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reflections on twitter pile on
Jul. 3rd, 2026 09:50 pmI started following this woman on tiktok who has been talking about her experience decentering her husband.
This might seem like a strange place to start what I want to talk about, but stay with me for a moment. For the last two years, I’ve been really struggling with loneliness. There’s a lot of factors at play, but especially in fandom, which was previously always a source of connectivity and intimacy for me, I was feeling the lack.
It’s hard to say how much of that is specific to my current fandom Stray Kids, and how much is simply the state of fandom today. Before Stray Kids, my last fandom was hockey RPF, from about 2013-2018, followed by a sort of fandomless hiatus until 2023. A lot happened both in fandom and in the world between 2018 and now and there are so many behaviours I see now that seem strange to me. It’s not how it “used to be.”
I’ve been dealing with this loneliness and trying desperately to seek out or create this connection I’ve been wanting. Alongside this, I’ve been working in therapy on how to recognize my own needs. How to create boundaries. How to unpack and unlearn my fawning response. A couple months ago, my therapist said something that rewired my brain chemistry. I was talking about feeling hurt by the actions of someone close to me, because I’d been doing this, that and the other thing. She said, “Who asked you to do that?”
I realised no one had.
Back to Tiktok. I’m lucky enough to have a spouse that centres me in our marriage and encourages me to do the same, but I realised a couple days ago that I need to apply this logic to the areas of my life where I’m feeling that sadness, isolation, loneliness, etc. I realised this before yesterday’s pile on, but I guess if there is a silver lining in such a thing happening again, it helped to clarify just how important this kind of work is going to be for me.
All of that to say, I’m not writing this post to convince anyone to think or feel differently. I’m not writing it because I think I need to justify myself, or because I think I did something wrong. I’m writing it because I want to be really clear within myself on how I think and feel. I want to be extra sure I know my heart and mind, so the next time someone says to me, “all you do is sexualize them,” “you don’t even think of them as a person,” “are you not ashamed?” I’ll know exactly how I feel and where I stand.
So sexualization. Is that all I do? No. It is a lot of what I do on twitter, but what I post on twitter is not the entirety of my thoughts and actions. Twitter is where I come to talk about RPF, because that is the main lens through which I engage fandom on twitter. That sentence is a bit clunky, but I think the repetition is important. I have other avenues where I think and talk about Stray Kids music, where I appreciate their videos and content, where I enjoy their talent.
I think the next question then becomes, is it wrong to sexualize someone? Insert “people be saying things so definitively” meme here. Man, it depends.
Maybe for some people all sexualization is bad. I think more likely—a lot more likely—is that for a lot of AFAB people being sexualized has been, at times, a traumatic experience. A lot of people have been sexualized against their own desire, or have been sexualized in circumstances or by people where they didn’t want to be sexualized. It’s a loaded topic. It’s a loaded word, and that’s super fair. It’s super fair to have scenarios that you don’t enjoy seeing idols sexualized. It’s super fair to find certain types of sexualization distasteful or uncomfortable, or to not want to participate in sexualizing idols under specific scenarios.
What I don’t find fair is people sexualizing idols themselves in one moment, in one set of circumstances, and then turning around and telling me that the specific type of sexualization that I do is wrong. Especially when I’m talking about queer people, or the possibility, the hint, that an idol could be queer.
“It’s always sex with you.” This one, yeah. And I mean, not always, but a lot of it is. That’s the nature of RPF for me, it’s the nature of fandom, for me personally. This is thrown around as an insult a lot, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making something about sex, or making it sexual. Some people may feel like the context is inappropriate, and it would be fair for them to avoid me and NSFW fandom spaces. Talking about potential sexual scenarios which are not real, online in a space where an idol is not invited, is not inappropriate in my opinion.
Do I think there are times when a fan’s sexualization of an idol could cross over into objectification or dehumanizing behaviour? Yes, I do. I think it’s possible. I don’t think that speculating on the possibility that an idol could be queer is one of those scenarios. In fact, I think it’s homophobic to equate the possibility of an idol being queer with an insult. I think it’s homophobic to treat the possibility of an idol having anal sex as an insult.
The more I type this out and work through my feelings the more it reinforces for me that I don’t believe I did anything wrong. It’s funny because a lot of people who have a problem with what I said, have no problem putting idols into sexual situations, in an alternate universe. It’s fine to imagine an idol pregnant, if it’s an alternate universe. It’s fine to imagine an idol participating in an incestuous relationship, in an alternate universe. It’s fine for them to rape or be raped, as long as it’s an alternate universe.
