I was involved in a lot of spaces during my time on social media. Spaces a lot would call "Anti" or "Antishipper" or whatever clever words they go by. Basically the people who feel it is right to dictate and control the fandoms, the ships, the beliefs, etc. of people. I touched on it a bit in 9/26/2024, with my analogy of the "wild west", or the freedom, of the internet fading. I wanted to touch on it more here. I got inspired to write this by a blog post someone made here on Neocities touching on this whole topic.

I used to be among this group of people. I wanted friends and wanted to fit in somewhere so I went along with them. I had a very troubled childhood and abusive household so I needed a form of escapism through the internet. And, I didn't realize it at the time but, they brainwashed me.

I was young when I first got caught up in all this. I didn't really understand what they meant, I hardly knew what a "proshipper" or "antishipper" even was. But all of my friends, whom I had met through these "Anti" communities, kept preaching that everyone who had different beliefs than them was evil.

And, my young self, looking up to these older people, I listened. Because I assumed they knew more than me, that they were smarter than me, that they were guiding me down the right path. But in return, I had to give up my whole identity. All the fandoms I was into, all the ships that were close to my heart, my fictional crushes, my beliefs, all of it was what the "bad" people were into. And I couldn't be like them. No, the Antis told me that the "bad" people had corrupted my brain with these things.

So, for the next 4 or so years, I lost my identity. I couldn't choose who I wanted to be, I forgot who I was. And because of this, my already existing mental illnesses skyrocketed. I ended up developing so many anxieties and paranoias. I was at war with myself, fighting what my body knew I was versus what the Antis wanted me to be. I had to please them, but one of the greatest things I have learned from this experience is this: Antis can never be pleased.

The deeper you go down their rabbit hole, the more insane it gets. What starts off as a simple "this fandom makes me uncomfortable, I'd prefer not to interact" devolves into "This ship is incest because they seem like brothers to me, even though they aren't actually brothers ITS STILL INCEST!". And it just continues to devolve into more and more nonsense and delusion. Whatever displeased them, they'd make an excuse as to why its wrong and irredeemable and how no one must enjoy this thing. And they feed off each others delusions and nonsensical preachings.

But what makes all of this so bad, is what it ends up leading to. They don't just stop at having these beliefs, they have a goal. And that goal is take down and ruin the lives of any they deem as "evil". I witnessed firsthand so many innocent people's lives be tarnished by Antis. People have lost their jobs, had their location doxxed, been harassed and sent death threats, and so much more. All over fiction. All over delusional beliefs. All over stuff that they could of easily just blocked or ignored.

And I was pressured into doing that too, and its a time of my life I deeply regret. I lost some of my closest friends because the Antis forced me to get away from "evil". And once I lost those friends I only fell further into the Anti community. They saw my anguish, my depression, and they took advantage of that. They told me, "Never become like your old friends, you must stay close to us. We will protect you.". And so, I followed. Because they instilled a great fear in me. If I fell out of line I'd get a callout post with my name on it, and I knew the danger that would come after that.

Their never ending journey of deeming this and that as bad led me to develop so many anxieties and paranoias. I didn't know what next would be deemed as "evil". What was safe for me to like? To ship? To believe in? What next would be deemed such a way and would have me exiled from "safety"? Even the most normal of things I saw be subjected to having the label "evil".

Its only as of this year that I escaped. Something in my head finally turned on after all these years. Something that I had forgot was even there. And it happened once the last of my Anti friends was leaving. I felt as if my head finally broke the surface of the water, that I could breathe and think for myself. And so, before they left, I finally let all that had been bottling up out. All my true desires, my fandoms, my ships, my beliefs, etc. and they left me behind. And it was the first time I had felt alive in 4 years.

Here I am now, I've been away from Anti communities for almost over half a year now. I've been learning to embrace and love myself again. I grew so much self hatred during that time. I'm embracing all of my old "problematic", as the Antis put it, fandoms and ships and what not. And its the happiest I've ever been. I've been able to conquer my paranoias and anxieties in ways I never was able to. I've gained so much more confidence in myself, and I've been able to talk to people more. The effects aren't fully gone though, I still have a long way to go in healing.

And it probably sounds silly to those who maybe have never experienced the Anti community or as deeply as I did. But, it really does affect your life in so so many ways. Its not just the fandoms and the shipping, its so much deeper than that. Their preachings really do extend to the real world and how they view the world. They can't differentiate fiction from reality. They can't differentiate nonsense from logic.

They will claim someone is a criminal and has committed illegal acts, all over harmless fiction. Accusations which can ruin a person's life. And they're all convinced its true. They're all convinced liking a piece of media with "problematic" material means you support and engage in such things in real life. That apparently a 20 year old character dating a 40 year old is pedophilia. That liking Disney films means you're racist and support racist ideologies. That enjoying a piece of media made by someone who maybe isn't the best person means you are just like that person and support everything they did. I could list so many examples here of the many things I've heard them preach. And it made me convinced that if I ever did engage with the things they deemed as "bad" that I would be a criminal.

Not even a decade ago the internet wasn't like this. Don't get me wrong, drama still happened back then. You still had people fighting over ships, over fandoms, and in some cases you had people send death threats or harass you over it. But it was never to the extent it is now, and how normalized it is too. I saw, and still see, so many people just not bat an eye to a proshipper getting doxxed or harassed or worse. They just laugh and mock them.

They want to erase everything they deem as "problematic". Its exterme sanitization and censorship. Something that, now with a clear mind, I can whole heartedly say I cannot support. Its done more bad than good from what I've seen and experienced. So many young impressionable people are, well, groomed into it. Being led by adults who are filling their heads with nonsense. That's how I was groomed into it, they made it seem like such a safe space.

Not every Anti is like this, some are far more tame than others. But they still share these extreme beliefs to some extent. I, myself, experienced the most "radical" side of it. I was led in and told they would heal me, fix my mind, and save me from the evil people of this world. And I came out destroyed, with a broken mind, and realizing who the real evil people are.

Good did come out of all of this. Not only what I mentioned earlier, but also I no longer judge others. I don't care what fandoms someone is in, what they ship, what they believe, what they do, etc. We're all people, with unique lives and unique experiences. And we all deserve to be treated like people, because none of these things make us any lower. There's no time in my life to hate and to stew over things that make me uncomfortable.