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Speaking out against bully tactics
7 years ago
🙐✿🙖 It's been a month since I resigned from Fur Affinity staff.
For me, that's been a month wrought with stress. Some of it from the holidays, but a lot of it has been tied to my resignation directly, to the events that lead to me resigning a bit over 7 weeks earlier than planned, and to the events following my resignation. To be blunt, not working with FA has made me miserable. Stepping down was the right decision to make, given the effect the situation was having on me. But it also means I lost a meaningful task that was a significant part of my daily routine. And Fur Affinity lost someone who regularly spent long hours reviewing reported content. I have felt awful for the other members of staff, being left to do the work I would otherwise have done. Doing the right thing for myself meant leaving people I care about and consider friends to pick up the slack. I left my friends in a bad situation, something I had worked to avoid by remaining on staff until January 27, after I made my original decision to resign. That eats at me.
I am going to be direct, here: I have been vilified for enforcing site rules rather than being a moral guardian. What I was subjected to was harassment, and being "on the right side" doesn't make what the people participating in it did any more right. Like the vast majority of people, I consider being called "nazi" a pretty grievous insult and attack on my character. I know it's not a true allegation, but it's still hurtful. It's hurtful because people are saying it. It's hurtful because those people are getting believed. It's hurtful because people have lied in order to have a story about how awful I supposedly have been to them.
I hate politics. That's a primary reason why I don't discuss my ideological worldview much publicly - it's simply not a topic of conversation I enjoy. My underlying attitude is a fucking hippie "let's all try to treat each other decently" that doesn't really have a spot on the political spectrum anyway. I don't think violence solves anything. I don't think insults and personal attacks solve anything. If pushed, eh, I'm some kind of socialist egalitarian authoritarian (I like rules and proper procedure) pacifist thing, I guess. Probably somewhere left of mainstream US politics. I'm born and raised in Sweden, and grew up reading Bamse, for fuck's sake!
I have tried to be open about what the situation around my resignation did to me without making a huge deal about it, because I sincerely want people to look at their actions, go "whoa, I guess we went too far," and do better. I want to believe in good people, whose primary motivation is to treat themselves and the people around them well. But I've been shaken in that faith, because the people who did this never seemed to care about what their actions were doing to me, or to Dragoneer who keeps getting angry messages virtually every time someone disagrees with any administrative action. Being shaken in something as foundational as my faith in humanity has hurt, more than I thought it would at the time.
Since that approach hasn't done much, I'm going to go for broke. After this, if people still won't believe what I'm saying, the problem is theirs, not mine. I don't do lies, and that there are people claiming otherwise doesn't make it true. So. I have been in treatment for depression and anxiety for literally years, and I have been open about this. I can't remember anymore whether I was put on antidepressants before or after I was brought on as FA staff. My social circle is pretty much isolated to extended family, one friend from 7-9th grade, some subset of Tumblrpon, and the furry fandom. Watching the malicious rumors about me unfold, I saw my future in the furry fandom getting ripped away from me. The thought of that isolation was terrifying to me. So much so that between that and the utter unwillingness of the social media platform being used to take any action to curb the harassment and libel I was subjected to, the primary thought in my head was about overdosing on one of my prescriptions.
I didn't act on those thoughts, by a very narrow margin. If I had, it wouldn't have killed me anyway - I've since looked up the LD50 of the substance in question and the pills I had on hand came nowhere close - but I didn't know that at the time. But it was stronger than any other bout of suicidal ideation I've had, and when I mentioned it to my boyfriend the next day, he was justifiably concerned. He told me I should step down, because staying on was now endangering my life. I mentioned his reaction to other friends, who concurred. No one knew about me considering suicide until after I had the thoughts under relative control. That's what tipped the balance, though. I was harassed and badmouthed until I felt, even if just for an evening, like the only way to escape the reputation these people were building for me was to kill myself. That's why I called those events bully tactics. It's what they were.
My resignation was followed by people congratulating themselves on getting me "removed". I don't have words for how wrong I consider this. You don't say "good job, everyone!" after a successful (whatever that means) harassment campaign. That's disgusting. Spreading lies about someone and making them feel like there is no end to the abuse is not a good act, no matter what ends you use to try to justify it. Some people telling stories about how I supposedly wronged them may have been speaking from a position of having misunderstood the citation they received. I don't know. But some people were definitely aware that they were lying, since they referenced exchanges with me that never took place. That shit is libel. That shit is not okay. That shit is why I feel absolutely justified in calling the twisted one-upmanship that some people were engaging in, while going "look what she did to me", virtue signaling. Because the people saying this (and they should damn well know who they are) were only adding fabricated stories to be able to join the angry mob. To get pats on the back from the other people who claimed to have been wronged. A good number of these people also were quick enough to deny they said this or that when called on it.
