Most of us know it when we see it, but I figure any discussion about fandom antis and how to respond to them would benefit from having a solid answer to “what even is an anti, anyway?” Laying out the exact characteristics that distinguish anti wank from every other kind of wank also helps clarify what, exactly, is going on here, why it’s appalling, and also why it’s appealing to those who engage in it.
I’m going to define it as a behavior rather than a particular type of person. The anti movement is:
1. A form of intra-community aggression within fandom, that 2. Seeks, as its primary goal, to designate out-groups who are fair game for social brutality, by 3. Categorically declaring certain forms of fan engagement (ships, characters, fic genres, fanart styles, video game mods…) to be intrinsically morally wrong and in need of stamping out, regardless of how or why one engages with them, and 4. Justifies this by claiming a causal relationship between the targeted activities and some form of (usually SJ-flavored) real-world harm that they allegedly promote.
The order is important, because it goes from most to least essential. 1 is fundamental context, 2 is ultimate purpose, 3 is the mechanism used to accomplish that purpose, 4 is the justification for using that mechanism.
Antis are not people who dislike something and write meta about it, Antis are literally bullies that will doxx you because you like their notp
Yes this. There is a HUGE difference between someone who just doesn’t ship something or who has a NOTP, and an anti.
Someone who doesn’t ship something or someone who has a NOTP will scroll past things, maybe blacklist those tags or go to stricter lengths if the content in question makes them rlly uncomfy. BTW, that is what you SHOULD be doing if you aren’t down with a ship.
Antis will literally go into the tags of the ship, find specific users, send them anons with death threats, racial slurs, and suicide baits, and then complain about how they are seeing the ship all over their “recommended” (which, btw, when you fucking SEARCH SOMETHING or use the tag, it’s going to show up because tumblr thinks you want more of it).
Tl;Dr- Antis are NOT the same as non-shippers/ people with NOTPs.
“
Someone who doesn’t ship something or someone who has a NOTP will scroll
past things, maybe blacklist those tags or go to stricter lengths if
the content in question makes them rlly uncomfy. BTW, that is what you
SHOULD be doing if you aren’t down with a ship.”
That distinction can become another version of “ignore the bullies and they’ll go away” though.
If someone’s posting something that is blatantly racist (like, say, a line in a movie “translated” into fake ebonics, which actually did happen), I’m going to say something. If that makes me an anti then…
Except that isn’t what we are talking about here. At all. I’m talking about like- here’s an example.
I don’t ship Kylux. The reason being that Hux bears a physical and behavioral resemblance to someone who abused me in the past. It is not a ship that I personally enjoy, nor one that I want to really see on my dash.
So I avoid the tag. If there are certain things that make me super uncomfortable, and there are, I blacklist the tags. I avoid those tags in fanfiction. I am someone with a NOTP/ a non-shipper. An anti in my situation would purposefully find people who ship Kylux and send them anon hate. Or would spread rumors that those who ship Kylux are actual Nazis. Or would claim to hate Kylux because they think Kylux is a Nazi ship and then go into anon and call a Jewish Kylux shipper a k*ke (a thing that has happened to me and other shippers in the context of another ship).
Call out racism and BS. I will ALWAYS call it out when I see my fellow shippers doing it and when I see antis doing it, because it is wrong no matter who does it. But none of what I said above was ”ignore the bullies and they will go away”. it was “maybe you shouldn’t be sending slurs and death threats to people just because they ship something you don’t like.” The original post explains antis in a lot more detail if ur interested.
Okay gotcha. I just feel like I’d rather risk being labeled an anti than scroll past something hurtful because it was related to a ship, even if it was tangentially.
I understand how you feel about Kylux as my opinion and attitude toward it is very similar.
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