This was a good read!! I wholeheartedly agree. I was in a lot of fandoms that were 60-90% antis on tumblr and OH BOY were they the cultiest, most abusive group id ever had the misfortune to be tangled with.
I think that another thing that added to the creation of this(though I don't think its Responsible), believe it or not, was tumblr fictionkin(d) culture. I'll back up a second and explain; on tumblr, misinformation is spread very easily, and due to this, the original meaning and communities of 'otherkin(d) and fictionkin(d) were changed from a serious, personal identity often related to ones spiritual beliefs and kept VERY separate from fandom into this,,, smeared mess of 'if you relate a lot to a character you can '''kin them''' and this makes your ship opinions more valid' Which is.... Not how any of that works in the slightest, but I digress.
This out-of-control Aesthetic Label they decided to appropriate was then picked up and used as a bludgeon in tumblrs fictionkin tags, kids substituting fictionkin labels for personalities getting into massive wank fights that never would have been tolerated in literally any other other/fictionkin(d) community. Frequently sj jargon was thrown around like 'you can't have a past life as this alien because according to google translate they have a Persian last name and you're white and that's appropriation!!1'.
Vent blogs were made, and posts like 'I'm very uncomfortable with x ship because my feelings from my past life as x bleed over so I avoid those sections of the fandom' turned into 'Don't ship ME with y person its nasty and sexual harassment!' Im not sure if the original people who did that were anti-kin trolls trying to do more damage or they were just swerfs trying to find new ways to hurt people but either way about 2015 or so marked a huge shift in fictionkin circles on tumblr from 'whatever in any past life is fine were all having a weird spiritual experience together and constantly striving to make sense of it' to 'Im kin with x to cope(which I decided after about 2 days after seeing the character) and if you ship them with y you are shipping me, a real life minor with their abuser this is hurting real people and if your kin memories of being y in a 'past life' say you were the same age in your timeline you are an evil pedo apologist at best and you will get a callout post about it'.
This started mixing with fandom in a way that fictionkin culture NEVER mixed with fandom before, as a person with a past life closely mirroring fictional media whos been lurking in 'kin' spaces for a good 8 years, it was horrifying to watch, as people bothered fandom creators so much to do things like their past life which is 'the only True way listen to meeeeeeee', as anti blogs picked up urls like 'irl-goku-against-shippers' and used fictionkin(d) as a shield for their (often self-admitted)roleplaying.
There emerged this culture that you had to treat the characters like real people because they Were Now Actually Real People. This encouraged the people aggressively roleplaying a spiritual belief they don't actually hold for brownie points and the lulz to do it MORE because they were winning their ship war by acting this way(and the actual fictionkind with fandom motives were encouraged to be wild assholes and throw away every courtesy we had and practiced when in fandom spaces for Years to further their own ship wank) and it seemed that nearly 70% of any fictionkin tag was purity ship wank by 2016. By that point I couldn't handle the little tin anti cults fusing with the wolfpack cult tactics of certain spiritually abusive otherkin circles and the straight up trolls maliciously sowing discord anymore and and mostly stopped interacting with tumblr fictionkind circles.
Like again, I don't think it is a major reason why antis got so big like the other stuff you mentioned, but it certainly seemed to contribute to the culture they have about treating lines on a page like real people.
no subject
I wholeheartedly agree. I was in a lot of fandoms that were 60-90% antis on tumblr and OH BOY were they the cultiest, most abusive group id ever had the misfortune to be tangled with.
I think that another thing that added to the creation of this(though I don't think its Responsible), believe it or not, was tumblr fictionkin(d) culture.
I'll back up a second and explain; on tumblr, misinformation is spread very easily, and due to this, the original meaning and communities of 'otherkin(d) and fictionkin(d) were changed from a serious, personal identity often related to ones spiritual beliefs and kept VERY separate from fandom into this,,, smeared mess of 'if you relate a lot to a character you can '''kin them''' and this makes your ship opinions more valid' Which is.... Not how any of that works in the slightest, but I digress.
This out-of-control Aesthetic Label they decided to appropriate was then picked up and used as a bludgeon in tumblrs fictionkin tags, kids substituting fictionkin labels for personalities getting into massive wank fights that never would have been tolerated in literally any other other/fictionkin(d) community. Frequently sj jargon was thrown around like 'you can't have a past life as this alien because according to google translate they have a Persian last name and you're white and that's appropriation!!1'.
Vent blogs were made, and posts like 'I'm very uncomfortable with x ship because my feelings from my past life as x bleed over so I avoid those sections of the fandom' turned into 'Don't ship ME with y person its nasty and sexual harassment!'
Im not sure if the original people who did that were anti-kin trolls trying to do more damage or they were just swerfs trying to find new ways to hurt people but either way about 2015 or so marked a huge shift in fictionkin circles on tumblr from 'whatever in any past life is fine were all having a weird spiritual experience together and constantly striving to make sense of it' to 'Im kin with x to cope(which I decided after about 2 days after seeing the character) and if you ship them with y you are shipping me, a real life minor with their abuser this is hurting real people and if your kin memories of being y in a 'past life' say you were the same age in your timeline you are an evil pedo apologist at best and you will get a callout post about it'.
This started mixing with fandom in a way that fictionkin culture NEVER mixed with fandom before, as a person with a past life closely mirroring fictional media whos been lurking in 'kin' spaces for a good 8 years, it was horrifying to watch, as people bothered fandom creators so much to do things like their past life which is 'the only True way listen to meeeeeeee', as anti blogs picked up urls like 'irl-goku-against-shippers' and used fictionkin(d) as a shield for their (often self-admitted)roleplaying.
There emerged this culture that you had to treat the characters like real people because they Were Now Actually Real People. This encouraged the people aggressively roleplaying a spiritual belief they don't actually hold for brownie points and the lulz to do it MORE because they were winning their ship war by acting this way(and the actual fictionkind with fandom motives were encouraged to be wild assholes and throw away every courtesy we had and practiced when in fandom spaces for Years to further their own ship wank) and it seemed that nearly 70% of any fictionkin tag was purity ship wank by 2016. By that point I couldn't handle the little tin anti cults fusing with the wolfpack cult tactics of certain spiritually abusive otherkin circles and the straight up trolls maliciously sowing discord anymore and and mostly stopped interacting with tumblr fictionkind circles.
Like again, I don't think it is a major reason why antis got so big like the other stuff you mentioned, but it certainly seemed to contribute to the culture they have about treating lines on a page like real people.