Just a Person wrote:Truthfully I hid behind a puppet for the reasons in the responses. I didn't think this would go over well, and how do you think it would have gone if I'd went to the admin team? TBH, I'd probably have been ignored.
I have a genuine concern that what starts out as something innocent could turn into the very thing that NS has been fighting for more than the past year. This isn't any kind of smear campaign on Osiris, and I'm sure Lynxi will do a great job. But it isn't 'bullshit', it's a genuine concern.
The idea that the admin team would've just blown you off and let you suffer with a legitimate good faith concern is pretty insulting. That isn't how any of us operate... overbearing concern for the feelings of others is a personal weakness for like, over half of us. I don't think we're capable of not going full mother hen mode and not trying to fix something like that. But.
#BullyCulture doesn't exist as a random, innocent idea that just got memed into our culture one day.
It exists because I went out of my way to make it happen. If you have any complaints about why its here or the dangers of it, I'm your girl!
When I showed up to Osiris, it was a boys' club. They weren't drawing in many new people in the first place, but the new folks who did happen to meander in the door immediately knew their place, and it was on the outside of a clique of about five or six who controlled everything in the region. And were mostly (former/future?) NPO subversives, but that's a different story. Anyway, I was never able to wiggle my way into their little clique, and honestly I can wiggle my way into just about anything, so the group was tight. All of us felt that exclusion and Osiris as a whole suffered for years because of it. Osiris wasn't a mean community, it just... didn't feel like one that particularly cared about you and if you disappeared tomorrow would never notice. It was run by people motivated by power and the whole culture of the region was steeped in a weird, aloof selfishness because of that.
Now backstory, I work in HR irl, so like. Culture perpetuation is my irl occupation. When I see harmful trends, I snuff them out and replace them with healthier alternatives for the community. That's what I do. In Osiris, to get rid of the outsider mentality, we brought out #BullyCulture not as a randomly evolved meme, but as a carefully and purposefully curated cultural addition leading to acceptance and friendliness in the whole community. I can see where it could lead to the incidents you describe if it had been a less purposeful process. But #BullyCulture is specifically marketed as an inclusionary tactic. Like that isn't the big secret of #BullyCulture, the region talks about openly often. It's hard to make new people feel like a part of a community that they know nothing about and hard not to spook them when they're speaking to what they perceive as big, scary, important government officials. But we seem a lot less big and scary when we greet everyone with a loving "Hallo nerdlings ♡" and just speak and conduct ourselves like we're all regular people and all on the same level. And it's a lot easier to feel comfortable getting in on regional "inside jokes" with one that's so intuitive to understand and not be awkward about. #BullyCulture isn't just overreaching meanness, it has specific phrases and ideas that categorize it. Which feels really dumb to lay out in writing on the gosh darned NS forums. But it's stuff like...
Ur mom
No u
Nerd
*steals socks*
Ew, who let Res in?
Like we're not going to town on new people. Lol. This is stuff that we all use already as random banter, Osiris just gave it direction and used it to positively expand our community. #BullyCulture is specific to Osiris and it binds our community in a way that's fun, friendly, and innocent. And you know what, sometimes there are days when you don't want to deal with banter from your friends, and we get that. On those days, we all know how you would normally respond to being called a nerd, and if you respond outside of your norm, we will notice and check to make sure you're okay. And there are some people that banter isn't their style, so we are respectful of that and reach out to them in different ways. I understand from the perspective of someone not involved in Osiris what it
could be. But as the person who so carefully defined it and gave it direction, I can assure you that the spirit behind #BullyCulture and the specific category of behavior that has been selected to define it won't get to that level. Behind it all is just a lot of genuine people looking out for each other and trying to create a community that puts people first and power somewhere after that. #BullyCulture is just a tool in their arsenal. And it's a good one.
Osiris is a place today that's easy to feel like you fit in, easy to feel accepted, easy to feel like the community cares about you. We are being, with the good help of #BullyCulture, exactly the kind of community that we want to be.
Y'all should pop by sometime and see it in action, maybe it'll help you feel better about the whole deal. Or DM me! Heck. DM really any of us. We're here with whatever questions you may have.
Hope that clears things up a bit for you!