I hate how fandoms are denigrated, especially female-dominated ones, and I'm going to show you all stupid people how the hell a fandom works when D'Angelo Wallace and The Take have no clue how the hell a fandom works, much less a subject like Kpop they have only scratched the surface of.
I'm pissed at all these ignorant people, going along with what society says about fandoms when fandoms are an important structure.
Without fans to lift them up, One Piece would be nothing. Without fans, BTS wouldn't reach the heights they are climbing. Without fans to lift them up, the Beatles would be nothing but a speck. Without fans, Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon would be nothing but specks and wouldn't be as important as today. Without fans, Star Wars and Star Trek would not become famous as it's known today. Without fans, sports would be nothing!
Then again, sports fandoms and other male-dominated media that have male-dominated fans are fine. Women are somewhat okay as they are 'one of the boys'. How could I forget gamers getting doxxed?! How could I forget violent sports fans rioting and destroying!? I'm not the biggest sports fan yet I knew all about sports fans going overboard!
Anime fandoms seemed to be fine, including the female-dominated shoujos and joseis. Because they're collectively the anime fandoms yet the general public didn't denigrate them...much. Otaku is still relatively an insult in Asia.
Okay, despite having different and unique rituals, contexts, and ideas, fandoms functioned similarly.
Fandoms have these identifiable areas from the general to shippers alike:
- Fanart
- Fanfiction
- Shipping
- AMV making, videography generally as they discussed whatever relates to their fave
- Gif making
- Analysis of meta-discussions of theories, predictions, etc.
- Consuming and buying whatever related to their fave
- There are subsets within subsets of fandoms such as shipping largely encompass multi-shipping, and there are bases of fandoms that intersect.
- One small faction of toxic fans will attack and be loud. Their actions would be blamed on the entire fandom as a whole. It might not look like it, but when fans are numbered in the millions, only a thousand or so fans would actually wreak havoc.
Please notice that general non-shippers and shippers alike share these things. A large number of fans are just consumers but sometimes there are entitled fans to other fans’ free time to create any of these.
A fandom is fan-driven creativity. No fan is entitled to another’s time. It's just freaky fun that goes levels into what fans want and fans' 'sins' of the most depraved of sex and gritty.
A fan is short for fanatic. That word has so many things that do not pertain to purity. It means going nuts and declaring short of the death of the author. Well, unless that author is a terrible person who does not deserve anything from the fandom. Looking at you, JK Rowling, one thing you don't mind fanfiction and the different interpretations, the next you use authorial intent to shut down whatever you don't like.
Not every fan shares the same opinion. As advised by seasoned fans, it's best to keep within a small circle and just have with that instead of interacting with the whole. Sure, you can travel your way around but always keep within your group of friends or designated favored people in the fandom that you follow. I repeat since fans have different opinions, it'll not be an echo chamber but a place to bounce off ideas.
These are across the board in social media platforms, not just Twitter. Seriously, it doesn't have to be Twitter. I'm not on Twitter, only checking on and off. My preferred platform is Tumblr and that's because it's easier for me to use.
The point of fandom is to have fun. In the little space carved with your friends in the many pathways, it’s supposed to be fun. It’s better to have a small group of friends and respective followers to bounce off ideas and feedback. Seriously, interacting with everyone is not a good idea, not when there will be wars, and not the shipping kind either.
The point of fandom is it is non-canon and just uses canon as a toy.
Non-canon ships? Have fun! Shipping is not activism as it’s basically playing with dolls. It’s fun, not any of the high and mighty ‘it’s just your imagination. It doesn’t exist’ and this is the behavior of idiots getting in the way of pure fun from shippers. Yeah, shoo, out you clowns, they aren’t adding anything at all but poorly disguised superiority. That’s the point, idiots, fun and imagination just from the potential of these guys having a relationship. These people are idiots who don’t understand anything but your poor sense of superiority. The antishipping and proshipping debate is nonsense as I avoid ships I don't like and I'm an adult who does not care for others' opinions about measly shipping that is largely non-canon and positing these should be canon outside of working them in fanworks canon or not is damaging. There'll be jokes about the canon potential or even thoughts that it'll be better if the ship was real because of the story potential coinciding with the themes and/or characters when there is something that could be implicated but these shippers know and are shipping non-canon and all they do is have fun because that's the point of fandom. I do not give a shit when Dabihawks and Steddie are non-canon, they are mine to ship and people trying to invade this space is ridiculous.
