With all the discussion lately about people abusing their power, I've been kind of wanting to bring up a few things... mainly about ways in which abusive/toxic people stay around in this community long-term and some of the methods they use. 1/

For the long term abuser, they are going to victimize a lot of people and there is going to be a cloud around them... people will talk about things that they've done. So one of their first public responses and something they will often go to is "Don't believe the rumors" 2/

And I don’t mean something being an isolated incident... it is a pattern… they keep having to address that there are rumors again and again… month after month, year after year. There is so much smoke around them, they are forced to keep saying that.. 3/

I am not in Hollywood… I have no connections there. But even as an outsider, I had heard about what Bryan Singer, Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein had been doing years before they all faced judgment and much more public scrutiny. There were rumors for years. 4/

In our communities when confronted, these abusers never want to talk about these rumors publicly, often despite the fact that they may claim to value openness and honesty. They will often try to shift things to DMs and private conversations. 5/

Why? Because talking about things publicly means that victims would be able to refute the things the abuser has claimed and provide evidence that the narrative they are trying to create is not true. They risk public exposure by being open about the nature of the rumors. 6/

And speaking of older victims… the abuser will often give advice to the people around them about people to avoid, and they will make some good recommendations (ones which other people will confirm)… and then add their own victims to those lists. 7/

The reason they do this is they don’t want their victims to be able to tell their stories to people who are at risk, stories which would substantiate rumors or reveal information that makes them realize there are patterns of behavior they are seeing and experiencing. 8/

People trying to leave or expose these abusers face a choice. They have seen how previous victims have been treated, and they recognize the danger in public confrontation, not just because of the power differential, but because often, the victim has confided in their abuser. 9/

An example of this outside of this community is Harvey Weinstein, who was able to use his power to blackball people who were vocal about his abuse and used threats to the livelihoods of others to ensure people kept quiet. 10/

The threat of reprisals, harassment, losing friends and even of doxxing keeps so many from speaking out… and because no one is speaking out, each individual victim feels like they are alone and isolated. 11/

And often, these abusers will have some very loyal people around them who will attack victims and try to discredit them or harass them until they know they will remain silent or leave the community, all while giving the abuser deniability. 12/

How do these abusers gain this loyalty? Well, in a world of parasocial interactions, they do it with attention, affection and in some cases, visibility and respectability. For on, they’ll use their power to help cover up for the creepiness and abuses of their surrogates. 13/

They set up relationships where those most loyal to them have something to lose if they are exposed... for example, a lover or a content creator who makes things they specifically enjoy or someone who fills so many of their scripts, or even exposure of their own misdeeds 14/

So to prevent that and protect the abuser, these people will go out of their way to create an environment that is difficult for victims to withstand all to maintain their privileges and basically make it so a lot of victims leave the community. 15/

They count on community turnover to help them: the people they've abused leave and take their stories with them. They may have told others before they left, shared screenshots and vented about events as they unfolded, but now they can’t warn people firsthand they were abused. 16/

With no first hand stories about past abuses, abusers chalk up stories told to people first hand about what they’ve done as rumors and just say they are haters or jealous or they must have other motives for warning people about them to discredit them. 17/

And of course, new people are also especially vulnerable to the machinations of abusers because they haven’t heard any of the stories… they haven’t been warned. They are much easier prey for them. 18/

After all, it is hard to avoid getting bitten by a shark if you don’t know what one looks like… and old sharks have gotten very good at finding people to bite. Seasoned abusers count on that. 19/

But one small consolation in all this is, as these stories pile up, both in this community and in the real world, these people are slowly pushed out of more and more spaces as what they’ve done becomes known. 20/

And it seems eventually they are revealed for who they really are and they face consequences. There are still a lot of abusive people in this community. And sometimes when there is smoke, so much smoke... there is fire.