Goodbye Tumblr, Hello Bear (+ A small opinion piece on fandom)
I never quite know how to start essays or long posts, but I suppose any introduction will do.
I am Zero, part of the Radiowaste system, in which our host is usually Jade, yada yada... I am usually a bit better at being put together so I suppose that's why am fronted instead of our host, despite aire name being part of the blogs title. We might of made our username way before we found out about the plurality thing. Oops. Also it's not our government name, just a preferred one, even teenage us wasn't stupid enough to doxx ourselves.
We used to be on Tumblr as a teenager, but we have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of media literacy and fandom etiquette on the website. In an effort to keep ourselves safe from people who witch hunt systems who are "faking it", prevent a bad faith actor from intentionally misinterpreting a post to get likes, or generally hurt our sanity due to how frightening mob mentality has gotten on the mainstream internet. I know that I was no saint in my younger years (when we were thirteen we thought shipping wars were a totally normal enjoyable thing and not a symbol of how toxic fandom culture can be), but I do believe that we can all do better as fans to understand what we are supporting/are fans of. I won't go so far to say that fandoms are a blight on humanity like someone in my life, she is entitled to her opinion of course, but it is definitely at a particularly rough point of it's history.
I don't think it's any one thing causing toxicity on fandom (and social media). I don't have an answer for all of it yet. There may never be an answer. But until it all of the toxicity blows over (or social media companies completely collapse and we all move back to small websites and forums), we will be here, posting our opinions in a place where people will be much kinder to us. Even if it is just the rules making us nice.
I got carried away rambling rather than actually introducing myself. Maybe it's better to show you who I am like this rather than a cutesy "I like Mega Man!" post. Up to personal opinion really.
Side Note - If I DMed you this post on Tumblr, I'll still be around to like posts and occasionally reblog, I just don't think it's a good platform for getting my thoughts out.