@ my fellow adults who use tumblr a lot:
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
Can you guys step out of the tumblr “everyone over 20 is inherently predatory and creepy towards children” bubble for once and consider that encouraging people to give up their personal information for the imagined safety of the community is like…not safe?
this advice doesn’t even make sense for multiple reasons; if someone is intent on preying upon minors, all they have to do is follow your advice and lie about their age, being over 20 doesn’t mean you can’t be preyed on yourself, you should never be coerced into giving up your privacy on social media (seriously, did a fed write this?), and promoting the idea that turning 20 means your interactions with younger people should be viewed with suspicion is absolutely harmful, like OP do you have any common sense? At all?
“ignore your own privacy boundaries and discomfort and if you don’t idk 🤔sounds a lil sus 2 me, pedophile” will you guys stop larping as conservative politicians for one second please
think-of-the-children fearmongering is not the same thing as actually protecting minors
You’re talking about - much more insidious - problems while telling people if you don’t do what I tell you, you might be a threat to the safety of our community, like okay Dubya!
Let me tell you about the insidious things that happened when I was young in fandom spaces and older fans became my friends
1. I was taught real sex ed by a midwife, including a lot of pros and cons of various birth control
2. I learned you can just get anything printed into a book and having it in a physical book don’t legitimize something
3. I learned how to enjoy other cultures without making people from those cultures uncomfortable
4. I realized my guardians, while better than my past guardians, were still abusive and what I was experiencing was not healthy, even if distressingly common
5. I learned generosity without ulterior motives actually did exist
6. I learned I don’t have to abandon the things I enjoy as I get older.
7. I was taught ways to treat people differently in deference to their age while still treating them as peers.
(they treated me as an equal, but I was not included in any sexual discussions, for example)
8. I learned that friendships don’t have to be quid pro quo
All of these things super insidious and destructive to the conservative agenda.
Destroying the links between generations is part of how the powerful keep us from forming communities and bettering our lives. Don’t do the masters’ work for them.
The language of the OP is such dogwhistley language as well: ‘lured into’ ‘insidious’.
Friendships across generations is not a bad thing.
And also, maybe we are older, but we are also the generation who was told do not put your personal details - including your age - on the internet, because that opens you up to being targeted by people who will take advantage of you because of your youth and inexperience.
it is so fucking weird to me that there’s this whole culture of “omg what if I TALK TO A GROWN-UP that’s so CREEPY AND UNNATURAL” like…what kind of Kool-aid are they passing out on TikTok these days.
