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An artist (zamii070) had a history of drawings that a part of the SU-fandom on Tumblr deemed problematic (ranging from drawing characters with wrong proportions to a commission to a convicted pedophile who she had no idea was a pedo at the time) and so they bullied her into suicide. She didn't commit suicide, but those who did bully her into it feel no remorse, said she was faking it, so on and so forth. Basically, sociopaths almost bullied a young girl with a shit ton of disabilities into almost killing herself.

This statement might not be shared by all of you, but is stuff like this that makes me think that honestly the bad side of SU fandom is definitely way worse than the bad side of bronies ever was. I mean, bronies bad side was composed mostly of extreme cringe, while SU bad side is less about cringe and more about outright pure, undiluted hate. I don't know you guys, but I think hate is way worse than cringe.

I have to agree with you. It really does seem as if the SU fandom hate each other way more than any fandom does. They're full of extremists and a lot of those people preach the opposite message of what the show is actually trying to preach, and they wrongfully inform the community and spread messages like "Pewey is bad because Pearl is a lesbian" when Pearl haven't shown any attraction to women (She's shown attraction to Gems, but they don't count), or how "Lightly-coloured Garnet is bad because she's black" when Garnet is actually some shade of purple since she's an alien.

The people who watch this show (referring to most of the people on tumblr here, not you guys or course) are full of hate, when the show is about love.

Tbh I don't think it's a guarantee that the staff will make any statements about this, nor should they feel obligated to do so. Rebecca Sugar is not our fandom mom who needs to give a slap on the wrist to anyone in the fandom who did a no-no and honestly the crew is probably far too busy making more episodes to air after the hiatus to wanna get mixed up in fandom drama.

Also I really hate that we're comparing fandoms again. If I'm not mistaken (although I can't remember specific instances to refer to because my memory is piss poor) there have been more than enough instances of bronies that are full of hate and missed the "love and tolerance" moral of the show and I can guarantee you there have been bronies that have bullied other fans into suicide attempts. It's just what happens on the internet. There's just no point to comparing fandoms if you ask me.

The really bizzare thing for me personally is the pedo is the same guy who used to wrote the grim tales comics on snafu, which is a site I regularly visited the forums for years (no not everyone there is a pedophilic creep).

I got a lot of opinions on this, but I'll hold my tongue. I don't think downplaying this as "just another thing on the internet" is a good idea however, no matter the intent of said downplaying.

This is best left as something to remember when talking about the worst aspect of a fandom though. Hopefully this hiatus doesn't get much rougher to weather out from this point onwards.

I edited the TV Tropes SU page to include some stuff about the incident. Under Trivia I added this to "Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things" and to YMMV I added a part to "Fandom Rivalry" mentioning the fandom in-fighting between the "Tumblr side of the fandom" and "SU fans outside of Tumblr," mentioning the incident as something that has only made it worse. Granted maybe these don't fit under those tropes but I'm hoping a TV Tropes mod will let those stay.

(when I edited the Prison School YMMV page to mention the backlash towards the Funimation dub, the mods removed any mentions of how part of the backlash was because of the "GamerGate" mention, but did at least keep the part where I mentioned how one reason why Prison School fans dislike the dub is because of how the writer of the dub reacted to criticisms with inflammatory comments like calling those criticizing the dub "rapists," or the semi-infamous "calling a guy's girlfriend a body pillow, being called out by said girlfriend, and then offering a backhanded apology" incident).

Lo and Behold the Crew took notice
Bonus

Also, I kinda agree with Crimson Locks. Sure, the SU fandom looks pretty bad right now, but I've seen some pretty nasty bronies in the 5 long years I've been watching that show. True the bad side's mostly cringe, but there's been pockets of toxicity too. I don't know anything about pushing anybody into suicide though. I do know of a young brony pushed into suicide because he was bullied, thankfully he's alive like Zamii.

EDIT: idk I screencapped the tweets so I could obviously use it as a weapon in su fandom drama for posterity

People are undoubtedly going to use those tweets as weapons, but to defend themselves, or to defend others.

Next stop: The salt mine!

^ Wow "Hey guys, could you not force a girl into suicide aver her fan art please?"
"NO FUCK YOU! How could you betray me like this? I can't enjoy the show if other people draw skinny Rose! NOOOO!"

