Oh No! Anyway… (Boundaries: How Do They Work?)
Let’s take a field trip to a few weeks ago and talk about what boundaries are and how they work. Yes! This is a personal drama! I’m so excited for my yearly cancellation attempt.
On the 28th of July of this year, I wrote a blog post called “Is ‘Fandom Etiquette’ the New ‘Whites Only’?” in which I’m agreeing with (in a nuanced kind of way) a Twitter user who expressed frustration with the weaponization of etiquette in fandom spaces with the intent to exclude or ostracize Black or minority fandom goers. This exploration was presented to my primarily white audience because it’s important to be able to pick into arguments that could make us scratch our heads and see what might be hiding underneath to see if there’s some kind of truth in there that we could work with as we move forward in our personal understanding of our biases and perceptions.
Within this article I make sure to point out that we’re having this conversation among ourselves, meaning that anyone mentioned has said their piece and that’s that. There was no call for any contact with any original posters and in fact there was the exact opposite in which I state very directly that they have nothing more to say to us and we’re not asking for more and nor do we need it. In my “About” section at the top of this page, it clearly states that we do not “touch the poop” and that anything written here is for informational or educational purposes only. I expect that all my readers understand this and hold enough decorum to respect it. I have no evidence that something like this has ever happened and I expect to never see any in the future.
The tweet I was primarily talking about was made two days prior and I discovered it after it was cross-posted to a subReddit community. By the time I saw it, it had generated a lot of feedback, having been seen by thousands of internet denizens and discussed in subtweets and forums and other fandom spaces here, there and yonder. I found something valuable in it and, naturally, presented it here. As a matter of principle, I do not censor usernames unless there is significant risk in doing so or unless I have been approached and asked personally by someone to anonymize their username.
Apparently, teenagers on Twitter take umbrage with being talked about in a niche blog on the internet that they had to search to find. According to BlueSky user @labubugpt.bsky.social, I have “invaded” their “spaces” by -checks notes- including the OP’s username that is public and utilized on a public social media site (the AI Porn Bot Nazi site, actually) in a separate personal blog with under 200 subscribers and a 40% average open rate. If you do the math that means that, on average, 80-ish people read each of my posts. Peanuts compared to the literal thousands who viewed or interacted with OP’s original tweet and that’s before I even saw it. I have been accused of putting POC minors “On Blast” by mentioning their wildly popular tweet that I was late in talking about and accused of driving harassment toward them or even harassing them myself by talking about them one time and then forgetting about them completely. And lest we forget that I also mentioned by username the person who OP had quote-retweeted whose username included a colloquial stylization of a slur. Pardon me, but if you don’t want to be called by your username, do not make it your username. That is a proper noun and it will be treated as such in my blog. I will not entertain contrived arguments against it.
Here’s where we get to what boundaries are and what I’m responsible for on the internet. Though I am a proponent of being kind in your community along with community support and graceful understanding where it is warranted, I am also a proponent of personal responsibility and learning through natural consequence. With that said, let’s look at what boundaries are. Boundaries are markers that you can set down around yourself to dictate how you react to outside stimuli. A boundary might be “I don’t like babies, I’ll choose not to have babies present at my wedding.” That is your wedding and your space. If you are going to someone else’s wedding and you don’t like babies but babies are allowed at that wedding, you cannot impose your boundaries on a wedding that is not yours. You can respectfully decline to attend the wedding in order to create a boundary to protect yourself against having to deal with babies, but you cannot try to make someone else ban babies from their wedding. That’s not how boundaries work.
This blog is mine. I pay for the space that I am writing in. I pay for the domain, I pay for the hosting, and I write my personal opinions on my blog. I write about whatever I want to write about because this is my space. I cannot “invade” your space by talking about you in my space. That’s like screaming as loud as you can on a public picnic table and then getting angry that someone looked at their friend and mentioned they heard you screaming. You don’t get to be anonymous when there is no expectation of privacy and you cannot control what happens in spaces that are not yours. The argument of “take down your blog post because how dare you mention a publicly posted username” is honestly absurd and the threat of “you’re anti-Black and a Nazi if you don’t do what we say” is simply not going to work on someone who’s been called a Nazi for six whole ass years at this point while continuously writing an anti-white supremacy blog.
I’m not responsible for what other people do and I’m not responsible for your comfort. I exist independently from you and your boundaries do not extend to my space. You need to take control over your own internet experiences. If my blog does not resonate with you, don’t read it. If you don’t want me to see what’s going on in your publicly available space, make that space private. If you don’t want to be called by your username, do not use that username. If you don’t like how the internet works, do not use the internet. As a good friend stated, “If you do not want strangers to comment on your garden, build walls. If you don’t know how to build walls, learn.”
There was a question at one point about why I was blocking some users on BlueSky and not others, the answer being an easy “these are sockpuppets” but in reality I don’t need an explanation and I don’t owe one. There’s this general belief among Gen Z and younger that they owe each other something and that they’re entitled to others’ time or attention especially online. They will resort to all kinds of strange extrapolations and insinuations of threats in order to have their “gotcha” moment to goad you into explanations. But “No.” is a valid and complete sentence and you don’t owe anyone an explanation of anything. Being told “no” for these people is inconceivable and despite no evidence or logical reasoning, it brings on the “nuclear option” of death wishes, threats, etc. Being told “no, I will not take down a blog post just because some random said it hurt their feelings” is grounds for statements like “[…] go taste the barrel of a gun and follow your leader, I’m sure he’ll love to meet you in hell” (@labubugpt.bsky.social) or “[…] omg kill yourself and im so serious” [sic] (anonymous archive comment).
The argument that one is trying to “protect” minors in fandom spaces is not compelling. As a kink content creator, I have no obligation to do so and you cannot convince me that I do. That is what parents are for. That is what education is for. If you are going to open your mouth and talk about things you have no business talking about online, you do not get to be upset when someone talks about you in their own space on the internet and uses your publicly available name to refer to you. A name you chose to be known by. I do not need your consent. I do not need permission. I am not responsible for what your own words brought to you, good or bad. By all means, blame me if you need to, but know that you won’t ever be able to make me make it my problem.
Weirdly this isn’t the first time I’ve had someone angry with me for agreeing with them.
Anyway, this was fun. Let’s do it again next year.