My Experience w/the Hellaverse Fandom: A Retrospective
I will say, my time of being in this fandom, for the longest while, since the pilot dropped and following Vivziepop for all her work, has been a time and a half.
Do I regret joining? No, I've made a close friends in this fandom and just stick close to them nowadays.
As a person, that is a POC, this fandom has by far the most racist, xenophobic, misogynistic folk I've ever seen in my lifetime and that's concerning. Many folk are incredibly rude and downright disrespectful if you don't share an opinion with them. A good majority fetishize Eastern artists and unconsciously hold them up on some pedestal.
I was in a server where an Eastern artist was accused of tracing and rather than go ask the artist, via their DMs (which were open btw), they jumped the gun and made an announcement in the server causing ppl to go harass the artist, and people make xenophobic comments in the server. Turns out the artist didn't trace at all, they were just good at replicating on model.
With an audience, consisting primarily of white men and women, the racism and xenophobia comes out so easily, it's mind boggling to me.
Now, when meeting fans irl, at conventions, they're all such a delight, I've never had any issues and you know why, most of them don't have a social media besides Instagram usually.
The moment I mention that I am POC, the tonal shifts happen, the "we feel that we have to walk on eggshells around you" because you're just a blunt and honest individual, or they just never communicate with you because they're afraid you're going to "lash out". It's a rinse and repeat pattern that just keeps disappointing me.
However, most folk wanna fetishize my skin color, my Louisianan culture, but not really care about my history you only care because you love Alastor. And don't get me started on some Alastor redraws I've seen done by many white folks some they do not know how to color brown skin at all.
I used to be in a server called Hazbin Art Initiative and I can tell my story. I was used, even though some people have apologized. I was still hurt and the trauma I've experienced of people only talking to me out of some gain they wanted, still makes me sick at night. I have never healed and will never heal.
My motivation was killed for a while from being in that server, and being told that rules were made up, bc I wasn't liked, or I was too "intense", even though I'm just a very straight forward and honest person, is just childish. This is why you kicked me, really, when I could have just been talked to. Instead you tried to get me to post art to stay active when I don't like being told what to do, having a server feel like an exclusivity club, and lastly, most of y'all didn't like my art, and played favorites and I didn't want to keep posting in a place like that.
I've closed and put my walls up and I can not trust people after this. It's just disheartening how this has been my experience for the past 6 years. This was the more recent happenings.
My asks are open. I will not answer everything publicly as a heads up