arahir:

an artist friend was recently harassed at a con. she had people denigrate her merch, question the placement of characters on a gen art piece, and make ableist slurs about pairings. this isn’t about ships anymore, and it’s barely about fandom. frankly, this is a discussion about basic human politeness. in my life, i’ve used the ableist slur that fan used once and it was cause for my mother to explain to me in short and angry words that my behavior was unacceptable. i never used it again. the difference is: i was seven years old at the time and these people are fast approaching full adulthood if they’re not there already.

we’re reaching the point where fandom has reached near-religious levels of devotion by many people, to the exclusion of everything else. nothing should come before your ability to treat others with basic respect. this falls in line with what many of us have been saying as this has ramped up: if you don’t like something, don’t talk about it. fandom is not activism. and when you pretend it is, you open the door to a state of being that’s honestly horrifying.

we’ve had people feed artists needles over a ship. we’ve had the entire cast of a major series have to withdraw from fandom almost entirely due to death threats over a ship. it’s now typical that a fan needs to consider before posting something: am i ready to receive death threats for this? this is a level of absurd that at first blush is hilarious and at second is terrifying. so often i tell myself that these people will grow up and grow out of this behavior, but will they?

i never acted that way at that age and i can’t imagine i ever would have. i think my mother would have been livid if i’d tried. for many artists, fandom is a part of their livelihood, and the gall to come up in public and insult that livelihood to their face is both disgusting and the slippery slope to–demonstrably–much, much worse. so if you’re at a con and you see people act this way to an artist? don’t make a scene, but do something. try to talk to them. most cons have a zero harassment policy. if it comes to that, gently alert someone with the con that a fan is acting out of line, because artists are in absolutely no position to speak up and start an altercation over that and this is now common place and unacceptable.

and in a more general sense: i have no idea who is raising these people but eventually this behavior will come back to bite them and it will bite very fucking hard.