Something can't get too popular without attracting all types of people.
Hooray?
Reddit user, u/Nqth_, wanted to know which fandom they should probably avoid when they asked:
What's the most toxic community you've been in?
Most often, a toxic community is born from the start of the community itself. It's hard to imagine being in something called a "mega church" without a lot of bad seeds making their way in to make it all about themselves.
Try To Find The Middle Ground
"i was on staff at a megachurch and it was the most disheartening and disappointing experience of my life"
"Little tip: you want to meet religious people who are genuinely kind and representative of their faith? Never go to a megachurch or a tiny one where 90% of its attendants are related to the pastor"
Facebook For Neighborhood Spies
"Nextdoor. It's a bunch of local people completely acting nasty towards each other. Name calling, gatekeeping, accusations, etc."
"One of the neighborhoods I get posts from, someone noticed a youth rehab center that they thought was moving in. There were dozens of posts of people who wanted to protest it, stop it from moving in, because oh my god there will be criminal youths being released on the streets!"
"Then there is one person who points out that it is a teen mental health clinic focusing mainly on eating disorders and had been there for ten years. They were just renovating."
"Did not stop the NIMBYs. Now they were on about school shooters...."
Don't Feel Like You Have To Follow Everyone
"Twitter definitely"
"I don't think people fully understand what a sh-tbox Twitter has always been. It started as smart and or funny people just quipping smart and or funny things."
"It then sort of started to be a place for less technical netizens to express themselves in a low calorie way. But it very quickly became this grotesque cutesy PR driven machine of a small group of people desperate for attention all following each other an commenting on their own detritus. This made it a a natural hangout for the attention machine of celebrities all stoking each other's attention machines which made it very much resemble Paul Klee's "twittering machine" that it was named for."
"It really was on its last gasp and companies were making some low ball efforts to acquire it.then suddenly politicians led by Trump realized it was the best way to deliver idiotic content-less political opinions and it became overwhelmed by a political circle jerk quickly followed by armies of bots astroturfing the world with utter crap."
"It always has been and always will be a garbage replicating dumpster fire."
Fandoms are a tough one. At their heart, they do care about the thing they're a fan of. Unfortunately, that love has twisted into something more akin to obsession, and that never breeds positivity.
How Helpful?
"Certainly not League of Legends."
"Last time I played I got tons of helpful tips on how to uninstall the game and kill myself."
"Any online game that's been around for more than like 4 years is toxic af because there's people on there who have been playing every day since it came out and the only reason they still play is to dunk on people who aren't as good at it, all because they haven't devoted themselves to anything else in that long so this is their only way of feeling like their life been worth it. Rocket League, Sea of Thieves, League of Legends, Call of Duty, etc. I love all these games, but they're unplayable because everyone knows every trick by now and they're bored with the challenge so they just find people to grief."
A Lot Of Anime Is Really Great. Wish The Communities Would Be As Great.
"I love My Hero Academia."
"But the fan base is TRASH and I refuse to be apart of any online community for it."
"This sums up my views of any anime community with some exceptions."
"I will never mention I'm into anime unless someone else mentions it first. There's too much of a negative connotation regarding it and unfortunately rightly so."
The Influence Is Wide And Far
"any kpop community"
"I've been taking Korean since middle school and frequent Korean messageboards and watch Korean news and visit Korean markets/stores for practice to this day. I really like Korean music."
"The kpop community is a very frustrating one for me, because now anytime it comes up that I speak Korean I'm automatically a weird Koreaboo or its because I like BTS or something. It can't just be for a purely academic or personal interest in Korea, no, it's because of Kpop."
Finally, it's the nature of a community that brings out the worse in people. Our first communities most of us were part of, schools, bred cliques, in-fighting, and gossip wars. Why wouldn't all those bad habits resurface the moment you're in an environment that's completely similar?
No. I'M More Depressed.
"Depression and Anxiety groups. It's filled with covert narcissists and it's just a competition about who's life is worse off and who had the real right to feel depressed and anxious. Everyone talking about their healing journey and forgoing thoughts about anyone but themselves and their own personal journey."
"Ugh I try a new one every so often to see if there are normal people in them. But so far...nothing."
"Honestly, my mental health improved when I stopped talking to other depressed people so much. Sad but true."
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You're Allowed To Raise Children?
"Mum groups."
"I'll never forget the time I was on a mums group and a woman wanted advice on what to do after her son had stood on a nail and it was left imbedded in his foot."
"People suggested oils, crystals, massage, and aromatherapy."
"Not a single one suggested emergency medical treatment to get the nail out."
Drive The Needle In
"Health and social care."
"Absolutely riddled with gossipping and complaining about petty, trivial things."
