Frowny face of a lack of popularity

[yvannairie]

Fun fact I recently extended an invitation to someone who's like lowkey fandom famous and whose work I deeply enjoy to come hang out in my Robot Server(tm), someone I have no personal relationship with, and having been emboldened by that, I kinda wanna reach out to other people in the fandom I'm aware of! Who I think are cool!

But it's become so normal for antis in the TF fandom to have gone underground and purged all mention of having participated in violent harassment campaigns in the past three years that I don't feel comfortable inviting someone off just the vibe I have of them, and I can't seem to get the server to take off word-of-mouth since almost nobody in the fandom is up for forming new social bonds either.

IDK. I feel more bold about wanting to reach people who have kind of lost the joy of the thing and come hang out with us! Because yeah, been there! That's why I started it! And I really resent being afraid of my fellow fan and not wanting to put the people who have been harassed into danger in case my own social radar turns out to be complete shit.

EDIT: I suddenly started wondering if the lack of spread by word of mouth also has to do with not just me being like this with strangers, but also people who are on this server being like this with their strangers? Like are we all just in an ouroboros of not trusting one another b/c it's so much safer to NOT have a stance on this, and those who have hard stances have often been harassed enough to be suspicious of a stranger being like "hey you're cool and I heard you'd gotten shit for stuff, would you like to come on our Anti Giving Shit To People For Stuff That Doesn't Matter" server?

Comments

[sexytronians]

Yeah. I get it on one hand because I’ve got one stalker who periodically harasses me and I’m so cautious about what spaces I join. Not because he’s there but because his allies might be.

On the other hand, I don’t think an atmosphere of distrust really helps to combat antis either. The worst culprits do tend to be known at least but as you’ve said they have wiped evidence. But fear means folks can’t band together to call bullshit when they target someone—I’d rather be trusting sometimes and know I’ve got folks at my back to defend me.

Idk personally unless it’s someone I directly know is an anti I’ll be cool with em.

(It’s late at night so idk how coherent I am rn sorry.)

[yvannairie]

Yeah, I know a lot of people like that, and it's a big reason I don't reach out to strangers that often, because they could easily be one step removed from someone who's sent death threats to someone already on the server.

This is why I chose to rely on the word-of-mouth approach at first, but at this point I definitely feel like we need to go public sooner or later.

[sexytronians]

Yeah. I don’t think it helps that it’s hard to know if someone endorses that behaviour or simply isn’t aware it’s occurred. Especially when its someone who can be charming at face value.

Sorry for all the edit notifications I may have put in your comment box lol. I just realised the context of something you were saying.

Anyway knowing it’s about a server like. That sounds a tough choice tbh. Wanting folks who aren’t just immediate friends to have a space without antis is really good but I get why strangers could be a risk for sure.

[yvannairie]

I mean it is definitely mostly for my own benefit, too, and I wouldn't just expect people who have been harassed to jump on board without knowing something about whether I'm the kind of person who is superficially charming and plans to just get them into deeper shit. That's also an advantage of being introduced into something like this through someone you already trust.