The other day, I was browsing the deviantART forums, which is really never a good idea because it always results in me getting royally pissed off. I ran across a thread titled "Fat Grotesque Pigs." I was appalled at the hate that was spewing from the OP (original poster). It was as if they thought overweight people were barely human. What bothered me even more was that people were jumping in and supporting the OP's hateful rhetoric. The OP was a huge bully to those who disagreed with them. I was truly shocked that in the year 2020 people are still behaving like Neanderthals. I was too angry to comment on the thread, but did report the thread to dA's Help Desk on 3/2/2020. I checked back on 3/4/2020 and the thread was still going strong. I filed another complaint the same day. Today is 3/7/2020, and no one has replied to the tickets I submitted with the Help Desk and the thread is still up. It hasn't been updated in 2 days, but why is it even still open?
By allowing this thread to remain open and grow, dA is essentially promoting fat shaming and bullying. They have been made aware of the problem at least twice by me and have refused to do anything about it. They are allowing a group of people to be subjected to discrimination by members of their site. In the meantime, moderators have shut down a couple of threads: one because someone was bashing dA and another because someone said something about strangling someone with a mandolin string. I believe the fat shaming thread is far more dangerous than the latter mentioned thread as it could have serious ramifications on one's self esteem which could possibly lead to psychiatric issues or self harm. I stated this in my tickets to the Help Desk, but dA obviously doesn't care. This both infuriates and saddens me. I guess I've done all I can do at this point. I'll let Karma sort out the rest.
Addendum: 3/16/2020
I finally got a canned response from dA today. The email was informing me of general guidelines on how to handle someone bullying you online. Totally had nothing to do with my complaint since I wasn't involved in the thread. I replied as follows:
My point, which may have not been clear because I was angry at the time, was that the thread is degrading and dehumanizing to a section of the human population. If they were calling a specific race, gender, or sex disgusting, you would have stopped it. You are essentially promoting fat shaming by leaving this up. It shows that dA doesn't care when people bully fat people just because they weigh more than someone else. FTR I wasn't involved in the thread discussion, so most of your email to me didn't apply to me. I just saw the thread post and found it offensive. It demoralizes a whole section of the Earth's population and you guys, frankly, look like jerks because you're allowing it to happen on your forum. That was my point.
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