MelonLand Forum
World Wild Web => ☞ ∙ Life on the Web => Topic started by: Memory on March 24, 2023 @865.43
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Leaving aside the law-enforced rule of no minors on inappropriate sites, 'curating' members for online spaces is something that sort of vanished with social media where everyone can access almost anything, I just got reminded that this is actually a thing when another popular retro-web place began talking about enforcing the no people under 25 on their spaces.
Heres some other real examples I found on the wild:
- A discord gaming group that accepts only girls ('girl' being a broader term that encompasses trans, nonbinary and genderfluid)
- A telegram group of planed parenthood that only accepts people if they are invited by someone who is already a member.
- Art communities where artists must be a certain skill level to join.
- Queer communities not accepting people younger than X age, they claimed it was because a lot of younger queer are perpetuating prejudice they so far only saw on non-queer people and they feel its not their job to teach.
This sort of member curation can feel malevolent at first but under the right circumstances they help create safe spaces specially for minorities, twitter just recently added the option to curate who can answer to your tweets, before that it was not uncommon for total strangers to pop out of the blue to give unsolicited opinions on personal topics. Some times member curating is done to create a sense of elite or status, you have access to something not everyone can access.
Are you a part of any 'curated' community? Do you know of any other curated place? Have you ever been denied joining an online space because you did not fit the requisite? Do you feel like everyone should access everything? Or any other thoughts regarding this topic~
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They are not! I'd say that all online spaces are limited in some way, whether by a fixed rule or the group's social norms. If you join a group and you are not willing to engage with that group on their terms, then you are harassing them, regardless of who they are or who you are! (It can be a lot more complex than that because groups change and evolve, and so do individuals, but you get the idea)
This forum has a loose social rule that you should only join if you have a personal website or are at least interested in personal websites and the culture around them. This discussion about limiting access to the forum (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?topic=1001.0) is a good read too!
I have mixed feelings about restrictions like age... sometimes it's reasonable; such as a group of 80-year-olds making an over-80s social club. However, when it comes to young adults it's often very unfair to make generalisations about age and maturity.
I suppose that leads to the risk with these kinds of spaces; they tend to become cliques. If the group doesn't have some form of outreach and it doesn't have an influx of new ideas, it becomes too solipsistic; that's never good for anyone :ohdear:
Limits can also be good; they can help a group focus on its goals, and create the kind of culture it wants to foster. I'd count most companies or jobs as curated social groups. I'm part of a few curated art groups and others that require paying a fee to be a member. They have their own merits and limitations! Usually, they are less fun and more focused on getting a job done, but sometimes that's exactly what you want :grin:
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[I started writing this before there were any other responses, so pardon me if something was said already <:O)]
I think 'curated' members could make sense if they actually correlate with what the community is for. For example.. it wouldn't really be logical to make a community about fashion or writing science fiction "Girls only" since liking fashion (even specifically women's fashion) or writing science fiction isn't really unique to girls. The point is a little null and, to me, unnecessarily exclusive.
Although, one question I have is.. is there a significant advantage to curating members forcefully instead of allowing the community to form itself naturally with the guidance of a set topic and rules? If the goal of a community is to create a space where a certain group isn't alienated, wouldn't making it a community that discourages actions that alienate anybody serve that purpose just as well? If a community is set around a certain topic, can't deviating from that topic (or joining without having an interest in/involvement with it if the space is more casual) be clearly discouraged?
My personal belief is that, if you were to keep even respectful people who may be different from who you expected to join from having some sort of input in a community, you would be running a risk of creating something that's more akin to a dangerously isolated echo-chamber than a place that encourages the consideration of new and unusual information and views. If we have the ability to make curated friend groups with the people we meet, what is the purpose of having an entire community that isolates you from obtaining new information through meeting people who have certain differences from you?
My brain is beginning to tie itself into a knot trying to consider every single possibility imaginable, so I'll stop there. I'm curious to see other people's examples of communities that might benefit more from curating through force.. besides ones that do not allow minors simply because those communities are too inappropriate for them, anyway. That is perfectly understandable.