WOW!! The level of self awareness is in the negatives with this one!.

Who's up for more salt?

"There are times where censorship is appropriate" Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand stopped reading.

No, it is not the responsibility of the creators to create a "safe space" It's no ones responsibility to create a safe space. It's the parents responsibility to make sure their children aren't going to places they deem unsafe. Use safe searches, monitor your kids internet. It's not the worlds responsibility to be safe to children, it's the parent's responsibility to keep them safe.

the people who are salty over the crewniverse's statement regarding this incident need to listen to reality

I keep forgetting how to screenshot stuff, so I'll just put what I found.

"Hrm. Just read up on the most recent tumblr thing. Pretty depressing. Hope she’s doing better. And I hope you’re all smart enough to stay away from people who’d say things like that. On an unrelated note, hit up the request box if you have any fat characters you want drawn skinny." -Harsh Boogie/Discount Supervillain

Just thought that was kinda funny.

http://discount-supervillain.tumblr.com/post/131972709472/hrm-just-read-up-on-the-most-recent-tumblr-thing

Scribble (discount-supervillain) is in my opinion the best SU fanartist. He's so chill.

Give this man an Internet, cause he just earned it

She's now apparently threatening to kill herself because people are giving her shit for this post. Guess people never learn, or at least hypocritical ones.

I want him to draw Rose as thin as Pearl, but keep the boobs and hips, while making Garnet pale as Rose, lose the Lips, straighten the hair and narrow the hips. Hell, if I had a working scanner and an online coloring tool, I would do it.

I would open up a blog of nothing but thin Rose, white Garnet, tall Amethyst, petite Jasper, in shape Steven, muscular Pearl, caucasian Connie, actual cat Peridot, and uber-sexualized Lapis. I will get myself some proxies, and some endorsements from /pol/, it will be awesome!

Either the greatest Irony ever or a fantastic Poe

Edit:

POE GIVE ME STRENGTH!

He's taking commissions, so nows the time if any to comission him. They're pretty cheap too, name your price with a guideline of 5$/10$/15$ & pay after he's done the drawing. Scribble's too good for this world.

Don't you think its a little hypocritical, to be quite honest, i don't want anyone to commit suicide. Even if they are huge assholes like this mistress chick.

Before I get started, disclaimer that this post is the worthless opinion of an external observer who does not watch the show

Of course I completely agree with the artist's defnders' sentiments and their statements about the harrassers behaving awfully are correct, but frankly this reeks of the reactionary online mob on both sides. Some people are now harassing the previous harassers, fueling the fire and reinforcing a circle of petty internet hate. The whole debacle seems pretty awful.

Though I will concede the fact that the statement from a show maker that fans can "draw whatever fan art they want" has somehow been misconstrued as discriminatory is truly fucking tragic.

I propose two corollaries to the old "Do not feed the troll" rule:

a) Do not feed the special snowflake;
b) Do not reverse-troll the troll.

tl;dr why can't people leave each other the fuck alone?

Finally, I will declare that I wish no ill will towards the original fan artist and hope she is able to find support among those of the fans who defend her right to draw her fan art as she damn well pleases.

Heeeeey, so uh, let's not say shit like that please? I can't actually police what you say to them in this situation since you're addressing a screenshot from a user on another site, but I would really love it if we didn't have people leaving posts urging people on other sites to kill themselves especially when it's stems from drama about someone being driven to attempt suicide

This is not some funny joke to take lightly, I don't care how obviously empty the threats in this particular instance is you don't just throw around shit like "go ahead, you won't be missed". Not only is that outright bullying but that is literally the same exact thing the users that started this drama were doing. Do you really wanna be on their level?

Well, I'm just saying it here, I don't go straight for the actual source because I learned long ago that outright attacking people like that always harms both sides: the attacked is hurt and the attacker poisons him/herself with rage and hate. You do it once and you feel good, but then you do it again and again and you become full of hate and rage at all times and a very unhappy person that is miserable and brings misery to all those who cross your path, which is probably what got many SJWs to be the such overreacting assholes: the fought for righteous cases and it felt good, but good too used to fighting and arguing and with every time they fought they become more addicted to it, and became a little more poisoned in rage and hate, until the smallest thing made them jump to that reaction. That's why I avoid expressing outright hate unless is a really extreme case, however what I often do is give up on people and withdraw my empathy, and you can now complain about how bad is your life and threaten with killing yourself, but for me you can go ahead because I don't hate you, but I also don't care at all about you. My limited monkey brain can only keep track of so many people, even if said people figure on the hundreds there is still a limit and i'll forget about you in a day or two, random whining stranger.

