What are your thoughs on Hostilestuck's "marketing" then? /gen
Okay. So. This requires a little exposition:
Horror has been a major part of my life since I was practically a baby. It’s been my favorite genre for as long as I can fucking remember and even before then, and I’ve been involved in an uncountable myriad of horror communities- both online and offline- for many, many years now. The broader scope of the public- be it on social media or, again, in real life- tends to view Horror Communities and Horror Fans in general as kind of… Lawless, amoral, overly desensitized degenerates, essentially. This stereotype especially applies to Gorehounds, a subtype of Horror Fan that tends to prefer things on the more bloody and violent side- hence the name.
I could go on and on about how that “Lawless, Amoral Degenerate” stereotype is inherently linked to The Satanic Panic, and general Good Christian Values, but this isn’t the post for that. Instead, I’m going to give you some insider information from the Horror side of the world:
We have insanely fucking strict social rules.
Think of Horror Communities as being analogous to Kink Communities- while I’m not involved in the latter, there’s actually often a pretty heavy overlap between the two. The Venn Diagram is practically a circle. Viewing Horror Communities as “Lawless, Amoral Degenerates” comes from the same exact crowd who says the same exact thing about Kink Communities and Queer People. It’s factually untrue. But about those social rules:
See, Horror Communities, like Kink Communities, thrive off of strict rules of Consent, actually. In order to foster a healthy Horror-Based Community, you absolutely fucking need to understand this. There needs to be an active level of Consent going on between the Creator of Horror works, and those that consume those works. There’s an inherent need to understand what kind of content is being consumed here, to make sure the absolute minimum amount of people get hurt- Content Warnings are plentiful, spaces that are inherently more NSFW are very, very, VERY vigorously kept away from Minors, et cetera.
The reason for this is that, in Horror Communities, Gore is held under the same exact standard of regulation that Pornography is. I understand this sounds bad out of context, but what I mean by this is that they’re both considered very Explicit NSFW, and having that stuff thrown at people without warning is very much so considered a Violation of Consent and Boundaries. If there’s no active Consent going on between the Viewer/Receiver, and the Creator/Distributor of said content, then that’s really shitty at best, and incredibly fucking shady and block-worthy on average. You do not fucking do this under any circumstances.
Whoever is blasting Hostilestuck across the Homestuck Fandom doesn’t understand this at all. The biggest fucking issue going on right now is that incredibly graphic descriptions of Gore and Cannibalism are being sent rapid-fire to random Homestuck blogs without any warning, and without the Receiver of this content having any level of Consent to it. It is a gross violation of people’s boundaries. If this is some kind of Intentional Hoax, or an ARG Pitch, then whoever is behind it should be ashamed of themselves. Don’t do that. If this is an ARG Pitch, then there’s absolutely no way this is going to wind up being good, because whoever is behind it doesn’t know how to foster a healthy Horror Community at all. They’re either young, an idiot, or both.
You go into Heinoustuck knowing what you’re getting into. You go into SAW knowing what you’re getting into. You go into fucking, I don’t know, BestGore Dot Com knowing what you’re getting into. You have the ability to Consent to viewing the contents of those works. Everyone getting sent graphic asks hasn’t been able to. And that’s a god damn problem.