Maybe it's just me getting old (I was born with glass bones and paper skin etc. etc. etc.) or maybe it's a shift in the culture that I'm not old enough to appreciate - I wasn't around for Usenet fandom groups, after all - but more and more I find myself stepping back from the type of emotional engagement that fandom prioritizes, i.e. emotional engagement that says not, "this story is about things that I connect with," but "this story is FOR ME, with all the obligations and ownership that entails." I was actually thinking about this as well when a tweet about Taylor Swift, of all things, came across my twitter home page - apparently she said something about people sexualizing her relationships with her female friends, and the tinhatters are wailing and rending their garments, and someone pointed out that the "I am gay and identify with her music, so she must also be gay, and if she's not then the music is a LIE" mindset really speaks to the idea that if something is not made for you personally, you cannot find meaning in it - that stories must be for you, specifically and intentionally, or they have no value. It's a distressing trend! Because the thing is, if we view stories as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, then that means we read them knowing that they are not About Us, and we can still feel strong emotions about them. The idea of media diversity seems to have warped beyond recognition, so that instead of "everyone should see themselves," the demand has become "existing stories must change in accordance with my own feelings, so that I can continue to identify with it."
(Can I blame franchise filmmaking for this? I feel like I can.)
Now this isn't particularly new - "my slash ship needs to become canon for representation, it doesn't COUNT if it's not my ship" has certainly been around for as long as I have - but I do feel like the breaking down of barriers between fans and creators has encouraged this sense of entitlement, so that if you feel betrayed by a story that didn't play out the way you wanted it to, you can go and scream at the creator on twitter. And the thing I think a lot of people are losing sight of is that the person writing the story has no control over how you receive it; our brains are weird, and they will latch onto things that were never intended to be major components of the overall narrative. I get this! I have blorbo'd many a minor character in my time! But the problem with "this story must be For Me" thinking is that, if you get attached to a minor character, you convince yourself that the story must be their story, because you identify with them and by transitive property they must be the main character, and if this is not how things play out, you have been personally betrayed.
This does not lead to a lot of happy outcomes.
I don't know, you guys. Since the OFMD finale aired, I have seen some WILD takes, including that one of the main characters should have died in place of the supporting character who did die (that was never going to happen! Of course it was never going to happen! This is what I mean when I say people lose sight of how stories work, when they convince themselves that their faves must be the most important in defiance of everything about how the story is structured!) and that the creator is sending negative messages to depressed/suicidal people, which is just . . . you cannot hold a writer responsible for your mental health like that. I'm sorry, but you can't. David Jenkins seems like a nice guy, but it is not his job to be the therapist of god knows how many viewers because he created a TV show. And it just feels to me like an extension of toxic self-care rhetoric: this makes me feel good, so it must continue, and if something makes me feel bad, then IT is bad." And maybe I am just old man yelling at cloud, but I find it dispiriting that emotional reactions have replaced actual engagement with narrative storytelling - that we've grown so self-centered, we cannot see outside our own lens to what a storyteller is actually trying to tell us. And of course death of the author is a thing, but at some point, attempts to usurp the author will never be successful because . . . you still are not the one telling the story. Maybe just stick with fanfiction if you feel that strongly about it, idk.
pixelskylines
titsay
dailybridgerton
prguitarman
amandla
