I miss when fandom let people be fictional.
Back in the early 2000s, you stanned an actor because they played a role that made you feel somethingānot because their worldview matched yours perfectly. You saw them on a red carpet, maybe a cute interview clip, and that was it. You werenāt dissecting their personal life like it was your moral duty.
Now itās like⦠the second someone reveals a bad opinion, it becomes a performance of outrage. Everyone races to unfollow them loudly, scream āI always knew!!!ā and turn it into a moral referendum. When most of the time, itās just a guy who says dumb shit online because heās never had to think critically about anything in his life.
And listenāitās completely valid if someone saw that post and decided they donāt want to support him anymore. Thatās a personal boundary, and people are allowed to have them. But thereās a difference between stepping away and turning it into a public hate train. We spend so much time pointing fingers at how hateful the right is, but when someone disappoints us, fandom becomes a beast. The cruelty, the dogpiling, the āblock me if you still follow himā energyāitās all just another form of control dressed up as righteousness.
Doesnāt mean you excuse it. Doesnāt mean you pretend it didnāt happen. It just means you donāt have to perform heartbreak over someone who was never that deep to begin with. I liked the character. I liked the work. I never needed the man behind it to be my activist king.
Let fandom be fun again ā