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    <title>dogpiling - Archive - MayVaneDay Studios</title>
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<b>MayVaneDay Studios (Gopher Edition)</b>
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  <p><b>dogpiling</b></p>
  <p><b>published: 12-20-2018</b></p>
  <p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>On the third of October, I signed into Neocities to find a myriad of comments accusing me of being homophobic with no real evidence to back that up. When I proceeded to delete the comments to clean up my page, I was immediately pounced on for "censorship", and then the accusations continued until I eventually packed up my bags and deleted my account. Without so much as an opportunity to explain myself or even find out where the accusations had come from, I was effectively homeless on the internet.</p>

<p>So one would think that I would know how to spot dogpiling. Except, for some reason, I haven't. I was complicit in allowing a popular user, Nutt Godd, to be run off the fediverse about a month ago. He eventually came back, this time with his own fediverse instance, but the damage to his reputation was already done, and he's still struggling to get back up on his feet.</p>

<p>I don't have the full details of the incident, since it happened when I was asleep- as all good things on the fediverse do- but from what I've pieced together, one night, Nutt Godd was musing about one of his favorite rappers, who was a sexual abuser along with a laundry list of other shitty things, and how the knowledge of what said rapper did conflicted with how he liked the rapper's music. Several users mistook this as somehow promoting rape culture and decided to stir up a shitstorm.</p>

<p>While I never sent Nutt Godd any nasty messages, or even interacted with him while the shitstorm was raging, I did give some of the accusers attention, which was essentially the same thing as participating in the abuse. And while I don't particularly harbor any sentiment for fediverse personalities with large following like Mr. Godd's, it's still a shitty thing to grab the pitchforks and torches and run someone out of shitposting town without giving them the chance to explain themselves.</p>

<p>I think I need to cut back on my time on the fediverse. Nutt Godd's downfall wasn't the only piece of drama to ever rustle everyone's jimmies: kin discourse hit almost immediately after Tumblr announced its NSFW ban and a mass of users migrated over, which caused me to lose a few long-standing friends even though I said little to nothing on the matter. And since I landed in the communist side of the fediverse upon my arrival, distangling myself from the red ideology just seems to get messier and messier.</p>

<p>I do love being in the Wired. To write for myself who I am instead of giving my biology the reins and letting my genes do as they please. But the people one surrounds oneself with is just as important as the person themselves. The more brainspace I devote to the latest flavor of discourse, the less brainspace I have for other things which matter far more to me, like writing and hanging out with my genuine friends. (Shoutout to my fellow chippies!)</p>

<p>I don't want to be the reason why someone feels unsafe on the fediverse. I don't want to be the reason why someone feels the need to abandon ship and isolate themselves even further.</p>
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