My take on the recent hate:
I guess I give my view about the recent fandom “situation”, even though a lot of people already touched on it. Some may already roll their eyes because they are annoyed by the topic by now, which I get, I really do. With episodes like this one the critters always seem to behave in the same pattern: People are upset/angry about recent actions in the episode, they let their frustration out on social media (mostly reddit for my experience), then the other part of the community defend the cast and their decisions to their fullest extent and after like two days everything balanced out. I see this cycle over and over again and in the end we behave normal until the next episode airs, where this cycle (maybe) repeats itself. Result is a blurred line between where criticism towards a character/player/DM starts and where hate begins. People get upset about getting harassed for expressing their opinion or criticism; sometimes justified, sometimes not. People get upset about other people getting upset about decisions made in the game; sometimes justified, sometimes not.
I myself went right after the episode on reddit and hated it. I was ready to leave this part of the fandom behind, but just 24 hours later (or even 12 hours later) I had a good night of sleep, everyone else had a good night of sleep and everyone had time to reflect, which led to a much better situation and this was the case for most platforms. Criticism was mostly respectful and the discussion was healthy, where before most words were heated by anger and frustration about the recent events which came over as hate. I speak here from my own experience: After one episode a while back I went on reddit right away where some people claimed in my eyes false things to be true and I called them anonymously out in another thread. Not much later one of those people answered my post; I got upvoted and he got downvoted. It wasn’t right to downvote him and after I slept I answered him back, where I wrote him a short apology for maybe coming over harsh and for overreacting. This was his reply: “Don't worry, i was overstepping as well. It is just a subject i feel very strongly about. I want the game to stay a game, and not become a "show". I was also getting bombarded with lots of messages at 6am. So that irritation probably rubbed off on me. No apology needed my friend, have a god day.” I don’t want to say that initial hate should be tolerated or is justified, because hate is never justified; instead I want to tell everyone who’s reading this, that while some people are sad and cry, other people get angry and they express it with at times poorly worded posts, which comes over as hate even though they love show as much as everyone else.
I take two things away from this situation:
1. There are black sheeps in every community, but not as many as it seems. I always like to say that on average 6/7 days in the week this community is awesome. It is the best one I’ve been a part of, yet, because while maybe other fandoms have the same percentage of awesome people, you normally don’t see or feel it at times, whereas here you feel the positive energy every week through fanart, fanfics, simple appreciation threads or long letters, where someone explains how much these nerdy ass voice actors and their D&D game mean to them. People get upset or angry at times and it looks dire on rare occasions, but this community does not consist of jerks.
2. We, as a community, should not hate towards the cast directly over twitter or indirectly over other social media, just because we are angry and frustrated. Take a breather, get some sleep, reflect on it and THEN write your criticism with a clear mind. Well-written criticism is appreciated and leads to healthy discussion. On the other end think twice if that what you’re reading is really hate and don’t reply with the same hate the initial post is maybe written in. It is always nice when you try to defend the cast, but do it a civil manner and most people will reply to you in the same way; this way some critters don’t feel harassed for voicing their opinion. If you really want to do something good for the cast, message them over twitter directly! Send them a pic you’ve drawn, write a simple compliment about their performance in the last episode or just send them a simple “<3”. You’ll never get tired of compliments and while you probably won’t receive an answer, they will probably read it and it will maybe make their day a bit.
I believe in this fandom to always outweigh the hate with positive energy, even though after a few episodes it can appear otherwise. Don’t worry too much; I’m sure by next thursday it will be awesome again (even though Vax is dead which sucks hard and it has to be fixed, definitely). Well… you know what I mean: Have a nice day! :)