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[I started writing this before there were any other responses, so pardon me if something was said already <:O)]
I think 'curated' members could make sense if they actually correlate with what the community is for. For example.. it wouldn't really be logical to make a community about fashion or writing science fiction "Girls only" since liking fashion (even specifically women's fashion) or writing science fiction isn't really unique to girls. The point is a little null and, to me, unnecessarily exclusive.
Science Fiction tends to be dominated by guys so it makes sense to have a group for women. The exclusivity also changes the nature of the conversation - the focus could be on different types of authors and themes. Similarly it would make a lot of sense to have a men's group for something like breast cancer or knitting. Maybe in an ideal world it wouldn't matter but the world is never really ideal. I wouldn't apply too much scrutiny to the limitations unless there's like some obvious problem (ie: bigotry)
Most of the issues with internet spaces also apply to real life spaces. The biggest difference is there's no physical limitation to where you can be, which gives people less incentive to be patient. Also less incentive to talk to people who aren't similar to them. In real life you might talk to someone just because they happen to be around... although that seems to happen less often these days.
In general I think most people need a sense of community in their life and it's hard to get that from being bombarded by algorithmic content.
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i'm a big fan of curation in the form of requiring users to register an account to participate in a community, like the standard forum format. registering an account is typically enough to discourage most low-effort trolls from bothering, and if it doesn't, you can always just ban them. back in the days of Livejournal it was common for communities to require approval before you could join: communities would state different requirements to join, and then you would request membership to be approved by a moderator. it was a good way to filter out spam and trolls.
as a trans person i also think "___ demographic only" communities are fine in concept, but in practice there's rarely a way to prove without a doubt that someone is who they say they are online. even an ID can be edited digitally! i think something like "this space is for trans people only" works better in real life, and even then that's not without its issues, but i don't have anything strongly against the concept.
also, i feel like the word "clique" gets brought up a lot as a kind of boogeyman word, like cliques only form when the community is curated, like it's an automatic inevitability with curated groups. if you've ever spent any time on a free-for-all style social media platform like Twitter or Tumblr, particularly in fandom spaces, you'll know what i mean when i say cliques can and will form regardless of how private the community is :ohdear:
another thing i wanna bring up, again informed by my status as a trans person: we also live in a world where online harassment is a much bigger and more dangerous problem than it used to be, with things like doxing and swatting happening with alarming frequency. curated groups are one of the only ways that queer people—and people who belong to any other oppressed group—have to talk to others like us online without feeling like we have a target on our backs.
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i think it's perfectly fine to have a curated space, since sometimes it comes down to a shared interest, and sometimes it's just a necessity for protection; in the case of the "girls only" gamer space, it's likely because the predominant Gamer(tm) subculture is misogynistic, and in the case of queer-only spaces, as doubleincision said, it's because of societal homophobia/transphobia. as for my experience, i probably have been "denied" in a sense because i felt like i didn't really fit in, or i didn't really try to engage with those communities, but that's perfectly fine. not everything's gonna click :dive:
there's somewhat of a phenomenon i've seen on twitter and tumblr where people express the opinion that instead of a space being set by a group of people or a clique it's up to the individual to curate their own experience. this might just be me playing a word association game with the word "curate." part of this idea is about interaction/participation ("if you don't like a person, don't interact with them/block them"), i think it is also in part about content consumption, where people's posts are the content. but also... longer form communication over forums like melonland are also kinda content consumption and interaction? there's clearly a difference here, but what is it? i'm unsure where to leave this response off :drat:
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Nearly every space is by definition exclusive since no space is really there to support EVERYTHING. A forum about the Devuan operating system probably won't be a place to talk about history, whereas a MySpace group about WW2 most likely won't appreciate computer nerd discussion.
Even larger more general purpose communities like Twitter select their audience by excluding, say, children under the legal age of signing up, or perpetrators of hate speech.
Having a purpose or a theme is always exclusive and that's O. K. too. A "girl gamer" Discord has every right to exist and so do all the other examples.
