7 Takeaways I have from engaging with fandom in online spaces.
I’m sure you’ve read about joys and the difficulties within fandom at least once in the last few years, as I’ve come to discover that this is not at all a unique topic.
I myself became more invested in this topic a few months ago, after a couple years of engaging with fandom heavily by way of social media for the first time in years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, I was a heavy social media user for a couple platforms, but not necessarily for fandoms: it was mostly in the context of keeping up with people in my life, politics and support/learning groups communities. With the nature of my job and other activities I was involved with, I rarely had time to think about or overly invest in books, video games, and tv shows outside of a casual way of simply just reading or watching, so I rarely if ever followed or cared about fandom-specific placed on social media. But when the pandemic began, it lead to various life transitions that afforded me to have much more free time than I had in years, which further lead me to invest more in the things I liked but rarely if ever had more time for. This also lead me to seek online fandom spaces for musicians, books, shows, sports, you name it, out of bored curiosity.
Needless to say, I was mostly discouraged by what I saw.
Prior to a little over my last decade of post graduate career/family/other life responsibilities, I had engaged in small forms of online fandom here and there, mostly by way of reading fanfiction back when I was a teenager in the early 2000s on fanfiction.net, and occasionally going on message boards for band fan websites, which back then I lost interest in quickly and was able to move on with no problem. So with that being my only experiences with online fandom, I was surprised to see how much extremely positive or negative hyperbole seemed to exist within something that I assumed people gathered to discuss because they all shared enjoyment for the art. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I was so surprised, having been on politics and justice social media and being very familiar with shitty personality types and unnecessary comments. But the amount of negativity I saw in discussion within a fandom space, where I would be a space of enjoyment, somewhat disarmed me.
And I really wanted to understand why it was the way it was, as well as why I had a hard time looking away.
So through processing my own interactions, observations and soul searching, writing this was my way of trying to understand the negative parts of fandom. Keep in mind that what I write are my generalized opinions, and I know there are probably other things I may be missing or not considering.
For purposes of this writing, I am defining fans as people who have a strong particular interest, usually with positive regard, in some sort of entertainment medium (books, sports, television, celebrities, music, other forms of art, etc), and fandoms as groups or communities of people with these shared strong interests. And when I say online fandom, I mean fandom communities that’s foundation and basis are completely online based in its way of “meeting up” and communicating, whether that be a dedicated internet forum/message board, wiki, or other social media website.
So without further ado, here are some of my personal conclusions of what contributes to unhealthy online fandom behaviors:
- Some fans take themselves too seriously and think they are more self-important than they really are.
There are fans who genuinely believe that their thoughts, opinions and desires not only will, but should, have an impact on what an artist ends up doing with their life and their work. This often might look like having a false, non-reality-based sense of ownership of a work that doesn’t belong to them, consistently theorizing by engaging in obsessive reading/watching/listening on a surface level that only creates new problems non-existent in the art form and only further confuses points the artist tries to make (and then becoming unreasonably furious when their theories don’t come to fruition), or however else they want to have a sense of control over the direction of art for whatever the reasons. The underlying issue when they feel as if things should go a certain way often links back to a false sense of entitlement.
These types of fans will harass artists, producers, and anyone else they think are significantly responsible for things not going the way it “should have” or was “hinted” to go. They often believe their opinions are the center of the universe, and this get affirmed when they engage in their community echo chambers, mostly surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals and then naming that “the majority” or “real fans”.
The thing with this is, at the end of the day, you and I are just the audience. If something no longer works for you, it’s okay to not like it, be disappointed and to express what we would have preferred, but it’s also okay to accept that there are others who don’t see things the same way you do (including the creators themselves at times), as well as to move on to something else if it’s no longer resonating with you. What’s not okay is harassment, threats and purposefully making up unfounded accusations about a creator’s hard work just fuel the fire and make others feel as outraged as you.
So what makes one feel as if they have this sense of entitlement and self-importance?
