A thought on the bullying happening in the good omens fandom, no spoilers:
What are the odds of at least some of the more extreme bullying that’s happening (like the death threats to Rachel Talalay) are coming from spam/bot accounts? Humans are gonna human so I’m not saying the whole fandom is innocent, but social media is also gonna social media.
-It’s a story with heavy queer representation
-there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the circumstances of S3
-there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the plot/writing of S3
We are a divided fandom right now and that makes us vulnerable to bad actors. People who don’t want to see stories like this have commercial or fan success regularly use social media as a weapon in this way. “See what happens every time you make a story with queer representation? The fans will eat you alive! Better just avoid those stories.”
I’ve seen this behavior before, specifically in the teacher areas of social media. Someone pretending to be a teacher in the US will say something like “everyone at my school agrees that arming teachers is the only way to solve the school shooting problem.” They seem like they would be an expert, but when you dig into their profile it’s a right wing nut posing as a teacher or in some cases, a literal bot who is designed to drive engagement and sow chaos in the profession.
Anyway, I am hoping that the worst comments in our fandom are being made by people/things that don’t belong here. We can have heated debates without resorting to bullying and that’s why I like this fandom so much. Stay wary, check your sources, and keep being kind!