The only problem is when these exclusions end up missing the point. Our uni has a cafe only for non-cis-male people, but my trans male friend was always policed in his masculinity. Of course my cis male feminist friends were not allowed in even alongside me but a cishet woman with racist and transphobic attitudes was, all the time, just for being a woman. Building inclusive spaces depends on policing opinion, not identity, imho.
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there's somewhat of a phenomenon i've seen on twitter and tumblr where people express the opinion that instead of a space being set by a group of people or a clique it's up to the individual to curate their own experience. this might just be me playing a word association game with the word "curate." part of this idea is about interaction/participation ("if you don't like a person, don't interact with them/block them"), i think it is also in part about content consumption, where people's posts are the content. but also... longer form communication over forums like melonland are also kinda content consumption and interaction? there's clearly a difference here, but what is it? i'm unsure where to leave this response off :drat:
I understand what you are saying and I have seen those kind of posts on tumblr as well! In the case of this topic maybe curating was not really the right word but I cant think of anything else right now other than "letting people join a community based on the fact that they fulfill a prerequisite or no" Now, that's a mouthful :happy:
I do enjoy this idea propagated by tumblr that one should curate their virtual spaces tho but I think they apply to more free for all spaces like a social media feed or discord where as you said content consumption and interaction runs free and most of the times unsupervised and the user has the ability to block or ignore certain tags, contents or users.
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sometimes exculsion can be a good thing I think. These days i pretty much prefer to join fandom discord servers that have an adults only policy, mostly because of the adult subject manner.
But sometimes it can be mostly out of just wanting to interact more with people around your own age rage. My experience with mixed ages fandom spaces lately has been a bit negative to say the least, whereas in the more moderated adult spaces things tend to be a bit more calm.
Believe it or not lately there this weird divide of who gets to be in a fan space, and everyone having their only space helps mitigate some of it.
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@Necrosia (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=486): I wonder which community you're refering to, that wants to have all members older than 25. Do you have some links?
Because it sounds... downright idiotic for some minor heap like the old web community to segregate between age groups. You can afford that when Facebook is slain and banking works over a telnet terminal again! Anyways, the "blonde CRT users with a 20-25 year old Amiga computer" message board will be formed soon...
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Fantastic discussion!
I personally believe similar to teatime, /home/user/, and doubleincision: I believe "curated" spaces are a necessity now that the internet has grown so far beyond it's early reach.
As the internet itself gets into the hands of more people and slowly becomes a necessity to life, we will absolutely be exposed to more dangerous people and groups who - as doubleincision pointed out - will have access to very dangerous tools such as swatting and the like. With people also being bred into hostility online due to being forced to mingle with folks that wish harm on them, many absolutely abuse these tools and real people's lives are very much put in danger.
I've been excluded from spaces for various reasons, and honestly I used to have the bitter sentiment that it was toxic and unfair when I was younger. But as I got older and understood as well as experienced harassment myself, I really realized just how needed these spaces are.
I run and participate in "exclusive" spaces online. The most "exclusive" ones are NSFW so we have to keep minors out. These spaces are needed for many adults' mental health - especially with the resurgence of extremely harmful ideologies. It's vital for these spaces to exist in safety, without fear of harassment, minors, or being shamed/attacked for their consensual practices.
I do see why a space sought to limit it to 25 and older, seeing as most adults that give our spaces the most trouble are between 18-25. Yet I look at that as a step back rather than a step forward, and adults over 25 are still very capable of also propagating biases and prejudice.
Most come from a place of ignorance or fear. A lot of the time they can feel forced to follow these beliefs by the harassment and social isolation that happens if they don't. So many are left to feel disgusted or ashamed for things they should not be and it is heartbreaking.
I understand those who do not have the time or energy to help adults struggling with these leftover issues, it is a very daunting and demanding thing! Though I do believe if everyone opted to just not teach, it could lend to many continuing to practice these toxic behaviors and ideologies that we create these spaces to avoid in the first place. So I am thankful for those with the energy! It's a lot. And again, no ill will to those that don't!
Be kind all, and thank you again for this awesome topic!
*Slightly edited, my language was a bit iffy in some places lol
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I'm a part of a few hobby groups that curate their membership by asking fairly benign questions about the hobby, and personally I'm *really* glad they do ._. Not always, but some of the groups I've seen who don't do this are... ooh boy. It's an interesting dynamic.
