Just another LA Devotee

Over the years, Brendon has gone from being the frontman of a relatively niche alternative band to becoming a mainstream celebrity whose music reached massive audiences. And somewhere along the way, the narrative around him shifted from admiration to relentless scrutiny. While criticism of public figures is inevitable, much of the hatred directed toward him feels less rooted in reality and more rooted in resentment toward his success, visibility, and evolution as an artist.

When Panic! at the Disco first emerged in the mid-2000s, they were embraced as outsiders within the alternative scene. Fans connected to the theatrical music, the dramatic lyrics, and the sense that the band existed outside the mainstream.

But as the years passed, the sound evolved. Songs became bigger, more polished, and more commercially successful. Albums produced chart-topping hits, arena tours sold out, and Brendon became the face of the project. Ironically, the very success many artists dream of became one of the reasons some people turned against him.

There is a pattern in music culture where artists are celebrated while they are considered “underrated," but the moment they achieve widespread popularity, they are accused of selling out or losing authenticity.

Brendon became an easy target for this mentality. To some fans, mainstream success somehow invalidated the emotional connection they once felt with the music. Instead of accepting that an artist can grow and still remain genuine, critics reframed his popularity as evidence that he had become manufactured or insincere.

Yet there is little evidence that Brendon abandoned creativity or passion. If anything, his performances consistently showed intense dedication, vocal talent, and a genuine love for entertaining people.

Another reason the hate surrounding Brendon feels exaggerated is the internet's tendency to flatten people into either heroes or villains. Online discourse rarely leaves room for complexity. Mistakes are treated as permanent definitions of character rather than moments within a larger life story. Brendon has openly apologized for past behavior and comments that offended people, and by many accounts, he changed long before the internet decided to continually revisit those moments.

However, in online culture, apologies are often treated as meaningless regardless of sincerity. For some people, the goal is no longer accountability or growth; it is permanent punishment.

This creates an impossible standard.

Society often claims to value education, personal development, and becoming better over time, yet when someone actually demonstrates change, many refuse to acknowledge it. Instead years-old controversies are recycled repeatedly as though they happened yesterday. The cycle becomes less about justice and more about maintaining outrage.

In Brendon's case, every discussion seems to return to the same handful of moments, stripped of context and repeated endlessly across social media. The result is a distorted public image that ignores years of positive actions, charitable work, advocacy, and the countless people who describe him as kind and supportive behind the scenes.

There is also an uncomfortable reality about fame that people rarely admit: audiences often resent individuals who appear too successful, too talented, or too visible for too long.

Brendon's vocal ability, stage presence, and crossover appeal made him stand out even outside alternative music spaces. He became recognizable beyond the fandom. And with visibility comes backlash. The internet frequently builds people up only to tear them down once they become too prominent.

This pattern can be seen across music, film, sports, and virtually every area of entertainment. Popularity creates overexposure, and overexposure creates a culture where criticism becomes trendy.

What makes the situation especially frustrating for many fans is that the hatred often ignores the positive impact Brendon had on people. His music helped listeners through grief, loneliness, anxiety, and personal struggles.

His openness about self-expression encouraged fans who felt different or out of place. He used his platform to advocate for causes he believed in and donated to organizations supporting marginalized communities.

None of this means he should be viewed as flawless, but it does mean that conversation should be balanced. Reducing a person entirely to their worst moments while erasing everything else is not accountability; it is dehumanization.

The larger issue revealed through the treatment of Brendon Urie is how modern internet culture encourages outrage over understanding.

Algorithms reward conflict, negativity spreads faster than nuance, and people often gain social approval by publicly condemning others. In this environment, complexity disappears. A person is either completely good or completely irredeemable.

But real human beings do not fit into those categories. They evolve, learn, fail, improve, and contradict themselves.

Expecting perfection from artists while denying them the ability to grow creates a culture that is both unrealistic and deeply cynical.

Ultimately, it is completely valid for individuals to dislike Brendon Urie or disconnect from his music if they choose. No artist is universally loved, and criticism is part of being a public figure.

However, the level of hostility directed toward him often feels disproportionate to reality, fueled less by genuine concern and more by internet dogpiling, resentment of mainstream success, and the refusal to let people move forward from past mistakes.

The conversation surrounding Brendon says as much about modern fandom culture as it does about him. It reflects a world where success can breed resentment, nuance is often abandoned, and outrage is sometimes valued more than growth.

At the end of the day, Brendon Urie is not a flawless symbol or a villainous caricature. He is an artist who became extraordinarily successful, made mistakes, apologized, evolved, and continued creating music that meant something to millions of people.

“can you imagine the faces their children could make” (X)

In my headcanon the sheriff would love whatever Stiles would present him as a grandchild.

“yeah, can you imagine first seeing him?”