I also saw people trying to connect me to the attack on FA that took place the day after I resigned. Disregarding how ludicrous that claim is in the first place, since I still am friends with the staff members who had to clean up the mess (and that is not shit you subject your friends to), I think it says something about the motivations of the people drawing these parallels. Never the less, it was hurtful, just as being called "nazi" was hurtful.
In the few places I mentioned that I'd been courting the idea of suicide, I was accused of lying about it to get sympathy. As I mentioned before, I don't do lies. My boyfriend was kind enough to back me up in one of these places when the stress of the situation had me in tatters, resulting in someone suggesting that the comment was left by me using a different name (nevermind that he and I do not type the same way at all). I can understand, and largely agree, if you say I should be talking to a therapist about the suicidal ideation. That's absolutely an appropriate way of dealing with it, and it's something I'm working on, continuously. However, I felt it was important for people involved in this situation to understand that their actions have consequences, and as such I decided I should be open about how their actions affected me.
I also finally got fed up with something that has been a pattern for years: when complaining about my administrative actions, people have been significantly more inclined to use male pronouns for me. I used to find it funny, in an absurd sort of way, since correct information about my gender has never been difficult to find. But I'm also big on treating people the way you want to be treated and consistency in ideology. When I see trans people who care about people getting their pronouns right, or people who otherwise stress correct pronoun usage, not bothering to take five seconds to look at my profile, that's hurtful to me. Not directly because I'm misgendered, but because these are people to whom by all appearances correct pronoun usage is a matter of being a decent human being. Thus, what their failure to even use a neutral "they" to refer to me (if they really didn't think to look on my profile for pronouns or gender indicators even as they took screenshots of it) signals is that I'm not worth basic human decency. It's dehumanizing. I'm offended not because of the mistake, but because of what the mistake being made by these specific people signifies. When people who did this have apologized I've accepted, thanked them for the apology, and apologized in turn if I've drawn the wrong conclusion about their motivations based on the information that was available to me at the time.
I've gotten a lot of shit over the years I've been on FA staff. Many of the people lashing out at me probably feel bad about being caught breaking a rule; maybe they feel it's unfair that they were caught while others weren't. And yeah, it sort of is. But that's not my fault. I can't be everywhere. I can't see everything. All I ever could do, was look at the evidence presented to me, evaluate whether it violated site rules, and then either take action or not, depending on the answer. The system is unfair because not everyone that breaks rules gets reported. Not the staff's fault. All of our faults, as users, every time we see a violation and decide we don't want to bother filing a ticket. The best we can all, collectively, do, is try to make sure we follow the rules, and help staff hold people who don't to them.
Maybe I'll recover. Maybe I won't. At the very least it'll take me a long time to get over how I've been treated, and what that suggests about human nature. I'm shaken and I'm hurt. The number of days I've gone to bed feeling okay - not good, but merely "okay" - in the last month are in the single digits; I believe I could count them on the fingers of one hand.
What I ask, from everyone, is this:
Try to be a good person. Own your mistakes, instead of lashing out at the people calling you on them, and then try to do better. Look at your own actions in a critical light, and consider whether you're practising what you're preaching. Ask about site policy if you're unsure about what the rules say - there's a whole separate ticket category for it! Stop bothering Dragoneer every time you don't like a decision - there's a whole separate ticket category for disputing admin action, too! And don't fucking go after anyone else like these people went after me.
If you've got it in you to do more than that, consider donating to an organization such as Life After Hate. I can pretty much guarantee that their success rate is far higher than a punch in the face.
For me, that's been a month wrought with stress. Some of it from the holidays, but a lot of it has been tied to my resignation directly, to the events that lead to me resigning a bit over 7 weeks earlier than planned, and to the events following my resignation. To be blunt, not working with FA has made me miserable. Stepping down was the right decision to make, given the effect the situation was having on me. But it also means I lost a meaningful task that was a significant part of my daily routine. And Fur Affinity lost someone who regularly spent long hours reviewing reported content. I have felt awful for the other members of staff, being left to do the work I would otherwise have done. Doing the right thing for myself meant leaving people I care about and consider friends to pick up the slack. I left my friends in a bad situation, something I had worked to avoid by remaining on staff until January 27, after I made my original decision to resign. That eats at me.