I personally wonder if it’s because of people making the artform they are a fan of a big part of their identity. What I mean by this is, the things you find entertaining and leisurely doesn’t become something you just simply enjoy; it becomes who you are. So due to this, when things don’t go how some fans wish and they argue about how what they envisioned in their mind would be “better”, it’s almost as if they are arguing about their identity or even their existence. If their sense of self is connected to the thing they are a fan of, including additional desires they wish or theorize to see happen despite the reality of what actually is planned to happen, then people feel personally attacked. If their shaky foundation that they never had control over (i.e. artists decisions, the results of a sports game, etc) is challenged or falls apart, it feels as if they have to defend themselves, including thinking it’s the creators job to “make things right” based on what the slighted fan thinks that means.
Which is interesting, because there is no agreement on what is “right” when it comes to things that millions of different fans want, especially when at the end of the day only artists have power to make their choices and give the answer they decide for their work. But slighted fans that think their perspective on “wants” and “shoulds” is default and absolute are often unwilling to see things from other perspectives or even, more importantly, the creator’s perspective.
2. Some fans have difficulty in either knowing and/or accepting the difference between “objectivity” and “subjectivity”.
Many fans think their opinions are factual and, conversely, that established facts aren’t really established or don’t really mean what it means. I’m not talking about re-contextualization of established facts, things left to be discovered and answered, or interpretations of things left open ended, but basic denial of factual information.
Just as a quick reminder, what is objectivity and subjectivity? According to Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries, when something is objective, it is based on factual information and not personal feelings. And what are facts? Something that is known, established or proved to be true. Subjectivity is when something is based on your personal feelings, tastes, or opinions, rather than facts. So when something is presented, including something objective, your personal opinion about what’s presented is subjective. This can include whether you find something “good” or “bad” in quality.
So, you can have a subjective opinion about an objective fact, but something objective doesn’t really change in itself due to your subjective opinion.
I mean, how is goodness or greatness measured? Are all standards the same universally? Why is your standard of “best” or “worst” the only right one? I noticed in fandom, there is an obsession with opinions being “right”. Passionately sharing your subjective likes and takeaways become about battling and trying to convince others of why their favorite aspect is “wrong”. It almost like there’s an offense when people didn’t resonate with your favorite or least favorite thing, to the point of insult or trying to convince why one liking or ranking a certain character or song over another as “problematic” or “stupid” or other desperate lingo to try and shame other people for their opinions.
This also isn’t to say that you can’t have an opinion about a subjective opinion. Of course you can. You can think someone’s opinion is asinine, or that it’s wonderful. But again, I’m also discussing people presenting their opinions as fact (i.e. “_____ is the better character than _____and that’s facts”; “season ____ was factually better/worse than season ____”, “_____ is an objectively better song/album than ____, and any anyone who disagrees with me is _____”, rather than just saying that it’s better for them personally based on their preferences.
I wonder if this is because (besides people wanting to believe they are always right) if it’s part of our nature to be competitive even in situations when there’s no need or established competition in the first place.
3. As much as I hate to admit it, shipping culture in fandom is a significant factor to the extreme forms of negativity in existing fandoms.
For quick clarification, I’m defining shipping as liking, supporting or wishing for a romantic and/or sexual relationship to occur between two or more characters, and anti-shipping is being vehemently against a specific ship and/or shipping in general.
The reason I hate to admit point 3 is because inherently there is nothing wrong with shipping fictional characters. It’s a very human thing to like romance and fantasize for fun with the ideas of two or more fictional characters being with each other, whether it’s canon or not. I also hate admitting point 3 because there are many self-righteous fans who think they are above the idea of romance (even if the idea is presented in the story) and think that romantic ideas existing in itself “ruins” the series (but funnily enough, their own superiority attitudes that show up in other areas of fandom is never the cause of a series being ruined).
But there is a real issue of shippers and anti-shippers alike turning something that could have been so much more enjoyable and inclusive into something that once again turns into ugly parts of fandom mentioned before: entitlement, projection, the weird need to be “right”, faux self-righteousness and sometimes losing touch with reality of what shipping means beyond yourselves and your specific shipping community.
And you know what? This issue will be here to stay, unfortunately.
