multifandom madness

UPDATE!!

#you do not have to justify taking up space in the fandom by 'creating'#you can leave comments on fics and like and reblog fanart and gifs and meta#you can talk to people and share your thoughts or just gush#you do not need to bring ai slop here so you can claim to be an artist or a writer#your value as a person does not derive from what you can produce#you are enough#free yourself from the capitalist frame of mind that says you can only be here if you are contributing a product#your enthusiasm is a better contribution than anything you ask ai to make for you#using ai is extremely alienating to the human people in the fandom who work hard to make art to share#and also to the human people who show up in the fandom who are just excited to be here and to see the amazing art people are making#don't abdicate your humanity just because you feel like you don't matter if you aren't producing something

It's so true, though. Fandom needs people who create things, sure, but there are SOOOOOO many ways to do that. And fandom also needs people who participate in other ways, like commenting and making rec posts and reblogging stuff with interesting tags and just generally reading things and looking at things and sharing them around with other people to say, "Hey, wow, how cool is all of this?" Fandom isn't for capitalism and it never was. I know everything is monetized today - people charging for their Patreons before they'll finish a story, companies making merch that sells out in two seconds because people buy it to resell, concert tickets for stars who can't sing, all of that - but fandom is SUPPOSED to be a gift economy community, where we share and share alike. You don't need merch to be in fandom. You don't need to show up at this potluck and bring something. You just need to say, "I really liked this, thanks!" about the things you put on your plate. It's not about consumption. It's not about production. It's about joy and sharing and playing together in this big sandbox.