What ifs? Have fun! Explore the possibilities of potential happily ever afters and dealing with trauma instead of canon showing things blown to bits. I’m serious that outside of angst and MCD, it’s fanworks that have everyone or nearly everyone lives and have happily ever afters. Unless it’s a series aimed at kids or a series that hesitated to kill off the main characters but is willing to use proxies or reoccurring characters to kill off instead, you won’t see a lot of the typical everyone lives and happiness.
There’s a difference between flat-out using canon as a toy and the lack of reading comprehension regarding not understanding the themes of the original or anything at all. In my last fanfiction post, I said about the lack of reading comprehension. Fuck I read Great Gatsby fanfiction where Gatsby lives and you don’t see me saying otherwise. What I just want is reading comprehension while still using your imagination to create a happily ever after knowing why it’s written the way it is.
Fandom for the most part is the act of ignoring canon and insistence canon does not matter. Canon is the sandbox but still keeping in character is the best choice moving forward with fanon usage for not contradicting canon or using headcanons to make canon less confusing/make sense/less nonsensical. That last one is galaxy brain.
Fandom means going out against what the mainstream couldn't or wouldn't do. LGBT, unadulterated porn of anything, and violence... Breaking all the rules means showing more than one openly queer character who isn't killed off and exploration of these kinks for these characters for example. Fandom isn't beholden to canon and any mainstream that could only target specific audiences and even then these audiences would be harshly criticized for not having 'good taste'.
Fans could roll in the happiness and fluff fandom offers and then they roll to the canon angst. Both things can coexist.
That’s the point of a fandom which is to have fun with canon and explore possibilities.
I can’t believe I have to say that at all when this new generation of fans can’t seem to understand canon is a point but not the end all be all of fandom.
Seriously, I have seen pointless arguments about canon in non-canon ship posts. I have seen even worse so-called superiority complexes about that it’s just your imagination. Bye, bye, stupid idiots of the highest degree, you are and never will be welcomed on shippers’ grounds, acting as if you are the arbiter of shipping when all you are doing is showing you are idiots wasting time just to show your opinion means more about the shipping of all things.
Why is somehow canon somehow the bigger evidence when all canon has just provided is just a basic structure and even better chemistry and implications that just makes the ship delicious? Use imagination just from the little or weird interactions we do get. Or use imagination from characters that didn't even have interactions, to begin with.
Listen, we like keeping characters in character and have different interpretations just as people have different interpretations of shipping interactions. Just look at my previous shipping post.
Isn’t that too hard to comprehend? Canon is a point but not the end all be all.
Canon and fanon are two different things.
Fanon can be and is fun, particularly for characters that didn't have much of a backstory or a role, to begin with. Especially when characters' potential isn't filled because they were women and the series, in general, has noticeably larger secondary female character deaths or maiming. However, know when fanon makes more sense than canon or when canon is better off where it is.
There’s another thing: the purity bullshit that runs rampant to the point the younger generation spews out shit that is harmful. What these guys are doing is stupid and harmful to others and themselves. They aren’t doing anyone a favor by being pure on every single matter in a fandom.
Like, yeah, a healthy ship is a plus and a must-have, but shipping is in no way an indicator of one's politics. Since when does that happen? No, seriously, since when shipping dolls together is somehow an indicator of one's character? Oh, sure, go wild with the kinks but shipping is now the bar of one's character.
I stress for you to really think. Since when shipping is now an indicator that you are a good person?
And even then, the popular ships that are tame and equal to other ships that have similar elements and the truly messed up ships that nobody seemed to be aware of or are aware of but don't care or just don't see are lambasted purely based on selective purity.
Oh, I do have a problem with purity shippers and not-so-self-aware shippers but I know it’s just shipping. Shipping is just fans and shippers; actors who played these characters shipping them too is a bonus but not a must-have since these are actors with their own perceptions and so forth. Godoka, Chris Colfer doesn't like Klaine while Darren Criss does. There is nothing wrong with that.
As much as it is annoying white guys being shipped together are the most popular ship in fandoms, there is little to be done about that. It’s gonna take a while for interracial or BIPOC ships to be number one unless it’s a cast of BIPOC with little to no whites in major roles or whites still take up the majority.
At this point, I’m concerned about the lengths these guys will go to be pure in the fandom.
Honestly, I have never seen these guys so not self-aware before. I’m not going to mention ships here but if you are aware of my previous post about shipping, you know what I’m talking about. Just that these guys are so not self-aware about anything about ships or anything at all.