One of the reasons this is not changing is because of the simple fact that there is not one agreed upon definition of romance. Romance means different things for different people and is expressed differently. What may seem romantic to one person may not be the case for another, and there are so many factors that go into this: values, culture, upbringing, desires, love languages, etc. One person can think and accept something with romantic intent from the artist displayed in the work is clear and explicitly romantic enough, but another could see the same work and say “that’s not enough/not convincing to me” because they have another idea of what romantic love means or “should” look like. You get the point. So when an artist decides to pair people in their work for their intent and wishes, it’s guaranteed there will always be people who will dislike the author’s pairing decision due to their ideas of romance that they hold near and dear to their hearts (and ships they would have preferred based on that), even if that idea differs from the artist or other fans.
As such, to add on to the relativity of love, platonic relationships can be affectionate and caring and close, and romantic love can have moments of strife and grief and conflict and imperfections. Many of these dynamics can exist at the same time, and if you’ve ever been in a close platonic relationship or a romantic relationship, you probably know exactly what I mean, that the experience of romance cannot be put and kept into idealized boxes. And yet, in modern shipping culture, the complexities of romantic relationships in general are often ignored for the sake of wanting to either uplift one ship or put down another by using a popular buzzword in the land of the chronically online: “problematic” (closely followed by “toxic”). You’ll often see that “problematic” amongst these types of fans now simply means anything someone disapproves of or doesn’t like, just like how you’ll see “toxic” used in situations that cause others to feel uncomfortable, confused and/or inconvenienced due to not being able to check the idealized boxes that I mentioned before.
And this is not to say that truly problematic, toxic, or disturbing shipping content does not exist…it most definitely does and can also cause drama. But when some fans make a case for why something is problematic, and when they go to explain it ends up being due to personal preferences and surface level interpretations (often times with lack or disregard of context) of the issue at hand while comparing it to real life, harm-causing problematic issues that are not at all like the thing you’re comparing it to, chances are that people are once again trying (and failing) to express their simple dislike poorly with thinly-veiled performative self-righteousness. And that’s just pathetically disappointing.
You may have seen this as any type of fictional fandom where ships exist. You don’t like a relationship (canon or fanon) between consenting people of age that has an age gap? No problem, call it pedophilia and accuse those shippers of being pedophiles. You don’t like the relationship between childhood friends or found family who are not blood related in any way who eventually develop into lovers? Ahhh, no problem yet again, just throw away critical thinking and lazily call it incest and accuse those who support the relationship as being perpetrators of it. If someone else does not like your ship, whether the ship be same sex, heterosexual, differing ethnicities, classes, etc? Just accuse those who don’t like the ship as being homophobic, racist, classist, etc. (And please note that with this aforementioned example, I’m not talking about people who genuinely do dislike certain ships due to actual racist views, homophobia, etc. I know they exist and of course that’s terrible for reasons I don’t need to explain. But I’m talking about those who don’t like certain ships for other reasons [i.e. their opinion about their dynamic, for example, or just preferring another ship]. But some people will accuse people of being -ist just because they don’t like a ship.) And if a moment of strife or mistreatment happens between characters on specific occasions or circumstances, or if the ship involved former enemies who had fought but then turned into lovers? Just simply accuse the shippers of loving and promoting abusive, toxic relationships.
The more you conflate your simple dislike or discomfort of a fictional relationship with serious real-world issues that contextually aren’t comparable, the more you end up making those real issue terms become meaningless, and it causes a real disservice to the serious awareness of real issues. For example, comparing a consensual relationship between a seventeen year old girl and a 200 year old vampire to the experiences of prepubescent children that were sexually abused by an adult is crude and offensive as it is pathetically immature. You’ll especially see these types of behaviors amongst people who are anti shippers for specific ships.
In his article “Toxic Fandom: When Criticism and Entitlement Go Too Far”, (an article that is well worth the additional read, by the way- please check it out!) author Sean Z puts the issues I mentioned above beautifully: “Anti arguments will shift over time, but the critical thing to note is 1) competing popular pairings (pairings that share characters with the anti-favored pairing) are always problematic, and 2) the anti-preferred pairing is never problematic. If you take nothing else from this article, please take this: all this outrage isn’t about protecting children, or about morality, or about critiquing media. It’s about people wanting their favorite characters to kiss.”
