Why I Originally Left Exhale (Leave Britney Alone!!!)

[mannequinn]

i’m glad i’ve always defended knee even during the arm spasm days  

[Justin Woodpond]

On 7/9/2021 at 1:36 AM, Scrappy said:

Let’s be real for a second: blind faith is what the con-ship wanted. They would be happy if Brit worked like a machine and folks ate it up without question. It’s the critical ones that pushed for change. Confusion, irritation, criticism is natural when you don’t have the full picture. Moreover, fans were being lied to. She was not behaving professionally at times and they called her out on it. The underlying root was what we didn’t know, but again, hindsight is 20/20. It feels like you came on here just be like “I told you so!” And it’s like, is this really necessary or productive?

Didn’t Perez Hilton use the same excuse about professionalism?

There’s a massive difference between actual “critique” and vitriolic criticism verging on bullying.

While I agree Britney’s music and artistic output should be poked, prodded and analyzed! And let's be honest many of us haven't been a lover of a lot of what the conservatorship has churned out. But…

I don’t agree that Britney’s personality, appearance, life choices and sense of self should be attacked to the point of annihilation. She often didn’t have a choice or say in the matter…as it turns out she didn’t at all. And as a mother of two children do you think she was worrying 24/7 about vocals, choreography or whatever over her kids academic performance or health.

Early in the conservatorship when the passion died, and the lights dimmed many weren't seeing Britney as she actually was, a ghost of bygone days with lower (albeit) realistic expectations. Many accused her of being terribly lazy and ungrateful, and they lambasted her super bad choices. Little did we know!

Brit will often say it herself, there is a difference between Britney the person, and Britney the product / performer.  Many fans fail/failed to see the difference.  Or confused the two. 

And yes the OP’s viewpoints are VERY necessary! Like Britney’s recent testimony, people need to get out what is inside them to heal, and make sense of their feelings. Even if you don’t agree with what they are saying, we can all learn something from this!

I find that Little Monsters are a good example of fans that are able to be fiercely critical of their idol’s “output” and at the same time very sympathetic, empathetic and loving towards Gaga as a person.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Justin Woodpond

[Steel Magnolia]

1 hour ago, Pinky98 said:

Taking the high road isn’t a good look when we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We only got leaks of what was going on a little bit in 2016 with Make Me and Jonathan Ross and then the voicemail came out.

Ah, but you were never one of the people that made statements like...

- "She needs a facelift."
- "She needs Botox and fillers."
- "She needs to lose weight."
- "She's so ******* lazy."
- "This ***** is so..." [insert misogynistic description here]

Some users on here were terrible towards her...Absolutely heartless. Especially during the FF era. 

Now it's very likely that those same people are here with different user names, gloating and taking credit for how they're "freeing" her with their death threats towards Lou or their threads about wanting to knock on her front door to "rescue" her. 

It's the huge chasm between the two behaviours that irks me.

In the middle are the regular Britney fans who are just offering support...I hope it's those fans that Britney remembers when the dust finally settles, and not the "fans" who took credit for what she achieved herself or the "fans" who ripped her appearance and her performing skills to shreds.

[theannehedonia]

2 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

Ah, but you were never one of the people that made statements like...

- "She needs a facelift."
- "She needs Botox and fillers."
- "She needs to lose weight."
- "She's so ******* lazy."
- "This ***** is so..." [insert misogynistic description here]

Some users on here were terrible towards her...Absolutely heartless. Especially during the FF era. 

Now it's very likely that those same people are here with different user names, gloating and taking credit for how they're "freeing" her with their death threats towards Lou or their threads about wanting to knock on her front door to "rescue" her. 

It's the huge chasm between the two behaviours that irks me.

In the middle are the regular Britney fans who are just offering support...I hope it's those fans that Britney remembers when the dust finally settles, and not the "fans" who took credit for what she achieved herself or the "fans" who ripped her appearance and her performing skills to shreds.

PREACH

[Martian_M00d]

5 minutes ago, Steel Magnolia said:

Ah, but you were never one of the people that made statements like...

- "She needs a facelift."
- "She needs Botox and fillers."
- "She needs to lose weight."
- "She's so ******* lazy."
- "This ***** is so..." [insert misogynistic description here]

Some users on here were terrible towards her...Absolutely heartless. Especially during the FF era. 

Now it's very likely that those same people are here with different user names, gloating and taking credit for how they're "freeing" her with their death threats towards Lou or their threads about wanting to knock on her front door to "rescue" her. 

It's the huge chasm between the two behaviours that irks me.

In the middle are the regular Britney fans who are just offering support...I hope it's those fans that Britney remembers when the dust finally settles, and not the "fans" who took credit for what she achieved herself or the "fans" who ripped her appearance and her performing skills to shreds.