They really don’t know how a fandom work at all if they are that willing to fight anyone for purity or a bloated ego for shipping the so-called ‘better healthier’ ship.
I’m both pitying and concerned for them. They really don’t know how a fandom had operated that the purity shit they spewed is actually harmful, the exact same thing that people against fandoms used to justify their hate and not about fandoms even.
All I just want them is to take a good look at themselves, read fandom history, and just know what they were doing is not good for anyone when fandom had survived well past these ship types that will continue to exist. There is a difference between a truly bad ship and a ship with potential. Fandoms have survived ships that are truly messed up and made them popular even. Again I am not naming names.
Enemies-to-lovers ships are par for the course and complex though no more than usual but no people are unable to get past enemies and prefer rivals which they confuse with this type. These types of ships are normal and compared to truly messed up ships, very tame.
How did we go from people not batting an eye at Shizaya and Suzalulu to lashing out at Dabihawks and Akeshu? In a space of a few years aka purity bs pouring in, we got this.
A willingness to cut people out of your life simply for being mature about shipping or pro-shipping is not healthy. The lengths they are going for what in the end is essentially fandom fun is concerning and they must unlearn the toxic grip purity has on them.
The ‘think of the children’ mindset is harmful. Like, you really aren’t thinking of the kids if you are just letting them see the same results as everyone else instead of watching, raising, and actually curating it. There aren’t any kids' sites like specific games that aren’t gambling. Just kid-specific games like Club Penguin and Barbie for kids to be kids. Sure we got PBS sites but it's not like it's Club Penguin.
I want kids to be kids too but at the same time, kids shouldn't be drawn into the purity bs.
There's a difference between the purity bs and actually being mature.
And then there’s bs about moving on from character deaths. I’m bursting a gut just from a single post from the Stranger Things fandom regarding Eddie Munson’s canon death.
Have they ever been in fandom before? Character deaths mean shit in fandom because the fandoms like to explore potential and what-ifs. Oh sure, you can keep character deaths in fics as I will tell you, and list just as many fics that will save those characters in the same breath.
Heck, I can give them the example to show just how stupid the thought of moving on from a character's death is in a fandom. Jack Dawson's death in James Cameron's Titanic 1997 is the best example of flat-out not moving on from a character's death. Why else are there arguments about how Jack could survive just as the themes and setting made sense why Jack has to die? I did not blink an eye to see fanfics and fanfics based on the movie featuring Jack and the one playing Jack's role to survive. Examples include Yuuri Katsuki and Connie Maheswaren though the latter is more of a general friendship thing the point stands that Connie is essentially in Jack's role just as the titular Steven Universe is in Rose's.
Fuck, I rarely see Moulin Rouge fanfiction where Satine was saved from TB. Only the fix-it fics that exist based on Moulin Rouge show the outcome of the character playing the Satine role out of their cage at last and living happily ever after with their love. I saw this in a Wrightworth one, an Ineffable Husbands' fic, and a Dabihawks one as those are the most memorable ones I do remember with Crowley and Hawks' survival because the first chapter or so made it clear they are ill. Heck in the Wrightworth version, Phoenix didn’t have TB.
What about headcanons? Headcanons are by definition not meant to contradict canon as coexisting is the goal. As long as it doesn’t contradict canon text, a headcanon can exist. I cannot believe I even have to say that.
I can’t believe I have to say anything about this at all. I have nearly two decades of fandom experience. I feel myself aging just even explaining basics to people who lashed out at fandoms for the stupidest of reasons.
Godoka, seeing people who should know better rant about the toxicity of fandoms is getting old at this point. Not listening to reason particularly from BIPOC fans is bad especially when these guys decide they want nothing to do with the fandom even though the fandoms are a wide spectrum of people and experiences.
I don’t interact with the entire fandom, preferring my group of friends and following the preferred group of people who shared similar opinions.
Is it so hard to think that not all the fandom interact or think similarly to some kind of hive mind?
Apparently, it’s so hard for people to think the entire fandom is toxic than think critically at all. I think people see fandoms as a hive mind.
Note, that there are some fandoms that are kosher for people to accept that they can identify good from bad. It's unfortunate that most female-dominated fandoms are usually branded as psychotic and crazy while male-dominated fandoms are not. And even then, that’s selective with gamers and sports.
Gamers are relatively new in the public eye as pro esports are now viable ways to make money to live comfortably. Even now, the negative perception is just a NEET who eats junk food and plays all day. Even then, most people see guys primarily, especially with Gamergate.
