From the text:
Discussions shifted from “I don’t like this” to “no one should like this.” An account from a user on the anonymous fandom meta site fail_fandomanon described the process: “Antis became a social group, a hatedom. And once impressing their fellow clique of antis became more important than being accepted by the fandom at large, it metastasized into harassing shippers to impress their little bully clique. It became about the social aspect of being accepted by the ‘cool kids,’ i.e., the other antis–and like fandom drama groups in the past, often motivated early on by the fear that they might come after you if you weren’t on their side.”
Simply saying “other fans shouldn’t create fan content for the thing I don’t like” isn’t a compelling argument, so antis began adopting the language of the social justice movement that is active on Tumblr. Antis generally argue that the fictional pairing they dislike is morally “problematic,” that it promotes some broadly objectionable thing like pedophilia, abuse, or incest, and that content for that pairing should not be allowed on the internet.
To be clear, critiquing media for its larger social impact is fine and healthy. However, in these cases, antis would disingenuously put forth these claims to provide a basis for their hatred. For example, in the video game Overwatch, antis claim pairing Gabriel Reyes with McCree (known as McReyes) promotes pedophilia. (It doesn’t. McCree, the younger character, is 37.) They also claim pairing Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars supports incest, because there’s a chance they could be related (they’re not). Pairing Hank and his android partner Connor together from the video game Detroit: Become Human also supports incest by their logic (Connor is an android assigned to Hank, a human, to be his partner on the police force).
This kind of performative outrage enables anti-shippers to harass others by providing a moral shield for their attacks. Antis justify sending death threats to fellow fans and creators because they claim people who support “bad” ships promote those broadly objectionable things. Therefore, antis claim they are simply trying to protect their community from creating, engaging, and spreading inappropriate content (regardless if the content is actually inappropriate).
Toxic Fandom: When Criticism and Entitlement Go Too Far – GeekDad
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