There also exists the issue within fanatical shippers of accusing authors and writers of “changing” their story because their shipping desires didn’t happen (especially when a desired ship doesn’t become canon), some going as far to make unhinged conspiracy theories to spread throughout fandom to have an outlet and sense of control over their spite, no matter how often these accusations are devoid of fair, reality-based and contextual evidence. These types of fans would rather make long articles and blogs on why the littlest things were grand evidences that their ship was going to be canon, making petitions for the author to change it, and other dramatics rather than once again taking the time to consider if they were misinterpreting things due to watching/reading with a shipping-biased lens, and how that still doesn’t mean you can’t ship your preferred ship even your ship wasn’t romantic in nature and/or the canonical endgame. Creators can’t control the way millions of differing fan’s minds work: they can only control themselves and their ideas of things into the story.
Then going to the point of anti-shippers who are specifically against shipping or romance in itself, there still seems to be a weird righteousness among some in this camp. They tend to believe that they have automatic validity or more understanding and less bias because they do not ship. This can stem from what I mentioned before (with them having their own definition of romance and not thinking the story or show at hand fits their definition), or maybe in general having a low opinion or interest about the subject of romance due to their own various personal reasons.
But what’s funny to me about this is that even if they hold certain beliefs about romance, the author is not beholden to feel the same way you do, even in stories that are not romance heavy or focused on but still contain them: yet some of these types of fans will act offended and dismissive at the idea of it existing at all, even flat out refusing to see some scenes with explicit romantic tones in a romantic way, choosing to interpret it as anything but that despite, in some circumstances, the characters, show-runners, even actors/actresses even verbally talking about the moment being romantic. Some of these fans will often dismiss said explicit evidence of romance, lazily citing the “death of the author” literary perspective as a reason that they don’t have to listen or consider to what the intent of scenes or the art were and why their interpretation is allegedly just as valid, but then will suddenly act surprised and outraged when the author carries on the story with its romantic intent to the end. After this, they often then complain about romantic things being “out of nowhere” “undeveloped” or “ruining the series”.
Also, these are often the same people who complain about romance existing like some “dumb fanfiction and headcanons” but will then go on to obsessively watch YouTube analysis videos and theories that are more often than not are also just…fanfiction and headcanons. (The only difference being that the creators can actually get paid for their fanfictional content when they’re telling subscribers what they want to hear, even if it’s additionally laced with reactionary opinions and misinformation, so…maybe those YouTube content creators are actually smart, in a way?)
In some cases, it just seems like to me that extreme anti-shippers and extreme entitled shippers have something in common: they both self-insert into characters or other aspects of the story, and think their self-insertion should has just as much weight as the creators desires of the story, to the point of once again thinking the author is owes them in making their self-insertions a reality.
I’m not saying that you can’t like or dislike a pairing, think your fanon pairing is better than canon or vice versa, be comfortable or uncomfortable with something in a story due to how you interpret the situation, have your own perspectives on romance that exists within your context. You can do all of those things. But I promise you, you can do all of those things and not make things up, harass creators, other shippers and antishippers and purposely agitate those who disagree with you, or create shitty hyperbolic comparisons that achieve absolutely nothing beneficial for individuals and fandom alike. Surely, many of y’all know the difference between constructive criticism/feedback vs. everything that I described before.
4. Fandom can be extremely reactionary, but this feels exceptionally so when you’re chronically online.
Reactionary takes tends to get a lot of traction, and certainly can be a source of both fun and grief within fandom. But it doesn’t mean it’s an accurate representation of what “all fans” think.
This should maybe seem obvious: just because certain posts might have a lot of views, likes, upvotes or whatever the positive reinforcement system of the social media site you use, does not mean it represents the majority. Not everyone who is a fan of something is on social media, or uses social media in a consistent, chronic way, or engages in specific online communities that tend to be echo chambers of certain viewpoints. Many people are just trying to casually live this only life in peace, balancing out real world shit in which fandom-related hobbies are a tiny priority. Many people would also rather focus attention on things that bring joy or things they want to see, which may include not engaging in annoying and fruitless discourse, not wanting to risk being spoiled, etc.
