how've u been since the news? it took me forever to find this account on my old tumblr hehe
Pretty wild news, eh? I'm not really on Tumblr anymore and not active in the phandom, but I still follow their videos and now the phodcast.
I'm so glad they (especially Dan) finally felt safe and confident enough to be open about their relationship. It must have been incredibly difficult and stressful trying to hide it from everyone all these years, even hiding from irl friends and acquaintances! I'm really happy for them that they can lift this weight from their shoulders.
After listening to everything they had to say and thinking about it, I've felt a bit uncomfortable about my own phandom behavior of the past. I was never a serious "archaeologist," digging up deleted tweets and such, but I did make use of the fruits of other people's archaeology. I read people's shared screenshots of some of Dan's deleted tweets, saw deleted photos, and did some minor archaeological digs of my own, just doing Twitter back searches to see things they'd tweeted a decade ago that were still public. I even shared some of the information publicly in a "phan timeline."
I never really thought about the fact that these were invasions of their privacy. I subscribed to the "you put it on the internet, it's out there forever" philosophy, but that isn't really an excuse, and it isn't kind. And they pointed out in this video that they didn't realize how permanent it would be at the time, so a lot of the things they posted were not intended for the kind of eternal scrutiny they've received. And, now that I think about it, I've posted things online, myself, that I hadn't really thought through and wouldn't like to have thrown in my face for the rest of my life. It wasn't kind to Dan, in particular, to read tweets that he deleted specifically because he didn't want people to read them. I was ignoring his wishes out of my own curiosity and that's not really a cool way to treat someone you respect.
So I'm happy for them, and also realizing that I can't be so high-and-mighty about not being "one of those people" when it comes to invasive fans. Sure, I never tracked down their address or even watched the v-day video, but I invaded their privacy in smaller ways and it's important to recognize my own culpability. I'm not beating myself up, but I'm definitely feeling uncomfortable about some of my past behavior.
