a lot of young people say that fanfic made them think abuse was okay, and I think it’s disingenuous to say they’re all lying. but why is this suddenly a problem? this is my theory as to why it’s no longer an understood thing that fandom is about fiction & fantasy.
“society tells them that’s the job of ‘women’ but fandom wasn’t being a mom, and if they weren’t safe it was fandom’s fault”
Like what I’ve been saying: at base, this is a technology problem.
The stacks are not friends to your mental health. They’re not designed to make privacy or safety or DL;DR easy: people yelling at each other bc they saw something they shouldn’t have is still eyeballs and engagement = money.
(Also, the fact is, back in the day just the reality that fandom was full of LGBT was a sign that the content therein was “freaky.” Geekiness in general was stigmatized, let alone female geekiness. You could get sued or fired for participation. So the baseline assumption for entering and taking away was different, like walking into a private kink club versus a coffee shop.
Now, geekiness is valorized, LGBT has a much greater degree of acceptance, and fanfic is mainstream. So to a younger fan, why wouldn’t all of it be assumed coffee-shop innocuous?)
Hearseeno 