Ah, 2010’s Tumblr. One of God’s most horrific mistakes. I personally did not frequent much on Tumblr myself as a young, terrible, and stupid preteen (mostly because I didn’t know how to work the site). Despite that, I had a certain fan account on Instagram on which I could browse Tumblr made content without having to actually figure out how to work it. Now, memories of this aren’t ones I’d like to remember. You’d think these memories and specific internet phenomena would stay buried, right? I did too.
Then I saw someone use the term “kinning” on Tik Tok.
Have you ever been hit by a car? Now, after you’ve been hit by said car, has the driver pulled over and kicked you directly in the throat, leaving you gasping for air as they proceed to spit on you and drive away?
That is about what it felt like to see “kinning” resurface at first.
Now, if you are someone who had an actually decent teenage experience, you might be wondering, “Hey Belle, why are you being so dramatic? Isn’t kin just that word that word they use in ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’ that kinda confused me at first because I didn’t know what it meant?”
And to that I say: yeah that word confused me as a baby kid too BUT also you silly, naïve creature. It is not simply that. Kinning, in the days of Ye Olde Tumblr, was the act of literally being a character, person, or animal. Boy oh boy did this concept spark the absolute craziest discourse!
Allow me to start with some basic definitions for those who are fortunate enough to still not know what I’m talking about. First you have factkinning, which is kinning a real person, dead or alive. Fictionkinning is kinning a fictional character. Otherkins simply were non-human. Therians kinned real world animals.
The big rule for many “kinnies” was this: NO. DOUBLES. If you interacted with an account that kinned the same thing you did, all hell would break loose. Also, another big thing was having lists of kins you did not want to interact with your page. A specific memory that comes to mind is seeing a Lois Griffin kin put in their bio “STEWIE KINNIES DNI” (DNI=do not interact). I know the person who posted it was trolling, but I honestly would not have been surprised if it was real. I mean, I get it though. From the about 5 minutes I’ve seen of Family Guy that was consumed against my will, I don’t want anyone who even thinks of themselves to be similar to Stewie Griffin to interact with me. But even if they were Lois wouldn’t they still be Stewie’s mom? Kind of shit parenting, if you ask me. At least commit to the character, you amateur.
Now, I like to state this in all of my articles that tend to bully people. I don’t give a shit what people do or think, man. As long as you’re not hurting yourself or others then it’s none of my business. Spend your time on the internet as you choose, if you’re happy then that’s fantastic.
That said, I want to talk about some bullshit.
Sometimes kinning tended to venture into territory that was just dangerous and strange. Another specific kin memory I have locked away in that dusty, dark mental vault of mine is someone sending in an ask to a tumblr user, stating that they were dragon kin. This dragon kin told this user anonymously that since their mom did not allow them to eat her jewelry, she was literally starving them. I’m no expert, but I have a good feeling that eating jewelry can’t be good for someone.
Much of where the Tumblr discourse came about because of who people kinned. You know, it’s probably not the best idea to go onto the internet, become a part of a community that is honestly just trying to express themselves and do their own shenanigans, and proceed to tell them that you kin someone as awful as one of the Columbine shooters—I’m not making this up, this is a genuine controversy that existed within Tumblr’s kinning community. Certain kins became huge red flags because, you know, they’re probably genuinely awful people to kin. This also inspired many trolls to come and do the same simply to wreak havoc. Trolls themselves had a tendency to be just as toxic as people who genuinely claimed to kin horrible people. One of the most infamous trolls was someone who told the internet that they kinned Hitler, which rightfully brought on huge amounts of criticism for this disgusting behavior.
One huge thing I remember from my time on the internet is the Hamilton phase that all the internet seemed to have at the same time, and the emergence of people kinning the founding fathers. “Hamilkins” would go in one of two directions: factkinning the real founding fathers or fictionkinning the characters of the founding fathers as they were portrayed in the musical. I feel like people should know to not claim to be the founding fathers since, well you know, the founding fathers weren’t really the greatest people (to put it lightly). I don’t really care if it’s not the real Alexander Hamilton they kin but rather the one who is played by Lin Manuel Miranda that sings and dances his way to a more perfect union, it still puts a bad taste in my mouth to claim that sort of thing. Hamilkins would discuss memories of their lives as the founding fathers with pretty much zero regard for historical accuracy. Multiple people factkinning the literal founding fathers definitely caused some drama. The memories of one Aaron Burr kin may not align with the memories of another, sparking a discussion about the legitimacy of them being an Aaron Burr kin. See why this “no doubles” rule was so prominent now?
So maybe now you can understand why seeing the term making a comeback sent me spiraling. Kinning back then wasn’t always toxic and full of people kinning the absolute worst people, a lot of it was likely a very nice and welcoming community. The absolute fuckery did make itself incredibly apparent, so the face of kinning became a tainted one. However, things are different now it seems. The people of Tik Tok seemed to collectively agree that kinning no longer meant “Hey! I actually am the incarnate of a war criminal! No doubles, pwease!” These days, kinning is simply heavily relating to a character, whether it’s the way they act or their experiences. This has sparked much less controversy. The most I’ve seen is “People don’t really understand the meaning of the word kin! They relate to too many characters that are too different! They aren’t real kins!” Come on now, is the concept of relating to a character really that serious? I mean, I did see someone claim to kin Hisoka from the TV show HunterxHunter because they thought he was cool and liked his hourglass figure, so that’s really missing the point. Some other modern kin controversy lies in kinning characters that are just awful, terrible people with no redeeming qualities for absolute bullshit reasons (that said, also in regards to the sentence before this one, PLEASE do not kin Hisoka. I am practically begging you not to kin Hisoka. I have seen too many people say they do. I’ve had about enough).
With all that said, I think the new and improved definition of kinning is fun and much less drama inducing as the previous definition. Am I saying this because I have a list of characters I relate to in my Notes app? I’d prefer if you didn’t ask me that question.
Anyways, I’d like to make one thing clear: Stewie Griffin kinnies DNI.
