I’m still disgusted about 4chan. And yes, by that I mean users from 4chan itself, but also people’s reactions to it, or namely, the jokes they made.

"Baby fights", things treating this as a minor issue, etc. Not only were they trivializing the fact that these were grown men getting mad at trans people for existing and punishing them by spamming them with pictures of gore and rape, they did it in a way where it was dangerous and impossible to call them out.

Those same people who reblogged jokes about 4chan also reblogged posts saying things like “hey, 4chan is looking for reactions, don’t react to anything, pretend like it’s not happening” and yet those same people constantly made 4chan jokes, those same people constantly acknowledged 4chan, while those who were actually scared knew it wasn’t safe enough to speak up to people mocking the situation. They knew mentioning it, fighting against it, meant that they could have their faces put on porn, meant being spammed with gore.

(Also, did any of you who made jokes actually see what they posted? I did. That’s why I didn’t joke about it. Talk to me about making fun of how trivial 4chan was after seeing the shit I saw, I can wait.)

If you made those jokes you were terrorizing people, you acted so immaturely about this situation while scaring people who were already scared for their lives and pissed off at your comments into absolute silence. You took advantage of an environment where people were not allowed to respond to your shitty comments. You weren’t making fun of 4chan; you were making fun of the people 4chan were hurting. You were making fun of social justice, you were making fun of the trans neurodiverse teens that 4chan was aiming for. These people were aiming to make others kill themselves, and that was some kind of “baby fight” to you? That’s a funny joke to you?

And again, the fact that I had to wait until now to say this is repulsive. I couldn’t say it before because I was scared, because people like that increased my fear.

Honestly, I regret nothing more than not unfollowing more people during that fiasco. I shouldn’t have wasted my time with people who are unaware of the severity of their harmful behavior.