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being there for a friend going through a complicated situation very similar to a dogpile/harassment campaign the last few days, and like, i'm not unused to this, right. personally not a trained expert by any means but i think it's safe to say i got more tools, first hand knowledge, & awareness than the average person. and i'll never forget two bits of information a different dear friend (who had gone through a real nasty harassment campaign) gave me.
one - that one of the best things anyone can do is to simply reblog/boost/whatever their creations or something they're proud of, something completely irrelevant to the harassment at hand. essentially trying to balance out the negativity with a kindness & something positive - both in their own heads and also on social media so that way rubberneckers and random people see that there is a support group around and that the situation is way more nuanced than 'person x says person y did a Bad'. (since inevitably more people click on the profiles to figure out what's going on). if they're small creators, a lot of times their income already live or die by the algorithm so it's way more than just mental health on the line to boot.
(^ depressingly common considering if your income is stable you don't have to be on social media and you can just fuck off for a month or two.)
and two - that they notice who suddenly comes out of the woodwork to rubberneck & virtually gawp even if it's in the guise of "being there". they notice who fades away once when they're no longer in the spotlight or ""interesting/controversial/etc" versus who actually sticks around. and it can be tempting to accidentally infantalize them right, you do want to help if you're decent & have enough bandwidth, but there's a very thin line of doing that and also unintentionally forcing them to play into a victim role and smothering them with concern. maybe they just want space. maybe they'd just rather talk about anything but the situation (understandable), or whatever. generally it's easier to pick up on it if you've already been tight with them before the harassment.
essentially being a stabilizing presence rather than any active force. stable normalcy is a good thing in this case.
(there's other particular facets in the particular dogpile mentioned at the beginning that i'm not mentioning, but it made me think about all of the above, lately.)
one - that one of the best things anyone can do is to simply reblog/boost/whatever their creations or something they're proud of, something completely irrelevant to the harassment at hand. essentially trying to balance out the negativity with a kindness & something positive - both in their own heads and also on social media so that way rubberneckers and random people see that there is a support group around and that the situation is way more nuanced than 'person x says person y did a Bad'. (since inevitably more people click on the profiles to figure out what's going on). if they're small creators, a lot of times their income already live or die by the algorithm so it's way more than just mental health on the line to boot.
(^ depressingly common considering if your income is stable you don't have to be on social media and you can just fuck off for a month or two.)
and two - that they notice who suddenly comes out of the woodwork to rubberneck & virtually gawp even if it's in the guise of "being there". they notice who fades away once when they're no longer in the spotlight or ""interesting/controversial/etc" versus who actually sticks around. and it can be tempting to accidentally infantalize them right, you do want to help if you're decent & have enough bandwidth, but there's a very thin line of doing that and also unintentionally forcing them to play into a victim role and smothering them with concern. maybe they just want space. maybe they'd just rather talk about anything but the situation (understandable), or whatever. generally it's easier to pick up on it if you've already been tight with them before the harassment.
essentially being a stabilizing presence rather than any active force. stable normalcy is a good thing in this case.
(there's other particular facets in the particular dogpile mentioned at the beginning that i'm not mentioning, but it made me think about all of the above, lately.)
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what you said at the end, about being a stabilizing force rather than an active one rings true: definitely agree with that sentiment. sometimes help that's just. friendship, and company, can be far better than forced help.
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