Can we talk about the #aromantic tag?
So, a lot of aros get annoyed when aces post in the #aromantic tag and the post (seemingly) has nothing to do with aromanticism. [Example, example, example, example, example]
A couple of weeks ago, I had the experience of being mildly harrassed by aros on a post that I made to one of the ace blogs I run. It didn’t explicitly mention aromanticism, but it was heavily inspired by my aro experiences, and was so clearly related to aromanticism that I had people asking me why the post was relevant to asexuality. (And I did acknowledge its connection to aromanticism. I did that in the tag.) I got several aggressively-phrased comments on the post, as well as an anon ask, telling me that my post, created by an aro, about aro experiences, was not allowed to be tagged with #aromantic.
So, while there are some instances where people’s tagging practices suggest that they may conflate aromanticism with asexuality, I ask that you consider two things before messaging someone about their tagging practices:
First, be 110% positive that the person you are criticizing is not aro themselves.
If a person posting is aro, they get full discretion as to whether to tag a post as aro. Full stop. Policing how aroaces talk about their identities, forcing them to separate those experiences? Not okay, ever.
So unless you’re 100% sure that the poster is not aro, don’t tell them not to tag their stuff as aro.
The reason I’m saying this is not necessarily that there can’t be some questionable uses of the tag in these cases. It’s that, however much you’re sure that the post is inappropriately tagged? You might be wrong (as the people harassing me were). It’s better to let something somewhat questionable go than to tell an aro that they’re not allowed to tag their aro experiences with #aromantic.
And also, like... “harassment” shouldn’t be a word that can be used to describe how you approach blogs that might be tagging inappropriately anyway. If I can’t tell the difference between the tone of your messages and the tone of the exclusionists who tell me not to put ace content in the lesbian tag? You’re doing something wrong.
Second, remember that tags are not moderated spaces.
Moderated spaces allow for a few trusted users to keep an eye on things and handle posts that go against the community guidelines, so you don’t have to. In an aro moderated space, one of these community guidelines would probably be to not post ace stuff that doesn’t have explicit ties to aromanticism.
Tumblr tags are not moderated. (Besides, y’know, the harassment that happens apparently, but that’s not moderation!) They serve multiple purposes -- one is so that others can find your content. Another is so that blogs can organize their own content. And yes, that means that ace blogs will tag their content that is relevant to aromanticism with the #aromantic tag.
Wanting a moderated space is okay! Just don’t expect to get it from tumblr tags. Some good alternatives are: the aromanticism dreamwidth, pillowfort (which has an aro community space), arocalypse (sort of, the moderation isn’t great but people don’t post ace content anyways), I’m sure there are some good facebook groups, and probably more.
TL;DR: Don’t tag police. Please. Actual aros are getting caught in the crosshairs, and that’s unacceptable.
