How to Survive a Toxic Fandom
It always breaks my heart when people stop loving things due to the behavior of other âfansâ. So hereâs my advice for continuing to love what you love:
Find the good ones. Even if it doesnât always seem like it, there will almost always be some people in the fandom who arenât horrible. Some may even be in groups of like-minded fans who are sick of the drama. Follow only them and none of the toxic people. Donât limit yourself to one website,either; some sites may have all the nice fans and some may have all the toxic fans.
Avoid the tag,avoid the drama. If the fandom is especially toxic, and youâre already following the few people you actually like, donât do searches for it. If you absolutely must search, hereâs a tip: search the title in a language other than what the jerks are speaking. This is especially true for things that originated in other countries, because they were made for the people living there,and those people understand the cultural context that foreign fans often misunderstand and have dumb fights about.
Block your haters. If someone toxic tries to interact with you, block them. If you get mean anon messages, turn off anon messages. And if someone makes you feel unsafe, report them.
If you can filter it out,by all means do. Not all fandom spaces give people the option to not see things they donât want to see, but if youâre on a site that does, you should be using that feature. This is especially true when youâre looking for fanfiction, as the tagging system on Ao3 makes this fairly easy.
Remember that a work and its fans arenât the same thing. Just because some/most of the fandom is awful doesnât mean the thing you love is bad, and just because other fans are bad people doesnât mean youâre also a bad person. Â
 Remember that itâs possible to enjoy something without having to interact with other fans.