Minors in Fandom

Related terms:	Underage, Age Statement
See also:	Ageism in Fandom, Fandom as a Safe Space, Lolicon, Shota, Aged Up, Purity Culture in Fandom
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Fandom trends and practice requiring the revealing of age online has changed throughout the history of the internet. During the early internet (circa 2000s) particularly with the rise of chatrooms and forums, offering personal details about one's real identity such as age, name, or appearance was uncommon and considered dangerous. As social media like Facebook and blogging platforms such as Blogspot, Livejournal, and Tumblr became more popular (circa 2010s) releasing personal identifying information about one's demographics became more common.

Some online users would even go so far as to reveal the first and last letters of their names by playing online word games, or may even reveal their entire name. As of the 2020s it's common practice to list at least a small amount of identifying information on the profiles of one's social media, no matter the age. This usually includes: sexual orientation, race, gender, general location (such as country or continent), and age. With this practice, minors in fandom and internet spaces became more visible. In fandoms with a prominent smut output or canon adult content, this led to controversy; for example, South Park in the 2010s and Helluva Boss in the 2020s, both which have attracted minors as fans.

A minor is someone either under the age of consent, under the age of adulthood, or both. This may be different in their country than the ages agreeded upon by pop culture, which is often dictated by Americans.

Underage Fans

Harassment & Abuse of Minors

Many minors feel targeted or threatened online, especially in adult or mixed-age spaces, for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are listed and discussed below.

• Minor-Attracted People (MAPs, not to be confused with a MAP, Multi-Animator Project) became a euphemism for "pedophile." While "The Global Prevention Project" describes MAPs as being a broader spectrum of attraction towards children and minors (because pedophile strictly reffers to pre-pubescent children above the toddler stage) and not an "attempt to rebrand pedophilia," it's not uncommon for MAPs to simply be called pedophiles on social media. MAP as a term was coined before or in the early 2010s, but the earliest usage of it on Urban Dictionary is from 2017 as it mostly stayed within private circles. MAPs and online grooming are a common worry for minors online, with "grooming" cited as the reason for some callout posts. For a time on Twitter, MAPs would identify themselves by placing a clown emoji in their profile^{[citation needed]}, but the commonality of this practice in the 2020s and beyond is unclear. There are two pain sides of the MAP community, anti-contact and pro-contact. Anti-contact MAPs understand that sexual interactions with children harms them, and condemn it, they struggle with the extreme social stigma of being attracted to children while being against the abuse of them. Pro-contact MAPs think that sexual interactions with children can be consensual and/or not harmful.

• Mixed-age spaces being hostile towards minors, even when the canon content is for children. For example, the harassment of minors in the Zoo Tycoon fandom, particularly from 2000s era Zoo Tycoon Volcano. Though Zoo Tycoon is aimed at children, its fanbase online was noticeably adult outside of the official Microsoft forums. Additionally, a staff schism between moderators on Zoo Tycoon Volcano fought over whether or not moderators, admins, and members should be allowed to make fun of or harass their members as they see fit, including minors (See Internal Conflicts). Modernly, the forum's user base describes itself as a mini 4chan and minors no longer frequent it.

• The sexualization or perceived sexualization of canonically underaged characters, which can make some minors uncomfortable online. For example, Tumblr blog zinefeed (a blog for promoting zines) made a post about how often they get promotion requests for zines based around "nsfw about minors."

• Fetish spaces being made "safe for work" in a way which some minors may become exposed to "safe" fetish artwork, which could be considered grooming. One example is "the "giant/tiny" community, particularly on Tumblr, which focuses on relationships between very large and very tiny characters, and attracts both adult and underage artists. It is disagreed upon whether giant/tiny is the same as the micro/macro fetish. NSFW artists question whether a fetish can be "SFW" at all. While some artists see "SFW" fetish communities as on part with other fetish content like vore, others see NSFW discussion within communities like giant/tiny to be inappropriate. For some, giant/tiny may be considered to be a totally separate thing from micro/macro, while others see it as micro/macro under a different coat of paint. However, on Twitter the tag "gianttiny" pulls up various NSFW images involving micro/macro.

Minors Want A Safe Space

Sexual conduct towards fictional underage characters makes some minors feel unsafe or uncomfortable in fandom spaces, especially fandom spaces for canon content aimed at minors. They may find the behavior of adult fans towards fictional underage characters to be inappropriate, immortal, or abhorrent, usually in reference to sexual explicit content about minors. Some fans may not always object to chaste shipping a certain relationship, but are uncomfortable with who is creating and consuming sexual content.