As much as the fanatic sports fan wreak havoc across town in their frenzy of bliss or rage at the results, they aren't stigmatized as the women who like boybands or just women, in general, partaking in fandoms that are predominately female.
Even though Jem and the Holograms and My Little Pony are accepted, for the most part, the stigma that all fans are crazed and dumb still sticks. Yes, there is a crazy type of fans...not the screaming type, but the type to do harm, physical and mental, to their victims. Or the so-called hysterical women type.
I want people to see that fans are important. While the work fans support is the backbone, fans do the other part by supporting that backbone with other parts.
Creators and fans create synergy. Well, that is, if the creator doesn't hurt the fans and doesn't force their views onto them and vice versa. That can lead to disillusionment.
I know Potterheads have been disillusioned by JKR for a long time that 'read another book' thing that goes on just annoys them as fans pointed out they have long since disowned JKR or even welcomed her as part of the fandom. Heck, the fan creators directly refused to let her negativity ruin their love, and the fandom they just did the fandom stuff out of spite. Heck, I remember that instead of buying things from official sources, they commissioned other fans to make Harry Potter merch related stuff instead. I repeat it's only those who are loyal to JKR who accepts whatever she espoused including the hatred she spewed towards communities she despised are the ones whose fighting against everyone including in the HP fandom itself. Please I read HP fics detached from JKR but pay attention to any notes that mention JKR because those notes are eye-opening to those who fell in love with her books and hate JKR for hating these communities as they are in the communities.
You won't see me go watch the Cursed Child. Aside from hearing just how bad it is, a bootleg is fine even if the set design is admittedly good to witness. I mean I'm already reading fics that JKR won't approve of anyway so why does it matter to her what I read in the fandom? Why should I look for her for approval? I've been in the fandom for far too long to bother with someone who is clearly miserable.
Meanwhile, George Lucas is in a strange place of creator worship and not so at the same time where his prequels were slammed but OS was praised yet after the sequels, fans just want his input as they can see that he knows his damn story. Even now, with all the prequel-related stories, people can see George Lucas' worldbuilding...well as long as no one thinks about what he said about the no-bras thing. Anyway, the potential he's telling by seeing other people revealing such potential through much better writing was detailed and at least people can follow the prequels as it has a story from beginning to end whereas the sequels do not and are written reactionarily to the audience.
Then let's look at Oda Eiichiro who entertained his fans' questions in SBS from simple to ridiculous. Heck, Japanese creators that are welcomed by the fandom are usually called sensei such as Oda-sensei or Goda.
See, the fan and creator interactions vary. Regardless, fans are a major part of why something small might not garner the strength to continue to this day.
Look no further than the biggest known female-dominated fandom or at least female-dominant from an outside perception: BTS ARMY.
Please, it’s a-ok for ARMYs to not buy merch. I only own merch that interests me and even then I have to draw up mental pros and cons if it can fit in my room. I won’t forget you Emily and your 19 friends, I hope you never set foot on purple grounds again.
I wanna ask them if it's the same thing they feel about whatever franchise that has loads of merch of their own. I mean I know there are different kinds of Sailor Moon merch that I would love to own but I know that I don't have to have it.
ARMYs aren’t gatekeepers. They just want BTS to be appreciated, respected, and recognized. Hence reading the lyrics and connecting the history with the lyrical progression. I knew Suga’s solo First Love is about the piano from just one listen. It’s that easy to hear the English word piano and see the title of the song. I looked up the lyrics later and lo and behold it’s about the piano.
Please, BTS gains fans with every comeback. What baby ARMYs and other curious people need is guidance.
BTS is simply the priority and must be. Hence ARMYmultis aren’t winning unless they are willing to buy and stream for all the groups they’re following. Like, just do that. You still can stream for your other groups but BTS is the priority.
Not all ARMYs like each other or share the same opinions. Certainly, they can appreciate the lyrics and the history but everyone has different tastes. It's just as long as everyone knows BTS and their story which is the point of being ARMY.
Again, just as long as they support BTS, it’s all good.
Still, it’s hard to find reliable ARMYs on YT.
While not all fandoms will be as mobilizing as ARMYs, there are times when fans do get together to fund something like charities.
It's just ARMYs are not just women of all ages and are decried for that. It's a fandom just like any other fandom.
I just wish others see that while fandoms as a whole are simply full of different people from all walks of life, the vocal minority will be toxic.
