I joined Tumblr in 2010. For five years, I've been reblogging goofy memes and sharing my own thoughts deemed too silly or too serious for Facebook. It's really the only social media platform on which I've felt that I can be myself without fear of judgement – a safe space. But recent events have made the site feel anything but.
The intentions behind what has become known as "callout culture" were noble. You see something offensive, a harmful trope or the use of a slur, so you let the person posting that content know why it isn't right. But a small minority of the online community has taken up a warped and misguided version of this concept, verbally attacking people for making even a single mistake. The most recent example has to do with Steven Universe, a charming cartoon that's gained an enormous following on Tumblr in recent months. When an artist, known as "Zamii" on the site, drew a canonically fat character in a way that made them appear very thin by comparison, the backlash was immediate. It's obvious to see why the drawing upset fans - sadly, it's still rare to see positive representation of plus-sized women on television, so seeing that character purposefully slimmed down is understandably disconcerting. While Zamii's artwork was deserving of criticism, she didn't deserve to be bullied to the point where she attempted suicide.
The above tweet is from Steven Universe producer Ian Jones-Quartey in response to the recent incident. The line between critique and harassment is so clear, yet so many people choose the latter as if it's an act of noble vigilantism. There's a huge difference between telling someone "this drawing is offensive because it's a form of fatshaming" and "kill yourself".
The scariest part about this type of bullying is that it so often targets kids who just don't know better. Kids who make mistakes need guidance, not death threats. I think back to myself at 14, to how stupid I was, to how many times I must have slipped up and posted something offensive. It could happen to anybody, because as cliche as it is, no one is perfect. It just absolutely boggles me to think that this is a real thing that's actually happening, and it's not just Zamii. If another artist, celebrity, or blogger makes a mistake, word immediately starts to circulate throughout the site about how problematic that person is, how vile, how irredeemable. Even if it's just one mistake, and even if it's followed by a sincere apology, they're still demonized by the community. No one's reputation deserves to be ruined over one small mistake.
Let me make this completely clear; callout culture is a serious problem, but social justice is not. So many people have used and will use situations like Zamii's to point out why "social justice warriors" are terrible people with a pointless cause. While the harassment is often carried out in the name of social justice, that doesn't make the movement inherently evil, in the same way a violent act carried out in the name of religion doesn't make that religion evil. If Tumblr is to ever return to being a "safe haven", we need to reevaluate the way we approach problematic behavior; we need to correct with chastising, to educate without abusing. We have to do away with mob mentality, stop spreading hate and misinformation, and stop tolerating bullying.
