(fallen london stamps by In the waves of the Tumblr exodus have arrived a great many plural systems! Welcome, everymany! Don't be afraid to introduce yourselves and ask questions!
While I'm here, I'm going to take a moment to fill you in on some aspects of Cohost culture regarding plurality. yeah, yeah, I know, there's a lot of those posts floating around - I'll try to make this one worth your while.
(there are vague references to plural Discourse/slapfighting aka syscourse ahead!)
Some background: I've been using this site almost since its public launch. I've been here since the plurality tags were hardly a few pages deep; I predate the existence of "#the cohost plural feed" even.*
And from the very start, there was something wonderfully different about Cohost's plural community, which is that it was free from plural Discourse(tm) in a way I have not seen ANYWHERE else. Not just the endless arguing about which systems were Real and Valid, but the idea that system origin is The Most Important Thing to begin with. "Endogenic" and "traumagenic" and so on were not words that were used often, if at all. A lot of people - singlets and plurals alike - had not even heard of them before. In fact, a lot of people were unaware that the Great -Genic Slapfight was even a thing.
What did people talk about, if not origins and drama? Life. Conversations between headmates. Trading tips about the ever-changing process of selves-discovery. The love that they felt for each other, even if it was interspersed with frustration. Art projects that centered their plurality, and projects that headmates were collaborating on. Heck, people would even talk about their own system's origins, but without terms - instead, you would get to learn a bunch of stuff about their history and how it shaped them and a bunch of other neat stuff that would normally get flattened under a single word, and it was really cool. (And of course, there were shitposts.) It was much quieter than Tumblr's community, but there was more substance, and less fear and shame. It was not perfect, but it was a much better place to be in.
I make this post in part because I've seen drama and discourse erode away large parts of plural online history, especially the role of non-disordered, non-trauma-created plurals in establishing the online plural community to begin with, long before many of their naysayers were even born. But I'm also making this post because I know that coming from the wider plural community, where it's debating about validity and origins day in and day out, to the point that even inclusive spaces are saturated with references to that drama, it can be hard to imagine the existence of anything that's different. But it does exist, and it can continue to exist. This post is not just a history lesson, but an invitation to be part of it.
What does that mean?
- First of all, more people on this socmed than I've seen elsewhere both know of and are cool about plurality. Don't feel obligated to hide here. (But also, if you still want to lie low, that's okay!)
- Second of all, make use of your curation tools. People who are Jerks about plurality are fewer here than elsewhere, but they still show up now and then. Don't engage with them - especially don't reblog-reply any hateful stuff you see, as it just spreads it to a wider audience. Instead, block them. It actually works here!! (And report the post if it's especially hateful.)
- In addition to that, you can pre-emptively mute and muffle specific tags/CWs from your account page.
- Likewise - and I know I'm not always great about this myself! - if you do see a jerk, consider not posting about them to the plural tags. This is not a strict prohibition. I totally get the urge to complain about jerks, and the last thing I want is a toxic positivity ~No Bad Feelings Allowed~ zone. However, keep in mind that other people have probably seen them, blocked them, and are trying to move on. Making more posts to complain about them makes it harder for people to do that, and gives the jerk more presence! Instead, consider making more posts about other things to drown them out. This can be anything, from to infodumping about how your system works, to a zero effort shitpost, to complaining about other things in your life. Just as long as it's not about the jerk.
- Alternatively, if you, like me, can't help but complain about People Being Jerks sometimes, you can write up the complainpost and then (a) add a content warning, and (b) not tag the post into the plural tags, so that its reach is limited to people who are looking at your page. (Content warnings and tags being separate things is GREAT.)
- Lastly... just post!! It doesn't have to be good!! You don't need to write the next great essay on How Plurality Works!! You Can Just Say Things. You don't even have to talk Only About Plurality - you can just Exist as people/beings/etc on the internet like anyone else, who also happen to be plural.
- Also: you don't have to give up your labels if they're meaningful to you. But if you're up to it, consider describing your experiences in plain, everyday language instead. It's more accessible than a dense-yet-vague Pluralpedia page, especially for people who've never encountered those terms before. Talk about how you first became aware of each other; the feelings you felt; the challenges you faced; the hopes you have. I believe I speak for many folks here when I say that I am less interested in knowing the definition of a word, and more interested in knowing about you.
I hope this helps, and welcome again!
*highly recommend, btw, that you use "#plurality" and/or "#plural" instead of or in addition to "#the cohost plural feed", as they're the more active tags and more intuitive for newcomers to find!
(Also, while I hope it goes without saying: to anyone who's coming to the comments/rebugs to post about how certain systems are Fake and Cringe, Don't.
- Take some steps back and ask yourself if this is what you want your Cohost experience to be, if you want to bring your baggage in instead of making a fresh start.
- Ask yourself why you have such an ardent hatred for these people, and whether that hatred has real basis or if it's a personal bias/a belief that you've unconsciously absorbed from our toxic wider society.
- And finally, think about whether doing so is worth your time, considering that you'll just get blocked and possibly reported for your trouble.
I'm probably not going to change your mind, and you're not going to change mine. Believe me, I've been at this rodeo for over a decade. Let's spare each other so we can both do something more enjoyable with our time.)