I started watching Big Brother this season, partially because of Dee and Rick Devens and partially because my co-workers have been on me for years to try it. Well, spoiler alert: I love it. I love the constant strategizing. I love the drawing and redrawing of alliances. I love that it’s happening in real time. I love being able to jump into the live feeds. I love the goofy competitions. I love everything about it, apart from one elephant that’s sleeping in the have-not room: the fans. The Big Brother fandom, or at least the segment of the fanbase that openly talks about the show on social media, is the most obsessive, deranged and unhealthy group I have ever seen. Mean-spirited, stalkerish and obnoxiously hypocritical, it’s toxic, even by the standards of other toxic fanbases, and I should know, as someone who almost exclusively loves things that attract compulsive weirdos.Seriously. Whatever you think I’m into, I promise you it’s worse. I love professional wrestling and once sat next to an old lady at a live event who screamed at the top of her lungs that she was going to walk to the ring and beat Dominik Mysterio’s ass herself. I was involved behind the scenes in our Game Of Thrones reaction videos on YouTube that hit right as the entire fanbase, myself included, had a rage-induced panic attack over Season 8. I angrily posted in multiple Reddit threads after Mountain Dew cancelled the exclusive 7-11 spinoff flavor Infinite Swirl (RIP). I’ve written probably a dozen articles screaming into the Fijian jungle about bad production decisions on Survivor. So, yeah, I know a thing or two about groupthink and righteous anger, but Big Brother fans make every single one of those toxic fanbases look like well-behaved children having a polite bitch about dinner. I’m only six weeks into this shared experience, and the things I have seen people say and heard people do have left me consistently uncomfortable and at times, even shocked. Let me just run down some things that have already happened this season. Haley’s dad was accused of USDA violations related to his kennel business. Someone screenshotted Indeed employee reviews from Haley’s stepdad’s company and posted them on social. Jason was sent multiple death threats. Melody’s socials and follow lists were obsessively stalked to determine who her alleged on-again-off-again boyfriend is, and after she started flirting with Drew on the live feeds, the dude’s friend was tracked down to give quotes about how sad it made him. Devens' wife Becca is consistently getting hit with wild comments on social for anything and everything her husband is doing in the house.It’s not even just random fans either. A former houseguest accused Barrett of using “effeminate role play” to make women feel safe because he kissed Dee on the cheek. Multiple former houseguests screamed at each other on social media over different interpretations of a comment Angela made on the live feeds about a Filipina houseguest on her OG season and whether she stayed because she brought up her heritage. Another former player said he wanted Rick and Kamu out of the house after they said they weren’t interested in doing drag.To be clear, these aren’t edge cases where someone with three followers said it on X and got ignored. Most of these incidents I referenced were the subject of wide conversation, and many of the accusations were liked hundreds or even thousands of times. If you look hard enough, you can find comments from people saying this feels a little creepy or maybe we’re taking things too far, but in almost every instance, they’re dwarfed by more popular comments egging the harassment or wild allegations on.(Image credit: CBS)To be clear, I’m not saying we should all sit around and pretend every reality contestant is great. I think riding hard for players you like and actively rooting against players you hate is part of the appeal. Half the reason I watch The Traitors, Survivor, Top Chef, The Floor, Bake Off, Amazing Race and a bunch of other reality competition shows is because I want to see the people I hate suffer a humiliating defeat. I’m not on some high horse here telling everyone we should root for each player equally and only say nice things on social media. But there is a difference between saying you think a houseguest sucks at the game and ripping their life apart like they’ve committed multiple felonies. Unfortunately, an absolutely obnoxious percentage of the negative commentary about Big Brother falls into the latter camp. I don’t even think we’re halfway through the game, and I’ve already seen pretty much every single player accused of some combination of racism, sexism, homophobia, unconscious bias, religious zealotry and/ or being a mean girl. I’ve even seen players get vicariously diagnosed with psychological disorders and mental disabilities. There’s no consistency to it either. One week eighty percent of the fanbase seems to agree a player is a bigot who should be ejected from the house, and the next week, most of those same people are riding for that player because he’s suddenly aligned with the right people.I know it’s not just this season either because whenever I mention these things to my coworkers and other hardcore fans of the show, they say that’s just the Big Brother fanbase. Inevitably, every conversation continues with someone telling me some horrible story about a former player’s business having to shut down the reviews on their website because fans got mad about some comment they made on the live feeds at 3 AM that no one actually in the house seemed bothered by. I want to engage with the Big Brother community, and I want to keep up with the live feeds. It’s a lot of fun to track things going on in real time, but to be honest, it’s been mentally exhausting trying to be a part of this fanbase for the last six weeks. I'm worn down. I'm like Angela after 10 PM.To be clear, I am absolutely not saying people shouldn't be allowed to talk about race or sex or tweet their perception of the truth, but when multiple players are getting accused of racism, sexism and homophobia every week, sometimes just for aligning with other players there’s clear gameplay reasons to align with, it all starts to feel kind of demoralizing. I'm also not saying people shouldn't joke about or dunk on reality contestants. I'm all for that. I'm all for having a laugh, even if it's a tiny bit mean-spirited, but when I see follow-up replies tagging people's family members or workplaces, it doesn't seem quite so funny anymore. I’m going to continue with Big Brother after this season. I have already decided I’m in this for the long haul, but with each passing day, I’m starting to wonder if I should do so quietly. I’m starting to wonder if I should just be one of those rubes who only watches the episodes. I know that means I won’t get the full story, but honestly, the trade-off might be worth it. I’m used to dealing with toxic fanbases. I’m proudly a part of several, but it turns out they’re amateur hour compared to whatever this is.