oh boy i saw a Post that i know was at least partially a joke about how we should get to appeal people who've blocked us... i made the mistake of checking the comments. oops. lots of people who don't understand how people can be such meanies and block people over almost Nothing at all, or that blocks should expire after a year... and, well.
i have several people blocked for safety reasons/peace of mind, people i want to have the least amount of access to me as possible (harassment campaign, terfs, etc). i figure most people agree that these are good and noble reasons to Block. but i also have lots and lots and lots of people blocked for seemingly petty reasons (bad opinion, annoying to me). i have also found myself blocked by several people - some i know exactly why, some complete strangers i have never interacted with and cannot figure out the motivations of. so let's explore some angles here:
- Receiving An Appeal: i did actually have someone email me to ask if they were really blocked or if it was a mistake. i was put in the very fun position of having to find a nice way to explain that yeah, sorry, i soft blocked you several times because the commentary you kept adding to my posts was driving me nuts but it didn't stick so i had to hard block you. no hard feelings, you're fine, i just personally find you annoying but please don't take it personally. i mean i didn't HAVE to reply to that email, and maybe i could have found a way to tell that person to give me some space, but. the internet is so loud and so full of people and i have a threshold for how much i can handle, i do not have the capacity or patience to sit down with every person i find annoying and tell them to please repress their entire personalities for my sake. i don't WANT to do that! i want people to be their loud and vibrant self but sometimes i need to slam my door shut before i snap at someone. or everyone. taking care of myself is to everyone's benefit okay!!!
- Wanting To Know Why: look, i get it, it's frustrating to not know exactly WHY someone blocked you, but my honest advice is that... you probably don't actually want to know. maybe if it was someone you have a personal relationship to outside of tumblr, sure! that's a whole other can of worms to deal with. but you probably don't actually need to hear a stranger tell you you're annoying or that your headcanon sucks or whatever. there's a parallel here to wanting to hear the Exact reasons for why someone broke up with you and it's just gonna make you feel like shit regardless of what it is - except it's an online random who doesn't even know you probably. you literally do not need a stranger's approval to exist in a space and do your thing, and the stranger did the right thing by curating their space. i'm sure there's lots of examples where people get blocked for a "small" reason and the blocker forgot Why and could probably easily unblock them and carry on. But. do you really really really need access to This particular stranger online? maybe they have a really cool blog you enjoyed! but there's so many other cool blogs. you'll live!!!!!! i promise.
- Is Blocking A Declaration Of War And Ill Intent? no. it's just not. it's a tool for curating your internet space. nobody gets along with literally everyone else on earth and we were not made with extreme exposure to millions of other people worldwide in mind. maybe it seems extreme to yeet people out of your blog just for being a little bit annoying, but it's not so extreme if you have a larger following and lots of people making noise in your notifs. it doesn't have to be deeper than that!!