Many things are meant to be reactionary by nature to get attention, and this happens in everyday media outside of fandom, so of course it will unfortunately exist in fandom as well. That’s why even in some websites dedicated to fandom, you’ll notice that it’s not exempt from bias. You’ll see clickbait news articles and wiki pages with misinformation and that’s constantly being edited with back and forth biased information. But some of the reactionary takes, whether it’s about some of the takes related to shipping that I’ve mentioned before, or even overly racist, misogynistic and clearly untrue statements that clearly lack critical thinking are done to either troll or seeking attention, tends to cause a lot of drama within fandoms. The people who purposely crafted the post a certain way are the only ones who benefitting from this.
But for those who are chronically online, they tend to believe that reactionary statements represent what the “majority” think.
When I say chronically online, I am referring to people who are on the internet (especially socially media) for most hours of the day, and hold the posts from people in certain platforms with more importance than it actually has. Within fandom, this may look like thinking certain desires by some fans that has “a lot” of likes means “most” fans think this way, or believe that most fans are aware of certain theories or opinions within a fandom and must have a strong opinion about it, thinking it’s their duty to lead people to believe in their opinions or interpretations as facts OR get people to avoid to believing in certain theories or interpretations. Some of the hyperbolic takes I discussed in the shipping section could also be great examples of people who have chronically online viewpoints.
The addictive stimulation that screen time and fandom offers often leads to being chronically online can be a real problem for those seeking validation from those who agree with them, or even for those lacking reality-based understandings of the entire nuances that make up how the world works. Echo chamber within communities can easily lead you to think all people think like you, even in situations where you purposefully put yourself in a community with only like-minded people who want the same thing.
When needless arguments occur in fandoms, and you get to a point when you realize it’s pointless to converse in good faith, and you decide to step out of a conversation, the chronically online person rejoices, saying they’ve “won” and it’s because “you don’t have an argument” when really it’s because you value my time and energy and boundaries and are able to choose what I don’t want to engage in. You’ll notice things seem to be about being “right” and “winning”, another false sense of trying to be in control, before they click somewhere else to try and do the same thing all over again. And one could make a case that a person who feels as if they have to have the last word with said instigator who claims to have “won” might also have some lingering symptoms of chronically online-ness too.
If these things tend to upset you to the point of real distress, it might be an indicator of your need to take a step back, interact with the world outside of the internet, and engage with things that are worth your time and energy. I mean, think about it. Are people around you actually repeating these reactionary viewpoints to you in your in-person relationships? Have you interacted with more people than not who berated you for simply liking a character, having a favorite musical group, or liking a certain thing over the other, especially as an adult? It’s likely that you have not experienced the extremities of this as much (if at all) in person compared to on social media, depending on the people you surround yourself with. For as much as we as human beings are wild cards when it comes to all that makes up our nature, more people than not are able to express themselves to others in a reasonable, functional way. Those in person who tend to be more erratic and/or rude in how they express and present themselves tend to be avoided or ignored (again, depending on your surroundings. I grew up somewhere in which if you said weird or demented shit to the wrong person, you may very well be physically assaulted. But that’s another topic entirely, isn’t it, with the power of anonymity?)
Now, I’m not saying reactionary opinions have only existed in social media. Even before our modern media and information age, people have held misinformed and attention-seeking views with little to no evidence that had led to hysteria and tragedies in history. And even then, a lot of it was fueled by people who sought power and control over certain masses.
But I remember there being a time without the internet or social media, and people were able to express their likes and dislikes (regardless of types of opinions) without relying or worrying about what the majority of fans may think to an obsessive point of constantly looking to see what others think and become distressed in the process in that pointless quest. I think our modern social media usage has definitely impacted the way our mind chooses to function with things we enjoy but not always in the healthiest ways, especially if security and insecurities about the abundance of things you may find that you may like or dislike is tied into your enjoyment. For chronically online fans, what others think and getting a reaction out of someone seems to be a twisted attempt at power and control, and is a factor into why a lot of online fandom seems to be in shambles.