A good example of social media which allows NSFW art of underaged characters is Inkbunny, an art website similar to other social art sites like DeviantART and Fur Affinity. Inkbunny has consistently allowed explicit art of underage furry characters, and its admin GreenReaper (WikiNorn) stated that he has no issue with this content being on his website.

Whenever this one artist got called out for being a pedophile, someone said "oh of course they have an InkBunny"

Jesteresque discussing "MAPs" on Twitter

Being unable to view fandom content of shows that are meant for their own demographic without heavy filtering, or being accidentally exposed to porn if a filter does not catch everything, has made minors feel unsafe and uncomfortable in their own fandom spaces. "Bronies" from the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic fandom is a good example of media for children that gained a large adult fan following in the 2010s, and became known for explicit fanart online. Because of the large amount of NSFW content adult fans created of the show's characters, some fans from other fandoms dislike them. The Steven Universe fandom of Tumblr, in 2015, became fearful of Brony "infiltration," believing that the pony fans would cause a larger influx of NSFW material to the Steven Universe fandom that younger fans would ultimately be exposed to.

I know the internet is a festering cesspool of questionable cartoon-based erotica, but pony porn has become such an unstoppable force of sexual deviancy that not even a simple Google search is safe. I'm serious—Google Image search "Pinkie Pie" with SafeSearch off and see what you get.

The Problem with Bronies, ^{Archived version}

Response

Adults Should Protect Minors

Some minors view their protection online has being the responsibility of the adults they share it with. This can involve asking adults to not follow minors on social media, asking adults to not share inappropriate art in spaces minors may see (such as the main tags for a fandom), or making sure that adults include content filters/properly tag explicit content. By removing adults from spaces meant for minors, minors are able to interact exclusively with their peers.

In the NSFW art community some adults request that minors continue to reveal their age on their profiles. This is because many NSFW artists take it upon themselves to block minors in order to keep them from seeing their explicit content. This means that artists utilizing this technique also block profiles that do not list their age, even if they are adults in real life.

Some users on Twitter have also adopted the practice of making their NSFW Twitters locked and will only allow people to follow them if they have their adult age in their profile. Alternatively, some adults give minors advice to never share their ages online, citing that any identifying information is dangerous and sharing their age could attract predators.

If you’re a grown ass person online, it is YOUR responsibility to maintain proper boundaries with children, teenagers, and young people significantly younger than you. Cut the shit and stop pretending you don’t know what it means. I’m tired of you creepy motherfuckers I swear to GOD.

YourFavoritePlanet, ^{Archived version}

okay but like. Abuse victims exist. You can’t really say “parents/guardians should be responsible for what minors consume on the internet” when people like me, whose parents do not give a single fuck and whose guardian figure was actually showing me porn at a young age, exist. In a lot of cases the parents are not, in fact, policing this kind of thing. I /agree with your point/ about the main issue here. Just. Don’t pretend a lot of young fans have better, more present families than they do.

Cyrefinns, on why having parents police their children online doesn't work

However, some adults view being asked to alter their behavior online for the comfort of minors as being asked to "parent children who aren't theirs." See: Minors Should Get Off the Unmoderated Internet.

Minors Should Protect Adults

Some adults, especially in NSFW circles, have made the argument that separating minors from adults online isn't just for the children's protection. Rather, by keeping kids from adult spaces the kids can also potentially protect the adults, specifically from possible legal and social repercussion. A Twitter thread by user Goryglass discusses this.

If you're a minor and you think you're being oppressed because an adult is telling you you don't belong in adult/nsfw spaces, they're not being a jack ass.

They're protecting themselves and you and you need to get your head out of your ass. Entitled brats.

[snipped]

but you put people in danger by sticking your - head into these spaces and expecting to be accepted. You can get people in trouble with the law, unintentionally or otherwise. You can get people fired. You can get people on record, and you get away scott free.

We're literally doing what we do to protect ourselves.

GORYGLASS, Oct 2, 2019, ^{Archived version}

Some responses to this Twitter thread are below.

Oh my god, I just had this exact discussion with an entitled little shit last night. They accused me of forcing teens to repress their sexuality b/c I said it was a shit idea to talk about kink to adult strangers with no boundaries.

Reply by poIyleritae

Ending this with "entitled brats" isn't the best way to get literal children to listen to you. Y'all sound like my parents.

Retweet with comment by TheDaedricDoll

Yes!!!! If you are under 18 please do not follow me!!!!!! My account will still be here when you're of age but until then please do not follow!!!!!!!!!

