skip-is-tired:

koulej:

When I was about 14 and looking for something new to watch I accidentally saw a video on YouTube that depicted quite a graphic and violent anime.
I understood that it was clearly not made for an audience as young as me, and I knew I wasn’t ready to watch any graphic content.
So I just hit the X button and went on with my life, enjoying things suitable for my age and that I knew I could handle.

I was an average teen who liked anime a lot.
I chose to not watch that content because I knew it was M-Rated and it would have probably made me very uncomfortable.
Back then there was no tagging system, no one thought that minors and adults shouldn’t interact with each other in fandoms, YouTube policy seemeed a bit less strict.
So it wasn’t as much as a “safe place” as it is today. And yet, we young teens, just as anybody else, had a beautiful thing called freedom of choice and action.

If I had decided to watch that anime despite knowing that it wasn’t suitable for me, it would have been my choice, my mistake and no one else’s. I wouldn’t have gotten mad at the person who posted that short clip on YouTube, because it would have been MY decision to take a risk despite the warnings, search a streaming and watch the rest of it.

If your parents are trusting you to go on the Internet on your own, it is because they assume you are old enough to use it in a selective and critical way. This means that you, as a person, can and must decide what content best suits yourself and what content you should avoid watching/reading. It’s up to you, no one besides you is responsible of the way you are living your Internet experience.

All of this 👆🏾👆🏾👆🏾