inconsequential, personal update post. i am not afraid to discourse and i've done plenty of it in the past, but i draw the line when you demons start sending harassment to my friends. and i also draw the line here, at this: at me having to pick apart every last word i say for inaccuracies or vaguenesses or insensitivities so you people don't get the radfems or the anti-antis on my ass and get my ip tracked or my real name leaked or something, because both of those things have happened to me in fandom because of stuff like this before, and i'm sort of at the end of my rope here; and i get that this sounds overemotional, maybe it is, but honestly, fuck you people. i mean it, fuck you people.
trans people cannot post critical perspectives on any transphobic media or public figure on this site or any other without becoming at risk of harassment, abuse, deliberate misunderstanding and dog-piling. it's a constant risk for us. i care about being sensitive and kind, and making sure i'm not hurting people, and if you had approached this in any way other than anonymous hate messages i would have loved to chat with you about it, but i am not hurting you. you are being hurt, but it's not by me. it is, perhaps, by a perspective i have brought to the table, but i have not made you feel that way, anon; you've done it to yourself by creating an unhealthy relationship with me or my friends or the source material we are critiquing.
if the social issue you care most about right now is that people are unable to freely engage with the harry potter franchise, i envy you, and i'm glad your life is so simple. but i can assure you, 'freedom of fandom' is not the pressing matter this site portrays it to be; it's proxy-politics, it's incessant and irreconcilable, it's almost entirely hypothetical, and it's completely fucking pointless. and i feel a bit unkind saying it, but caring so much does not make you a good person, nor is it justified because you have also been hurt. it makes you an alarm-fatigued, chronically online stranger demanding the world of a moderately popular set of bloggers you follow on tumblr.
get off the computer. get off anon. go talk to your parents about this or message your friends and ask if they want to hang out sometime. do that homework you've been procrastinating on getting started. look at the sky. realise that the world does not revolve around you and your right to feel justified in your interests and fandoms. and for the love of god, all of you, leave me alone.
