@Digiqrow
I’m am pretty angry right now too. I’ve tried to be kind but I will also vent some frustration here.
Derpibooru banning Nazis. What it, particularly a certain pink hearted swastika pony, represented, the first real true clap down on content beyond a few pictures. There was now a pretty strong content restriction on something. Its one thing to ban support for an ideology and perhaps some of /mlpol/‘s stuff in particular did break the older rules:
>>1807482 (deleted) that had imagery with stuff that was closer to stuff modern neo-nazis used and we could have used a conversation there, but to ban irony, to ban dark humor, to ban the stupid white horse in all contexts with her pink heart swastika meant a clamping down of something that has always been at the core of this fandom: irony and contrast. From Cupcakes to Fallout Equestria we use the bright world of Equestria for some pretty dark settings. It was something that both came with 4chan’s influence and the novelty at the time of a bunch of grow ups being fans of a show that was so sweet and feminine. With the way it was handled one would have completely understood why people were so concerned.
Our fandom was build on stuff like this. I remember back in the olden days when the public face of the fandom tried to distance themselves from the more “undesirable” elements to varying degrees. I’m not going to say they didn’t have a culture but they were certainly downstream from the “edgy” side. 4chan wasn’t the center of the fandom but it pulled that center closer to more edgy humor and darker stuff than a lot of the other fandoms that arose after us. A lot of things would originate from 4chan or one of the fan sites and travel out into the fandom more often than something arising in social media and traveling back. The social media and more “family friendly” side still was a magnetic pole upon the fandom and so on any central website you’d often see some type of filters or rating system. I think this let to an environment of beautiful creativity and freedom. You could dive in at your own comfort and you’d have these various different groups of people interacting, collaborating, being friends, and having hybrid influences. Though their was some tension this center held. 4chan’s edgy nature meant that the line was a bit further out, so you would have stuff from humor to serious that would cause people to freak out elsewhere but wouldn’t have even the slightest controversy here. So much of the internet has become rigid and I finally think it is starting to spread to our fandom.
I hope I’m wrong but the side that is pro censorship does have a lot who want to go to far more than just ban Nazis. I’ve been starting to see some murmurers over the past couple of years of the “4chan side” of the fandom needing to be purged by some people. Even occasionally going into complaints of green anons existence and stylistic choices over actual offensive content. There is a lot of passive pressure to censor right now in this world and I think with a few people, some internal pressure, and a lot of external pressure it could happen.
What angers me the most is when I see even some people that just blanket attack our websites, our communities as evil. When I see our “e-celebs” take these various moralistic stances. When I see people saying that furries are our moral betters. When I see people who are own tangentially connected to the fandom condemn it as evil and act like some kind of self exiled martyr you bet it makes me mad. I’m not saying my side of the fandom of the fandom was perfect
if I could really be counted on any side as I was a more passive lurker till recently but to tell me, after the phedo abuse in your Discords, after the various petty dramas, after the various moral leaders you put over us who cast themselves as victims but turned out to be quite abusive and hypocritical themselves, after you abandoned the fandom, your right of course, but to come back and tell me that I am the one that has the problem. You bet I’m angry. If that impulse had been given into all those years back we wouldn’t have everything from Derpy to your porn and now y’all come back in here and say that my side of the fandom is a cancer to be removed. When I see you insult people of the various minorities you’re supposedly protecting………….
But I can’t just be angry. That would only risk more pain. I do not want pain. To anyone on my side, always keep a little bit of kindness. Disagreement does not mean instant enemy. Be kind to fence sitters and those are willing to have constructive debate. Heck, always have a cautionary olive branch ready for those that you don’t trust. Be smart about fighting any mob forces in the future. Break their cohesion. Find lines in censorship that some would be willing to cross but not others
archive everything. And fight for the old spirit of the fandom wherever you go.