5. Over-invested fans are unable to accept that they lack control and/or ownership the thing they are allegedly a fan of, which in my opinion is the most significant factor in the problem with fandom.
You’ve probably noticed me mention control and entitlement so many times in this writing. But it’s for a reason. When fans really resonate with a work for whatever the various reasons are (not everyone has the same reason that a piece of art speaks to them, and that can be the beauty of art), it can be extremely hard not to project or self-insert yourself, your understanding of how the world works and what you would do if you were an artist/showrunner/fictional character. But just as I had mentioned in an earlier point regarding the topic of identity, it can be tricky to place your identity, a significant part of your personal foundation, onto something that does not belong to you and that you have no control over. To do so without knowing your limits seems to be an easy set up for shattering disappointment.
Oftentimes, fans who self-insert and obsessively theorize need the art to be about them in some way. And honestly? That’s not the artist’s fault or responsibility, especially when it comes to those entitled beliefs that things “have” to end a certain way. That responsibility is fully on you as a person. Only you can control your thoughts, actions, choices, and willingness to change your perspective and take accountability of your feelings and choose to stay or go.
But this is something that some overly invested superfans do not seem to want to accept. These types of fans cannot accept their lack of control, cannot accept that their thoughts and feelings of what an artist will and should choose to do wasn’t what ended up happening, and feel slighted due to artists not responding to or abiding by the imaginary obligation created in the fans head. Oftentimes, these types of fans will take drastic measures to stay in denial, refusing to accept things and rather believing that there is some top-level conspiracy responsible for things not going their way. These fans are usually not open to unlearning whatever the false belief was, or seeing things from another perspective to see why fans who enjoyed what an artist put out, or why certain plot points that came to fruition were missed or perhaps misinterpreted.
With these types of fans, in their minds, they are typically not the problem: the problem is everything and everyone else but them and their like-minded peers. And this is unfortunate, because a lot can be learned from different perspectives or learning where you may have misread a situation. It’s also unfortunate because people who have this mindset will often reject the idea of different perspectives because they think that means that they are being told or forced to like it, when that’s not the case at all. It can exist that you dislike the final result, feel disappointment for the final result or direction of something, could have wished for something else to happen instead and criticize the way things were portrayed or executed, and simultaneously acknowledge where your own shortcomings might have been when it came to interpretations vs artist intent, or even acknowledging the simple fact that artists don’t really owe you shit when it comes to your perspectives and it’s not their responsibility to cater to you. And thank God for this, because fans all want different things, and relying on what millions of individuals each all want is just an unrealistic headache to add to on top of what they are already trying to create for themselves in the first place. They are not responsible for the underlying ways your mind might work to have gotten to the point of obsessive entitlement, even sometimes years after a work has been released or a transition has happened.
And since we are only in control of and responsible for ourselves, is it possible that the responsibility would be better well spent in taking care of yourself, allowing yourself to feel through your emotions, and make a healthy decision on how to proceed with your life and move forward? Not only within fandom, but also for yourself?
After all, there are many healthy opportunities on how to engage with art even after experiencing disappointment. Some might treasure and choose to focus on products from when the artist’s work made them happy. Some might explore fanfiction or other fan art mediums with like-minded individuals. Or, if you believe you can no longer engage because the disappointment was so heavy that you need time away, you can choose to disengage and instead find another fandom medium to engage in, something that is confidently more of your taste of what you need. And what might be even better than that? Come up with your own original story, write your own song, learn to master an instrument and make your own album, train to be your own athlete and improve your own skillset. These are much healthier and mature options than, once again, making things up, taking what someone does with their work as a personal slight against you, and keeping yourself stuck by lying to yourself about things extremely unlikely on why things didn’t go the way you wanted. This ends up keeping you in the cycle with the “misery loves company” types in fandom, the fans who refuse to move on and continue to go on spaces to instigate things with fans who enjoy things.