Lolita fashion *especially* comes to mind, because unfortunately there are quite a few people who fetishize the fashion and turn it into something really disgusting ;;
Personally for me with age, I generally make it known that I have an age I'm comfortable with partially for the sake of the users interacting with me? Like.. I don't see a reason at my age to talk to teens unless it's directly hobby related, yknow? Our lifestyles will be so different, and I'm not always comfortable being an older-sibling type ;;
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@Ninaiso (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=416)
Lovely, I agree with everything you said! In the end it really boils down to not everyone having the time or energy to teach so its easier to just block people out despite the eventual consequences.
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I don't wanna quote anyone but anyways, since it was brought up. I'm 25 years old, and I have online friends who are teenagers, and those who are closer to my mom in age than me. A very wide net. How we met is being in the same fandom, but it's not like we can talk about only the fandom all the time, so we talk about our lives. Our lives can be very different (I don't have children of my own, for example) but we can still share things with each other. As much as a teenager could be absolutely insufferable (and I've run into those plenty), there are also teenagers who are great friends to me, reasonable in their behaviour and full of great ideas.
It's a sad topic in a way. I always felt like I was very "mature" online when I was younger in the way that people typically tought I was older than I actually was, so I think and hope I wasn't annoying. It felt quite annoying to me if there was a (SFW) fandom space that was limited to, say, only 16 and up, when I knew I would fit in just fine even though I was 14, etc. I kind of want to extend this to the teenagers I encounter now and give them a chance. Because as much as I see someone online who seems insufferable, I check the profile and it says they're 14 and that just kinda explains everything, I know that there are those who don't fit into that stereotype. It's like there is a battle inside me: on one hand, I want to give a chance to the nice teenagers; on the other, going on a Discord server and seeing a bunch of teenager members at the top makes me nope out very quick :ziped:
I guess I should add that I don't participate in any NSFW servers/topics.
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I also used to be more salty about exclusion of younger members when I was a teen (I wanted people to look up to because my family isn't great, and also the usual teen stuff of feeling really mature and too good for your peers), but I have to say, I was lucky in that it only really happened in my later teens, so I grew out of the exclusion quickly. I kinda have the opposite experience than the original thread post - in my personal experience, we interacted a lot throughout different age groups (from 12 to 55) when I was an early teen, and the older I got, the more people got divided by age. And nowadays I find it hard to find a social media profile (and sometimes even Neocities page) that doesn't have a "DNI/BYF" that says minors should not follow or interact otherwise. I think with many, there is this fear that if they associate with a minor, they could do irreparable damage or influence someone too much, or that they could be accused of inappropriate conduct with the minor. I think many people get side eyed nowadays on Twitter and especially TikTok if they even follow minors when they are 18+, kinda like "ewww why are you following/replying a minor, what are your intentions, creep?" so they try to prevent that by being hypervigilant around the topic of even getting followed by a minor.
edit: Accidentally made it sound as if I am 55, corrected that :P
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It's a sad topic in a way. I always felt like I was very "mature" online when I was younger in the way that people typically tought I was older than I actually was, so I think and hope I wasn't annoying. It felt quite annoying to me if there was a (SFW) fandom space that was limited to, say, only 16 and up, when I knew I would fit in just fine even though I was 14, etc. I kind of want to extend this to the teenagers I encounter now and give them a chance. Because as much as I see someone online who seems insufferable, I check the profile and it says they're 14 and that just kinda explains everything, I know that there are those who don't fit into that stereotype. It's like there is a battle inside me: on one hand, I want to give a chance to the nice teenagers; on the other, going on a Discord server and seeing a bunch of teenager members at the top makes me nope out very quick :ziped:
I'll throw my hat into the ring on this; personally for me it's an emotional bandwidth thing. I know like you that there ARE the nice ones, my issue is just energy, I worry a lot about spoons and the like due to being disabled.
