#anti fandom

‘I don’t understand this’ They’ll explain it if you wait.

‘I don’t like how this episode left things hanging’ There’s a continuation next week.

‘This character is flat’ Wait for them to be fleshed out.

Acting like Anthony was “unfairly burdened” is like feeling bad that an 18 year old white boy inherited his father’s empire (but didn’t actually run anything until he went to university, which he canonically did) and his billions of dollars in holdings.

Sorry, I don’t feel bad that the dudebro billionaire who spends his weeks getting drunk and sleeping around because his mean mommy told him to stop being a mess and attend family events. I don’t feel bad for Benedict for having his brother buy his position in art school. I don’t feel bad for Passport Bro Colin feeling listless because he has the immense privilege and wealth to travel.

People are so much fucking harder on Penelope and Edwina and Kate and Eloise (especially Eloise) for being privileged, while ignoring the very OBVIOUS gender disparity.

there'll be a fic where jason thought bruce was a pedophile all through his days in the manor and the finale is 'jason just needed to accept that he was stupid to think that and say sorry to bruce' instead of 'an adult couldnt convince a child in his care that he wasnt going to rape him after three whole years and needs to change something in his behavior'

fic says jason comes back to gotham after bruce beat him into a coma and told him never to return and fears retaliation and the thesis is 'jason is stupid for thinking his ~family~ would ever hurt him brucie is so sorry he somehow made jason think hes not welcome here' instead of 'beating anyone near death is a severe crime and the psychological pain of that doesnt just go away when the abuser aggressor says oopsie'

fic has an injured jason not feeling safe in an unsecured home and every one of the batfamily makes him open the doors and windows and walk on a broken leg and prove they can break in without him knowing and this is heartwarming? them ignoring his emotional well being to show they care? making someone scared and hurt is good family behavior and jason is just too stupid to understand that

how does that make sense? why do we do this? what do i have to block out of my ao3 searches to not see it anymore? fics will have straight up cult like emotional manipulation played as heartwarming... this shit is so triggering to me as an abuse survivor

I'm so glad my fave player doesn't have socials, because that fandom went boundaries? What are boundaries?

I’m gonna have to disagree with you here, chief, at least in regard to framing this as a problem unique to *that* fandom. The unfortunate truth is that it’s pretty much all fandoms these days. And it’s getting worse as fandoms get bigger. I personally believe that social media is the primary accelerant of horrific fandom behavior, and has overall inflicted much more harm on humanity as a whole than benefit, in ways that go above and beyond fandom. However, monetization of fandom is actively killing it.

To be clear, there have always been unhinged fans who behaved abominably. There have always been clout-chasers who want to stir shit for no good reason. But they didn’t used to directly benefit from interaction via monetized social media profiles. And even though it’s only a small percentage of modern fans with enough following to effectively do that, it feeds an environment of increasingly extreme behavior to get and keep clicks.

Add in that media corporations realized they could use fandoms as a steady source of revenue and free advertising, and actors for whom social media following is becoming a resumé item that casting directors care about, and we have a toxic parasitic death spiral in which only the corporations really win.

Because the stickiest part of this mess is that people tend to feel like they are owed a return on their investment. People in fandom know that they directly contribute to the livelihoods of the people making the entertainment they consume. It’s not necessarily right, but it is logically foreseeable that openly courting a fandom is going to result in some level of return expected. Ass gas or grass no one rides for free, you know? Again I am not saying this is a morally laudable position, just that it’s a very simple point a -> point b line to draw.

And then add that tangled web to the very modern sensibility that anything other than forthright radical honesty is a lie. And that all manner of despicable behavior is permissible in the ever-expanding hunt for “representation.” And the moral purity Olympics of virtue signaling via bad faith interpretation of every single damn thing anyone does or says.

And this drives out the more normal and old-school fans who just wanted to share gifs and meta and fanworks without it being such a fucking trial all the time, leaving the nuts the loudest voices in fandom.

Modern fandom is self-cannibalizing across the board, it’s just that *that* fandom is A: huge, B: new, and C: breathtakingly hypocritical given the point of the story they are fans of. So it does make for an absolute case study.

If someone harasses you under your posts/vids/whatever because they hate the ship/characters in it… remember they're bumping up the engagement.

But not only that, they're telling the algorithm they enjoy the very thing they're hating on! And the algorithm brings them more of THE thing.

So they're essentially the ones getting screwed by their actions the most by: 1) promoting your work, 2) asking for more of the same in their recommendations

Once again, for all the hateful antis in the back who feel the need to police people & their creativity & might come across this since they tend to lurk in the ship tags:

🌟 BY HARASSING PEOPLE, YOU'RE BASICALLY PROMOTING THEIR WORK, THEREFORE THE SHIP/CHARACTER YOU'RE HATING ON. 🌟Hope that helps. ;)

And to the normal people: it sucks getting hate, but the haters end up getting the short end of the stick eventually, so there's some comfort in that. I guess hate asks are another thing, but if you're the creator and they interact with your content directly, they're essentially helping you and screwing things up for themselves. You can, of course, always block the haters, but I think it's hilarious to set them up for fuming over the same kind of content they detest by not doing that. Let them get the algorithmic karma. 🙏