Are bullies in the fandom overlooked?

[TedEbear 8]

that's a problem with the internet it's relatively hard to check sources and most of the time stiffs are difficult to get recognition on if they're under a certain age... thanks for the info,  glad she's okay...

[Chronamut 355]

Any fandom that grows in popularity will definitely show these problems.

 

Forgive me for generalizing and if this doesn't apply to whoever read this, I personally believe you should feel proud.

 

Teenagers are prone to being the worst people.

 

Teens lack the mental skills to make intelligent, rational choices. That part of the brain isn't 100% developed until you're like 20-ish.

Give a teen who's already prone to aggression, maybe feeling awkward and out of place, suffering from so much whiny tween angst towards life and access to the anonymous internet, and you've got a recipe for vile toxicity.

 

And popular fandoms are, obviously, big. They have a lot of members.

Popular fandoms also tend to be popular because it's the fad. MLP is a currently a fad and won't leave that status for a while. Steven Universe is also currently a fad.

It's the cool thing right now.

 

Determining if something leaves the fad status is only once show content declines. If fan activity dies with it (or just dies in general), it dies a fad. If fan activity remains constant, despite show content going down, it wasn't just a fad.

 

Example: Earthbound. One U.S. game and two (for a long time) Japanese games that required a lot of patience to acquire.

The fandom of Earthbound was small. It wasn't crazy popular. It had a group of dedicated fans in a content-less environment.

 

Point being, you wouldn't find this hatred in the Earthbound community because most people who knew about the game were young adults when the internet was widespread and young people coming in from Smash Bros saw that there wasn't much. They were appreciative of how much they got from so little. An actual sense of community. A tween who was hell bent on trolling would find a fandom so passionate about their so little content, that you'd pretty much quickly and easily isolate and exile yourself as an already small fandom isnt likely to have as many trolls.

 

Back to MLP.

A. It's huge. Naturally in all that mass, it'll have some bad eggs and easy to join other trolls in an already massive fandom.

B.Constant content = spoiled attitudes.

C. Teens tend to not think rationally and "hey, Filthy Frank makes me laugh by joking about suicide and calling everyone f@gs. I, too, shall mimic his behavior because that's what we teens seem to do. We see popular people dress, talk, and act certain ways and we just seem to copy that". Seriously. Go on instagram and look up hastags like #mlp and you'll find so many troll accounts that joke about suicide, 9/11, "dank memes", and all sorts of other attention-begging BS that I highly doubt a 25 year old who's got their life together would create. Teenage trolls seem to subconsciously compete with one another to see who can outdo who.

 

Overall, popular fandoms will always have their trolls on the internet. It doesn't matter if you're a brony or a whovian. Love and tolerate is a myth. We're no worse nor better than any other fandom. Raising awareness won't do much. As a community we just need to ignore the trolls. Block them and encourage others to shut as many doors on them as possible. There are cyber bullying resources. Use them. Take advantage of every resource but never engage.

1. You won't win

2. Attention is their blood

3. What I mentioned previously is much more effective

 

If you're a teenager and none of this applies to you, good job. You're already acting like an adult and your transition from adolescents to adulthood will go much easier than the trolls that will someday regret their actions.

 

this this and more this.

 

I will say this though, this fandom IS much better then certain places in the deep depths of the internet, so be proud that the content of this fandom itself doesn't lend to the massive toxicity that others do - after one shuts a person down for watching a childrens show aimed for girls there isn't much left to attack. The show is about love and respect - the comments against it are mostly out of ignorance, and a few isolated cases of questionable obsessive behaviour that can be reflected in all fandoms

 

I have noticed something myself as originally being from some of those places originally as a good person, and slowly being corrupted by them, and then leaving to "purge" myself of all that filth, is that I unfortunately seem to have some of that behaviour lodged into my subconscious now, and saying things I would assume to be harmless on sites such as those are frowned upon here..

 

kind of like conversing with people on the internet and then bringing that mentality to talking to someones parents.. it just doesn't translate well.. so I should apologize to the moderation team right now, I am trying to decondition myself, but I most likely slip every now again because of not even thinking that what I am saying here is wrong due to.. simply being on the internet too long hehe..

Edited October 30, 2015 by Chronamut