I could sift through the insufferable ones or I could just put an age limit on things, yknow? And if I do see a young person who seems respectful and kind I often do bend my own rules to interact even if just to pass on brief advice and then leave ^^
It does feel like a shame, but it's not the only thing I'm strict on when it comes to online spaces - my "dni list" as it were would be several pages long if I bothered to type it out for neocities :P I find that curation of my own experience is one of the major draws to being in online spaces, it's one thing I thrive on, that ability to withdraw if I'm not interested.
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At some point it just begins to read like bigotry and discrimination, you know?
It's nice that people can just put an age limit on things and keep their mind off of it, but for those who are minors it is something inescapable that shuts them out of social life, friends, hobbies, families. It can end fatal if they have an abusive home or school to rob them of this safety net.
Like, I feel like many people with Borderline's are statistically more likely to be disruptive to a community.
Maybe I think plural systems are often likely to be self important and the cause of drama. Perhaps I think the same about minors. Would I ever ban them then for personal peace and convenience? Never in my life. That's prejudice.
I always make an effort that all of my communities and posts I have are open for all ages. I do ban people who are disturbing the mature attitude, and my communities FEEL like 18+ communities, despite there being mature enough minors in there who know how to properly and respectfully act in a social situation.
"Minors DNI" always makes me feel like I am talking to an unempathetic, small-minded person who does not recognize teens as people but as a nuisance. And I say that as a 22 year old.
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"Minors DNI" always makes me feel like I am talking to an unempathetic, small-minded person who does not recognize teens as people but as a nuisance. And I say that as a 22 year old.
Agreed, I feel as though that these sorts of people just don't know how to appropriately interact with younger people sometimes (if its not an NSFW centric space) and it can be a bit of an issue no matter if they think its a good idea to set that boundary. Just my thoughts, as someone who is now the oldest in most online spaces im in I see this issue occur a lot where people think hating teens/kids is fun or some kind of quirk.
to be honest when i see people react that way with youth i just assume they have some insecurity or fear about it all, and still aren't sure how to handle the adult-world.
just my personal thoughts on the matter, when people aren't comfortable with minors, despite their content not being NSFW/18+ .
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just my personal thoughts on the matter, when people aren't comfortable with minors, despite their content not being NSFW/18+ .
And I think being uncomfortable with something is valid and okay, like being uncomfortable with NSFW talk or being uncomfortable with talking about food, but setting boundaries on an entire demographic is really strange and pretty offensive. They just communicate that they don't see minors as valid full people but rather some kind of annoying animal.
Like, imagine if someone just "felt uncomfortable around black people" because "they act aggressively all the time" and "that just stresses me out and I don't want to deal with it". It's the same kind of arguing that they do against minors, but put into a perspective against another demographic that cannot and should not change who they are.
It just feels faux progressive and really problematic.
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I think it might be interesting to step back for a moment and ask what an online space actually is. You can draw a line and say online spaces are only community spaces, but that's not really true.
I would say that your email is an online space, and your youtube feed is an online space when you look at search results you are in an online space. Those are all spaces that we assume are only for us; although in reality we almost always share them with others, such as algorithms, AIs, technicians working on the website, hackers, or other people in the room with you looking at your screen.
On the flip side to that; even a very popular public space is limited by the reality of who can see that space (e.g. only people with computers of some sort) - that's also a very real form of gatekeeping. The language used on a site is too.
It's really not so much a question of public or limited space; it's always a sliding scale - with total privacy on one end and total publicity on the other - in reality, we are always somewhere in the middle :omg:
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Despite my previous post, I guess I wanted to defend my teen friends a bit but. I do understand why someone would just kinda finally snap and go "ok if you're under 20 stay out" if they're, say, in a fandom where they have had very bad experiences with a lot of people under that age for example. Like I said, it is sad. But I do understand. Sometimes, fandom spaces with mostly minors and those with mostly adults can have very different ideas of what kind of behaviour is acceptable even when it comes to SFW stuff. So I do understand. But it is sad, because you wouldn't want to turn away potentially young but like-minded people. But at some point, you could just get mentally exhausted at the process and end up making such generalizations. I do understand.
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"On the internet, nobody knows that you are a dog."
Hah, don't even bother thinking about "age restrictions" on the internet.
