Second time it's happened in my 7 years on dA! And I'm so glad it was on this: [link] because it gave me the opportunity to link to photos and educate people a bit on roaches, which is like, my goal in life, for anyone who knows me. They're so misunderstood and misrepresented.  I used to be a bit scared by them through my teens, but to show how drastically that's changed since simply educating myself on them, I now proudly display a tattoo of a roach: [link] It's now and will always be my favorite feature. I've educated a lot of strangers because of this tattoo. It makes me feel awesome.

I've dealt with some horrible crap because of my love of roaches, so pardon the incoming vent. Especially since the hissing cockroach birth video (as seen HERE: [link] ), I've received daily death threats, people saying I'm a "filthy slut" and "probably put roaches in my ___" amongst other disgusting things, and other pretty much daily insults from some random dark corner of the internet or another for loving these bugs. I could disable comments, sure, but even all this harassment is worth the few good comments, or the people asking questions that I'm able to answer. It's worth it to educate. You won't see 60% of the comments I get on that video, as I don't even bother to approve them. I only approve the ones that are from semi-intelligent people who are either asking questions, or who say I've changed their views on insects... which is the most wonderful thing I could hear.

It's really sad to me that it's more controversial to love insects than it is to love stomping on them to feel like a higher, more powerful and evolved being. Roaches haven't changed much since they came about the earth some 300+ million years ago, but that's because they're already perfect and don't need to change much to survive far longer than any of us will. :> We're not as high above them as we like to think we are. In fact, we're pretty devolved to not appreciate these creatures more than the useless furry things that provide us nothing but cuteness; roaches have given us far more advanced artificial hearts, serve as food to multitudes of larger (and even smaller) animals, some even pollinate and many farmers intentionally release them into crops to destroy certain pests. They help break down matter on the forest floors and have taught us much in our experimentation on them. That's why it BLOWS my mind that people are so quick to accept their hatred of them, hell, even EMBRACE and be proud of their phobia/hatred of them as though they're part of some tight-knit group.

I can understand struggling with an irrational phobia of something that can't actually hurt you, but I can't comprehend ACCEPTING a phobia of ANYthing simply because "it's icky" to you. Your human brain is advanced enough to go beyond such an ingrained, devolved comprehension of insects; use it to educate yourself before cursing an entire species of animal. Fear of insects is NOT genetic. It's a learned trait. Maybe your mom shrieked at a roach when you were a kid, and you went from eating bugs to smashing them. Maybe your dad works in pest control and you saw only the "evil" side of insects growing up and think they're all like that. Maybe a cartoon taught you your learned phobia. Either way, we all played with, observed, even ate bugs as a kid til our mother told us not to. I don't expect anyone to handle my insects or adore them when they come visit me, but I do expect them to tolerate them and keep their mouth shut. I've had people actually expect me to hide some of my pets when they come over. Sorry, no. They are my pets, and just the same, I'd never expect someone to put away their cat or dog (unless they've had a history of biting/attacking people, of course), I'd never go to a youtube video of someone's cat or dog and say, "ew, disgusting! Why would you keep such a nasty creature??" (however much I DO believe cats and dogs are, if anything, more gross and dangerous than any insects I keep), and I'd never EVER talk about how much I love crushing hamsters around someone (or anyone D: ) who clearly loves hamsters. Just because they're insects doesn't make them any less worthy of respect and appreciation than all the "cuter", more relatable animals in the world.

It's sad how many people can only see the black and white whenever I talk about this, thinking that I expect everyone to love and adore insects. The most I'd ever ask of anyone is to have the sense to understand all of these things and if you have a phobia that you are struggling with, either try to overcome it OR just stay AWAY from things that scare you, especially if you're prone to bursting into comment spewage about how much you hate the thing you intentionally clicked on. Don't go seeking out people who love the thing you're afraid of only to say something rude and pointless to them when you clearly are too blinded by your phobia/hatred to have anything reasonable to say that's worth hearing.

Anyway. Second DD ever, woo~