Much ado this evening about Sherlock fandom and hate and people who’ve been driven out by miserable behavior.  My thoughts:

1: This is a pattern and an issue that every single community in the history of humanity has had to contend with.  If you get a large enough crowd of people together, a minority of them will start acting like asshats—especially if they can hide behind anonymity.

2:  Even though it’s a minority of the group, they’re still miserable, it still sucks, and it never hurts any less to be attacked.  Knowing that it’s only a minority doesn’t change the fact that there is a tipping point, when all the goodness and warmth can’t outweigh the damage you’re taking.  For everyone who has reached or is nearing that point, my deepest condolences.  I am so sorry that what should have been a safe, fun space for you was poisoned.

3:  If you, right now, are reading this and worrying that you may be one of the asshats, then chances are excellent that you’re not.  If you care about hurting people, if you try not to, then this isn’t you.  We all hurt others without meaning to, sometimes.  That’s what apologies are for.

4:  The only thing that matters in fandom—the only thing that’s real—are the people.  So try not to hurt them.  Try to help them.  

When we reach out to someone, we should all of us do our best to do so in a way that makes their day a bit better.  There are times when there’s no way around bad news, or serious words about unpleasant topics.  And BECAUSE there are times when pain is unavoidable, every other time we have an opportunity, we should make the effort to make it a positive one.

5:  As Songlin said in one of her posts, this is our community.  It’s our responsibility to make sure that the people who insult, threaten, or intimidate; who butt in on and hijack conversations; who level entitled demands upon content creators, and who otherwise behave badly know that kind of behavior will not be tolerated.