I think a lot of people are missing the fact that when I talk about Chan donating blood and the regulations have changed I’m not saying Bang Chan, actual human being and member of Stray Kids might be gay (although he might and it’s not an insult to say that). I’m saying that this makes good fodder for a canon compliant fic where Chan and Felix could be in a committed relationship, and Chan donating blood does not invalidate that possibility (as it might have in the past).
A lot of people took a tweet I made about Felix not being able to masturbate with an injury to mean… actually, I don’t know what they took that one to mean. I do know they were angry about it. “You sexualized his injury.” I mean, yeah. I did. I “knew” he was fine (as much as we can know anything about these men), and I judged it to be an interesting scenario to explore through fiction. People might find it in poor taste, that is their right. But you will never get me to agree that any actual harm was done to either Chan or Felix based on things I tweeted. If I tweeted or said something that caused actual harm—something racist, homophobic or fatphobic—that would be a different conversation.
I can tell you, though. I was harmed by the things that were tweeted about me and to me.
I know that doesn’t mean anything to the people doing it, which is a hard pill to swallow. I kept thinking, if I could just reply the right way, if I could just say the right thing, they would understand me. It’s hard to be continuously misunderstood. It’s really hard and frustrating and lonely. You can’t make someone listen. I can’t make these people—who are determined to misunderstand and hate me—listen.
“You’re known for this.” Okay then block me! Why are you here? If you know I’m the girl that talks about idols fucking in ways you find distasteful why are you fucking here. Go away! Leave me alone!
It’s a cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, to know that even if Chan thought I was a sick weirdo fag freak, he would not want people talking to me this way. “You’re sex rotted,” “porn rotted.” Well, all of you fucking losers are cruel rotted. Down to your fucking cores. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Anyway, I’m in these people’s crosshairs now and I don’t think they’ll leave me alone. This will happen again. It’ll probably keep happening until I get run out of fandom or move on on my own terms. I know I deserve to be here though. I know I’m a kind person. I know I care about others and treat them with respect. I care about our community and try to make it better. That matters.
This might seem like a strange place to start what I want to talk about, but stay with me for a moment. For the last two years, I’ve been really struggling with loneliness. There’s a lot of factors at play, but especially in fandom, which was previously always a source of connectivity and intimacy for me, I was feeling the lack.
It’s hard to say how much of that is specific to my current fandom Stray Kids, and how much is simply the state of fandom today. Before Stray Kids, my last fandom was hockey RPF, from about 2013-2018, followed by a sort of fandomless hiatus until 2023. A lot happened both in fandom and in the world between 2018 and now and there are so many behaviours I see now that seem strange to me. It’s not how it “used to be.”
I’ve been dealing with this loneliness and trying desperately to seek out or create this connection I’ve been wanting. Alongside this, I’ve been working in therapy on how to recognize my own needs. How to create boundaries. How to unpack and unlearn my fawning response. A couple months ago, my therapist said something that rewired my brain chemistry. I was talking about feeling hurt by the actions of someone close to me, because I’d been doing this, that and the other thing. She said, “Who asked you to do that?”
I realised no one had.
Back to Tiktok. I’m lucky enough to have a spouse that centres me in our marriage and encourages me to do the same, but I realised a couple days ago that I need to apply this logic to the areas of my life where I’m feeling that sadness, isolation, loneliness, etc. I realised this before yesterday’s pile on, but I guess if there is a silver lining in such a thing happening again, it helped to clarify just how important this kind of work is going to be for me.
All of that to say, I’m not writing this post to convince anyone to think or feel differently. I’m not writing it because I think I need to justify myself, or because I think I did something wrong. I’m writing it because I want to be really clear within myself on how I think and feel. I want to be extra sure I know my heart and mind, so the next time someone says to me, “all you do is sexualize them,” “you don’t even think of them as a person,” “are you not ashamed?” I’ll know exactly how I feel and where I stand.
So sexualization. Is that all I do? No. It is a lot of what I do on twitter, but what I post on twitter is not the entirety of my thoughts and actions. Twitter is where I come to talk about RPF, because that is the main lens through which I engage fandom on twitter. That sentence is a bit clunky, but I think the repetition is important. I have other avenues where I think and talk about Stray Kids music, where I appreciate their videos and content, where I enjoy their talent.