But yes, I do realize that post makes me come across as an asshole. Guess sometime I don't think enough time before I speak (or write in this case).

Yes!! I need more!!!

You might like this.
In fact, plebcomics have taken a lot of user submissions that depicts SU characters as 'skinny' or otherwise 'different' recently.

Man I'm glad I took screencapps of Ian JQs tweets for this thread. As expected, controversial tweets like that got deleted eventually.

He posted some new ones instead.

Clock is now set for the jerks to take those tweets as not being good enough and still hurling insults at the creator's. Never mind that they never changed anything in the show, but screw them for not using the omnipotent internet kill switch all dev teams obviously have, to monitor all the art sites and artists on the internet to turn off their computer when they don't draw "progressive" fan art.

This drama almost makes it tempting to leave the fandom until the show starts airing again. Go into hyphenation until things calm down like I did rwby after its creator passed away tragically. The amount of posts giving condolences also had a number of bitter fans demanding the show end and causing the same sort of toxic drama and bitter fan vs fan vs devs dynamic forming now. Season 3 saw things return to normal in that situation, maybe season 3 will see things return to normal here.

Normally i tend not to care about internet drama. But this is one of the few instances in which i genuinely want people to face the consequences of their actions. If the people who harassed her get off scot-free then i'm gonna be very dissapointed.

Never seen the show, but god DAMN is the fandom awful.

Also very easy to b8 as my autismposting showed.

Black Graphic T wrote:

This drama almost makes it tempting to leave the fandom until the show starts airing again

That might not be the worst idea. In my experience, fandoms either get really boring or horrible fan wars start during hiatus'

If it gives you some hope for justice, A Real Libertarian has posted on the main SU page an UNCONFIRMED (i must stress this point) comment chain that does imply that there has been at least one arrest.
I don't know how to get the imgur files over here so here a link to the comment chain on the SU page
https://knowyourmeme.com/comments/2916422#comment_2916422

The salt is out of this world.

>MFW reading that salt reply

They are not going to calm down until they get her killed? Isn't this some kinda of passive murder?

These are the same people that tried to keep Bronies from making a Steven Universe "EqDaily" because they were "toxic". The level of self awareness is approaching negative infinity at this point.

I just spent 20 minutes typing a rant on the Zamii070 entry about it, but Hatred solves nothing, only breeds more hatred, and drives others away from you and your cause. I have never seen another fandom produce toxicity on a scale as they are doing right now. Driving a girl to a suicide attempt over drawing a fat character like five pounds lighter. If that's not "toxic" I don't know what is.

OHHHHHHHHHHHH THE THINGS I COULD POST IN RESPONSE TO matriarchalmuffin. If I wasn't half-sure she was a troll given that name, and how her username is inherently bigoted, I could probably derail the thread picking each of those statements apart.

I won't though, all I'll say is this. If this path keeps going, and these political activists keep trying to hijack the fandom, it will be worse then anything bronies have done or said online. And they have an entire chan worth of awful content to draw upon.

This controversy has left me feeling very conflicted.

On the one hand, I hate that this happened, and I feel awful that this kid has been driven to such lengths. This behaviour is disgusting, and reading about it makes me feel physically ill.

On the other hand, the sense of empathy which is driving me to feel this way is also why I support social justice work, and why I do also understand how great it is to see better representation on television. I hate seeing people treated badly, and so I support efforts to reduce that treatment. It's a fairly simply equation.

So my anger at the treatment of this kid is combined with revulsion towards the blowback: the gloating against "tumblr" (as if sites can have a personality) or people's gleeful acceptance of any excuse to write yet another anti-"SJW" screed and flood the fandom with as much whitewashed fan art as they can draw. I mean, where were these people back when Gamergate was in full force? Probably, I suspect, apologizing for it, or explaining why its victims had it coming, or claiming that most of the attacks came from trolls (as if that makes things better). But – to be perfectly honest – the attacks on this kid were wrong for the exact same reasons that the pro-GG attacks were wrong. You can't tell people to kill themselves just because they disagree with you. There really isn't a gray area here.

