I got bored of attack helicopter memes in mid 2014 and left /r/Tumblrinaction
Yeah, I got sucked into that for a while, before gradually noticing that a lot of the stuff they were laughing at (“headmates”, “transethnic” people, etc.) seemed to be limited to a few extremely obscure Tumblr accounts instead of being widespread phenomena. A lot of communities that are based around dunking on people fall into the trap of focusing almost all of their attention on a tiny number of trolls and people with obscure personality disorders, but TIA fell for it really hard.
Also finally getting a little bit of exposure to sociology and philosophy made me a lot more open-minded about political and cultural movements. Even if there were a massive, influential community of Otherkin, it’s hard to argue that it’s any weirder or more threatening than, say, Christianity or car enthusiasts.
isn’t this community based almost entirely around dunking on Charlie Kirk & Ben Shapeeno?
I mean, it’s not limited to just them, but there’s definitely a bit of an echo chamber here in terms of making out all opposition to be harmless clowns.
All opposition are clowns, but certainly not harmless - I think this community realizes that more than most.
Not even close, no. Nor are those people fringe trolls, they have audiences.