Turning Negativity into Positivity
This may come as a bit of a surprise to some of you, but... zoos tend to get a lot of hate. ...I'm joking, of course. Anyone in the community knows this quite well and ha most likely been subject to a couple of hateful people on their posts or messages. Whether it's name calling, the same argument you've heard hundreds of times, or some violation of a platform's terms of service, it kinda comes with the decision of becoming openly zoo in our current society. And to many people, this is a terrifying thought. Harassment isn't fun and it can be hurtful, or even scary, depending of the kinds of threats one may receive.
To be honest, I totally get it. I've been hurt by people in the past, and the thought of having multiple people threatening your existence over an uncontrollable attraction does sound quite scary. The thing is that despite being an individual that's rather sensitive, none of the anti-zoo hate has ever really gotten under my skin. In fact, I would argue that it's actually had a positive impact on me.
My account is still pretty new at the time of writing this, but the attention I've gotten would make you think otherwise. Just a couple weeks into my Twitter journey, I blew up from a zooey meme that I made that got shared by some "Worst Takes of Twitter" account. What followed was harassment for a full week on multiple of my tweets, old and new. Not just that, but many hateful message requests. With my past online identities never really getting any attention, this was unprecedented for me. But how is this a good thing? Does it not sting? Is it not annoying?
I'll admit, it *is* annoying, but it didn't really hurt. And while I can't sit and say that it wouldn't hurt for everyone, what made it so inconsequential to me was that I had made many friends who had already began standing by my side. This is something the zoo community is really powerful at, the support network you get by being around like minded individuals who understand that an attraction to animals is not inherently harmful. With t kind of people by your side, it becomes a lot harder to get hurt by what random people on the internet who you wouldn't even wanna be friends with have to say about you.
But that's just one part of the equation. The second part is even more important, and that's outreach. You see, attention, whether positive or negative, is still attention. And the more attention you get, the more eyes are on you. And then, what happens? Well, that negative attention will get viewed by people who are willing to listen and debate in a respectful manner, or even better, the post may get viewed by people in the closet, afraid or shameful of who they are. These are the most important people to get ahold of because it can save lives. It may seem silly for a joke tweet about animal attraction to help someone who is struggling, but when you really think about it it's not that far-fetched.
Acceptance isn't easy, and many zoosexuals have had self-destructive thoughts and behavior because of their attraction. What negative publicity has done to the zoo community, far more than damaging it, is increase its size. Yes, my profile was harassed for some time, but it also grew. I gained hundreds of followers in just a few days, and received many messages that weren't negative. Some were kind words, others were people seeking guidance about how to cope with zooey feelings. These can be people who hid away, not realizing that our community existed, or people who have been trying to repress their feelings, shameful of who they are. In both cases, simply seeing a tweet and ignoring the hate surrounding it can make an individual feel a lot less alone in the world.
I had a few people f much better about themselves after seeing my profile and talking to me about how they , and some of these people ended up becoming new members of the community. The positive impact, even if it appeared a lot smaller than the negative attention, makes it all worth it. To be able to change someone's life for the better and support them in feeling less isolated in the world means far more to me than any anti's opinion on me. This is the single biggest reason why I'm still on Twitter despite how irritating of a platform it can be to use.
So if you happen to be on the zoo side of Twitter and you get hate, just remember that the attention will do far more good than harm at the end of the day. Stick close to your friends, and remain positive. Who knows? You might even get to make some new lifelong friends.
Article written by Pawful (March 2025)
Find her at https://twitter.com/pawfulzeta
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