Shitty behaviour knows no ideology, and the hypocritical high-horse attitude that some people have is kind of gross. You know the anger you're feeling now? That's what I've been feeling for the last year! (And people wonder why I get into so many debates.)

The fact is, a lot of people need to look in the mirror and ask themselves whether they're doing this stuff out of a genuine sense of justice, or because they want to score some ideological points.

There's been a lot of people mentioning how the attacks on this kid go against the spirit of the show – which is absolutely true. But what about our responses? If Steven were a KYM user, what would he do? Probably his would resist the temptation to score a cheap ideological point, or to use the pain of one person to inflict further pain on another. And he would do that not because the person being attacked is "on his side," but because attacking other people simply for disagreeing with you is wrong – full stop.

The lesson we should take from this is that we desperately need to be better to each other. The problem here is not social justice or tumblr or identity politics, but our collective pathological refusal to see each other as human beings, and to extend our empathy equally to everyone. People are angry about this – as well they should be – but nobody seems to have learned this lesson. Which means that all we have to do is wait long enough and this is basically guaranteed to happen again.

So even if you can't go out and fix things, can you all at least please, please try your best not to become part of the problem? It's literally the least you could do.

The heroes are the ones who did this, Patus. The ones championing for more representation, the ones bemoaning cis white males, the ones who talk about oppression and privilege ad naseum to try and educate people to changing how they act. That sort of grand proselyting and moral absolutism is what breeds this sort of activity. Read that post above, read all of them, and you'll see that these are people who don't see themselves as wrong in the slightest, and see everyone else as unethical and immoral for not agreeing with them.

How do you show empathy to that? How do you try to stop, talk, and reason with a belief system designed to inherently shut down such acts and identifies them as a genuine threat to entire races and cultures of people? How are you supposed to act better when you talk to people who really, with all their heart and soul, believe that simply stating an opposing opinion is the same equivalency to slavery, and that you are literally trying to harm people when you do it? What does that even look like? What does it look like to engage in this thing and still be better then these fanatics? What does it mean, to not become part of the problem, when doing nothing validates these peoples view that they are in fact heroes on the right side of history, and discussing things civilly with them results in you being attacked and the entire notion of social justice being reduced to cinder, and fighting back gets you labeled as part of the problem?

The answer is, you can't. You never had a chance in the first place.

It's been great hanging with you guys, really it has. Your a good bunch, and your bouncing around of fan ideas was great to see, even if some of those theories turned out dead wrong. But hey, that's part of the fun of being a fan. Trying to guess what will happen next, and enjoying the reveal regardless. We sometimes disagree on a lot, but we all managed to at least enjoy the show.

See you guys in January. Just don't get involved, even if it lets these monsters win. After seeing these types of stuff unfold, those giving empathy getting torn apart online, those giving resistance getting slandered into oblivion, it's hard for me to have much hope. So you probably should just, you know, give up on helping and stuff.

There's no lesson to be learned from SU that solves this problem. Reality is cruel, and these sorts of problems don't have happy endings like crying breakfast friends tells you. The fact is, nothing we do would change things, so why bother even trying?

Just wait for the hiatus to end, and give up on the fandom. You'll feel better, and you'll learn to stop missing the fan art and songs…eventually.

^Uh, what?
A whole ton of SU fans fight back those 5 or 10 people who harrased one person?
Wow yea, the whole fandom is to blame totally.
Cya then.

@Black Graphic T

I’m not really sure how to respond to this.

How do you show empathy to someone who is actively hostile to you? All I can say is that it’s really fucking hard – certainly this isn’t a skill I’ve mastered. But trying to do that is how you avoid becoming a fanatic: it’s your inoculation against hate.

So now listen, I know from our arguments in the past that you aren’t usually a supporter of social justice issues. And clearly from the way you talk about “the ones who talk about oppression and privilege ad naseum to try and educate people to changing how they act” as though this is a bad thing, this opposition is rather deep-seeded. But how do you conceive of the mind-sets of those who do support these causes? What do you think motivates them? How do you think they understand what they’re doing?

