Forums / Discussion / General

Years of browsing art in places like Tumblr, Twitter and DeviantART has led me to observe a behavior I find personally quite disturbing among 11-17 year olds. Some teenagers often mob together to report artists they think are drawing 'underage characters' (or what they think are 'pedos'), causing them to be wrongly banned. They also often throw around the P-word with reckless abandon against these suspected child diddlers whose only crime was drawing adult versions of the fictional characters they supposedly love so much. Other times, they call them 'pedo' simply because of a misunderstanding and these kids cause an uproar to cancel the poor artist.

Does anybody know why these teens have such a bitter, almost bigoted view over the subject of underage sex and/or pedophilia? Is this the result of years of being raised by SJWs' misguided sense of self-righteousness and virtue-signalling, or are they justified in their belief that the internet is full of creeps and predators who often prey on younger artists? I need to know, especially after seeing some of my favorite artists being driven out or banned from these frivolous accusations.

Probably its due to the rise in all of those MAP groups. Basically pedos are trying to get themselves attached to LGBT so they cannot be judged.
Also while its is a borderline topic, I'd really have to reconsider my morals if I started to draw underage smut.

I can understand about the MAP apologism issue that possibly traumatized some of these children, but the real issue here is that these kids not only go after legit MAPs, but they also often go after innocent popular artists they think are sexualizing minors. I've seen way too many good artists who make mature Pokemon/MLP/Undertale/(insert popular fandom or any anime here) fan art get screwed over by these pedophile witch hunts from tweens who scream that making depictions of adult fictional characters are pedophilia and/or promoting them.

Don't they realize that most of these artists have already made a disclaimer that the depiction of the characters are obviously OVER 18 YEARS OLD, even if they're not canonically that age? It's like they can't distinguish reality and a drawing and fail to understand what is/is not a pedophile. I also believe that some of them aren't doing this out of genuine or even misguided concern, but are actually just virtue signalling by cancelling artists they don't like.

Sometimes you just don't like someone and want to see them taken out, sometimes you'll have to lie and exaggerate to see it through
Sometimes the accusation is true, and it's sweet schadenfreude to see someone ruined while also being justified
Kicking someone's ass out a platform or their career is legitimate entertainment if they're opposing your morals, especially after years of most modern teens/young adults being raised online where apathy to misfortune has been bred for years
That said anyone showing off their pedo or predator preferences is just asking to get evicted out their platform

What got me concerned is all the collateral damage to innocent artists that happened because some paranoid, overly sensitive teens make frivolous reports on an artist that their thin skins find offensive, while the actual pedos and questionable artists get to run free because of their irresponsible behavior; it breeds an extremely toxic cancel culture among art platforms with a significant adolescent demographic (hello, toyhou.se and DA)

This just makes me glad many of the artists I like either avoid those sites or also have their art (SFW and not) on other sites that could give less of a shit about shrieking whiners attempting that.
Edit: Not that twitter is a very good art hosting site anyway with how they often butcher pngs, turning them into jpgs, without using tricks to make the site not do that.

And keep in mind that this behavior isn't exclusive to the artist community. You've seen how pedophile accusations have been thrown around on social media just as much as the #MeToo fiasco, right?

Pedophile seems to be the next word of the year theyll use till it loses all meaning seeing as these kinds of people have pretty much already burned through words like Racist, Nazi, and (insert)phobe until they lost all power and meaning behind them and just became synonymous with "person I dont like/disagree with and want silenced."

>almost bigoted view over the subject of underage sex and/or pedophilia
tell me what you mean here, because it sounds dangerously close to defending pedos

the reason it happens is both people fearing the actual pedos and such online, and tumblrina's taking advantage of the fear to witch hunt the anyone who disagrees with them, because to them that makes them a pedo/racist/homophobe/nazi/etc

I wonder how many do those hunts to yet are in self-denial themselves.

Because the other option would be calling pertinent authorities about it like they would with actual pedophiles, and they cannot risk actually being useful to society now at such at early age now, can they.

It's the latest bandwagon. A good chunk of the time it's not even loli/shota, it's just people who like to pretend it is through some messed up logic (the recent fiasco with Uzaki-chan is a prime example).

Actual chasing of pedophiles would involve studying law, joining some form of law enforcement, and putting yourself into danger. Not to mention exposing yourself to the darker side of humanity and what it's capable of.

We all know what lazy entitled brats are allergic to. Actual Work

No, it's teens that have little to no evidence that the person is a pedo carrying out mob justice.

