hi movie people on my phone, i'm sure this will be a fun read! /s /s /s

i've honestly debated with myself a lot on if this was even worth talking about, but i really think i've reached a point where i need to voice this to deal with it properly and make a decision, so if you care, here you go. and if you don't, then scroll, i'm not keeping you here.

i have considered quitting this app for a long time now. that's not important information to anybody, but i'm writing about it anyway and deleting in 10 seconds.

i've been writing here for an embarrassingly long time; since i was around 14. i'm 22 now. i grew up on this app and that's probably the most damning thing about my character, and for the 8(?????) years i've been writing, i've entered and exited eras that exist here permanently because the internet is forever and the right to be forgotten online is pretty much a thing of the past.

i look back on a lot of it fondly because it shows me where i've grown. i've transitioned, i've matured, i've found love, i've found help, i have made major life steps and this app has been witness to all of it. but it's also been witness to so many beliefs, writings, feelings i no longer identify with and if there's one thing it does consistently, it's *reminding* me of these times, some of them even traumatizing.

sometimes i write here and feel i have no place in the community anymore because it's grown and changed so much and i don't have either of the things you need to have a voice here (a niche or a wide appeal), and sometimes i get notifs about movies i watched during the most traumatic times/relationships of my life.

there is no time i participate in letterboxd anymore that i don't feel stressed or judged, and that's part of why i've been on hiatus so much.

if it's not somebody telling me to kms because of a review i wrote when my frontal lobe was an embryo, it's somebody commenting on a review i watched with my ex who sexually exploited me, or an ex best friend who destroyed a whole year for me, or a time in my life where movies were the only thing keeping me alive, and these memories are genuinely exhausting to relive every time i open this app to post a review.

more specifically, a review that nobody will read anyway, because it's stopped being about writing or comedy and it's started being about optics. if your rating is too low vs. high, too short vs. too wordy, too casual vs. too academic, it's not about if you're funny or creative or if you have an interesting take (i don't brag about being any of the above lmao), it's just about how agreeable your review is ~or~ how easy it'll be to yell at you for your review. people just want to read things they already think.

it's become "do i agree with your opinion, and if i don't, how much do i get to degrade you as a person?"

and yes, it is the internet, but it's also still life, and we also all still have feelings, and i also just want to write about art and talk about art with people without fearing that i'm stomping on some hornet's nest or that i'm coming off as intellectually inferior, and when you are a woman on the internet, that social barricade between you and being wholly disrespected is paper fucking fragile.

idk! i'm just trying to find where i even have a place in this community anymore. i'm coming up with less answers lately. "i ain't reading all that," so on and so forth. ciao! <3