#fandom negativity
not to throw myself into discourse or anything but fandom went downhill the moment fans began holding up fandom content to mainstream content standards
Elaborate pls.
Shipping is no longer about “hey I think these characters have an interesting dynamic and I want to explore what they would be like together”, it’s “but it needs to be canon, it needs to be healthy, it needs to be representation”
Headcanons are no longer personal opinions but “you are wrong and always have been wrong”, “you are DIRECTLY going against canon with this and here’s a list of reasons why this is so!”
Do I even need to bring up the “fiction = reality” argument here that’s currently so prevalent in fandom circles that, sure, definitely has some truth in it when you’re considering a piece of mainstream media which is going to reach millions of people, but not so much when you’re applying it to a fanfiction with 100 views tops
There are certain things fans want to see in their mainstream content, and that’s okay! I do that too! Diversity is a necessity in media and it’s wonderful that the mainstream media is finally taking steps to rectify that, no matter how small. Fans can now openly communicate with content creators on social media and get them to confirm all manner of headcanons, and that’s good too!
Except some fans have run with this and started using it against fandom, and suddenly you’ve ended up with fans terrified to put forth their own content because it doesn’t fit into the requirements they’re requesting from the mainstream.
One of the best examples to illustrate this recent shift that I can think of is (oh god here we go I’m not even in this fandom) Reylo. If it were to become canon in the films? Sure, feel free to criticise the creators behind the decision all you want! However, exploring the potential such a relationship could have in a fanfiction no-one’s going to read exceptother people interested in the same idea doesn’t open it up to this same criticism.
tl;dr: through wanting to transform the canon, fans are forgetting how to transform the canon for themselves into their own fanworks and this is leading to fans criticising each other on the same level with which they criticise mainstream media without considering the history & small nature of fandom and the intention of fans in their production of content
I agree with what you’re saying, but I do want to point out that sometimes those fanfics with only 100 views end up getting more views and becoming mainstream media (namely, 50 shades of grey).
I agree with everything else you said - I don’t think that what’s mainstream should dictate what’s in fandom, but when stories get big (and just before becoming mainstream), should they still be excluded from criticism?
This is a good point, but allow me to use 50 Shades of Grey as an example since you’ve brought it up:
50 Shades of Grey, in its original form as Twilight fanfiction, was fanfiction written for fandom consumption and published in a fandom space.
EL James, in deciding to publish it, took that fanfiction out of the fandom space and opened it up to full public consumption.
And in turning that fanfic into a published novel, in removing it from its fandom space and placing it in a literature space, EL James shouldhave done her research, or at least sought out critical opinions which influenced the novel’s transition from a fanfic written entirely to amuse herself to a published work.
Does this mean we should be criticising fanfictions which gain popularity in fandom in case the authors decide to do as EL James did and publish it as an original work??
In my opinion, no.
Fanfictions published in fandom spaces are written freely, given freely. We have no way of judging whyan author felt the need to write their fanfics and fanfiction authors do not need to justify themselves even if they do (to use 50 Shades again) write fucked up dynamics in a romantic way, or haven’t done any research on a topic central to their work such as BDSM, etc. If, however, you choose to edit your fanfiction into an original work, it no longer exists in a fandom space and you should be aware of that.
Those popular fanfictions? Remain excluded from criticism because they still exist in a fandom space. If you find aspects of a popular fanfiction to be harmful or worthy of criticism in some way, there’s the back button, or even better, a blank word page to begin writing your own fanfic.
Very much this.
Your squicks are valid.
Your attempts to censor others are not.
5 years ago, and 4 years ago, and even 3 years ago, I would’ve been over the moon about the announcement that Loki was getting his own show. I would’ve been floating on air, the kind of excited where you could hardly eat or sleep because of the anticipation. I don’t feel any of that now. What I actually feel right now is…dread? Marvel has changed, drastically, and the franchise that enchanted me, that I fell in love with, looks nothing like it did before. It has become something of an unkind stranger, harsh and unwelcoming. My favorite character was made to look weak, turned into a laughing stock, robbed of all his powers and reduced to throwaway plot device in the cruelest, most brutal way they could think of. Marvel just not only allowed him to be tarred and feathered, they…revelled in it. They plotted his demise to make sure it was the most horrible and the most hurtful and they were… so proud of it. The way they bragged, the way they trolled fans. They make me sick. I felt so disillusioned and disenchanted. I felt like an idiot for caring way more about this than I evidently ever should have. I can never believe another word that comes out of their mouths, and I can’t trust them anymore. So you can understand why I feel the way I do about the Loki series.