I am going to be direct, here: I have been vilified for enforcing site rules rather than being a moral guardian. What I was subjected to was harassment, and being "on the right side" doesn't make what the people participating in it did any more right. Like the vast majority of people, I consider being called "nazi" a pretty grievous insult and attack on my character. I know it's not a true allegation, but it's still hurtful. It's hurtful because people are saying it. It's hurtful because those people are getting believed. It's hurtful because people have lied in order to have a story about how awful I supposedly have been to them.
I hate politics. That's a primary reason why I don't discuss my ideological worldview much publicly - it's simply not a topic of conversation I enjoy. My underlying attitude is a fucking hippie "let's all try to treat each other decently" that doesn't really have a spot on the political spectrum anyway. I don't think violence solves anything. I don't think insults and personal attacks solve anything. If pushed, eh, I'm some kind of socialist egalitarian authoritarian (I like rules and proper procedure) pacifist thing, I guess. Probably somewhere left of mainstream US politics. I'm born and raised in Sweden, and grew up reading Bamse, for fuck's sake!
I have tried to be open about what the situation around my resignation did to me without making a huge deal about it, because I sincerely want people to look at their actions, go "whoa, I guess we went too far," and do better. I want to believe in good people, whose primary motivation is to treat themselves and the people around them well. But I've been shaken in that faith, because the people who did this never seemed to care about what their actions were doing to me, or to Dragoneer who keeps getting angry messages virtually every time someone disagrees with any administrative action. Being shaken in something as foundational as my faith in humanity has hurt, more than I thought it would at the time.
Since that approach hasn't done much, I'm going to go for broke. After this, if people still won't believe what I'm saying, the problem is theirs, not mine. I don't do lies, and that there are people claiming otherwise doesn't make it true. So. I have been in treatment for depression and anxiety for literally years, and I have been open about this. I can't remember anymore whether I was put on antidepressants before or after I was brought on as FA staff. My social circle is pretty much isolated to extended family, one friend from 7-9th grade, some subset of Tumblrpon, and the furry fandom. Watching the malicious rumors about me unfold, I saw my future in the furry fandom getting ripped away from me. The thought of that isolation was terrifying to me. So much so that between that and the utter unwillingness of the social media platform being used to take any action to curb the harassment and libel I was subjected to, the primary thought in my head was about overdosing on one of my prescriptions.
I didn't act on those thoughts, by a very narrow margin. If I had, it wouldn't have killed me anyway - I've since looked up the LD50 of the substance in question and the pills I had on hand came nowhere close - but I didn't know that at the time. But it was stronger than any other bout of suicidal ideation I've had, and when I mentioned it to my boyfriend the next day, he was justifiably concerned. He told me I should step down, because staying on was now endangering my life. I mentioned his reaction to other friends, who concurred. No one knew about me considering suicide until after I had the thoughts under relative control. That's what tipped the balance, though. I was harassed and badmouthed until I felt, even if just for an evening, like the only way to escape the reputation these people were building for me was to kill myself. That's why I called those events bully tactics. It's what they were.
My resignation was followed by people congratulating themselves on getting me "removed". I don't have words for how wrong I consider this. You don't say "good job, everyone!" after a successful (whatever that means) harassment campaign. That's disgusting. Spreading lies about someone and making them feel like there is no end to the abuse is not a good act, no matter what ends you use to try to justify it. Some people telling stories about how I supposedly wronged them may have been speaking from a position of having misunderstood the citation they received. I don't know. But some people were definitely aware that they were lying, since they referenced exchanges with me that never took place. That shit is libel. That shit is not okay. That shit is why I feel absolutely justified in calling the twisted one-upmanship that some people were engaging in, while going "look what she did to me", virtue signaling. Because the people saying this (and they should damn well know who they are) were only adding fabricated stories to be able to join the angry mob. To get pats on the back from the other people who claimed to have been wronged. A good number of these people also were quick enough to deny they said this or that when called on it.
I also saw people trying to connect me to the attack on FA that took place the day after I resigned. Disregarding how ludicrous that claim is in the first place, since I still am friends with the staff members who had to clean up the mess (and that is not shit you subject your friends to), I think it says something about the motivations of the people drawing these parallels. Never the less, it was hurtful, just as being called "nazi" was hurtful.
