I don’t think its fair people online are constantly at each others throats for any sort of disrespect, accidental or not, towards any minority group—only to entirely disregard another when they don’t think its fun to respect them.

my sibling is therian, so this topic is very personal to me. they mean a lot to me, and this is such a essential, core part of their identity that seeing people’s complete lack of empathy towards it solely because. its not a well-known thing, i guess? It hurts them, so it hurts me a lot. 

i think treating others with respect, even when you don’t understand, is a very easy thing to do. and if you only do so conditionally i kind of think youre a huge jerk. Anyways

The term “kinning” as it has been popularized by people online on twt, insta, etc, is blatant co-opting and appropriation of otherkin culture—which is where the term came from. additionally, the term “kinnie” was coined by an “anti-otherkin” tumblr user as a proposed “slur” for otherkin people.  while its obviously not actually a slur i still think the negative connotations behind it are a good reason to not use the term.

Otherkin is the spiritual belief that your soul isnt, or at least isnt entirely, human. this could be for many reasons, primarily reincarnation.being otherkin is when a person directly identifies with their past-life, or otherwise nonhuman soul, in their current life.

Another term is “therianthropy” which is essentially this ^ but specifically for animal souls. 

I often hear the idea that calling “kinning” disrespectful (“kinning” in the sense of how online spaces have appropriated it into meaning: relating to, but not believing you are, a character) is a “terminally online” take. and i’d really like to bring into question why? because the otherkim community isnt well-known? or popular? the same people saying things like this would bite another persons neck if they were to misuse or mock terms like “spirit animal” or other aspects of different spiritual/religious beliefs.. but they drawn the line here, at respecting otherkin, for reasons i can only assume are for their own enjoyment and convenience, as they don’t want to remove their “kinlist” from their carrd, or they think its Really funny to say they “kin nagito komaeda.” like, maybe the issue isnt “as serious” as other issues—nobody is dying, i guess. but it’s disrespectful, and removing misusage of “kin” from your vocabulary is such an easy thing to do that i dont understand the need to fight people on something that defines a major aspect of their identity just to defend your right to mock said aspect and goof around on twitter. coin a new term for “characters you relate to”!

tl;dr its disrespectful to otherkin/therians and my sibling is therian so its very personal to me when people show little to no respect or understanding of otherkin/therians solely because they’re “weird.” the double standard is insaneeeee!!

oh one more thing. i dont think youre a bad person if youve used kin this way, nor will i inherently think so if you continue to use it that way after reading this, however.. I do thing its a Bad thing to do and i definitely will question your logic n morality at least somewhat if u do..cuz thats rly silly of you