Yeah, I still occasionally see those kinds of comments in threads here, but it seems less than before 

[TakeYourHand]

Welcome back Bryce! ;)

[Jordan Miller]

Appreciate you writing this. Honestly, maybe not all, but a lot of it was my fault. I was so focused on the former homepage, and writing stories, I didn’t appreciate how important the community is/was. Around the very end of 2018/early 2019 is when I became so burnt out with writing stories that I decided screw it - and instead poured all my energy into exhale and ditched Wordpress. Best decision for BH I have ever ever made bar none.

If I would have made that decision during the FF era things would have been different, but hindsight is 20/20. 

The other equally huge difference is the current @Community Super Mods and @Community Curators. They have profoundly helped make Exhale a better place. Them, combined with the site’s long history and the fandom’s desire to free Britney, it created a perfect storm and here we are. 1.1 million people came to Exhale in the last 30 days. This is no doubt a team effort. 

I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons over the years and I refuse to let Exhell ever resurface. 

Exhale truly is a super special corner on the Internet now.

Love y’all 

[briprin1]

On 7/8/2021 at 7:28 PM, Urbanney said:

Omg I remember you! But yeah… FF era was brutal on here to Britney. I was only 12-13 years old during that era, so I didn’t realize the full gravity of how messed up so many of the comments were at the time.

I think there were a lot of fans who were just supportive too, but then they got called “Britards” by other fans

Oh wow. I completely forgot people used to say britard lmao. So glad that died.

[theannehedonia]

2 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

Appreciate you writing this. Honestly, maybe not all, but a lot of it was my fault. I was so focused on the former homepage, and writing stories, I didn’t appreciate how important the community is/was. Around the very end of 2018/early 2019 is when I became so burnt out with writing stories that I decided screw it - and instead poured all my energy into exhale and ditched Wordpress. Best decision for BH I have ever ever made bar none.

If I would have made that decision during the FF era things would have been different, but hindsight is 20/20. 

The other equally huge difference is the current @Community Super Mods and @Community Curators. They have profoundly helped make Exhale a better place. Them, combined with the site’s long history and the fandom’s desire to free Britney, it created a perfect storm and here we are. 1.1 million people came to Exhale in the last 30 days. This is no doubt a team effort. 

I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons over the years and I refuse to let Exhell ever resurface. 

Exhale truly is a super special corner on the Internet now.

Love y’all 

If I remember correctly, you were in school while a lot of 'exhell' was a thing. So yeah, the community unmodded became a little caustic, but you aren't necessarily to blame. You had other priorities and were likely pulled in a lot of different directions. For better or for worse, this site was at one point the gay/pop music forum equivalent to the wild west. It was sometimes as great as it was terrible. (Though usually just more terible) Exhale was there for me in a very low point in my life and allowed me to have friends when my mental health didn't allow me to irl. So even at its worst, it still helped a lot of people.

 Your laissez faire management style maybe enabled the lot of the toxic behaviour at the time, you can't place the blame on yourself. People other than you posted terrible things and did a lot of ****ty stuff; they're responsible for that. Now that you were able to put your time into the forums and really curate the environment you wanted it to be, you really made something pretty great. 

[briprin1]

Those are the reasons I left too. It’s not perfect here, but it’s not a toxic place anymore.

[ObsessedBritFan1]

We all leave for cook, but eventually we return. 

lol jk

We're fairly tame for the most part. If we bite, you'll learn to love it. Everyone should have a kinky side. 

[jordeezy river red]

The internet used to feel more anonymous so we all trolled a lot more. A lot has changed. 

[PokemonSpears]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:36 PM, Scrappy said:

Let’s be real for a second: blind faith is what the con-ship wanted. They would be happy if Brit worked like a machine and folks ate it up without question. It’s the critical ones that pushed for change. Confusion, irritation, criticism is natural when you don’t have the full picture. Moreover, fans were being lied to. She was not behaving professionally at times and they called her out on it. The underlying root was what we didn’t know, but again, hindsight is 20/20. It feels like you came on here just be like “I told you so!” And it’s like, is this really necessary or productive?

It's funny because I feel more this attitude of "I told you so" in the people that were actually critical with her. Not necessarily here, but I've seen in places like Reddit or Twitter.

For example, Chris Crocker, after the leave Britney alone era, he came up during the FF era or so, bashing Britney, I think even his new "catchphrase" was Leave the stage alone. Now some people are defending him, or anyone criticizing her around that era or POM as if they all knew for sure that something wrong was going on, and those that didn't complain are to blame for following Team Con's game instead of having that sixth sense to guess she was suffering.

If they were so sure something so sinister was going on behind the scenes, why didn't they start the freebritney movement 10 years ago, digging court documents and such, instead of just bashing her in the rudest way? 

 

As you said, in the end nobody knew what was going on, and it's useless to point fingers now to see who did more harm these past 13 years, but what you said about "I told you so" reminded me of that thread I was reading on Reddit a couple of weeks ago.

