That's great, but how is anyone here supposed to know who is far more familiar with certain issues than anyone else?
Honestly I don't think now is the right time for people to go on witch hunts calling other people out. In the same way people are saying the problem with the culture here and all over the internet is people dunking on each other that's exactly how a lot of these posts are coming across whether or not that's the intention.
Edit: glad to see the mods are re-reviewing the original thread.
I'm not looking for or hunting anyone. That's kind of the point.
People know whether others are more familiar with certain issues because it was very apparent that many of the people speaking, based on some of their very vocal ignorance, had zero experience with mental illness. I hope that they are reevaluating their limited understanding on the topic and will possibly exercise more caution when speaking about it n the future. I'm not trying to shame or hunt anyone; I want people to be better. Because I know I was hurt, very much, reading some of the things people were so carelessly saying and I know that I'm honestly in a pretty good place overall in regards to my mental wellness right now. Someone more vulnerable than me could have been hurt much worse.
I would hope people saying these things, being so needlessly cruel, were unaware of all the ways they might be having a real negative impact on the emotional and mental well being of their fellow Era members and would prefer to actually be made aware of the repercussions of their behavior so that they can correct it.
I really, really hope that people correct it.
Alright I'll try to weight in on this with my limited experience.
There is every reason to be sad about everything that happened here, especially since it resulted in someone's death. However something important to note that mental illness is not and never has been en excuse or a justification for saying and doing things that hurt others. That one's not even a controversial opinion. This all exploded with Etika saying some VERY racist and homophobic things and those things hurt people, that cannot be denied.
This whole...
schtick is misleading or in bad faith or both because it is downplaying the things he said as if they were just him getting mad about fucking video games or something when it wasn't. It was part of a larger trend of racism, antisemitism and homophobia that is prevalent in media surrounding video games.
You'll find that the people who react nastiest to those things are people who have to
A. Deal with those things on a day to day basis
B. Are frequently asked to excuse that language for a variety of reasons
And I really want you to focus on that B part. A lot of you people don't realize it but there are many times in this thread and in previous threads where you come off as going
and it is probably unintentional but it really reaches some victim blaming area where people who are hurt are asked to vouch for aggressors under the guise of "mental illness" despite the fact that there are thousands of mentally ill people that do not act that way.
So mods, you're probably not doing a very good job locking stuff like this onhand just because it's going to make people think that you are protecting your own or have some sort of bias and whatnot. But it's important to understand that for the next couple days every website and their mothers is going to be using Etika's death as a springboard for "I TOLD YOU ABOUT ERA I TOLD YOU DOG!". And Era does deserve scrutiny about a lot of things but today it won't be because of hostile responses to people bring up issues of transphobia or toxic displays of machoness both of which happen here far too frequently but because of a misrepresented idea that Era doesn't take suicide seriously.
It's not about making excuses.
Nobody who is mentally ill thinks that their illness is a justification for their behavior. If you actually watched Etika's final video, even he says that he finally realized he probably actually is mentally ill, but that it's not an excuse for his mistakes. Seriously, people who are mentally ill know this already so saying, "But their mistakes are still bad," helps nobody. But that wasn't even the real problem with the thread or the way people acted. The problem was that people now wanted to frame him and all his struggles as, "Fuck this guy, he's a bigot," repeatedly saying the very untrue statement that if someone says something bigoted it must be what they really believe and feel in their heart, even if it appears to have happened as a part of a manic or self-destructive episode. That is NOT at all true.
Now can there still be consequences for those actions? Yes. Of course. Absolutely. If Etika lost certain friendships or fans because they were hurt by his actions, whether or not he could control them, that's the reality of living with mental illness that everyone living with it has to accept as part of growing and healing. But that does not mean he is necessarily a hateful person and the people saying so over and over, relentlessly, endlessly, that he is a bad person at his core and defined by his illness and its symptoms is really gross and ugly behavior.
If people were so hurt by his words, they obviously have a right to that, but they didn't have to come into every thread about him to repeat over and over that when mental illness is ugly it makes you bad and we shouldn't "signal boost" your "attention seeking." People were literally saying that nobody says things they don't mean when in the middle of a nervous breakdown, it's just you without your mask. This is not true and it is, in fact, a very real concern that makes a lot of people with mental illness hate themselves. Seriously, I frequently think things (usually about myself) that I know I don't believe, am very aware I don't believe , and then feel disgust with myself for even thinking them. Then that disgust compounds with the original thoughts and you start to wonder where the line is. Did you mean it? Do you mean it
now when you're liking yourself a little less? If you say something really awful, will people just believe it because that's how little they think of you? If they believe it, if you seem that bad that easily, are you? Were you always? Is that the real you and do you deserve to say terrible things so that people can hate you like they should?
My stuff has never been racist like his was, certainly, but I've definitely picked fights with friends just because I was hating myself and felt like they should hate me too; like the part of my brain that belongs to the mental illness wanted to see how easy it would be to make other people think I'm as bad as I felt I was right then. And that maybe I should, that it would be more honest to be seen in that way.
This stuff happens, and it's not uncommon, and the fact is that it's a struggle all the time for lots of us with mental illness to differentiate between the thoughts that are our own and those that are symptoms, and the fact that people were so eager to use ugliness to define someone -- to say that it doesn't matter, essentially, because your symptoms are who you are and always will be -- is really, really hurtful.
