The most effective way to deal with antishippers and fancops is to silence them.
It’s to refuse to give their words a platform. It’s to delete the hateful messages they send, and block them preemptively so they cannot comment on or misuse your posts.
But here’s the thing.
We can only silence fancops on our own blogs.
On social media, you have no control over what other people post.
Refusing to engage with antishippers and fancops won’t stop them from flooding the tags with their hateful ideologies, harassment, and screeds against people who just want to enjoy their ships in peace.
And do you know what the purpose of these antis posting this material is?
It’s terrorism, in the literal sense. It is an attempt to shame people, and make them afraid.
The intention is to terrorize people into believing that if they share their ships, fic and art, they will suffer harassment and shaming.
The intention of antis is to make it look like everyone’s an anti.
And if proshippers don’t speak up– if we remain silent– then it looks to an observer like the antishippers are the majority.
And that makes it much more likely that timid shippers will believe that they shouldn’t post and share whatever fic and art they want to.
That’s why we speak up on behalf of proshippers.
That’s why we argue with fancops and antishippers.
It’s not to sway the antishippers, which mostly can’t be done.
It’s to show other people that antis are not the majority.
Antis are not in the right.
Its to lead by example and show other people in fandom that its okay to post whatever they want, and they shouldn’t allow themselves to be intimidated and harassed by fancops.
I am so fucking tired of seeing neutrals/people outside of discourse continually saying that proshippers are just as much of the problem as antishippers are.
It is EXTREMELY victim blaming, and reminds me strongly of parents and teachers who punish bullying victims for daring to react to being bullied and abused.
