another day, another trawl through the tumblr plurality tags and simultaneously feeling for these kids while also going "at some point you NEED to learn how to separate your sense of validity and worth from what other people think"
more complaining about complaining! (feat some discussion about internet safety and terrible people)
reddit too tbh. like how does trawling through the cringe subreddits benefit you? people are going to suck whether you watch them suck or not. checking whether you, specifically, were posted and mocked isn't going to make them unpost you. blah blah blah shakes my internet middle-age'd cane
meaningful stuff you CAN do:
- basic internet safety. don't post your city, don't post your birthday, don't post your meat face, etc. or if you do, be aware that it's a risky choice when you're in a place that being doxxed puts you at immediate risk, like if you're living with shitty parents who will retaliate if they find out you've been talking about them, or working a job that you know for certain will fire you if they find out you're queer. (I absolutely hate that TikTok is popular among The Youth btw.) I'm aware there are some extraordinarily terrible people on the internet who can use the barest dusting of breadcrumbs to dox people but your average cringe subreddit user and the other kids mouthing off on tumblr are unlikely to be that competent, or even willing to put in the effort, especially if you don't hand them the tools needed on a silver platter.
- in general, before you post something, stop and think: how can this be used to hurt me? does the potential hurt that I get outweigh the benefit of posting this? what benefit do I get from posting this and is there a better way I can get said benefit? for example, you could post a laundry list of your triggers - or you could mute the relevant tags, unfollow people who post them regularly, reach out via a less-visible channel to request that people tag stuff, etc. you could vent about a very vulnerable thing on your public blog, in the public tags - or you could talk privately with trusted friends in a private server, on a locked blog, etc.
- also in general: take a moment to think about why you're doing things, and once again, whether the pros of doing something outweigh the cons. this is the classic "it's okay to not look at social media" / "sometimes social media can be self-harm" spiel. you can still decide to keep doing something if you decide the benefits are worth it, but also, maybe there are still steps you can still take to make the experience better? (I came across Back Flow on tumblr and that was worth a hundred days of trawling, but only after muting the tags that people use for posting hate.)
