Opinions on fandoms/fandom culture.

Start normalizing enjoyment of a medium without being in the fandom!

Sorry for shouting, I agree with most of what've you said! I think people are demonizing the term "gatekeeping" because personally, once the thing became mainstream it will attract people that isn't even fan of the premise, but make up their idealized vision of the story because it's the popular thing! Strike one for content creators, I just ignore them. My point here was, there's a reason why filters are able to keep out posers wearing skins of fan and exploit the popularity of IP while hating said IP to its core (pretty cringe)

I cannot understand someone losing their marbles over pairing. One theory I have is them projecting onto one of the characters (likely the protagonist or the one who they "kin") because they have a crush on the other pairing. It spirals into an unhealthy obsession. That's how I discovered Komahina (ships of two danganronpa characters) are treated with the shippers I've interacted with, and couldn't bare the idea of the characters being paired by other (which feels like they're cheating). Very, VERY much a venndiagram to yumeshippers (self-shippers). 

"Cringe Culture Is Dead!!" yet cyberbullying over fandom things is more common and even cringier than ever. This is gatekeeping without them realizing it is. That phrase is an eyeroll.

No, I get you. The topic is a lot to cover, I agree. I have a comfort series in mind that I will never utter because it might bring out the weirdos out of the wood work and ruin it for me. I'm a cynical adult with fandom trauma and I don't know where to vent all of this. But, thank you for bringing it up to spice up this forum board.

I love fandom culture, you just have to look in the right places.  Like anything there are good parts and bad parts and if you focus on all the bad you miss the fun communities.  For example I'm into the Postal series, if you're unfamiliar with the IP it basically capitalizes itself on its dark humor and being over the top and the fandom attracts a lot of weirdos.  I just ignore them.  Typically if I'm seeing a lot of something I'm not wanting to ill block the creator and any associated tags I can and boom I'm not on that side of the fandom anymore.  i think debates in fandom is healthy too and its always optional to look at them or participate I don't really think it's a big problem.  Like proshippers for example, I don't like them; hate them.  Doesn't matter that the original premise was something innocuous its now associated with incest and pedophilia and personally I don't like seeing that done to my favs yk.  I think in the case of proshippers its fine to have fandom discourse as I wouldn't be wanting to interact with those kinds of people.  If you don't like the discourse you don't HAVE to participate you can curate your experience.  I think discourse and such is a natural part of fandoms.  Same with the people that make money off of it, comes naturally especially when fandoms get larger.  Id just enjoy the stuff you enjoy and ignore the stuff you don't and you'll have a lot more fun.  Fanfiction, zines, big bangs, fanart, roleplay, communities, all of it is still alive and kicking and very fun to participate in.  I di

Reply to ⦻MellohD⦻

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Yeah, that's what I meant that you don't have to be in the fandom to enjoy the stuff you watch or consume. I can't really just find the right place(tm) online anymore, unless you mean in real life where I don't get butted-in by internet strangers randomly. Because, there will be discourse, unprompted, from anywhere at anytime! I sometimes love browsing and checking out the community content from certain stories or ideas but I don't like being in the fandom most of the time.

Maybe I getting old or haven't gotten over the shitstorm I've dealt with no matter how neutral or unproblematic I seemed. Maybe I'm already too old for this even though there are people my age group that instigate drama, but I love creating fan content with a handful of like-minded people. Maybe I'm such a recluse person. I don't like how I'm being myself and suddenly I'm targeted  by the newwave cringe hunters on the internet.

A bad experience could sour the whole thing for some people, y'know?

Reply to Infamous!

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ꉂ ꉂ (´ ᗜ｀)

that's one way to put it

people are more and more socially inept. it's like we forgot internet etiquette 101

100% agreed. Toxic people don’t help this either. Someone dislikes my ship? My fave characters? Block button exists. No, instead they will make up some bs lie, to “invalidate the ship” or call me a “xy horrible character apologist” and while they’re at it, they also call me , a total stranger in the other end of the world, the trigger words a normal twtr user immediately jumps at. Boom! It’s suddenly everyone’s problem, and everyone playing the moral sjw, I get a lot of harassment because of fictional characters and misinformation going too far. Shippers of a totally normal ship, or fans of a totally normal character all leave, because this isn’t a fandom anymore, this is a cult, lead by harassers. A dictature if you wish (kinda the same thing, I’m a history person and many researches kinda prove it…hmm interesting topic) 

Also yes…nobody creates just because of ✨passion✨…or if they do, the people mentioned above, will harass them away. Source: I was one of the people who created out of passion and love. I left the sinking ship last. 

Oh and don’t get me started on the proship thing…. both ends harass me, because I told them I’m neither  

Also, also, forgot to add this! The age. Us being old.