And so, Stiles and Derek are not ready for parenthood and are totally freaked out by their weird son:

Derek’s quiet for a long time, staring blankly, before he eventually offers, “This isn’t what I expected.“ Stiles frowns down at the baby in his arms. “I know, right? They won’t take it back; I already asked.” Derek leans over him, peering down at the weird little face. It’s unsettling how thick the baby’s eyebrows are. “Are babies born with teeth?“ “Not usually,” Stiles replies. “His grody little snaggletooth is creeping me out.“ "His everything is creeping me out,” Derek retorts, dropping into the chair at the side of the bed. “I’m pretty sure this is because you got possessed by that demon.“ "Aw, hell no,” Stiles argues. “That thing was in me for like five minutes, tops. This thing - “ he nods toward the baby in his arms ” - you don’t absorb this kind of evil in five minutes. This is like ten years possession minimum.“ "What are we going to name him?” “Beats me. Calling him after your dad seems kind of disrespectful to your dad, doesn’t it?” Derek sighed heavily. “He probably would have found this hilarious. I told you my family’s cursed.“ He squinted over at Stiles. “You sure it’s even a boy?” “Dude, I’m not sure it’s even human,” Stiles replies. “Seriously, how come shit like this always happens to us?“ "Because the universe knows we’ll grin and bear it,” Derek sighs again. “You sure we can’t send it back?“

"No,” Stiles grumbles discontentedly, and straightens as his father steps into the room. He cradles the baby protectively to his chest; even if the thing’s weird as hell, it’s still his. “Whoa, Dad, before you pull out your gun and shoot the baby, I can promise you, with about ninety-percent certainty, that I did not give birth to a cave beast, even though it may look that way. And maybe this is our fault because Derek’s so fricken possessive of his jizz and refused to use a surrogate so we had to resort to black magic and give me a magical womb - so actually this is Derek’s fault, really - this is your grandson. Probably. We’re not too clear on the gender right now.“

The sheriff sighs, as he so often does when confronted with his son’s verbal onslaught, and holds out his hands, a silent give me the child. Stiles puckers his mouth and hands over his son and watches the sheriff’s face cycle through several emotions, ending, bewilderingly, on happiness.

"He’s beautiful," his father croons, and Stiles looks over, bewildered, at Derek, who mouths He’s not lying. He looks just as perplexed as Stiles. 

"Just wait until Melissa sees him,” the sheriff says cheerfully, pulling his phone out of his pocket and snapping a picture.

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees slowly. He’s already regretting having shown his father how to use the camera on his phone. “Just wait.“

THIS IS THEIR COME TO JESUS MOMENT.

They name it Herald. It was supposed to be Harold, after Derek’s grandfather, who Derek says was a weird old man and Stiles says that’s fitting, then, but Stiles was asleep when it came time to fill out the birth certificate and Derek couldn’t remember how to spell Harold, so he sounded it out. 

So their kid’s name is Herald, but mostly they call him It. They don’t tell him it’s because they didn’t even know if he was human when he was born because he may be a little weirdo, but he’s their little weirdo, and they don’t want to stunt his mental health. Stiles almost tells him it’s because they loved The Addams Family, but then he thinks about how Cousin It was a weird thing covered in hair and maybe that’s not a great comparison. 

It creeps them out. He is unnaturally silent, always with this bucktoothed little smile on his face that makes Stiles sure that he and Derek are going to be killed in their sleep. Stiles distinctly remembers playing hide and seek with him when he was young, Stiles and Derek crammed together in a cupboard and Derek mumbled, "I can’t hear his fucking heart,” and then It’s creepy little eye was pressed up to the crack in the door like the killer in a slasher fic and Stiles screamed like a little girl. 

Still, they’re sad when he grows up and heads off to college. He’s still creepy; he’s got bad skin and his heavy eyebrows almost touch in the middle, but they kiss him on the forehead and say “We’ll miss you!” which is probably true. And when he drives off into the battered Jeep, Stiles says to Derek, “I think we just unleashed a hellion unto the world,” and Derek says, “Too late now.” And Stiles does miss him, up until a few days later when he goes to clean It’s room and finds a box of desiccated frog corpses under his bed. 

They don’t hear from It that often, which isn’t unusual, nor unexpected. One time they lost him for a few days and Stiles found him sitting in the attic, perfectly still. He said he’d been counting heartbeats and neither of them really wanted to ask whose. Still, they miss him. Probably.

One morning Stiles goes downstairs and there’s a stranger standing in the living room. It’s near Christmas and he has a vague idea that It should be coming home soon, but he is not prepared for the sight of a handsome young man standing next to the Christmas tree. Stiles screams. 

“That’s It,” Derek says from behind him. 

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Listen, sometimes it's warranted (I'm looking at you, Supernatural 👀).

But more often than not, I find myself in a fandom that flips out about the ending of a show, despite the fact that the ending was genuinely well thought out and objectively effective in tying up the story.

It has happened to me multiple times that I finish a show and nod, thinking, "Yeah, this was a nice way to wrap it up." Then I go on TikTok or, especially guilty, Instagram, and what do I see? People in a frenzy, cyber-storming and harassing the creators, making mean-spirited rants about how the ending was trash and awful, and how dare they do this... And I'm just sitting there, like... huh?

And I think we desperately need to talk about this, but I don't have a long-format YouTube channel to analyze things, so Tumblr it is.

Allison and Derek: 🤝 accepting that they also got their spouse's lifelong platonic partner when they married them (and take turns hosting the boys' weekly sleepovers)

They are a set!! do not separate!!

(my favorite thing about fake twitter/insta posts are when derek's handle was clearly set up by stiles so have my humble addition to the bunch lol)

Original under the cut:

Me, at the time, a 19yo with very little understanding of the law: “I mean…was it?”

Fandom Friend, who was a 40-something lawyer: “I’ll tell you the same thing I told everyone in that bar. No one was violating anyone’s free speech. Bitch was just being rude, and worse, obnoxious about it. You ever act like that in public, be aware you’re not changing anyone’s opinion. You’re just giving them a brand new opinion about you.”

It was a very formative conversation in my young adulthood.

This is why you are not exempt from statements about “all men” even if you are overall good.

You benefit from the bar constantly being lowered by systemic issues within the gender.

Somewhere in the world, Stiles turns 31. Safe and sound, pestering his long-suffering husband with bad rhymes until he kisses him to shut him up ♡