PSA: Bullying someone to the point of suicide is morally no different to murder. No art could ever be as “problematic” as the actions of that community against this young woman. If you participated in this, and her suicide attempt had been successful, then her blood would have been on your hands. Shame on you.
I usually stay out of this sort of thing, but I felt compelled to comment on this because it hit close to home. See, I’ve made my fair share of sick, gross art that some people hated. But I love it, my friends love it, and I made it for us, so I’m fine with other people not liking it. Same goes for Rebecca Sugar’s pervy Ed, Edd and Eddy fanart she did when she was 16. It’s for her, not you. Really, there are two ways to respond to a piece of art you don’t like:
1.) Stop looking at it
2.) Make a better piece of art.
That’s it. Those are the ONLY TWO responses. It’s not your job to police other artists. Let other people do their thing. Think more, make more, react less.
In comics and animation, I’ve noticed something I call the “Dolores Umbridge Paradox”. That is, the people who’re obsessed with sick, gross, dark humour tend to be the biggest sweethearts in real life. The people who only want to see cute, innocent characters getting up to cute, innocent stuff usually turn out to be the nastiest, most vindictive shitheads. Maybe your experience has been different, but it’s something I’ve found to be generally true.
Having been both the caller-outer and the called-out in situations like this, I think I can reflect on this with some experience. If you are truly an ethical person, and you believe yourself to be on the right side of history, think about what you’re doing before you start a campaign of harassment against an artist like Zamii. I’d like the people involved in this recent shitshow (and any future shitshow) to ask themselves the following questions:
-Do you believe yourself to be affecting positive change, or are you just getting caught up in the thrill of taking someone down?
-Is this Steven Universe fan artist (or whoever) really the worst person you could be going after right now, or just the easiest?
-And what’s worse- their art, or being complicit in the act of ruining another person’s life?
Again: No art could ever be as problematic as a thousand people bullying someone to the point of suicide.
I know there’s a few people out there trying to dismiss this because of the validity of the girl attempting suicide.
It doesn’t matter.
Harassment, doxxing and bullying is still a rampant problem. I don’t know Zamii, nor do I plan to read up on what suddenly got her center stage. I follow other artists that nearly get hate mail every single time they upload anything.
Things as harmless as a usual ship, to new head cannons, to yes, character designs.
So even if Zamii ‘isn’t’ valid, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s another artist out there that is going through that. And if it is, I wish her a healthy recovery and good health.
Enough is enough.
There’s also people trying to dismiss it because apparently it’s normal for a fandom but that doens’t make it okay either. The people who pretend that nothing is happening are just as to blame as the people actually doing it.
