Someone just passive-aggressively reminded me I could block people on Mastodon, and if I can’t adhere to CW requests perhaps I should get off Mastodon. Wow, I’ve only beeon on the Internet since 1999, Twitter since 2008 and Mastodon last November. I don’t know how to block ah? Wah.

these Mastodon HOA people are one kind.

PS: A few days ago, I blew my top when someone told me to CW my food photos. Since food is the way us Malaysians talk to each other on Mastodon, I feel it’s really too much they ask me to CW. Since then a few people explained that food can be triggering to people with eating disorders. But then other people say CW can also worsen eating disorders. Apalah you cannot win. Why don’t they leave us alone lol. I think i’ll just limit my posts to #MakanApaToday and #FediTiam and exclude #Food cos I dah fed up with the HOA* people. This is sad cos I use #Food so we can reach non-Malaysians, but it attracts the hornets. Maybe I use #expatasia instead (someone asked me to include the hashtag so the expats can find these posts)

All of this nonsense makes me glad that we have a “safe” space here on monyet.cc, where we can be completely Malaysian without some reply dude/dudette come and lecture you for melanggar some cultural rule you are not even aware of. I feel more relaxed here. A bit sad. I now understand why Black Twitter never felt comfortable enough in the Fediverse.

*Home Owners Association - people on Mastodon who patrol it to make sure everyone behave and follow rules. Like prefects, but worse.

So, somebody lectured me for not putting a CW on Mastodon when I shared food photos for #MakanApaToday yesterday. I got super annoyed and was snarky. The guilt tripping didn’t stop as a number of people came and said, “can’t you be more understanding?” You know what, I am over being understanding when Mastodon has powerful filter and blocking capabilities. I do that for Us politics which I found so annoying on Mastodon 🤣 I don’t go lecturing people to put up CW for their posts. Also, I feel that this is a little hashtag space where we SEA have fun, and to have these people tell us to hide it just got me furious. I did start thinking, “Maybe I should stop posting on Mastodon and post here instead…” and that got me annoyed too. Why should I stop just because 1 or 2 people didn’t like the images of food??

Just this morning someone slipped into the comments to passively aggressive suggest that maybe my mention of calories in the post was triggering - and I got fed up. I told her we shouldn’t be told to hide something the SEA community loves, especially if it is harmless to most people.

Seriously never in my life did I think about food being something we should hide 🤪 folks have explained it to me why, including photos with eyes being triggering, and I thought - this is one thing I dislike about Mastodon. There’s a reaallllly entitled community that demands you do things their way or they guilt you into thinking you are baaaad.

What do you guys think? I really like the #MakanApaToday thread and don’t think it should be CWed cos hinestly, it is harmless and fun!!