ghoul maybe this is a really dumb question but what’s an anti? what are they against and why do people have such strong feelings regarding them? ive only ever seen it shortened to ‘anti’ so im not sure what the second part is regarding…. sorry if this is a stupid question i just figured id ask u since ur like an omniscient older sibling figure to all of us lol
but i'm going to answer you anyway because I find fandom history fascinating. "anti" is short for "anti-ship" and people have strong feelings about them because they're basically the self-appointed morality police of fandom.
"anti" and "pro" ship came about as terms used to identify who was and wasn't "safe" within fandom spaces. pro-shippers were people who did not give a flying fuck what people shipped or what kinks people wrote about, they were very "ship and let ship" and "don't like don't read." antis were people who said "actually you can't ship whatever you want if your ship is 'problematic' and to a more aggressive point, you are a bad person for what you ship." which back in the old days of fandom could have meant anything from incest to just like... shipping two dudes.
the term "anti" was created to mock the people who were positioning themselves as the "morally pure" section of fandom. it was sort of a joke, "these people will find anything to rage against (especially if they already don't like you) they're 'anti-fandom'." i still see people with "antis dni" in their bio and it just means "i understand that there are kinks/ships here that you might not like, but i like them so just block me and move on" or "here there be dragons."
