While I disapprove of the bullying that goes on there, I don’t think BtB is a bad community overall. Sometimes there are really funny posts that aren’t mean at all and sometimes people really do use it to vent rather than to bully people. I would say the vast majority of the bullying that goes on there is just made by trolls who want to make drama so a lot of it shouldn’t be taken seriously. My suggestion to anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the drama is just don’t go to BtB. A lot of it is drama and most of the funny posts I mentioned before end up on tumblr anyway so if there’s anything that’s actually worth seeing you’ll probably see it that way.
If you do go on BtB and find that someone posted something about you, don’t get too upset about it. I would say first to analyze it and ask yourself if it sounds like someone just trolling or if it actually sounds logical. If it’s something like “ur fat and stupid and shuld leave rori forever” then it’s obviously just something you should ignore. However, I think there are certain situations when you could learn from these situations. I have gotten messages before that people could classify as “hate” but instead of taking them as such I thought about them as critique and used it to better myself. For example, I’ve gotten messages here that have said things about me coming off as rude in some posts and while I never thought I was being rude, I can see how my bluntness could be taken as such so I’ve been trying to fix that and think harder about how I word things. (You can actually see some of these messages if you go back through my “personal” tag a bit.) Sometimes things that might come off just sounding like anonymous hate can actually be quite helpful.
Long story short though, if you don’t like drama, don’t bother with communities that are famous for drama such as BtB and if you do find that someone is talking about you, don’t get too upset about it. It’s just the internet and a lot of the time people just like to cause problems for fun.

Don’t use BtB to try to gain an understanding of the Lolita community. I would say that at least half the posts there weekly are troll posts and even the truthful posts tend to represent a fairly small portion of the community as a whole.
That being said, meetups vary from comm to comm, but for the most part, if you’re polite and friendly and make an effort to introduce yourself to people things will go perfectly fine. Don’t be shy and don’t expect everyone to go out of their way to include you in everything. While many hosts will do what they can to include you, a lot of communities are made up of people who have known each other for quite some time and they may be distracted by talking to your friends, so you have to actually make the effort to include yourself, join in conversations, be friendly, etc.
All meetups are different unless you happen to have a community that just does the same tea party every week. I’ve only been to four formal meetups (well, maybe three because I didn’t really stay with the group very long for the last one) and each one has been different. Sometimes 15 people will show up, sometimes there will only be three. Sometimes everything will go perfectly as planned, and sometimes plans will change. The last meetup I actually stayed most of the time for we got bored with our original plan so we hopped in some cars and went to one girl’s house and ordered pizza (which resulted in an awesome chain of Lolitas at the door passing pizza and drinks to the kitchen when the delivery guy showed up).

It’s not worth reading any of them really. If you don’t like drama, there’s no reason to read them, because that’s what they’re for. If you like drama, go ahead and read them. If you don’t like drama, don’t read them. It’s communities like those that are part of the reason I started this blog, because there are always people who are scared that they’ll mess up and get posted to one of the drama communities and I want to be here to help keep that from happening to as many people as I can.
But honestly, if you don’t want to read them, don’t read them. There’s no reason you have to.

It’s only worth it if you like drama. It really contributes little to nothing to the community other than being an outlet to get things off your chest (the original purpose of Lolita Secrets) and causing drama for no particular reason (how it’s usually used.) If you don’t want to read it, there’s absolutely no reason you should.

I think you should definitely go and wear whatever your favorite Classic or Gothic coord is. Go, be nice, be polite, and try to make friends. If they don’t accept you into their circle just because you aren’t a Sweet Lolita, I don’t think they’re really people you want to go to meetups with anyway. I would suggest going to a meetup and seeing how it goes and if they treat you badly, screw them. You’re too good for them and their tea parties. No Lolita should ever, EVER treat another Lolita poorly just because they wear a different style of Lolita than that of their own personal choosing.

The biggest thing I noticed at every meetup or even convention I’ve been to that has a Lolita event is that there always seems to be a second or two of just scanning over everyone’s coord as they enter the space just to see how you feel about it. I’ve always found it really funny because it was my best friend (who isn’t a Lolita) who noticed it first. It’s not like it’s a “they had best be wearing brand or I’m not talking to them” kind of way, it’s just that everyone wants to see what you’re wearing. I’ve noticed it happen a lot so if you happen to notice it, don’t let it intimidate you, just check out their coords too.
Most Lolitas aren’t going to give a damn if you’re wearing brand or not. A good number of the Lolitas I’ve met wore a mix of brand and offbrand. Basically, if you look good, nobody will care whether you’re wearing brand or not. So just be polite, introduce yourself, and be friendly toward everyone and you should have a pleasant first meetup experience. I can almost guarantee that if anyone is judging your coord just for being offbrand, they aren’t going to have the balls to say it to your face so their opinion isn’t worth anything anyway.

From what I’ve heard the Pittsburgh community is pretty nice. Most of the stories you hear, regardless of whatever Lolita community it may be, about people being jerks to eachother just because someone isn’t wearing brand are just myths. Most people, even if they are so much of an ignoramus to think you’re of a lower status than them just because you’re not wearing brand, aren’t going to say it to your face. They’ll wait until they get home and make a silly, usually somewhat vague, post to Behind the Bows about how much they hate people who don’t wear brand.
Chances are, no matter what community you’re in, even if you run into the kind of people who are usually harsh on people about how they’re dress, if you look good, brand or not, they won’t mind.
Anyway, from what I’ve heard about the Pittsburgh group everyone is pretty nice. If you’re new to the group you might have some trouble just because of people who have known eachother for so long and know eachother very well and you may feel like an outsider for a little while. This happens in I would say most Lolita communities. Just be nice, try to make conversation, and I’m sure you’ll be welcomed.

I think a lot of it is just people being trolls and trying to stir up drama, but other times it is people being rude and snobby but it’s actually things like that which inspired me to start this blog. Unfortunately we can’t just say “Hey! You’re being mean and you should stop!” and expect people to be like “Oh hey, sorry bro, I didn’t know it was mean. I’ll stop now.” Because people are stubborn and as long as they think there are badly dressed people out there they will keep making fun of said people. My goal with this blog is to take as many people out of that equation as possible to try to save anyone who doesn’t want to be hurt from receiving insulting secrets like that by helping them put together better coordinates and teaching them the do’s and don’ts of Lolita.
If you want to do something to help the situation, you can send people Lolita valentines to help counter the hate. It’s a bit unfortunate to see that there are only about 20-ish valentines per week as opposed to 50+ BtB secrets. So if you ever see someone you recognize and know posted negatively on any of the secret type blogs, send them a valentine the next week to cheer them up.

So? It’s just some dumb girl trying to cause drama. It happens quite often unfortunately.