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rynling- If someone sends you one or more messages saying that they will hurt you or encouraging you to hurt yourself, do not respond in any way. Screencap the messages, report the person, and then block them. Anyone who resorts to this type of harassment isn’t interested in communication, and any action you take to publicly address this behavior will be used as ammunition against you. It can be frustrating to allow this person (or group of people) to influence your behavior, but the best course of action is to remove yourself from the conflict by whatever means necessary, which may include switching platforms or temporarily going silent.
- If someone watches this happening to you and decides to remain friendly with the person (or people) who are engaging in this behavior, they are not your friend. It is in your best interests to minimize engagement with anyone who encourages or tolerates harassment, so unfollow or block them as necessary, and don’t respond to them if they immediately contact you to ask what happened. If someone who inadvertently becomes involved in a conflict really is your friend, they will find a way to make this clear, but you have to give yourself a sense of distance from the situation and then allow them to take the first step toward repairing the friendship.
- It’s important to recognize that losing a friend hurts, as does losing a community. Take your grief seriously, and give yourself time to be angry, mourn your loss, and recover.
- There is no value in wondering what you did to deserve harassment or whether you deserve it. If someone has sent you messages encouraging harm against you, there could be any number of reasons (from that person’s mental illness to the general culture of that particular platform), but those reasons have nothing to do with you.
To summarize: Privately document and report harassment but do not publicly acknowledge it in any way. Do not engage with the conflict and step away from the fandom or platform if necessary. The only thing that will extinguish the fire is a lack of fuel, and there’s no need to get burned in the process.
- If someone watches this happening to you and decides to remain friendly with the person (or people) who are engaging in this behavior, they are not your friend. It is in your best interests to minimize engagement with anyone who encourages or tolerates harassment, so unfollow or block them as necessary, and don’t respond to them if they immediately contact you to ask what happened. If someone who inadvertently becomes involved in a conflict really is your friend, they will find a way to make this clear, but you have to give yourself a sense of distance from the situation and then allow them to take the first step toward repairing the friendship.
- It’s important to recognize that losing a friend hurts, as does losing a community. Take your grief seriously, and give yourself time to be angry, mourn your loss, and recover.
- There is no value in wondering what you did to deserve harassment or whether you deserve it. If someone has sent you messages encouraging harm against you, there could be any number of reasons (from that person’s mental illness to the general culture of that particular platform), but those reasons have nothing to do with you.
To summarize: Privately document and report harassment but do not publicly acknowledge it in any way. Do not engage with the conflict and step away from the fandom or platform if necessary. The only thing that will extinguish the fire is a lack of fuel, and there’s no need to get burned in the process.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-17 06:16 pm (UTC)