In the few places I mentioned that I'd been courting the idea of suicide, I was accused of lying about it to get sympathy. As I mentioned before, I don't do lies. My boyfriend was kind enough to back me up in one of these places when the stress of the situation had me in tatters, resulting in someone suggesting that the comment was left by me using a different name (nevermind that he and I do not type the same way at all). I can understand, and largely agree, if you say I should be talking to a therapist about the suicidal ideation. That's absolutely an appropriate way of dealing with it, and it's something I'm working on, continuously. However, I felt it was important for people involved in this situation to understand that their actions have consequences, and as such I decided I should be open about how their actions affected me.
I also finally got fed up with something that has been a pattern for years: when complaining about my administrative actions, people have been significantly more inclined to use male pronouns for me. I used to find it funny, in an absurd sort of way, since correct information about my gender has never been difficult to find. But I'm also big on treating people the way you want to be treated and consistency in ideology. When I see trans people who care about people getting their pronouns right, or people who otherwise stress correct pronoun usage, not bothering to take five seconds to look at my profile, that's hurtful to me. Not directly because I'm misgendered, but because these are people to whom by all appearances correct pronoun usage is a matter of being a decent human being. Thus, what their failure to even use a neutral "they" to refer to me (if they really didn't think to look on my profile for pronouns or gender indicators even as they took screenshots of it) signals is that I'm not worth basic human decency. It's dehumanizing. I'm offended not because of the mistake, but because of what the mistake being made by these specific people signifies. When people who did this have apologized I've accepted, thanked them for the apology, and apologized in turn if I've drawn the wrong conclusion about their motivations based on the information that was available to me at the time.
I've gotten a lot of shit over the years I've been on FA staff. Many of the people lashing out at me probably feel bad about being caught breaking a rule; maybe they feel it's unfair that they were caught while others weren't. And yeah, it sort of is. But that's not my fault. I can't be everywhere. I can't see everything. All I ever could do, was look at the evidence presented to me, evaluate whether it violated site rules, and then either take action or not, depending on the answer. The system is unfair because not everyone that breaks rules gets reported. Not the staff's fault. All of our faults, as users, every time we see a violation and decide we don't want to bother filing a ticket. The best we can all, collectively, do, is try to make sure we follow the rules, and help staff hold people who don't to them.
Maybe I'll recover. Maybe I won't. At the very least it'll take me a long time to get over how I've been treated, and what that suggests about human nature. I'm shaken and I'm hurt. The number of days I've gone to bed feeling okay - not good, but merely "okay" - in the last month are in the single digits; I believe I could count them on the fingers of one hand.
What I ask, from everyone, is this:
Try to be a good person. Own your mistakes, instead of lashing out at the people calling you on them, and then try to do better. Look at your own actions in a critical light, and consider whether you're practising what you're preaching. Ask about site policy if you're unsure about what the rules say - there's a whole separate ticket category for it! Stop bothering Dragoneer every time you don't like a decision - there's a whole separate ticket category for disputing admin action, too! And don't fucking go after anyone else like these people went after me.
If you've got it in you to do more than that, consider donating to an organization such as Life After Hate. I can pretty much guarantee that their success rate is far higher than a punch in the face.
I stepped down and walked away from both of the sites I helped to administer. No one should have to deal with what admins put up with on a nearly constant basis. This doesn't just affect websites either. It's even responsible for some furry conventions no longer existing. The venomous disrespect for any sort of rules or authority often ruins things for everyone.
I know people who accidentally broke rules and got suspended for a few days. As soon as they were suspended, they acted like it was the death penalty and went on an immediate revenge campaign, only to later get suspended longer, or permanently banned. They simply can't accept when they make a mistake or break a rule. There is no concept of personal responsibility.
It is sad that some people have zero respect for authority and rules, and are so vengeful. It appears to be one something that all good and honest admins must deal with, and it's not just limited to FA. Just be glad you're not Dragoneer! A significant number of users have made it their life goal to somehow tear him down, along with the site and those who love it, often as revenge for not being able to harass people they don't like, or for not being able to post certain types of art.
There is a good side though. Those people are a small minority, perhaps well less than a percent of the users. That's still too many, but at least most people are fairly well behaved, and don't flip out when they are caught messing up.
I'd love to tell you to not take it personally when vengeful people spew their hate, but I also know that is easier said than done. It took about a year after stepping down each time, before harassment faded to almost nothing for me. The vilification does fade away, as those who do it gradually move on to harass someone else. It tends to get redirected at whoever's in charge at the time.
Personally, I think forgiveness is the better way. It allows one to move on without the burden of hate. And forgiveness prevents the escalation of hate.
