Next time antis are being, well, antis, show them this:
So a child came to you with concerns and criticism, and rather than ignoring said criticism because it wasn’t relevant to the fan work (taking your word for this), you decided to belittle them and imply their parents should be monitoring their internet use.
Cool. Cool thing you did there. Cool way for an adult to treat a child.
I wonder how they’re going to respond the next time they see something fucked up in fandom, or worse, experience it. Like the rampant sexual harassment and assault at conventions. Do you think they’re going to talk to an adult? Or do you think they’re going to internalise it as just part of the fandom and their fault for showing up?
But hey, you sure showed that middle-schooler.
If a child came to OP with concerns and criticism about adult content they shouldn’t be viewing, then their parents should be monitoring their internet usage because they aren’t obeying rating based restrictions.
If a 12 year old snuck into see Deadpool or It and then complained to the threats about it, the theater would probably call their parents and report them for sneaking into an R rated movie.
Ratings are their for a reason.
Also, ‘talk to your parents/other trusted adult’ if something upsets you is good advice. OP is telling them they need to talk to an adult, their parents, not a stranger on the internet.
If an adult has a problem with a child’s behavior offline, a light warning and speaking to the parents is how it goes, nothing odd about that. But online, as much as we would like to have an adult conversation about how little Timmy needs to stop peeking in neighbor’s windows because he’s not ready to understand swinging and pony play yet and besides he’s breaking the law, we have to interact with the children themselves in a more direct fashion. We have to rely on them to ask their parents to step up and parent, and that’s more responsibility than some of them want to handle.
What I do find ironic about this entire situation is that the children don’t hesitate to demand that the adult fans treat them like the children they are, but when we do, they’re upset. They don’t want, “The sign means ‘stay out’ Timmy,” or “I’m going to have to talk to your mother, Timmy,” but “Pour the booze down the toilet, babyproof the house and turn the whole world into a Zero Tolerance zone because Timmy exists.” For a group that’s so staunchly anti-kink, they’re very into ageplay and topping from the bottom.
“…the children don’t hesitate to demand that the adult fans treat them like the children they are, but when we do, they’re upset.”
T H A T is the fucking truth right there. I get sick of hearing “I’m a minor, it’s your responsibility as an adult to protect me from seeing bad things!!” and then when my response is “stay away from my blog, stay away from my AO3, and if you aren’t old enough to be seeing occasional porn then tumblr isn’t a good place for you because it’s a poorly designed website and you’re gonna stumble on that shit”, then I’m still not doing my job.
what the fuck do you expect me to do? I really wanna know. other than tagging and slapping big, obvious warning labels on anything I post, I want to know what I’m expected to do to protect minors with internet access.
See, what I think is happening is that they REALLY want to not have to see the age-inappropriate things they PERSONALLY don’t like, without having to put in any effort to avoid said things. If their parents start monitoring their computer stuff, they won’t be able to see the age-inappropriate stuff they DO want to see. After all, if NSFW stuff is properly tagged, they shouldn’t have been able to see it in the first place unless they were already looking for NSFW things, right?
This.
Warnings are posted for a reason. As a content creator, the extent of my responsibility is to appropriately rate and tag things that have potentially upsetting content. Avoiding those things is the responsibility of the consumer, not the creator.
If I forget to tag something, by all means, let me know! But don’t complain to me when something tagged with tw: gore contains graphic violence.
Once again: this is a kid walking into the front bar of a pub, and being shocked, shocked, I tell you, that alcoholic beverages are on sale. (Oh, and how dare the bartender tell them they’re going to have to present ID in order to be served!)
If you choose, of your own accord, to go into the adult place marked with the sign saying “adults only” and to click “yes, I’m an adult” on the warning that pops up before you get to see anything, then yes, the site owners are within their rights to presume you are capable of dealing with whatever shows up as a result.
That’s honestly one of the best responses I’ve ever seen to this kind of message to a content creator.
I love everything about this response to the child. And most of the following commentary as well.
“Once again: this is a kid walking into the front bar of a pub, and being shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you!….” Oh my god I CACKLED.
Seriously, kid. If you’re entering the tiger cage after passing by MANY signs that say: “DANGER: man-eating tiger inside” and you’re HORRIFIED to discover that you suddenly and violently lose a limb to the jaws of Shere-Khan, then…. you’re the idiot. You don’t then get to complain to the tiger cage owner about the dangerous animal in the cage. That is literally not how any of this works.
Also, we’re not talking about anything dangerous here. It’s just written smut. So the literal comparison is to a teen walking into a bar and demanding they stop serving alcohol bc a child is present and beer smells icky. The appropriate response is to scoot kiddo out the door and go back to your Stone IPA.