Retweet with comment by MLioncat

Minors Should Get Off the Unmoderated Internet

Alternative to two previous opinions, some adults in fandom spaces believe that it is either the minor's duty to avoid sexual, inappropriate, or uncomfortable spaces, or that it is the parents' duty to protect their children from them. For example, an adult who makes fetish content of cartoon characters on DeviantART may claim that if children don't want to be exposed to fetish content they should avoid the website/artist/tag/cartoon/internet all together. A related argument is that minors should tell their parents to install web filtering software, or to have adults report minors to the ToS of the website for not being old enough to use it.

ding ding ding ding.

Ao3 requires you to police your own consumption of content. Ao3 won’t let you destroy someone’s online presence simply because you don’t like it. Ao3 won’t let you impose your own morality on other without cause.

If you have issues with this, and the fact that Ao3 requires you to have responsibility and agency, then you seriously need to sit down and have a damned good long hard look at yourself.

Fluffmugger, ^{Archived version}

If my grown-ass fandom adult story is properly tagged as a grown-ass fandom adult story then sorry, those teenager OPs should have never read it in the first place and no, at that point their consumption of media not intended for their age-range is not my responsibility.

AO3 has an age policy and even puts up a disclaimer for the casual reader every time they open an adult-rated story. Whose responsibility it is if an underage teen lies about their age and then get upset with the content they actively chose to read despite the warnings?

It’s not my job as an author to make you feel safe by censoring my own content. My responsibility ultimately lies in making you able to avoid my stories, by thoroughly and properly tagging them. Period.

Julesdrenages, ^{Archived version}

Adults should not make sexual content on platforms targeted at/allowing minors

Alternative, or addition, to the three previous options. Many platforms that were created for teens and older to socialise are now used for sexual purposes, making people uncomfortable. in 2022, it was reported that 23% of teenagers used twitter, and around the same time in 2022 it was reported that 13% of twitter was NSFW. Many NSFW accounts are completely public, and due to twitter's algorithm their content may be shown on the home page. This is only one of twitters many problems, but leaving it up to the teenagers to not see content that is right in front of them is a stance held by most of the sexual content creators on the platform, including fanartists that post NSFW art.

since i was a little boy, i've been involved in fandom. I've borne witness to the pony gore of 2010's MLP fandom, elsagate, the stuff that went down during lockdown, and what i have to say is adults should have their own space. but they should not make it inside ours. Youtube kids, tumblr, twitter, instagram, roblox. All places that allow kids, are targeted at teens and kids, and all places with adults using them in sexual ways. I understand people get horny, and sex is a normal part of life. But seeing that stuff when you're young, especially kinky stuff when you have no understanding of consent, is honestly damaging.

But what's been more damaging to me is the sheer amount of cyberbullying and hatespeech permitted everywhere on the internet. You can get groomed for sexual purposes yes, but also you can be groomed into hateful ideologies. (glad that didn't happen to me, as i'm one of the people those ideologies hate) They can use your fandom for it too. people pay far too much attention to what people ship and read in private and not enough to the fact there are edits of your favourite characters shooting up schools, saying slurs, etc. If you cared about minors you'd care more about that than harassing a kid because they like a non-sexual incest ship. You'd care more about getting porn off these 13+ platforms than about getting minors off of the place that was never yours alone. You'd care more about the kids getting hate comments and suicide threats than a 16/20 age gap ship they enjoy gushing about.

I won't be a minor for much longer, maybe then people will listen to what i have to say

Anonymous minor

LGBTQ+ content being labeled as sexual by censorship rules

On platforms that do have censorship of NSFW content for the safety of minors, LGBTQ+ content is often labeled as sexual, when it's clearly not. Instead of removing sexual content from platforms that allow children, many platforms target marginalised groups that are perceived as inherently "adult" by a cisheteroallomononormative society such as atypical attractions and gender diversity. Many of those producing sexual content on teenager-targeted sites will use the defense of them being LGBTQ+ and label it as transphobic and/or homophobic censorship, putting themselves in the same group as those providing sex education resources, affirming care tips, and a safe space for people to be themselves.

Focus on sexual content over hate speech and cyberbullying

There are arguments about what hurts minors more, sexual conent, or hate speech and bullying?

There are those who argue that sexual content doesn't hurt minors in any way, which is criticised especially by those who witnessed elsagate or other forms of exposure at young ages. Though even they both agree for the most part that hate speech and cyberbullying are harmful. Some people use the "free speech" excuse to argue for freedom from consequence or any harm being caused by their actions. And there are those form both groups that leave the harm done on minors out of the argument, or only use it to promote their specific ideals. Minors themselves have a lot to say about this.

