can you PLEASE put your age in your about/sidebar and make sure it’s accessible on mobile. imo if you’re an adult esp 20+ it’s a little weird that you wouldn’t have your age readily available on your blog. if you’re reading this now and you don’t have your age listed, please rectify that. i feel like teenagers get lured into talking to adults in fandom/lgbt spaces that they may not have intentionally sought out because they think they’re talking to other teenagers, and this can lead to a lot of other – much more insidious –problems
I know other people have already refuted this, but seeing the original message still going around I’d like to point out just a couple of reasons why this request – while well intentioned – misses a lot of key points:
1. This is working under the assumption that tumblr is a space solely (or at least primarily) for teenagers/kids and that simply isn’t the case. Historically the creation of fanfiction, fanvids, fanart, etc. has been done by people in their twenties and older. Think about how many years it takes to learn how to craft a good story. Think about what you need to pull something like a con together. That person with the Skill you admire? There’s a very good chance they’re an adult. It used to be that kids pretended to be 18+ because they knew online fan communities were adult spaces. I’m not sure when this switch happened, but it needs to stop.
2. It is not “a little weird” that people don’t put their age on their blog. I have mine because I’m comfortable sharing it and my fan identity/irl identity are already really conflated, but a lot of people – most people – want to keep personal information to themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that and insisting that we reveal that information is all kinds of wrong. Can you ask someone their age? Certainly! Maybe they’ll tell you, maybe they won’t, but regardless you are not entitled to that information.
3. The children on here? They are not my responsibility. If kids/teens are worried about who they’re talking to then they should either a) be careful about who they interact with or b) not use this website. If they’re too young to understand this then they’re too young to be online without parental supervision. Now, how can a teen be careful about who they interact with? Check the person’s blog. See the kind of content they post. See if there are any hints about their age (mentions of school, job, birthdays, etc.) – or again, just ask! I’ve had plenty of people on here decide they only want certain types of interaction with me after discovering my age and that’s fine. But it’s not my job to monitor everyone else’s internet use.
4. Finally, I find the language here to be rather concerning. “A little weird,” teenagers are “lured,” leading to things that are “much more insidious”… all of this, whether intentionally or not, frames anyone 20+ as intrinsically predatory. It also takes agency away from anyone under 18. Teenagers aren’t “lured” into talking to me, they make that decision on their own. They are their own person capable of making their own decisions, gathering information before making that decision (like asking someone’s age) or, if they can’t do these two steps then again, they should not be online. We’ve come right back to point #1: this is not your space. It’s our space. I’m not some trespasser here who only gets to stay provided that I cater to those younger than me. If anything, based on how much of online content is geared towards adults, kids should be working under the assumption that they are speaking to an adult until proven otherwise, especially on websites like tumblr that cater to all ages. Don’t assume you’re talking to another teenager. Don’t project onto a person and then get mad when you find out you’re wrong. That’s not them tricking you, that’s you failing to take responsibility for yourself.
You want to know someone’s age? Ask, and then work with the answer you’re given. But someone failing to give you private information up front isn’t weird or predatory or insidious. The quicker everyone realizes that the better off we’ll all be.
Also this will not protect you from genuinely predatory people. Genuinely predatory people will lie about their age. If you’re assuming someone is safe to talk to because they say they’re 15, that’s a problem. They might be a 15 year old rapist. They might be lying and be 50.
Most people on the internet are nice and well meaning.
But relying on what age someone claims to be rather than signs of actually worrying behaviour is stupid.
ive seen a lot of unintentionally VERY funny interpretations of Cain & Abel but portraying them as a couple of mid-1950s schoolyard boys having a “WHY I OUGHTA” fight is realy just splendid
“I swear
sometimes I could just club you in the head with a heavy rock”
“That was very specific”
That’s some Carlos level hair game going on there.
Perfect, Perfect Hair O.O
They totally had combs and shampoo and hair-slicking grease back then.
Everyone looks liked Danny Zuko and Cain and Abel’s disagreement was actually based around who stole the others comb
This is clearly the *very* first run of West Side Story
mom was describing a tattoo a girl once took her to a back bedroom to show her, which was a fishing pole low on her pelvis with a line and hook that descended into her bush where a small clownfish hid amongst the hair. and that’s just. that’s a goal. and the ultimate freedom from obligation, like “gah I would shave but it would ruin my very good joke, what are you gonna do, I gotta make sure there’s foliage for my little clownfish to hide in”
then mom finished telling me this and looked off for a moment. “my god,” she said. “she was flirting with me. fuck. goddamn it.”
you know, I kinda thought I was bad at picking up on flirting, but I’ve never had someone show me their genitals and not realised they were hitting on me
We blindfolded 15 homophobes and asked them to hit piñatas with a stick. The piñatas were actually deadly Asian giant hornet nests. What happens next will warm your heart.
This is disgusting bigotry against Christians at its finest.
I love the part where this post never mentioned Christians but you saw the word homophobe and jumped to your own defense anyways.
some rando on tumblr: tumblr’s obsession with moral purity to the point of condemning people wholesale for second-or-third-hand association with problematic people or ideals is way out of control
the notes, fuckin obviously: um op reblogs from people who reblog from people who reblog from pedophilia apologists/terfs/legitimately awful people whose side are they really on???? if they cared they would vet at least three degrees of seperation from every person in a thread before hitting reblog makes u think
The thing about that kind of obsession with moral purity that bothers me is that it seems so quick to judge, dismiss, condemn, etc. There’s not much (if any) time taken to actually talk with the person in question, discuss how they see the issue/problematic thing, or really examine the problematic thing itself. It’s just, “I think this thing is Bad, and if you even touch it with a 50-foot pole, you’re Bad too.”
And the thing about moral purity, or even just ideological purity in general, is that morality and ideology are subjective, because they’re rooted in people’s values and perspectives, which are subjective. So, even if there is a large degree of agreement between people about a particular issue or situation, there is very, very rarely a 100% similarity in how people view that issue or situation. So if you place too much emphasis on moral or ideological purity and filter your interactions with people through that lens disproportionately, you’re just going to keep cutting people away from yourself, the result of which is that you come to a place where you’re not exposed to different ideas and perspectives than the ones already inside you, which will really limit your ability to grow as a person, or even just be a decent person to people who aren’t very similar to you (this is important because society can’t function healthily if we’re always at each others’ throats).
One time a blog I followed called out someone who was reblogging baby’s rooms, cribs, etc. for being DDLG and “disgusting”, the person responded and explained that she was going to have a baby and loved to find new ideas to decorate it’s room. There was NOTHING sexual or anything relating to kinks on that blog. That’s such a terrible assumption to make about someone honestly. I totally get “nsfw do not interact” and not associating with those types of blogs. But just accusing someone of having some random fetish off of no solid evidence is so rude. Also if you see something totally innocent like a baby bottle or a crib or a child’s toy and think “OH MY GOD THAT COULD BE PART OF SOMEONE’S WEIRD FETISH” just take a step back and breathe.
Very saddened by this news. Rest in peace, Ursula K. Le Guin.
“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”―Ursula K. Le Guin
If you’re one of those people who thinks executive dysfunction only happens for things we don’t like (school, cleaning,) then please consider the fact that I’ve been meaning to plug my phone in for 20 minutes and I’m now at 2% and still putting it off to write this post ¯_(ツ)_/¯
op reblogs from people who reblog from people who reblog from pedophilia apologists/terfs/legitimately awful people
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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