My fellow fandom grown-ups: what the hell has happened to the kids?

The pictures below are just some of the comments I’ve received on fanfic, all for the same fandom (Rings of Power). Going to warn ahead of time for suicide-baiting language and general… weirdness? I don’t even know how to describe it.

Not that we didn’t have stupid ship wars and ridiculous behaviour back in my day, but I don’t remember THIS kind of nonsense. Some of these were left anonymously, some on what I’m guessing are sockpuppet accounts when I’ve had anon comments switched off. (Reported to AO3 for harassment obviously, but AO3 takes a while.)

While I don’t obviously have 100% proof of who these people are, I’m like 99% sure it’s all from the same crowd of younger Rings of Power fans on Twitter (hence the ‘Tolkientwt’ comment. They are young, but by ‘young’ I mean they’re in their early- to mid-20s - they’re not twelve. I am not sure where they have picked up that this is the way we behave in fandom but dear lord. What happened?

(  Behind a cut because WHAT ON EARTH )

(Not that it matters at ALL in terms of how acceptable this kind of behaviour is, but my fic in that fandom is quite popular on AO3 and is stupidly and ridiculously Tolkien-detailed because I love that stuff, which… I think is part of their issue.)