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Moving On
During the summer of 2016 and the fall of 2017, I made a number of posts about some of the weird experiences I was having with Tumblr-based fandoms. I've been involved with one fandom or another on and off since around 2008, but I had never seen anything like what I encountered during the months preceding and following the 2016 American presidential election. Because I was not only witness to but the target of harassment (and because my job was extremely emotionally draining), I was hurt and confused, and my main purpose in writing these posts was to process what I was going through.
I made these posts public not out of any desire to create documentation, as I didn’t think anyone would read them; rather, the act of writing itself was cathartic. There was an element of venting, of course, and also a sense of validation in giving my voice a place to exist in the world. This was important to me at the time precisely because I was so upset, and I was doing everything I could to keep myself emotionally stable during a extended period of intense distress.
I don’t regret what I wrote, because the harassment I witnessed and experienced was hateful and unnecessary. Still, I’m not the same person I used to be, and I’d like to think that the other people involved in the conflicts I wrote about have moved on as well. These posts have already served their purpose for me, and they’re not benefiting anyone else.
I therefore decided to restrict a number of my posts about my experiences with fandom to mutuals. It’s not that I’m deleting receipts, as the posts still exist, but rather that I’d like to put those episodes behind me. If this journal is still here ten years from now, I would want to look back on it and not have to revisit the unpleasantness of what was, by all accounts, a strange twelve-month period in many Tumblr-based fandoms, not to mention the broader culture of online communities.
I don’t want to discredit the value of what I gained from these experiences, especially since I ended up learning lessons about interpersonal relationships and productive communication the hard way. I tried to address some of this in my previous post about dealing with fandom harassment. Again, it doesn’t make any sense for me to apologize for getting upset about things that were genuinely upsetting, but I really wish I had been able to deal with them in a more productive way.
I think that, because I was hurt, I ended up inadvertently exacerbating toxic situations and, in the process, hurting people who didn’t deserve it. I wish I had been able to handle those situations differently, and I wish I hadn’t been so sensitive about stupid nonsense that could have been avoided.
I made these posts public not out of any desire to create documentation, as I didn’t think anyone would read them; rather, the act of writing itself was cathartic. There was an element of venting, of course, and also a sense of validation in giving my voice a place to exist in the world. This was important to me at the time precisely because I was so upset, and I was doing everything I could to keep myself emotionally stable during a extended period of intense distress.
I don’t regret what I wrote, because the harassment I witnessed and experienced was hateful and unnecessary. Still, I’m not the same person I used to be, and I’d like to think that the other people involved in the conflicts I wrote about have moved on as well. These posts have already served their purpose for me, and they’re not benefiting anyone else.
I therefore decided to restrict a number of my posts about my experiences with fandom to mutuals. It’s not that I’m deleting receipts, as the posts still exist, but rather that I’d like to put those episodes behind me. If this journal is still here ten years from now, I would want to look back on it and not have to revisit the unpleasantness of what was, by all accounts, a strange twelve-month period in many Tumblr-based fandoms, not to mention the broader culture of online communities.
I don’t want to discredit the value of what I gained from these experiences, especially since I ended up learning lessons about interpersonal relationships and productive communication the hard way. I tried to address some of this in my previous post about dealing with fandom harassment. Again, it doesn’t make any sense for me to apologize for getting upset about things that were genuinely upsetting, but I really wish I had been able to deal with them in a more productive way.
I think that, because I was hurt, I ended up inadvertently exacerbating toxic situations and, in the process, hurting people who didn’t deserve it. I wish I had been able to handle those situations differently, and I wish I hadn’t been so sensitive about stupid nonsense that could have been avoided.
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Wish I had more to add, but honestly? Just want to give you some love and support.