thedancingbutler replied to your post “nerdfighterwhatevernumbers: I wish people would talk more about how...”
A lot of age policing and stuff goes on in fandom and right now the most popular argument is “Fandom has always been an adult space and we put content warnings on stuff so stop blaming adults and making us responsible for everything.”
But pretty much the entire reason the “Keep fandoms safe for kids” came about was because a bunch of hardcore porn kept turning up of a show for 4 year olds. It didn’t originate from “I was exposed to Harry Potter smut at 11 and it messed me up so let’s avoid that despite me seeing the content ratings,” it originated from not being able to google MLP without most of your results being porn (again, in a show for pre-schoolers, as wide an appeal as it had).And trust me, toddlers can and will use google to look up their favorite things on their parents’ tablet, this isn’t some crazy hypothetical.
Nowadays people tend to forget that this wasn’t about a fandom adults engaged in that children were also involved in, it was specifically for children, VERY YOUNG children, and people were making it gross and inaccessible for them. People fight against the “keep it safe for kids” mentality because they want to have their space too and don’t want to be policed, but they forget or don’t realize where it came from, resulting in a lot of misunderstanding of the argument in the first place. Some people start policing way too harshly (i.e. “how dare you write T33n W0lf smut even though you, the characters, and the actors are all adults and you put up appropriate content warnings”) while others let anything slide for the principle of the thing/not stifling creativity (”what’s wrong with them drawing L0ud H0use porn? Just put safe search on and stop complaining!”)
We really need to keep in mind where, why, and how the “keep fandoms safe for kids” argument came about instead of blinding picking an all or nothing black or white side in a debate that isn’t clean cut and has valid points with the flaws.
Bronies made a popular fandom for very young children hostile and unsafe for them and people forget that’s where the ‘keep fandoms safe for kids’ comes from and people just attack either side without consideration for nuance or origin
