I get it, I know. One day as you’re dealing with the casual misogyny on Reddit, you happen upon someone calling out FDS, or insulting FDS, or calling it toxic. Then you come here to find out what the hell they’re talking about.

What you find instead is an oasis of women who seem to be completely different from those who feel the need to impress men on the rest of Reddit for fear of losing their internet points. The women have opinions that they're not censoring for fear of retribution. They're sassy and witty and it's fun!

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You want to join in, and get some of the love back, so what do you do?

* You neglect to read the handbook

* You neglect to take part in the weekly discussion which is pinned to the top of the subreddit.

* You decide to start posting memes

* You use the wrong flair for your posts, and smugly post screenshots of women experiencing domestic violence

* You post content from bad actors in order to inspire outrage, and therefore points

I don’t completely blame you, because memes are low effort, they can convey a message quickly and they can help you get upvotes, yay! Maybe if you arrange the posts by “Top of all time”, you can even find some memes to re-post, and that way you get to see your karma rise. There’s only one thing wrong with this:

You’re messing it up for the people who put in the effort to write the content that made you hear about FDS in the first place. What you are posting has no strategy, invites no meaningful discussion, and only brings an atmosphere of negativity.

Before you post, ask yourself:

Is this post tactical or strategic? Will it help inform a woman’s decisions in dating/vetting/escaping a bad situation? If no, don’t post it. If it's not useful, I promise no-one will miss it.

The FDS Rescue Mission flair is not for you to just post misery porn of broken women. Imagine if an abused woman were to see her pain screenshotted, with other women mocking her? Imagine how alone that would make you feel? Have some compassion ffs.

The actual high value thing for you to do if you really wanted to rescue women is to DM her with kindness, tell her examples of green flags of men that you have in your life, and help them see that even a stranger cares more about her than her piece-of-shit boyfriend/ husband. Show her that the grass is greener on the other side.

Women’s pain is not acceptable to use as a see-what-happens-when-you’re-a-pickme cautionary tale.

1 in 3 women between 16-59 will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

Two women a week are killed in the UK by a current or former partner.

THIS IS NOT A JOKE

Stop posting content from communities/creators that obviously don’t align with FDS, if the only reason to post it is because you were outraged or triggered by it. You’re like the woman who constantly whines to her friends while engaging in shitty relationship after shitty relationship and does nothing to change it. Your friends are exhausted, we are exhausted.

Look in my post history about bad actors. These people deliberately create content in order to trigger you so you can share. Dissemination of content is the new currency. Stop giving them your attention. Stop FORCING us to give them ours!

Ask yourself: “If every post on this subreddit were like the one I just posted, what would FDS be called?”

I am saying this with all recognition that I may be removed from the sub, but here we are. If you have done this in the past, this is your opportunity to do better.

Level Up and add value to the space that has added value to you. Read the Handbook, then read it again. Upvote the posts that add value to the sub, so we can reach a wider audience.

In the meantime, my report finger is going to be *extra* active. I’m on gardening leave, so unluckily for you, I have time now.