"Dude ive been working in health care for a few years now, the amount of finger pointing is insane to me. Nobody owns up to anything. Like we will have documented evidence of who is at fault for an issue and they will still find a way to blame someone else."
"girls group"
"So I was in a "girls group" not a mommy group, just a group for women to chat and be themselves without guys, and this woman was pregnant and asked if we thought it would be okay for her to continue vaping while pregnant because she needs it for her anxiety and it helps calm her down."
"Now I have anxiety, I understand the need to calm it down so I was trying to hold off on judging her, so I told her to speak with her doctors and not a FB group because medical professionals will be the ones who can give her a clear answer. She said "But I need it for my anxiety and I think it will be fine."
"I responded saying "Okay, my original statement still stands, talk to your doctor" and then all of a sudden I couldn't comment or post in the group anymore, turns out she was a mod and put a 7 day shadowban on me, then when that expired she did another one."
"She wasn't looking for advice, she just wanted someone to say "Oh yeah keep using an addictive substance without consulting doctors while you're pregnant, that will be fine!" So yeah, I can only imagine how actual mommy groups could be."
Poison
"I am a toxicologist and a member of the Society of Toxicology. That's a pretty toxic community. :)"
"We do research on chemicals and how they affect critters and cells, we use chemicals to model diseases so we can figure out what is going on, we try to protect people from being exposed to chemicals that are bad for them, we work in industry, we work in academia, we work in government. Most of us do risk assessment in one way or another. There's a community here on Reddit - r/toxicology if you'd like to learn more."
Legends
"League of Legends."
"League of Legends gave me anger sessions but I could not play anything else on the pc i had, so I went on for a good few years. Then I matured and learn the important lecture of Not Giving A Heck about online games. I occasionally play to see how much salt I can mine."
Gender Issues
"Female/Male only forums. Bunch of people supporting each other's belief that other gender is existing only to cause harm to them."
"A parallel to this is male or female-only workplaces. Most male-only workplaces end up dominated by macho behaviours, sexist attitudes and disregard for things like people's welfare. Most female-only workplaces end up dominated by petty arguments and endless gossip (men aren't immune to gossip either, they just don't seem to weaponize it the same way). Interestingly, only a few members of the opposite sex present seems to drastically reduce the obvious negatives of same-sex workplaces. I think we are all really meant to be together, that's when the healthiest cultures form."
HEROES
"The My Hero Academia community. Being a girl and into anime is an issue itself. The MHA community takes it to another level. My teenage sister is really into MHA as well. We actually dressed up and went to a con together. Was fun at first but once we hooked up with the MHA crew it got bad. Like guys lifting up my sister's dress, dudes taking creep shots, a couple guys even followed us into our room. And that's without the constant purity tests and other bullshit we went through."
Buddha's Bad
"Worst was a Buddhist community made up entirely of white westerners who were predators and narcissists. Followed closely by Academia."
"My experience also. Everyone was telling me I was broken. No, I just don't buy into your cult leader."
Laughs
"I think the conclusion after reading all the posts is that all communities are a little toxic due to a minority of people. I'm a standup comedian in NYC, and parts of the comedy community can be toxic but you can also find some good people and friends. Any kind of showbiz related thing that depends on self marketing is going to have some crappy characters."
Cocktails
"When I was a bartender. I worked downtown in a small city and pretty much everyone knew each other if you were in the service industry. It could've been a reality show with all the drama that went on. Life pro tip, if someone is talking crap about everyone you know, they're also talking crap about you to everyone else. It was tedious but I miss the regulars, just not the community."
"Edit: This has got me thinking about those days, this is a "lava lamp" my friend Jay (who also taught me how to bartend) did once on a slow night. It's a martini glass with a bartool on top, two pints, two rocks, then doused in Rumplemintz from the top and set on fire. It was cool because after the alcohol got burned out, the sugar crusted everything together. He wasted like half a bottle, we just put it on the spill tab."
Hot Mess
"Freaking Nextdoor... That mess is crazy."
"Holy crap yes. I'm only on it for the occasional public service or event announcements, but there are some people who think it's a great place to post their anti-vax/anti-whatever/miscellaneous stirring rants. And they just keep doing it. Super obnoxious."
Texas-sized...
"Concrete construction. Most of those men are a specific kind of toxic, never working that again."
"Oh man, I worked as a mason tender for a few years. Everyone is out to prove themselves and has a Texas-sized chip on their shoulder. Some of the most racist and misogynistic things I've ever heard have been at construction sites. Truly toxic."
- rvhsmith
Be an adult. Don't gossip. Don't lie. Don't try to make it all about yourself.
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