Some thoughts

[general_radix]

libraryseraph reblogged this thread on what happened to tumblr's aspec community (short version: exclusionists sytematically abused every ace and/or aro person back into the closet), and it's basically one more reason why I'm not going to actively post there again unless they start pruning inactive accounts (I did log back in solely to use the message feature).

Not to say that DW is perfect (I stay away from fail-fandomanon for a reason), but on here, I've never really worried about running afoul of an exclusionist with lots of followers to sic on people.

Comments

[juzo_kun]

So, just one of the many forms of bigotry, even more insidious and hypocrital because it claims to protect what in reality is trying to silence.

I've seen waay to many of these, Tumblr seems a breeding ground for this crap, but it's not a new thing. I think that's going for... basically all human history, I bet.

[I admit every once in a while I poke on FFA, but only with the search engine to find if someone writes about the things that interest me, fandom-wise. And since the newsgroups age I gained a lot of experience in navigating these kind of environments.]

[general_radix]

Yep. >.> (True, though sometimes it feels like assholes on Tumblr are deliberately dredging up the worst of yester-decade's debates. See also: the virulent hatred of "yaoi fangirls" which had just about died down before certain people brought it back)

(I might try looking up Marathon stuff on FFA, but if the header text is yet more glib "incest is wincest", I'll probably put it off again.)

[juzo_kun]

And let me guess, those people who say "yaoi fangirls" are wrong make somewhat exception for the pairing/situations they are fan of?

Anyway, it seems to me a not-so-casual ploy driven by certain kind of people meant to take away energy to deal with the real issues at stake; bringing noise to a discussion is a well known technique used by malicious parties (I think at gaslighting and sealioning, or just simple 'crying wolf') to drown the signal in an irrelevant flood of noise.

...err, fortunately, my fandoms aren't the ones that bring these kind of phenomena, due to size, age, and sheer luck. Except Transformers. That's one I won't even touch again with a three meters pole since the few people producing interesting (to me) fan content gradually stopped.

[general_radix]

I think it's more like, these people have an extremely narrow idea of how queer men and their relationships should be portrayed, and anything that strays outside of that is automatically deemed "fetishizing" (and made by straight women; many people accused of this are not straight and/or not female). Though, there's probably a few instances of blatant hypocrisy/moral myopia going on.

I definitely suspect that a good percentage of the anti-yaoi crowd isn't actually concerned with respectful portrayals of mlm, but with pressuring everyone to only produce M/F. The far more widespread, systemic issue of straight men treating lesbians as disposable wank fodder rarely gets brought up outside of brief asides (usually to claim that "straight women" treat gay men the exact same way, when I'm pretty sure that's not the case), and I think there's a reason for that.

(I've never been all that deep in Transformers fandom, but the stories I hear sound...exhausting. DX )

[juzo_kun]

I don't have a great grasp of all of these happenings in particular, but your description confirms to me that's just something used to silence all the voices that aren't cis/straight/male finding whatever subject riles up people to fake an interest -- and, as you write, pressuring everyone to produce only the things that cater to them.

But it's the general pattern that worries me. These are techniques used in politics propaganda whenever there's something to polarize and sway opinions. Trolling, in a way, except not only for the fun of the troll but for more sinister purposes.

It was always there, I mean the techniques used for propaganda, it's just that social media (and the management thereof) made this concoction an explosive one.

[They were. If just for the sheer dimension of the fandom, the number of bad apple is/was big. But at least there was a time when the TF wiki authors had the firm stance of not taking themselves too seriously. Results: some of the definitions and a lot of the image captions were really funny to read.]

[general_radix]

Yeah, definitely. >.< It's part of why, despite seeing a lot of discourse from the sidelines, I try to stay as far away from it as possible these days.

[juzo_kun]

Wise decision. I do the same. There's waaay to much stuff to think right now....