To some extent, I do agree with what the person said about there being an IDB hivemind. I've witnessed others and in my own experience get not attacked but bombarded with arguments against their opinions, usually making it a moral issue wherein if you think outside of the mainstream concepts, then you're horrible, ignorant or plain unintelligent (I got told it's my fault for not picking up on the more subtler cues/implications that Dan's not straight/neurotypical as an autistic girl, lol). But do I think that people are being beaten into things or people don't genuinely believe what they say? No, of course not, it just happens to be that on this site a lot of people share the same views - which makes sense on a largely interactive forum - and so naturally there will always be a majority in a debate. For example, with the japhan merch, I'm pretty sure it was the vocal minority who took offence on this forum and then the majority who defended deppy. Or, if you say you don't think Dan and Phil are together, of course you're gonna get a lot of disagreement as most people on here believe that they are.
Uhm, what was I saying. Basically, I don't think the people on here are bad. I blew up at one person as I felt incredibly overwhelmed at the amount of backlash towards an opinion of mine, and then that person ended up being really nice to me awhile later. And people are really friendly as well when you first join. It's just the way forums work, I guess.
[offtopic]But for the record, I'm still a little iffy about the topic of Dan being mentally ill and how he jokes about it because without giving the thumbs up to having any diagnosed disorders (reblogging smth on Tumblr,
that kinda thing), it can both offend mentally ill people and lead people to armchair diagnose him themselves, which does happen a lot on this forum.* But it's difficult because of course Dan shouldn't have to tell us his mental illness, ahhh. Ambiguity. Do genuinely think Dan is bi/pan/generally not straight and deppy are together though
* Taking part in this is bad as it can have a real negative effect on a person's perception of themselves as well as how they seek treatment. For example, I was constantly told by adults (not doctors) I had social anxiety rather than autism (the social awkwardness side of autism specifically) for years and this made me believe it was all in my head, that I could cure myself with exposure therapy and so on. Furthermore, being constantly told you're mentally ill (I became mentally ill later on but that's beside the point) when really you have such a common disorder as autism really messes you up, makes you feel different and crap for years and never gives you the right treatment or help systems. And in the case of Dan, depression isn't just depression, if that makes sense. A lot of people say Dan probably has depression and some form of anxiety (be it social anxiety or GAD) but the symptoms he shows can be part of other disorders entirely. For example, there might be something going on with his thyroid that causes him to also experience depression and weight fluctuation (which he does, but people generally attribute that to his stress). Labelling him and spreading that around as fact in discussion has a damaging effect as people might look to him as an icon of something he doesn't really havem because he might have something else. It could also mean that Dan takes the internet's word for it and doesn't seek a diagnosis/therapy and so on. Just a bit of food for thought.[/offtopic]