Ugh

[anghraine]

Apart from outright bigotry and viciousness, there are few Tumblr trends I find more annoying than tagging anything related to social justice as #compassion fatigue. I don't know how widespread it is, but it's happened enough on my posts (even fandom posts that only vaguely touch on actual social justice) from enough different people that it doesn't seem like a fluke.

And I haaaaate it. That is not what "compassion fatigue" is about and characterizing any allusion to the existence of societal inequality as a matter of compassion fatigue is incredibly gross, IMO. Most people who have used the tag on reblogs of my posts do it when reblogging posts about autism specifically, though the most recent was completely unrelated to that, and it's approaching auto-block territory.

D:

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I'm not even quite sure what that means? Like, they're tagging because they feel compassion fatigue? Or as though it were a warning tag?

[anghraine]

Yeah, exactly. If they're too fatigued to feel compassion about the issue, they can simply not reblog and block the tag! It's not as if I don't tag my posts or something. And some of them do use it as a master tag for social justice in general, because encountering any acknowledgment of marginalized people is exhausting for some, I guess, which I find kind of breathtakingly offensive.

(No objection to people having a social justice tag or criticizing trends in online or even offline permutations of it, but framing marginalization as intrinsically fatiguing to encounter ever... blech.)

[chestnut_pod]

Very strange! And in particular if one is talking about one's own difficulties and/or marginalizations, how bald-facedly rude!

[anghraine]

It certainly feels that way to me!

[alias_sqbr]

I have never seen that before but urgh, what a TERRIBLE way to tag ANYTHING, except perhaps discussions of the concept of compassion fatigue.

[anghraine]

Right! It just seems completely unacceptable to me for anything other than an actual discussion of compassion fatigue itself.

[lokifan]

JFC

[anghraine]

Yeah.

[beatrice_otter]

Huh. I don't think I've seen that tag.

[anghraine]

Lucky you!