When we were 14 or so, a ship war was our biggest issue, like omg, xy has more shippers? TRAGEDY. Yeah, the test was bad in school, but the shippers? Oh gooooooooood! but for the love of god, gen y is adults with problems. Even if you live in western countries, you may be stressed about life in general, everything past 2020 is hell. War, migration, idiot politicans, illnesses, you name it. There’s some shit happening weekly. To that in addition, I really don’t need any problems online. I don’t need retards who try to tell me that I’m a horrible monster and I should be dead, just because I like what they dislike. 

The harassers usually don’t have a single irl problem somehow. So they’re chronically online. 

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It really depends on the fandom and how you interact with it! I’d say I’m only really a part of the doctor who fandom- I’ve been a massive fan for most of my life, I've made art, I've attended doctor who conventions, I’ve met actors, etc. for other shows I enjoy, I’m just a casual viewer who occasionally interacts with other fans or looks at art :)

I know theres a lot of fandom drama and honestly I just never see it. I stick to space with cool, creative people and everyone there is super friendly. Theres some weirdos out there and some drama but it’s easy to avoid and it’s almost entirely online. I also just don’t engage with shipping at all bc I’m not interested so maybe thats where the drama is lol. I know people get into arguments over ships but when I see them fighting, they just seem a bit silly and immature to me so its entertaining and fun to watch lol

 I think what makes me appreciate fandom more however, is the knowledge of where it came from. For older scifi fandoms in particular- like star trek and doctor who, there is a rich history within our fandoms that is really interesting to look into! Especially as these shows have always provided a place for LGBTQ people and other nonconforming groups to feel comfortable expressing themselves within. Cosplays make people feel comfortable dressing up and expressing themselves in ways they otherwise couldnt. Queer fanfic used to be distributed secretly amongst fans who trusted each other. I mean, scifi is the perfect genre for this type of fandom because its the future, anything goes when theres aliens involved! Neurodivergent people are also given spaces to ramble about their interests to their hearts content and feel supported because theyre surrounded by people who share a love for the same show/books/whatever it is. 

So yes, there are problems within fandoms but i dont think theyre inherently bad. At its core, a fandom is intended to be a space where people can bond over a common interest and nerd-out about characters and I think that’s beautiful. If someone is weird or bothers you, its pretty easy to just avoid them (unless its a really tiny fandom, sorry). And if being in a fandom is draining for you, take a break! Sometimes I lose interest in Doctor Who for a couple months and then something will happen to reignite my interest and its fine, don’t feel pressured to be involved 24/7. If you see someone only participating for money, ok, ignore them and find cooler people (I promise theyre out there). If the cosplays and art seem repetitive, that makes sense, its all the same characters after all. But usually theres some creative people, you just might have to dig a bit deeper or just make your own art- thats what i do lol

This, whole, post. All the way. 

Honestly, I'm sick of all the discourse and infighting that goes viral online in general, but especially in fandom spaces it seems to be a huge issue. 

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I used to be in the Tony Crynight fandom up until a couple months ago when I left, and there were so many people fighting about what details were considered "canon" or head-canons, and whether or not doxxing Tony over him changing his animation style was a good idea (actual argument I got into with a member of the fandom btw), and it got so bad that it ended up making Tony's content look bad to outsiders (which they're technically not wrong about that, especially his newer content post-season 1, but still goes to show how one stupid member of a fandom can ruin an entire media for someone nowadays).

Mind you, this is the fan-base of a popularish FNaF animator that peaked in 2015-2019.

There were just so many toxic people and/or people that were only in the fandom purely for "nostalgia" and didn't actually care about the content, plus the gross amount of kids (and phonk edit motherfuckers) who thought that Tony's animations were their regular brain-rot slop content and treated them as such, basically prompting Tony to make more slop content just to stay relevant (happens a lot with youtubers that peaked in the 2010s, TheOddOnesOut being a major example).

And all of it got insufferable enough that it ended up being difficult to even enjoy Tony's content anymore and find other genuine members, which is why I left the fandom entirely (plus mental health reasons and generally I'm not on good terms with a couple of people in the fandom).

I personally blame this on nostalgiabait and Five Nights at Freddy's in general becoming mainstream, mainly given how it's entirely possible that most of the people watching these videos from nearly 10 years ago for "nostalgia" are only really doing so because it's trendy now, and probably never even seen the videos they claimed to see as a kid, making it difficult to find genuine members of the fandom. It's like people don't actually find value in these older pieces of internet media anymore and only care about seeming "niche" or "different", and it's kinda sad thinking about that.

It's like you said, it feels more like a side hustle to gain clout and monetary income rather than something that people just do for the sake of liking the media and meeting other people who also like that media.

True fandom culture is dead, and we are seeing the consequences of that in real time.