Because you can ask these questions without agreeing with the people we’re talking about, and you can understand what motivates someone without agreeing with them. And, perhaps most importantly, putting in this extra intellectual effort could be what keeps you from becoming a fanatic yourself. In the end, you will just be helping yourself.

I guess the short version is: if you really think you are better than them, then you need to act better than them. Otherwise it's just talk.

As for not being part of the problem, well, inaction is still preferable to actively making things worse – which is what you’d be doing if you participate in this needless anti-“SJW” partisanship. Scorning every attempt at furthering social justice just makes it easier for pro-social justice people to dismiss you and categorize you as a fanatic yourself. Certainly, drawing a white Garnet or skinny Rose is not going to change anyone’s minds, just like the “matriarchalmuffin” comment above has done nothing to change your mind.

Rising above this kind of anger is very difficult. Nobody is good at it, and it takes constant effort. And it certainly isn't fun. But giving up on it is infinitely worse.

Just something to think about.

Platus, just do what I do.

Don't pick a side, be on your own side. Separate from all the others. Yes, at times your views may align with one side or both even. But ultimately, all established sides that are not yours are ultimately expendable.

If you don't want to stop viewing others as human beings or want others to stop doing such, taking a side is not the way to do it. Dichotomies allow for the vilifying and discarding of the other side's worth.

At least if you take your own side, just you and you alone, every single other person falls into one of two categories. Either they're all worthless, or they're all wonderful. Either way, you can't really get any more equal than that, can you?

So, uhh, I've never seen a picture of Zamii before that post there. She eerily looks like a younger and slightly more feminine version of my older sibling. This is very unsettling…

>"B-b-b-but bronies are also pretty nasty!"

…so? Being bad comes in various levels, but in the end the thing you got in common is that you're bad. You're trying to justify your fandom generating a suicide attempt, by patting yourself on the back that another fandom has probably done it moreso; turning a blind eye to the obvious fact that your fandom is a breeding ground for some really nasty people, a fact your fake ignorance has thus far managed to pretend didn't exist.

Welcome to the internet, where everything contains something vile.

Of course I completely agree with the artist’s defnders’ sentiments and their statements about the harrassers behaving awfully are correct, but frankly this reeks of the reactionary online mob on both sides. Some people are now harassing the previous harassers, fueling the fire and reinforcing a circle of petty internet hate. The whole debacle seems pretty awful.

I can agree with this guy.

If you're truly above the harassers, you ditch the mob mentality because then you will only end up relying on harassment yourself. Screencapping people's reactions to laugh at them at a distance through public shaming, explain to me how you are better than someone relying on harassment through anon?

All I'm seeing is superiority complexes and victim mentalities (differs per side).

Now take in mind that I only started watching this show like 10 episodes ago because someone convinced me to, and have literally only watched those 10 and the very first 10 to catch up with some canon info. I am not a fandom member in the slightest.

But from what I can tell, this fandom is now pretty much in meltdown. You’re either evil for condoning offensive drawings, or evil for condoning harassment; there are no winners. Although that's looking at it way too much in black and white.

Accept the fact of a loud minority, and understand that salt mines don't make your fandom a red sea yet.

Ffs how weak are you mentally if you let idiots influence your enjoyement of a show.

Ok you guys, how about we talk about something SU-related that isn't equal parts infuriating and sad?

How about this: in today's Halloween episode of Extra Credits, Dan showed up in a Peridot costume:

That's some top quality cosplay right there. Which reminds me… Anyone gonna dress up as someone from su for Halloween? I'm not too into it myself, but seeing peoples' cosplay is pretty cool.

Here's a thought I've come up with last night: What if, when first formed, all the Steven/Crystal Gem fusions (Steven/Garnet, Steven/Amethyst, Steven/Pearl) gets a small identity crisis? Because they're still formed by the same Gems, but the one who owns the Rose Quartz Gem is different now, but they still feel a small part of the old Rose Quartz in them (100% of Rose became 50% of Steven, so how would that other 50% affect the fusions?).

1000th post get!

I don't think Pearl is as salty as you guys think