Towards a working definition of “anti”

Meta
Title:	Towards a working definition of “anti”
Creator:	shinelikethunder
Date(s):	December 14, 2016
Medium:	online
Fandom:	pan-fandom
Topic:	antis
External Links:	original post, archive link
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Towards a working definition of “anti” is a 2016 meta post by Tumblr user shinelikethunder. As of July 10, 2018, it has 3,400 notes.

Excerpts

All excerpts are from the original post by shinelikethunder.

I’m going to define it as a behavior rather than a particular type of person. The anti movement is:

1. A form of intra-community aggression within fandom, that

2. Seeks, as its primary goal, to designate out-groups who are fair game for social brutality, by

3. Categorically declaring certain forms of fan engagement (ships, characters, fic genres, fanart styles, video game mods…) to be intrinsically morally wrong and in need of stamping out, regardless of how or why one engages with them, and

4. Justifies this by claiming a causal relationship between the targeted activities and some form of (usually SJ-flavored) real-world harm that they allegedly promote.

The order is important, because it goes from most to least essential. 1 is fundamental context, 2 is ultimate purpose, 3 is the mechanism used to accomplish that purpose, 4 is the justification for using that mechanism.

Bullying other fans is the goal. Eliminating the Bad Stuff from fanworks is just the pretext. If it were the other way around, you’d get a lot more attempts to create spaces with stricter moderation than Tumblr and AO3, and a lot less reaching for increasingly-absurd offenses to justify witch hunts. I want to fucking triple-underline this or something: the fundamental issue at play here is treating real people like dirt for spurious reasons concocted out of tastes in fiction.

The categorical nature of the condemnations is the anti movement’s “innovation” on previous forms of SJ bullying. Before, you’d get “the overwhelming predominance of this trope in fandom is problematic” or “it’s hard to write this character in a way that isn’t offensive,” or “the vast majority of X/Y shipping is uncritical abuse apologism.” But to the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t until the queer erasure wanks of circa 2012-13 that you got “this ship is inherently problematic and anyone who likes it is by definition a homophobe,” with the explicit rejection of the idea that a thoughtful, nuanced depiction could ever exist (or that any depiction could be nuanced enough to redeem the intrinsic Wrongness of the ship). Once the idea caught on, though, it spread like wildfire. Why wouldn’t it? If you’re looking for human footballs to kick around, it’s super convenient to never have to engage with the material you’re picking a fight over.

Responses

This sounds familiar. This is basically what the four-letters fandom in Sherlock has done to every other ship (and even their own ship as you have to ship it a certain way according to them or you’re a plague upon the earth). They have set up overly-simplistic arguments for every other pairing and declared them problematic and the people who enjoy them certifiably BAD for simply existing.

Lost is any nuance or subtlety of thought as well as any real critical thinking or emotional labor. They just instantly jump straight to righteously avenging their ship. These types of fans have fallen victim to the human frailties of laziness and self-indulgence by deciding others are unworthy of respect based on some predetermined binary metric.

These people claim they are moral defenders. Ironically, the term moral has Latin roots meaning, “character, manners, proper behavior”. Morality is not simplistic, it never has easy answers. Anyone proclaiming they have them is probably acting immorally and you should avoid them.

Really good thread, and useful advice.

Last time I realized something about antis, I got some confused questions. I think that there are various ways that the term “anti” gets used, and not all of them involve bullying behaviors. I’ve heard from a few readers who say it’s often used in their neck of the fandom woods as a marker to help fans of a character/ship avoid critical takes on their fave. There are also some responses to this post in another thread from POC who see this blanket condemnation of “anti” as silencing valid critical discussion of fandom racial dynamics.

Language is messy and evolving; there’s undoubtedly some non-toxic behavior that gets labeled as anti, and a bunch of bad bullying behaviors by people who don’t self-identify as antis. But it’s worth looking out for and combating behavior that fits the described ad hominem attack patterns, whatever the perpetrator is calling it.

In response to a question from a reblogger ("So what should we, as fandom, do once it’s reached critical mass? At the beginning, yes, recognizing the in-group/outgroup dynamic is important for trying to nip it in the bud. But at a certain point refusing to engage just leaves the outgroup targets completely abandoned."), the original poster responded:

1. Engage with the behavior, not just the pretext for the behavior. I’m not saying don’t rip apart the bullshit rationalizations for declaring something Bad. More that that’s not enough unless the underlying problem is addressed–namely, “you do not get a free pass to mistreat someone just because you can make a case that their art is problematic or their taste in fiction is immoral.”

2. Even when the attacker is hellbent on not listening, it’s worth it to engage, because the target and the bystanders will still hear you. Persuading an attacker to stop when they’re on a moral crusade is actually exceedingly rare. It’s a miraculous bonus if you can pull it off, but the practical value of standing up to bullies is, first of all, it lets the target know someone’s got their back–and even more importantly, it reduces the attacker’s ability to turn others against the target. Objecting to the antis’ crap helps persuade bystanders that they’re not obligated to join the public shunning, that they don’t have to enable unacceptable behavior by keeping quiet for fear of being next, that at least one person in the community thinks joining in would be pretty shitty and is willing to say so openly. It helps peel off supporters and co-bullies who are starting to have doubts about the cruelty they’re joining in on.

Basically, the difference between a bully and a drive-by troll is that when the troll tells you the world would be better off if scum like you stopped existing in it, no one in your community says, “I mean, he’s got a point.”

It’d be nice if antis and similar wank-mongers could be convinced to stop. But the more realistic goal is to keep putting counterarguments and common sense out into widespread circulation until the antis lose their influence and start being viewed as the crackpot trolls they are. Influence is what gives words most of their power to harm. Antis would be a harmless annoyance, rather than a fandom-destroying swarm of locusts, if their attempts to start witch hunts just left them shouting fire and brimstone on the street corner like an itinerant fundie preacher on a college campus.

Reblogging because this is a useful conversation, and the final comment is a good reminder than fandom is varied even in this.

The only thing I’ll add is something I learned in the Teen Wolf fandom. One of the things that can make it hard to spot anti discourse in the first instance is that they are really good at co-opting the language of social justice. Really good. A mindful person will check their own privilege in response to what antis say, at least until the realisation dawns that the call-out is designed to destroy self-worth rather than raise any awareness. That important moment of vulnerability during a privilege check is not worth losing because of antis, but it is also the chink they often exploit to do damage.

If you think you’re a target of antis, contact someone privately and ask for help if you’re not sure what to do. I’m not on Tumblr as much as some, but when I am I will always try to help if you’re a target of hate speech. You can message me if you need to.