I think the biggest mistake Marvel made (narratively, evidently non economically) is to have so many people writing the story. Of course it is impossible to have one director and one group of writers if you want to get three or four movies out every year, but they could have least have the same for a whole trilogy, and at least people with similar ideas, so that the characters we see in the avengers movies are almost treated the same as in their trilogies.
to be fair, they did offer Ragnarok’s direction to the director of Thor 2 first, but he said no
apparently they gave him a lot of freedom in directing Thor 2 but changed his work so much in the editing room that it was irrecognizable to him and he didn’t want to go through that again
(they also offered Thor 2 to Thor 1′s director but he also said no because he felt he would not be able to do the film justice vOv)
I’m a bit more unsure on what happened with Whedon other than the reported stress of working on AoU pushing him out of filming the next one
5 years ago, and 4 years ago, and even 3 years ago, I would’ve been over the moon about the announcement that Loki was getting his own show. I would’ve been floating on air, the kind of excited where you could hardly eat or sleep because of the anticipation. I don’t feel any of that now. What I actually feel right now is…dread? Marvel has changed, drastically, and the franchise that enchanted me, that I fell in love with, looks nothing like it did before. It has become something of an unkind stranger, harsh and unwelcoming. My favorite character was made to look weak, turned into a laughing stock, robbed of all his powers and reduced to throwaway plot device in the cruelest, most brutal way they could think of. Marvel just not only allowed him to be tarred and feathered, they…revelled in it. They plotted his demise to make sure it was the most horrible and the most hurtful and they were… so proud of it. The way they bragged, the way they trolled fans. They make me sick. I felt so disillusioned and disenchanted. I felt like an idiot for caring way more about this than I evidently ever should have. I can never believe another word that comes out of their mouths, and I can’t trust them anymore. So you can understand why I feel the way I do about the Loki series.
Big Same
A good rule to live by is that if you hate some piece of media, you should care less about it, devote less energy to it, and spend less time thinking about it than the people who like it. This isn’t even a “don’t criticize” or “positive vibes only” thing, it’s more of an “if you talk about hating it more than the fans talk about liking it, the net result is that you’re the one keeping attention fixed on it”
“A lot of people online vocally hate the development in the show and have made a million posts calling on people to stop watching it, and also they watch every episode and comment on the new developments they’re enraged by” is a great way to get the show to keep doing developments like that (look how much engagement it nets!) and also, especially if the outrage is for legitimate social reasons, an EXCELLENT way to ensure that all the creeps online see your objections and suddenly take an interest in supporting it, where they wouldn’t have before.
“A lot of people online realized they hate the show now, so they just sorta stopped watching and stopped talking about it” usually ends up causing the show to fall out of public favor and get cancelled
I feel like with the new ~fandom drama~ or whatever going around, I should re-introduce my favorite theory of fandom, which I call the 1% Theory.
Basically, the 1% Theory dictates that in every fandom, on average, 1% of the fans will be a pure, unsalvageable tire fire. We’re talking the people who do physical harm over their fandom, who start riots, cannot be talked down. The sort of things public news stories are made of. We’re not talking necessarily bad fans here- we’re talking people who take this thing so seriously they are willing to start a goddamn fist fight over nothing. The worst of the worst.
The reason I bring this up is because the 1% Theory ties into an important visual of fandom knowledge- that bigger fandoms are always perceived as “worse”, and at a certain point, a fandom always gets big enough to “go bad”. Let me explain.
Say you have a small fandom, like 500 people- the 1% Theory says that out of those 500, only 5 of them will be absolute nutjobs. This is incredibly manageable- it’s five people. The fandom and world at large can easily shut them out, block them, ignore their ramblings. The fandom is a “nice place”.
Now say you have a medium sized fandom- say 100,000 people. Suddenly, the 1% Theory ups your level of calamity to a whopping 1000 people. That’s a lot. That’s a lot for anyone to manage. It is, by nature of fandom, impossible to “manage” because no one owns fan spaces. People start to get nervous. There’s still so much good, but oof, 1000 people.
Now say you have a truly massive fandom- I use Homestuck here because I know the figures. At it’s peak, Homestuck had approximately FIVE MILLION active fans around the globe.
By the 1% Theory, that’s 50,000 people. Fifty THOUSAND starting riots, blackmailing creators, contributing to the worst of the worst of things.
There’s a couple of important points to take away here, in my opinion.
1) The 1% will always be the loudest, because people are always looking for new drama to follow.
2) Ultimately, it is 1%. It is only 1%. I can’t promise the other 99% are perfect, loving angels, but the “terrible fandom” is still only 1% complete utter garbage.
3) No fandom should ever be judged by their 1%. Big fandoms always look worse, small fandoms always look better. It’s not a good metric.
So remember, if you’re ever feeling disheartened by your fandom’s activity- it’s just 1%, people. Do your part not to be a part of it.
