this was probably one of many ill-advised things i did today

So this young teen I know, a real sweetie, was getting bullied a bit online by her peers, peers who are antis or are turning into antis, and I got mad and leapt on Twitter and had a normal one, as you do. I'm middle aged and have attained zero wisdom. Zero percent.

Instead of working on becoming a better person, I started thinking: mid-2000s Harry Potter fandom on Livejournal was a Caligula-esque orgy of skullfucking, incest and beastiality. Meanwhile, here in 2023, the kid I mentioned above said one sentence -- "I headcanon that [Rarely Appearing Antagonist Guy] is a rapist," used Discord spoiler tags to censor the word "rapist" -- and that one sentence is what initially made her peers so mad.

How in the sweet frosty fuck did we get here?

I'm gonna try to untangle my thoughts. I'm worried I'm about to sound like some right-wing Substack concern troll scumbag, which is absolutely not what I want since I'm a liberal Democrat. I'm also worried these thoughts are so obvious that it's pointless to share them. But, I still want to try hashing it out, and I'd love your help hashing it out with me in the comments.

What I'm wondering is: did three good, important, vital, progressive ideas accidentally pave the way for all this?

( uh oh )