Hateful Confessions or Venting?

A few weeks ago I gave a general introduction to confession blogs and how people used them, but I talked about them in a mostly positive light, which makes sense. I didn’t want to scare people off from them by highlighting the negatives. That’s more of a second post deal.

The example that I gave last time was of a Dragon Age confession blog, which the owners carefully moderate. The blog contains a clearly visible set of rules that the owners actively enforce for submissions and behavior in order to keep a safe and welcoming environment. But not all confession blogs are structured in the same way. Some advocate for much looser community behavior and standards. They don’t bother with including any submissions guidelines, and the culture they cultivate looks a lot more different as a result.

This time, I’ll be using a blog dedicated to Flight Rising, a virtual petsite similar to neopets but with dragons. It goes by the tongue-in-cheek moniker "Drama Rising".

It’s not solely a confession blog, but it operates in pretty much the same way. Users submit confessions, rants, complaints, observations, or drama anonymously. A lot of the posts are similar to those I outlined in the previous discussion on confession blogs, so I won’t rehash an old subject. Instead, I’ll be focusing on some of the differences, mainly that there are no rules or apparent moderation on Drama Rising, which allows for completely different types of posts.

Since the posts are mostly unmoderated, a lot of them single out or attack users.

“can N please stop being a fucking little bitch…? so people don’t find your dragons ‘names’ (if the pile of garbage you create by slammingyour ape hands against your laptop’s keyboard can be considered namies) funny.big deal. please continue to cry some more, darling.”

A least they tried to keep the target somewhat anonymous?

As a result, other posters might in turn retaliate against an anonymous rant on the same blog. There is no room for vague phrases like “some users” or “the fandom” that you might find on confession blogs with strict rules. These are targeted messages.

“Alright you filthy pieces of shit targeting Snap you are all disgusting human beings and you all make me sick stop abusing her over messages she has no right to be attacked by some low life asshole’s who are greedy and only want to take advantage of her kindness

Deities help you if I find out who you are.”

Any policing of the behavior on this blog are completely community driven. Anonymous users will try to attack or shame other posters to keep others in line.

“about 90% of this blog is downright rude. i mean, if you have a problem with a user, why don’t you keep it to yourself instead of sending it here where that user may end up seeing it and getting hurt, or you can tell a friend about it just to get it off your chest. Or you can use here to rant, but why not leave out their username? that just causes so much shit for them and makes other users get pissed at them as well and its not cool. I love FR and it makes me so sick to see how RUDE the community can get when they aren’t on the site itself.”

Such tactics make work to some degree and possibly change behavior. But it also creates a lot of hostility that may result in fewer users wanting to participate (especially by those who are specifically named in posts) or even stronger retaliations from others. No one likes being told what to do or how to behave, after all. Not to mention, with no explicit rules, the unspoken expectations for behavior become inconsistent at best. It just makes people squabble more about what should be considered unacceptable or unnecessary content. Yes, the setup allows for more variety of posts, but the tradeoff comes with a more vitriolic community.