Now, I’m certain most artists have thick skin and have gotten used to the extreme reactions and may no longer care. But can you kind of see how unhinged some fandom reactions are? I mean, think about it: someone telling you what you were or were not trying to do with your art, using nonsensical and often made up evidences, taking things said out of context after spending an abundance of time obsessively evaluating something that’s not there nor that you intended but they hold as the “secret truth”, and any other sort of behavior that sometimes seems straight up delusional? How would you feel about this? I’ve asked similar questions like this in multiple fandoms within the last year, and those with these extreme behaviors will often dismiss the question, answers ranging from “they’re rich so who cares how they feel” to “they shouldn’t have made something so shitty then.” Answers that throw away accountability for their own shitty responses and feelings and instead put the blame on others.
Wanting a sense of power and control is something people natural desire, especially when it comes to things you place your identity in. But when it comes at the expense of considering others who are just trying to live and enjoy things, it causes problems. Such is the history of the world. But I often wonder, why do people do this at the expense of a community of people who are just trying to enjoy things? But at this point, as I write, it’s becoming clearer to me that it’s bold of me to assume that everyone in fandom wants or even desires a non-chaotic, peaceful fandom. There are some people out there who genuinely enjoy being this way, for whatever sad reason. The anonymity of the internet, to express yourself in the worst ways by any means necessary, only increases this.
6. Some fans do not realize that it’s okay to like flawed things.
People are uncomfortable with the idea of liking flawed content, but I think that discomfort needs to be challenged. As mentioned before, most things in life don’t fit a neat checkbox, oftentimes things are unconventional, and with all this being said, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Most things aren’t perfect.
Artists write about or sing about characters or situations that are meant to be flawed, just like us as people. We as humans are imperfect, seemingly on a never-ending learning curve, constantly contradictory in our own actions. We barely understand ourselves and just when we think we do, some life event happens that makes us doubt ourselves and what we thought were true. This is our condition. And maybe some people use fandom to escape our human condition (hence that projection mentioned many times earlier), so when their comfort character or artist they put on a strange pedestal turns out to indeed be flawed, that may cause extreme reactions and outrage.
The same goes for the quality of storytelling (whether things were clear or not clear) or even mistakes made during a sports game. There are definitely some flaws that are subjective and based on personal opinion, of course, but even when someone expresses a flaw that is understandable as to why it’s seen as such, people become defensive because they either 1) have an unreasonable hard time considering something/someone is flawed and 2) people who point out the flaws also do so in a taunting way that dismisses the flawed character/person and fans of flawed character/person in a way that is immature and reactionary.
And look, this isn’t to say you can’t have your opinions, but you have to know by now it’s all about the way you express your opinions. You put thought into why you want to express stuff in a certain way, often to elicit an emotional response that is sure to get you the discourse you want. And with all the back and forth, it goes back to this whole intolerance of flawed-ness.
I think this is a shame. Not only is it okay and human to like flawed things, especially if we relate to it, but it’s well within your rights to because frankly, what ideally should end up mattering at the end of the day is what YOU like and think about art, not what others think. I mean, think about it: would you have felt so stressed and this need to defend something you love had you not done online and learned that some people think, for example, that your favorite art or artist is “trash” and that people who like what you like are idiots? That there are immature people who like call you a “dickrider” just because you like, appreciate, and resonate with what the artist put out there, even within its perfections? As I’ve repeated many times, it’s one thing to be exposed to valid constructive criticism and perspectives, but that it is outshined by reactive offensive foolishness that either pushes people away from fandom or makes people ultra defensive behavior that becomes cyclical and obsessive. People have a right to opinions, yes, but not all opinions are helpful to put out there when it comes to fostering health in a fandom community.
We are not all going to agree or find value in things amongst the flaws, not everything presented will speak to others, yet still we care too much about other people’s opinions at the detriment of our enjoyment. If fandom accepts that people who love their series, artists or whatever else have different things they take away from it, I believe things would be better, because why not allow each other to have that? Again, isn’t that part of the beauty or art? Ideally, we could even learn from each other and the work we are/were a fan of in this way.
I noticed that I mentioned human nature a couple times, and this is something I’ve keep coming back to when processing everything that I learned during my time trying out online fandom. So it made me wonder if there needs to be a degree of acceptance of the flaws of our human nature and the nature of social media.