Everyone has access. Not even registering with an ID card or finger print scan would be 100% secure. It's impossible to implement, so I see no other way than accepting the digital room as anarchy in the age regard. Even 30 years after that quote was written down.
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On one hand, I'm of the mindset that regardless of your intention with curating, most often, the attempts are practically null given the fact that there's no real way to "check" that info without being in one way shape or form, invasive to others, y'know? I've been in plenty "adult only" places only for specific members to either come forward or be found out to be minors, and the topics of curation only seem to get muddier from there.
I don't think it's necessarily bad to want to curate a specific space to specific tastes, and as such, I personally like to adhere to those groups requirements. As in: I won't join spaces where I'm explicitly stated as not wanted. But the same can't be said for every other random on the net, so I don't try to curate my own circles too much outwith places it's necessary— like NSFW spaces. But even then I'm aware that people will find a way to enter it anyway so.... Which I also don't think is necessarily bad either lol. As a kid, I found my way into places I "wasn't supposed to be" and was fine for being there, so I find it hard to fault others for doing the same.
And on the other hand, I currently run a curated space on discord. Which is a "locked" server for exclusively my friends, and friends of my friends. I think this sort of space is negligible in terms of what everyone else is mentioning here, but I do really enjoy being in that sort of community where access is barred unless you fit the "vibe check". It makes the server experience much more relaxed and fun in my opinion and opening it to public access would really ruin a lot of what the small group of friends have crafted so lovingly together. I hope that makes sense!
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@awhe (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=596): Your post made me realise that my post above is a bit obsolete. The common internet users didn't use their voice to chat that much over the web in 1993. So on Teamspeak and Discord, the age is pretty difficult to hide. And in that way, it's really nice that you care about the kids, who deserve to have a nice and long childhood without getting to certain topics too soon.
@Inlusione (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=242): Written by an AI?
(Edit: Wasn't an AI, we found out via mail)
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The common internet users didn't use their voice to chat that much over the web in 1993. So on Teamspeak and Discord, the age is pretty difficult to hide.
To an extent, yeah. Most often in the age restricted circles I've been in, it's commonly agreed upon that voice chat isn't necessary, and everyone is pretty accommodating when it comes to users specific comforts. For example; I've never used voice chat on discord unless it's in a private DM with my IRL friends. As such, when people have been removed for being under age (usually <20), it's because the user has come forward themselves through a guilty conscience or forcefully had their age revealed through an outside source. It's not the best solution in terms of gatekeeping, but I'm just commenting on what I've experienced as a member of those groups.
I don't think there is a "good" or reliable way to determine age on the internet, at least without being invasive, which I'm certainly not comfortable probing about for. So I generally agree with your view point above also! :dive:
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In the end it all boils down to what @choiyoona (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=567) said, its about emotional bandwidth.
We all had interactions with *insert any age group of your choice here* and we all know that not *insert any age group of your choice here* are immature but the truth is communities are often managed by people who do it as a hobby, for free. The general idea of restricting criteria is: " *insert any age group of your choice here* members are the ones displaying the most toxic habits, we know its not all of them but we don't have time to educate and screen each and every member that joins and since leaving it free for all is causing a lot of drama maybe we should just put a hard age limit. "
I think it's easy to say that you don't force age restrictions because your small community has very mature teens, but I would like to hear the opinions of someone managing a community of thousands of active members, see what's their input is since the emotional bandwidth to manage thousands of user is much bigger than a couple of users. Of course nobody online can be sure people from a certain group are joining your community despite not being 'allowed' to but if they do join and manage to blend in and contribute then nothing of value is lost and if they do manage to be nuisances they will be banned for their behavior. That's how curating works.
I'm not against nor in favor of age hard-limits, but I can see why they may be acceptable under some conditions, because we are all organic creatures in the end with a limited amount of minutes on this earth.
Also not everyone's opinion is worth the same >>>DEPENDING OF THE SUBJECT.<<<< I have no medical training, should my opinion be considered on a medical discussion of new cures? No! I am a hobbyist artist, should my opinion be considered on a discussion about industry artists work rights? No! Should my opinion be considered on a discussion about humane treatment of hospital patients? Of course, pretty sure me and everyone here had a hospital experience themselves or had to visit someone dear to them. This is the sort of generic life experience that most people will go through.
