FANDERS, WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T SIGN THIS PETITION.

FANDERS, WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T SIGN THIS PETITION.

No, not even as a joke. Don’t share it with your friends as a joke either, or make a meme out of it, or anything. I don’t know what the motivation was behind creating this petition – I guess it very well could have been a younger well-meaning Fander who genuinely doesn’t understand how elections work – but regardless of what the intentions were, this is so so so awful and could have so many terrible consequences if it starts gaining traction.

Listen, we all understood why Kanye’s “presidential bid” was harmful, right? This is basically the same thing: right now, every third-party vote is a vote for Tr*mp and, no offense to my American friends, but your country cannot afford to vote Tr*mp back in. The upcoming election needs to be taken seriously now more than ever. 

The fact that this petition is being directed at the Thomas Sanders fandom is extra unsavory. It’s common knowledge that a huge chunk of this fandom is made up of younger people, and as much as I love, cherish, and respect our younger population – heck, I’m a minor myself – the fact is that we’re much more easily influenced, eager to give people the benefit of the doubt, and unfortunately, way too many of us may not know any better.

“But Spec!” I hear you cry. “If this petition is mainly being spread by the younger side of the fandom that doesn’t know any better, what harm could it do? They can’t vote anyway!”

The thing is, if you follow multiple Sanders Sides blogs, you’ll know from all the times you’ve seen the same post on your dash ten times in a row that we spread stuff like wildfire. If enough people aren’t aware of the harmful consequences and start spreading this petition around, then regardless of whether they’re seriously asking for signatures or just spreading it as a joke, one viral post would be all it takes for the mainstream internet to take notice. I cannot stress enough how disastrous that would be. 

The second that this petition catches the attention of the wider public, the US will be at risk of having a repeat version of Kanye’s presidential bid: people with a vote, a terrible sense of humour and no understanding of the consequences may write in Thomas Sanders as a joke, thus effectively wasting a vote that could be used to take Tr*mp out of office.

Oh, and if for whatever reason you’re a Fander that “doesn’t care about politics”, then first of all check your privilege at the very least you could care about Thomas?? He is a real person that could suffer very real harm not only to his brand/reputation, but also his personal safety if this petition thing gets out of hand. A similar thing happened to the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series when a petition to change the US flag to the face of his fictional character began to gain traction. He was unaffiliated with the petition, but still received honest-to-goodness death threats. We cannot let this happen again.

Sorry if this post makes me sound angry, but it’s because I am. This is absolutely ridiculous. Please signal boost.