[Scrappy]

On 7/8/2021 at 8:50 PM, theannehedonia said:

It wasn't productive or constructive. They lambasted Britney for not putting in the actual effort. The fans cared nothing for the conservatorship and blamed Britney for everything. If you were Britney, would you have been happy with that? "Oh their ****ting on me and everything I do lead to the conservatorship being questioned."  No. It didn't work like that. I left exhale a Britney fan who was still questioning why she was in a conservatorship and talking about it to all who would listen. You didn't need to be an ******* to Britney and trash her to dislike the conservatorship. This is a false equivocation and just justifying terrible behaviour. Britney was clearly unhappy and unmotivated and those who were unhappy with what she was producing placed the blame on her.

I don't celebrate every single thing she has ever done, but I don't participate in unnecessary cruelty either. Don't build a straw man argument based on what I said. Logical fallacies aren't cute.

Whose “they”?  By your account: you were here, you’re here again, so you were/are a part of this community. I don’t think an “us” vs “them” mentality is cute either.  A peppering of academic jargon disguising vitriol is so last season.

Anyways, like I said: hindsight is 20/20. I doubt anyone would have dragged Britney so harshly if they knew what we all do now.  But as far as the looks part of it all - there isn’t a man alive - black, white, orange, gay, straight, Spongebob etc - that hasn’t dragged a woman for her looks at one point in their life. Sadly, it’s part of the intrinsically misogynistic culture. I’d love it if my gender wasn’t reduced to ****, butts, makeup, hair, and fancy strips of clothing, but hey, it’s so in right now to pretend women are just an aesthetically pleasing combination of these elements. The day a man doesn’t give a woman unsolicited advice on her looks is a day I sadly doubt I’ll ever live to see.

[girl_bye]

ok so u want a cookie or...?

u left cuz the place was toxic but then u come back just to create unnecessary division and drama lmao

 

[briprin1]

6 minutes ago, lili_ballet said:

ok so u want a cookie or...?

u left cuz the place was toxic but then u come back just to create unnecessary division and drama lmao

 

How is that what they were doing? If anyone is doing it, it is you.

I don’t see any division or drama. Literally just you and maybe the person above. 

[girl_bye]

5 minutes ago, Briprin67 said:

How is that what they were doing? If anyone is doing it, it is you.

I don’t see any division or drama. Literally just you and maybe the person above. 

ok

 

#gatekeep #gaslight #girlboss 🤪

[briprin1]

3 minutes ago, lili_ballet said:

ok

 

#gatekeep #gaslight #girlboss 🤪

Um… what. I’m literally laughing rn what does any of that mean. Girl bye. Maybe you need to look up the definitions for words before you use them.

[theannehedonia]

1 hour ago, Scrappy said:

Whose “they”?  By your account: you were here, you’re here again, so you were/are a part of this community. I don’t think an “us” vs “them” mentality is cute either.  A peppering of academic jargon disguising vitriol is so last season.

Anyways, like I said: hindsight is 20/20. I doubt anyone would have dragged Britney so harshly if they knew what we all do now.  But as far as the looks part of it all - there isn’t a man alive - black, white, orange, gay, straight, Spongebob etc - that hasn’t dragged a woman for her looks at one point in their life. Sadly, it’s part of the intrinsically misogynistic culture. I’d love it if my gender wasn’t reduced to ****, butts, makeup, hair, and fancy strips of clothing, but hey, it’s so in right now to pretend women are just an aesthetically pleasing combination of these elements. The day a man doesn’t give a woman unsolicited advice on her looks is a day I sadly doubt I’ll ever live to see.

It's not an us vs. them. It's a very valid criticism of a previously perceived behaviour that I wanted to constructively critique. My original post was not aggressive in the slightest and was critiquing behaviour that I found problematic and was concerned would continue after this is all said and done. This is all just my opinion anyway, you don't have to agree with it or even care. You don't know me, what I say on a forum shouldn't hold any weight. Maybe you're justified in what you did or your previous behaviour and if you believe that, then that's all that matters. Yet, the fact that you're defensive speaks otherwise, but maybe I'm wrong.
 

Also stating that 'something has always been this way and it's never going to change' is an absolute awful way of justifying something. We are humans. We are adaptable, things can change. In our lifetime people went from not supporting gay marriage or their relationships, to the majority supporting it and the laws changing to reflect that. Humans are more capable of growth on social issues than you are giving them credit.

 

ps. I didn't realize having an education and being formally educated on the philosophy of logic constituted as 'last season'. Oops.

[Steel Magnolia]

On 7/8/2021 at 7:28 PM, Urbanney said:

Omg I remember you! But yeah… FF era was brutal on here to Britney. I was only 12-13 years old during that era, so I didn’t realize the full gravity of how messed up so many of the comments were at the time.

I think there were a lot of fans who were just supportive too, but then they got called “Britards” by other fans

I'm five years older than Britney is right now.

Can you imagine how messed up the situation was for me back during the FF era? 

I mean...because of my age I fully realized the gravity.