On the general public's perception of Homestuck

Most people know Homestuck for its fandom "incidents" - stuff like the Sharpie Bath story, or the Spit Bucket video. I think it's wrong to look at the Homestuck fandom purely from the lens of their controversies. UT/DR fans often do this when discussing Homestuck in relation to their series - as Toby Fox was a contributor on Homestuck's soundtrack - when their fandom had similar incidents as well - think of the time an artist was given a needle cookie for shipping a controversial Undertale pairing, or Sans fangirls, or anything of that nature.

There's a common argument I see a lot - that Homestuck is too long, and no one should read it because of that. I think long media shouldn't be shunned for its length, and implying such is antiintellectualist in nature. The decrease in people's keenness to reading that has really been disappointing to me.

Homestuck is also viewed critically for its content. I feel like people who read it and didn't like it look really hard for objective things to hate it for because they're too embarrassed to admit they just find it uncomfortable. And I get it, Homestuck is full of very fucked up things, you're allowed to be made uncomfortable by them. But a piece of media being offensive does not make it objectively "bad", especially if it's intended to make fun of the things it's depicting. A lot of people actually find comfort in uncomfortable media; media that isn't afraid to say more or cross boundaries. Not every piece of fiction has to be safe and unconfrontational, it can challenge your morals and make you think critically of yourself. I think that's worth something, too.

In any case, I don't think liking any series is wrong, unless - in the case of games with controversial material - you let the negative moral traits of their content seep into your own. And then you just turn out as a bad person, and that sucks.