Bordering Absurdity

In the Otherkin community there is a constant struggle between validation and rejection, whether it is over a select 'kin type or simply how you portray yourself. You could be the most articulate person when you are roving over your inner thoughts or carrying on a conversation with another person in real life. You may be able to create precise arguments and show your opinion in a well thought and applied manner that offends no one. But as soon as you enter the community saying that you are a fictive, a synthetic, a inanimate object, a plant, or to a lesser extent a shard of a god/goddess/'all powerful being', you are almost immediately labeled as someone who has an opinion that cannot be trusted until you go through a rigorous proving process. And if you do not pass through this gauntlet that at best consists of people degrading everything you say, informing you that what you are feeling and what you think is completely and utterly wrong, then you are either faking it or a troll.

Imagine you have just come to the realization of who and what you are. You finally have a sense of why you feel the way you do. Maybe it is for psychological reasons or perhaps it is spiritual. Whatever it may be, you have discovered yet another facet of who you are as a person and finally feel as though you have managed to confirm everything you have felt. There is now a label you can use in order to find more people with similar ideologies or spiritual beliefs. And in your excitement you join a forum or mailing list that caters either to your specific 'kin type or has an umbrella approach.

Then it happens.

You create and send your introductory post and immediately get hit by a wave of massive skepticism, people calling you out, saying that what you are isn't possible for X reason. For someone who has just discovered the community and finally managed to have a label that describes exactly who they are, this can not only be incredibly jarring but completely break the user in question. Now I hear some people say: it is just online, you shouldn't take what faceless anonymous people say too seriously because you don't know them and fuck them if their opinion is different. The internet can be very similar to real life--in fact, it is an extension of our collective realities. Perhaps you can take what faceless people say without giving them much credit. But when it comes to those who are 'wizened and great leaders' in their respective areas it can hurt; especially when you have finally found yourself after years of trying to find the right term. It can also make that person completely shy away from the community as a whole and not even give it a second chance. For all you know they would have been a extremely productive member and provided new ways of thinking.

I realize this can easily be applied to virtually every forum or web space out there. But on them you have at least one other person who will back you up or at the very least take you seriously and not go 'your just a troll, lololo you don't belong here'. In the Otherkin community when you have those with an unusual or different kin type, the vast majority of users WILL jump on you. And when someone who is in support of your specific type sees these people digging into the new user, most will either turn away because the user base will then in turn get onto them or because they figure someone else will have the balls to say 'Hey, guys, take it easy'. Most of the time there isn't.

As I said in the beginning, this most commonly happens to fictives and machine/inanimate 'kin. While the former is now more easily accepted, you still have people ragging on the latter grouping to the point where I only know of one other synthetic Otherkin. One. In a sea of thousands, if not millions. Why? Because they are terrified of the infighting and how people will suddenly view them differently because their type is just a little different than what is considered normal.

Here is a quote from a user whose name will not be disclosed, "...So I find that dogmatic statements like "I can be an elf, but you can't ne a house or a tree" automatically invalidate any metaphysical authority that the elf, in this case, has assumed. They usually seem to ignore that there is a philosophical precedent for metaphysics with diverse spirits that favors an inclusive approach."

For the Otherkin community--hell, even others out there--I think we should allow these people in and to allow them to grow as a person rather than immediately shunning them. While I admittedly see it less frequently, this only applies to TWO forums that have serious discussions while also allowing difference of opinion to be stated without everyone getting angry. And while I may be a synthetic Otherkin and thus have faced this exceedingly negative reproach first hand, my opinion on the matter is not fully colored by that experience. I can see it from the other side of the argument and understand why they may have acted the way they did. But it isn't the right way to approach every single person who joins a forum. While you may have those with skin so thick you could go into detail about how you are going to murder their entire family for their beliefs and they wouldn't even flinch, you also have those who are more sensitive to the opinions of other people.

Even when these other people are anonymous.

Overall, I think the Otherkin community (and others out there) should take a step back and take a look at both themselves and their users. Does it consist of a variety of people who are capable of holding intelligent arguments and refrain from completely offending the other users there because they take their opinions into account? Or is it completely overrun by users ganging up on select groups of people and trying to force them out of the fold?