Controversy

Ages of Canon Characters

Age difference in pairings, including age gaps only one year apart, became a hot topic in certain areas of fandom, making the topic of what characters are or aren't considered minors much more complicated than it was before.

American Fandom

Separated due to the assumption of 18 being the age of consent everywhere within these arguments

In the Voltron fandom, the characters received canon ages far after the fandom had already established their preferred ships. Before these canon ages were revealed, some fans had perceived certain pairings as being between an adult and a minor, and subsequently decried them as inappropriate to ship. However, after the ages became canon, the fandom was even more divisive in opinion. Characters thought to have been 16 were now canonically 18, meaning suddenly the shippers who were perceived as shipping underaged characters with adults were now confirmed to be no longer doing so.

A similar controversy surrounded the characters of She-Ra when their ages were rather ambiguous. Even after the show ended most characters were only given a vague canon age between 17-18, with the exception of Entrapta who was officially set to be in her mid twenties to thirties. Being that the characters were either minors at 17 or adults at 18 this one year difference caused confusion and discourse between fans. Some would even interpret Scorpia to be much older than she potentially was due to her emotional maturity and stature, and thus saw shipping her with other characters as iffy. And, before Entrapta was confirmed to be much, much older, many fans were outraged and disgusted at fans shipping her with Hordak, who is an adult.

Sometimes, there is debate about characters who are on the cusp of adulthood, or age into adulthood during canon. A popular One Piece ship between main character Monkey D. Luffy, and rival and fellow pirate captain, Trafalgar D. Water Law, is considered by many anti-shippers to be a "proship" due to the fact that Luffy and Law met briefly when Luffy was 17 and Law was 24. A two-year timeskip has them forming an alliance when Luffy was 19 and Law is 26, which makes this a ship between two canonical adults. However, antis argue that the ship is "pedophilic", as Luffy was a minor when first meeting Law. It should be noted that, in One Piece, 17 seems to be a common age that young people set out to sea and become pirates (and if they are caught, the law prosecutes them as it would a pirate of any age) so it's possible that 17 is the age that people are considered adults in the One Piece world. There's also much discourse within anime fandoms considering the current age of consent in japan and many places is 16, although the age of adulthood is often different.

Then of course, there is the age-old debate of fiction vs. reality.

Minors Over the Age of 18

Some people began to call themselves minors at older and older times, or to say things like how they'll delete their blog when they turn 30 years old.^{[citation needed]} These "minors" were over 18.

However, this position of minors being under 18 is US-centric, and different countries have different ages of majority. For example, in Aotearoa New Zealand the age of majority is 20 and the age of consent is 16.

Ethics of Creating Callout Posts on Minors

Some users online may find it inappropriate or distasteful to include minors as the subject of a callout post.^{[citation needed]} For example, many callout posts include Discord or private message screenshots, so some may see the sharing of a minor's comments made in confidence as being unethical. This may be double so if the screenshots showcase private comments on the minor's mental health or personal life.

Age-up Fics

Many fanfiction with characters that are under the age of consent feature them as aged-up version of themselves, for sexual purposes. If the ship is minor/adult, the minor will be aged up to an adult age, often still younger.

Fan Comments

Are you a pervert?

I don't really understand why people keep asking me that. They assume that, because I'm 18, I must be some kind of a child molester to want to read a perverted story about Hanson. I think a 42-year-old MAN or WOMAN who wanted to read a perverted story about Hanson would be a pedophile. But not an 18-year-old. After all, this story does deals with massive adult content, and, by law, I am an adult. So, whoever asks me if I'm a pervert just because I'm older than you, did you ever consider that perhaps it's not me who's too old, but maybe you're just too young to read this story?

Meta/Further Reading

• Love Knows No Gender: Minors and Slash by kkscatnip (2001)
• Depicting Minors in Sexual Acts in Fiction! (2001)
• If A Minor Reads My NC-17 Fic, Will I Go To Jail? (2001)
• About Minors Using This Site..., ^{Archived version} by Drift at Pillowfort (2019)
• Y’know, for all the flaws in the 90s..., ^{Archived version} (2020)
• Like, i’m not saying that adults don’t have a place in fandom. they can and they do, and many are perfectly great people. (2017)
• K-pop Fanfiction: The Disturbing Truth (2013)
• "It Makes Me, a Minor, Uncomfortable": Media and Morality in Anti-Shippers' Policing of Online Fandom (2021)
• Does anyone else feel complicated When you have a crush on a Minor character (2023)