My new series is the etsian guide to the internet and life- basically, the basics you need to know!

My first post will be "why are there cuss words on the internet". You may notice that on the etsy forums or in some listings, there are curse words. Why, you may wonder, isn't that against etsy rules? No.[There's a bit on mature items in there, saying that they must be tagged mature and have the first thumbnail be safe for work].

Is this because etsy doesn't care about children and families? No, it's because they are a worldwide shopping site. In some places, a painting of a naked lady isn't a big deal, but violence is. In some cities, a well placed fuck or shit isn't a cause for soul searching, but part of the daily noise of life. Millions of people live in those areas, and accommodating them and their artwork is useful in terms of both profit and an artistic community.

But what if you live in a cow town where the mere thought of the word crap causes your head to explode? Well, there are many things you can do to help. First, in etsy search, put NOT mature on the end, and that will filter out mature items. In etsy search, I rarely ever run across anything very spicy, and this is because of how I search. I don't type in any synonyms for sexual body parts or the words nude, naked, pin up, into my search bar unless I want to see what sort of them. Same for curse words.

If I accidentally stumble upon something I think is too spicy, I use the back button, located on the top left of my browser window to go back to what I was looking at before. In the forums, I check the titles of the posts to see which ones I want to go into. If the title is something like "Our yucky girl part problems" I scroll to something I like such as "Complaining about Shows We Don't Like" or "Let's Argue About Politics". I know from experience that on "Let's Argue About Politics" people may be rude or use bad words. I will either join in or not read the thread if I don't want to see the bad words and rudeness. I certainly don't scold people for having fun on the internet! That just invites mockery.

If you have children that are too young to see bad words, always supervise them on the internet! If you think etsy is bad, the wide wide world of the internet will just kill you! Google rule 34 if you want to know what I mean.