In any case, I thank you greatly for devoting your time and energy to making this a better place. The world needs more people like you - a lot more! I think I can safely say that lots of other people thank you too - many that are too shy or quiet to speak up.
Forgiveness is definitely better than holding a grudge. Where I am, in regards to most of the people who attacked me, is mostly in a position of deep distrust. I have a very hard time accepting that lashing out and smearing someone's name to that degree over something not directly effecting them is considered acceptable in any circles, much less among people who claim to be on "the good side", so to speak.
I've had people lash about me taking action against them in the past, and that's easier to understand and brush off; it's an attempt to save face because accepting that you fucked up can be hard to do. If it goes overboard I try to deal with it as undramatically as possible (I once had to contact staff of another furry site to get allegations that I'd accepted bribes to ban someone removed), but otherwise, eh. Whatever makes you feel better, just don't do it again.
This whole "mungo is a nazi!" thing is just incomprehensible to me. It's so blatantly inaccurate that if people weren't believing it and parroting it as gospel truth it would be funny. But when people do take the allegations as fact... there's no longer any humor in the absurdity. I don't know how long people will keep me blocked because of those allegations. I don't know if I'll be facing situations in the future where I am refused commissions or lose business because someone doesn't want to deal with "a nazi", and I dread finding out.
To people like that, anyone who disagrees with them is often called names, and Nazi seems to be a common one.
There isn't really a lot you can do about people throwing the Nazi word around, or just making up lies. Just realize that most sensible people aren't likely to fall for it. I think most people who want to do business with you will be wise enough to judge you by your own behavior, rather than by the worlds of others. Sure, you may lose a few people, or run into a block here and there, but if someone is so quick to fall for unsubstantiated gossip, maybe they're not the best people to be doing business with anyway.
The best policy is to not even let on that they are getting to you. People like that just feed upon knowing when they are hurting someone. Starve them of that knowledge. Their focus will move to people who are actually responding to their harassment, and you'll slide further to the back of their minds. If they are able to see that you are worried, or noticing what they are doing, they'll likely keep their focus on you. You sort of have to make them invisible in your mind and actions.
Words like "Nazi" and "Racist" are becoming way overused in our society to simply mean, "someone I hate," or, "someone I don't agree with." When someone uses those words, it's usually more a reflection of their own hatred, than of the people they use it against.
Dread and worry can't possibly improve things. I things will go better than you think as time goes on, so there's little point in dreading the future. If I am wrong, and something bad does happen, no about of dread or worry could prevent it anyway. You just deal with it at the time if needed. I hear nasty gossip about people all the time on here, and other sites. I've never stopped long enough to listen to or believe any of it. You have a darned good record as far as I'm concerned, and I imagine most users are going to default to saying the same of you. In other words, don't accept the burdens of worry and dread that bad people try to throw at you.
Based on that and other observations, I do think that a lot of the people who consider themselves to be speaking out against fascism actually do not realize how harmful their actions can be. I could be wrong. But I want to give them the opportunity to learn and do better. Because one day they'll do the same to someone less resilient than I, and I don't want anyone to go through that hell, much less fail to come out on the other side.
Dread and worry are, I'm afraid, my constant companions, if muffled by medicine. Anxiety disorders suck.
As for fascism, I've seen too many people use that word against groups they don't like, while actually attempting to exercise their own fascist-like control over others. It's sort of like someone who steals calling someone a thief! It's so easy for people to point their finger at someone else while completely disregarding their own faults.
Someone needs to make a medicine that's like a big warm feel-good comfort hug - but with zero side effects. I wish it were that easy!
I'll settle for something that keeps my anxiety and depression at bay without otherwise fucking with my body. Sadly, even that is hard to come by.
I support you!
I hope this journal was cathartic for you.
Its a bit trite, a tad cliche, but I've nothing else to add but.....*hugs*.
Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Welcome to the Former-FA admin club. My offer stands. Death by "steak dinner and alcohol poisoning" is on me, next time you are my side of the pond.
Until then, be well!
They hated you because you tried to follow and enforce, the rules of the site fairly and evenly.
Because they believed that their hate and bigotry was perfectly fine, so long as it was directed to the 'correct targets'.
Or at least, that is the way it all appeared to me.
I am so sorry that this happened to you. Thank you for sharing all of this. And thank you for speaking about it.
Really hope that you are doing better.
If you ever end up in Australia, let me know, might be able to take you out somewhere nice. Sure, we disagree politically on different topics, doens't mean that a kindness cannot be extended to you.