What is it about plastic construction toys that make people so unpleasant?
I'm just trying to have fun and talk about magic robots but I spend most of my time tiptoeing around battlegrounds and eternal grudges, heated disagreements about things nobody has any business even caring about, avoiding saying the wrong keyword of the week like I'm avoiding a landmine, lest it revive a nasty discussion whose only real conclusion is the immediate and permanent derailment of any topic, or get myself on someone's naughty list and see my name pop up in random places in unflattering contexts.
I go to BZPower, tumblr, other unsavory and unfriendly sites, anywhere to just find a safe haven, but all the same calamities of the day are being blown up everywhere in addition to the general nastiness due to all the rivalries.
Do you have a personal vendetta against someone for whatever reason? Private message them and sort it out, instead of vagueblogging and making nasty passive aggressive remarks about them in all your comments and topics on BZPower, and waging all out war across several other platforms. Have a strong opinion about the Matter of Pure Personal Preference of the Week? Post to your heart's content in the relevant topic, but don't inject it into every other discussion, or cram it down anyone's throats and be extremely bitter about it for the rest of time, waiting for someone to bring it up again. Hate an entire community? Stop visiting it and ignore it like a rational person, instead of obsessing over everything they do and actively complaining about it and attacking anyone and everyone associated with it.
Keep it to yourself, or keep it between yourself and your target, and for broader issues keep it where it belongs and don't say it more than it needs to be said. It saturates and pollutes the entire community and it ruins the fun for everyone else.
There's a time and place for everything. It'd be nice if the default wasn't "all the time" and "most places". The Bionicle fandom has been more vile than ever, lately, and it's not even for anything actually Bionicle related, usually. Either lighten up or deal with your issues directly because the rest of us shouldn't have to see all the negativity and be left with no choice but to: join in on it and argue with the rest and get drawn into a nasty, hostile war; stay quiet and not enjoy ourselves, watching everything go horribly wrong around us; or just leave and find someplace nicer.
I'm close to just leaving. Lord knows I'm tired of the negativity and the hostility and trying to defend friends or diffuse arguments or avoid the hot buttons, and I definitely can't stand just watching everything go down and hang around and associate myself with it. Maybe I'll just buy my sets, watch my webisodes, post my fanart when I make it, and not check in on anything the rest of the time. I don't have it in me to start fresh with another (hopefully much more pleasant) core of the fandom, like the Russians.
Mata Nui, give me strength. I've tried so hard to ignore it and be patient and stay for the good stuff. Don't make me regret coming back in the first place.
- 21
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