Which has lead me to my last point:
7. Fandom is truly what you make it, and how you choose to engage with it is a choice only you have the power to make.
In full transparency, I am also speaking to myself as I make this point, and take responsibility in the ways that I have engaged unhealthily in fandom by choice. I know I’ve spoken mostly about my realizations in the context of mostly negative experiences and observations, but I’d be a completely unfair lie if I didn’t mention there were so many beautiful things about online fandom as well.
People find friends online they otherwise wouldn’t have found to share commonality with, people get to share their talented fan art and have fun showcasing their writing skills with fan-fictions, or their beautiful covers of songs, or hilarious parody skits designed to make people laugh and cheer us up. People like having a sense of connection with being a part of something bigger than ourselves, and fandom allows this to happen in joyous ways.
In my personal experience, discussing art/artists that I am a fan of with people in real life is a vastly different experience than online (maybe with certain sports fandoms being an exception). Things are rarely this “worst thing ever” hyperbole, people are calm and patient when speaking in person (even when there are different opinions), and it feels more personable which probably helps us all act a bit more humane. People I’ve interacted with in real life also have other shit going on in their lives that they aren’t overly invested in and aware of reviews and ratings, leaks, theories, rumors, and other messiness, regardless if they like or dislike what’s going on within the art. Again, not to say there aren’t people in real life who aren’t disrespectful, problematic or gross in some ways…that would also be a lie (I’m looking at you, anime club weeaboos back in college in 2008 who made outright racist and misogynistic statements of me being a Black woman checking out a random anime showing they were hosting). It’s just that in my personal experience, I’ve found that conversing with other fans in person is my most preferred method and it’s better for me to keep it that way.
But, I also admit that I made flawed and nonsensical choices to look at and engage with things that bothered me within a fandom. I often hypocritically didn’t take my own advice of “don’t like, don’t read”. My fascination with how people could come to certain conclusions about an artwork to the point of insult lead in a dark rabbit hole that almost became a familiar addiction of reading bad comments in the comment section of news sections, which was a choice I made. I ruminated on behaviors associated with it to the point that I began to lose enjoyment of certain works. All the things I observed and criticized during the previous 6 points? I’ve engaged in all of the things at some point, almost becoming what I stated to hate in the process.
That’s when I had to take a step back, look and ask myself: why does it matter? Why are you CHOOSING to click on things that you know will make you upset instead of reading and engaging in healthier conversations? Will these things matter weeks, months, years from now? Why are you letting it impact you to this degree? Would you have felt this way had you not seen these things? Why are you surprised given that it’s the internet? My own contradictory actions and underlying bad habits and vices that were surfacing within my fandom engagement, and I needed to remember that I can’t control anyone’s behaviors but myself, nor is it ideal to even wish for that. Why add on that burden when there’s already too much to deal with in life? It’s better for me to value and spend energy on the things I enjoy, providing myself a healthy stimulation of my mind in this one life I have left, and take my own advice and move on from platforms that don’t serve me when they no longer work for my needs and struggles with self-control. Engaging with online fandom taught me more about underlying things I need to work on, including my own dissonance and hypocrisy.
So although I’ve concluded that online fandom isn’t for me when it comes to discussion, maybe I’ll occasionally look at fanarts if I ever feel so inclined. Since the pandemic has become more controlled and some of my social and work life began to resume back to what it was before I began deeply engaging with fandom during my free time, I’ve found myself having less desire to even look back. I doubt anything has changed with unhealthy online fandom patterns since I decided to disengage altogether a while ago. However, disengaging with online fandom has reduced a lot of the noise that interrupted my enjoyment, and I can now look more forward to enjoying upcoming things on my own terms.
How we engage it is a choice, and it’s not right or wrong if you make a choice to make your engagement catered to your healthy needs. And while I stand by what I observed in the previous 6 points of what issues make a unhealthy fandom, it might be helpful to ask yourself if the way you’re choosing to engage contributes to your enjoyment for the art or series, because while we can’t overall change human nature with how others express themselves, at the very least we can change ourselves and what we put out there and engage with.