Not all places are for learning, we are not entitled of peoples time and patience.
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Mm, I agree w/ @Necrosia (https://forum.melonland.net/index.php?action=profile;u=486) for sure!
The argument about medical training is a really good example, as that's also something I turn away from except for very specific scenarios. I'm disabled; if I allowed EVERYONE I came across to offer advice or tell me what to do, I'd never hear the end of it. But, if someone I *trust* suggests it might be xyz and has resources as to why, then I'm more inclined to listen.
And honestly, it's not like I impose the age rules strictly on every space I join - if I'm in a space that allows teens/young adults, the most I'll do is mark myself as an adult if I need to (i.e pick the adult discord roles) and move on, while following their rules ^^
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Are you a part of any 'curated' community? Do you know of any other curated place? Have you ever been denied joining an online space because you did not fit the requisite? Do you feel like everyone should access everything? Or any other thoughts regarding this topic~
I’ve definitely come across curated communities, like those art groups that only let in artists with a certain skill level. It can be a bummer to feel like you don’t fit the criteria, but I also understand the need for some spaces to maintain a certain vibe or focus.
As for whether everyone should have access to everything, I think it’s a tricky balance. On one hand, inclusivity is super important, but on the other, some spaces need to be protected from negativity or toxicity. IMO, It’s all about finding that sweet spot where people can feel safe and supported without shutting others out completely. :cheesy:
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I don't wanna quote anyone but anyways, since it was brought up. I'm 25 years old, and I have online friends who are teenagers, and those who are closer to my mom in age than me. A very wide net. How we met is being in the same fandom, but it's not like we can talk about only the fandom all the time, so we talk about our lives. Our lives can be very different (I don't have children of my own, for example) but we can still share things with each other. As much as a teenager could be absolutely insufferable (and I've run into those plenty), there are also teenagers who are great friends to me, reasonable in their behaviour and full of great ideas.
It's a sad topic in a way. I always felt like I was very "mature" online when I was younger in the way that people typically tought I was older than I actually was, so I think and hope I wasn't annoying. It felt quite annoying to me if there was a (SFW) fandom space that was limited to, say, only 16 and up, when I knew I would fit in just fine even though I was 14, etc. I kind of want to extend this to the teenagers I encounter now and give them a chance. Because as much as I see someone online who seems insufferable, I check the profile and it says they're 14 and that just kinda explains everything, I know that there are those who don't fit into that stereotype. It's like there is a battle inside me: on one hand, I want to give a chance to the nice teenagers; on the other, going on a Discord server and seeing a bunch of teenager members at the top makes me nope out very quick :ziped:
I guess I should add that I don't participate in any NSFW servers/topics.
Dude, I've felt similarly growing up and still do now as an 18 year old woman. I despise how society generally seems to underestimate my maturity and appreciation for the things that came before or around my the time my first memories began circa 2009ish or so, just because I happened to have been born over a decade later than I should've been (if I had things my way, I would've been born sometime during the first half of the 1990s, perhaps 1993 or so, instead of during the mid 2000s).
There are many things nobody ever tells you about when it comes to being an old soul, and this is one of them. They also never tell you how painful it is to be belittled, stereotyped, and excluded from interesting groups and cool events just because of some stupid number, or about how truly exciting it is to finally meet someone who is a fellow old soul just like you, whether online or offline (as it seems that we are a rare breed).
Growing up, I was the kid who would always share my interests with adults (such as my teachers and a few other trusted adults at school) and oftentimes end up connecting better with them than most of my peers (it didn't help that I spent most of elementary and middle school being bullied), the kid who seemed to have a deeper level of knowledge and understanding of the world compared to my peers, and the kid who was oddly obsessed with all things 90s and 2000s, even during childhood, and had little - no interest in the stupid things most of my peers were doing (which especially became apparent during my teen years as I started truly being able to express myself and find communities of like minded and experienced people online).
I will say that it gets a little bit easier as your body physically gets older, though.