I was definitely in the pipeline, being the prime demographic for this type of stuff as a socially awkward teenager in the suburbs and I ended up in some pretty awful online circles. There's a lot of different factors that all combined to get me out. One thing was the fact that I'm not white so I had to have this conversation with myself where I realized "Why the hell am I as a non-white person defending white people so hard?" Also, once I realized that these channels and sites were part of an entire industry that profits off of making people like me mad about things that don't really happen in real life, dismissing this whole thing as slop became a lot easier.

I like to joke that being an Undertale fan as a teen saved me from completely going down the pipeline but honestly it's kinda true. I think deep down, I was uncomfortable with the cruelty and the layers and layers of irony that people like Leafy covered their content in - I realized that punching down actually didn't make me feel that good and that browsing KiwiFarms always left me feeling really gross about what I had just spent the last hour of my life doing - and the games taught me that it's ok to be genuine and kind. I didn't really internalize those messages until a few years later, but having them in my mind helped.

Also I stopped being 16 and learned how the world actually works