I think the next question then becomes, is it wrong to sexualize someone? Insert “people be saying things so definitively” meme here. Man, it depends.
Maybe for some people all sexualization is bad. I think more likely—a lot more likely—is that for a lot of AFAB people being sexualized has been, at times, a traumatic experience. A lot of people have been sexualized against their own desire, or have been sexualized in circumstances or by people where they didn’t want to be sexualized. It’s a loaded topic. It’s a loaded word, and that’s super fair. It’s super fair to have scenarios that you don’t enjoy seeing idols sexualized. It’s super fair to find certain types of sexualization distasteful or uncomfortable, or to not want to participate in sexualizing idols under specific scenarios.
What I don’t find fair is people sexualizing idols themselves in one moment, in one set of circumstances, and then turning around and telling me that the specific type of sexualization that I do is wrong. Especially when I’m talking about queer people, or the possibility, the hint, that an idol could be queer.
“It’s always sex with you.” This one, yeah. And I mean, not always, but a lot of it is. That’s the nature of RPF for me, it’s the nature of fandom, for me personally. This is thrown around as an insult a lot, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making something about sex, or making it sexual. Some people may feel like the context is inappropriate, and it would be fair for them to avoid me and NSFW fandom spaces. Talking about potential sexual scenarios which are not real, online in a space where an idol is not invited, is not inappropriate in my opinion.
Do I think there are times when a fan’s sexualization of an idol could cross over into objectification or dehumanizing behaviour? Yes, I do. I think it’s possible. I don’t think that speculating on the possibility that an idol could be queer is one of those scenarios. In fact, I think it’s homophobic to equate the possibility of an idol being queer with an insult. I think it’s homophobic to treat the possibility of an idol having anal sex as an insult.
The more I type this out and work through my feelings the more it reinforces for me that I don’t believe I did anything wrong. It’s funny because a lot of people who have a problem with what I said, have no problem putting idols into sexual situations, in an alternate universe. It’s fine to imagine an idol pregnant, if it’s an alternate universe. It’s fine to imagine an idol participating in an incestuous relationship, in an alternate universe. It’s fine for them to rape or be raped, as long as it’s an alternate universe.
I think a lot of people are missing the fact that when I talk about Chan donating blood and the regulations have changed I’m not saying Bang Chan, actual human being and member of Stray Kids might be gay (although he might and it’s not an insult to say that). I’m saying that this makes good fodder for a canon compliant fic where Chan and Felix could be in a committed relationship, and Chan donating blood does not invalidate that possibility (as it might have in the past).
A lot of people took a tweet I made about Felix not being able to masturbate with an injury to mean… actually, I don’t know what they took that one to mean. I do know they were angry about it. “You sexualized his injury.” I mean, yeah. I did. I “knew” he was fine (as much as we can know anything about these men), and I judged it to be an interesting scenario to explore through fiction. People might find it in poor taste, that is their right. But you will never get me to agree that any actual harm was done to either Chan or Felix based on things I tweeted. If I tweeted or said something that caused actual harm—something racist, homophobic or fatphobic—that would be a different conversation.
I can tell you, though. I was harmed by the things that were tweeted about me and to me.
I know that doesn’t mean anything to the people doing it, which is a hard pill to swallow. I kept thinking, if I could just reply the right way, if I could just say the right thing, they would understand me. It’s hard to be continuously misunderstood. It’s really hard and frustrating and lonely. You can’t make someone listen. I can’t make these people—who are determined to misunderstand and hate me—listen.
“You’re known for this.” Okay then block me! Why are you here? If you know I’m the girl that talks about idols fucking in ways you find distasteful why are you fucking here. Go away! Leave me alone!
It’s a cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, to know that even if Chan thought I was a sick weirdo fag freak, he would not want people talking to me this way. “You’re sex rotted,” “porn rotted.” Well, all of you fucking losers are cruel rotted. Down to your fucking cores. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Anyway, I’m in these people’s crosshairs now and I don’t think they’ll leave me alone. This will happen again. It’ll probably keep happening until I get run out of fandom or move on on my own terms. I know I deserve to be here though. I know I’m a kind person. I know I care about others and treat them with respect. I care about our community and try to make it better. That matters.