Because it's such an amazingly powerful bait strategy. Nobody likes a pedophile. Nobody wants a pedophile around in any way shape or form. This is common knowledge. Usually these teens really want to feel a sense of power or self-righteousness, and exposing a pedophile is universally regarded as something necessary and the right thing to do. And when these people don't come into contact with actual pedophiles, they will go after any person who they think is a pedophile. This is why people will hound an artist for "sexualizing minors" even despite the fact they've been aged up, thiccifed, and clarified as 18+. And this is also why they have so much power to get them banned.

And if we aren't talking about artists and fictional content, you have people who will consider an 18-year-old who finds a 16-year-old attractive in any way a pedophile. Even if they were not aware of their age.

But op did use bigot in a way regarding pedos though

In case you're wondering, I'm talking about what these rabid children perceive as pedophiles, not against actual pedophiles themselves. Many of them are dangerously misguided and are basically virtue signalling in a most destructive manner.

Thank you for clarifying

you ignored the part where they're made to physically look like an adult, too.

Bruh, it's literally just a drawing. Not an actual child.

On that note, good design is good design. If you have something non-sexual which looks good, it'll also look good when those features are translated into a sexual context.

Aside from the fact that I always hear people talking about MAPS as if they are thousands when they are probably a dozen who keep remaking multiple accounts, aren't they a 4chan /pol/ troll attempt to make people mad about LGBT people?

Yeah probably there are way fewer of them than they are being made out to be. I bet half of them are repeated offenders or just trolls. As for 4chan I wouldn't know since I don't really visit it too often. I doubt any of them would bother doing this for months with little results.

This shit happened to me because I looked at someone's social media account? A bunch of teens just cancelled me and spread propaganda that I was some pedo when I was not. It ruined my life and got me hospitalized. I hate how these teens joined in what's being described in the OP because they didn't like me. It also cost me friends, communities, and my original Discord account.

More and more of our personal lives are becoming integrated into our online lives. This exposes people to impersonal attacks and mob mentality much easier because it's much harder to humanize someone over the internet than it is someone who's your neighbor, or a colleague. Young people, who's social norms and experiences are relegated to a school-system and are perpetually made powerless against forces they cannot control (school teachers/administrators, parents, the social hierarchy of school yards, expectations out of society, etc) naturally want to lash out and feel powerful. Video games, for example, were and are a great outlet to frustrations one can experience from powerlessness during adolescence – it's why so many power-fantasy games were so astronomically popular (it's also why I suspect a lot of "nerds" and other "social outcasts" flock to zombie flicks). But imagine the kind of a power trip you can experience when you and a few chums can take down a popular persona online? For all the limited power you may have in your real life, the amount of power you can wield online is tremendous – and many many MANY young people fall into that trap. Is it no wonder that cancel-culture emerged primarily among young people – often from social groups that may be somewhat marginalized?

Especially imagine the power trip you can get when you take down a popular persona for some wrongdoing; real or perceived, big or small.

While I definitely agree with OP, there are some scenarios were this is warranted (see smash community assaults). I have noticed an increase in pedo accusing throughout communities as away to fear monger others, bring down reputation, or straight up for trolling/coping (an to an extent some of these accusations have little to no REAL evidence). I think there's too many people online nowadays that sometimes even talking to a girl without knowing her age is considered "sus pedo" behavior, as if every interaction is sexual desire. And it's really sad to see this panning out the way it is. It's almost like calling someone a simp for talking a girl. I also think this is really influenced by the stereotype that is Discord, and underlying rumors and stories about cult-like behaviors of people grooming younger people online. Doxing is happening at a much higher rate, and to sometimes undeserved people, it's criminal. I really think younger people need to stop getting involved in nonsense and just lurk more, or just have fun. but that's nearly impossible with the amount of users on the internet

Welcome to the new age of harassment/bullying. Unlike the "gay, retard, etc" of the past, this one carries severe social/legal associations, therefore it's basically the verbal equivalent of a nuke. Blows away that person, their reputation, etc, and afterwards they're so radioactive no one'll bother associating with them, even friends (or in rare cases, family).

And the best part? You're free of any liability or wrongdoing because you were "calling out a predator". You even get the potential bonus of getting a bunch of asspat likes and new followers to boot. 9/10 no one does/says that stuff because they're genuinely concerned said person might be/could become a predator, they just find their interests disgusting, and calling them a pedo's the ultimate buzzword to rile them up for a laugh/project disgust.