#fandom (mis)behavior

here’s some facts

a celebrity existing in the world doesn’t give people (especially autograph hounds) permission to get in their face and demand pictures or autographs.

being chased by paps in the streets is distressing and entirely the paps’ fault. the onus is not on celebrities to avoid any place they might encounter them. they get to live a life and they get to tell these people not to invade their personal space.

hudson gets to go on vacation wherever he wants, especially if his friend invited him there. going to a club where he knows he will be photographed is a choice he made and he doesn’t need to get hate for that.

a celebrity can and will choose to show the fans some things, either directly e.g. via an insta dump or by attending an event where being filmed/photographed is a given. that does not imply blanket consent for any and all situations or places and it does not in any way limit or infringe upon their right to set boundaries. the boundaries are determined by the celeb, not the internet court of hateful opinions.

meghan markle once described this as someone having one private photo on their desk at work and a colleague demanding they hand over their phone so the colleague can look through their entire camera roll. (i’m fuzzy on the details, but the gist was this.) showing one or even a thousand moments does not give everyone carte blanche to witness all the moments.

no, you’re not too old. you’re too racist, bigoted, misogynistic, sexist, hateful… take your pick.

you’re just an unpleasant person.

a lot of us are here because we can’t help it. we get obsessed with a thing and need to yell about it into the void and create art and fiction as an outlet for the obsession.

but there is a not insignificant number of people who are in fandom for two reasons: clout and drama.

fame sounds terrifying to me, ngl. but i wouldn’t want any part of it. could not imagine that many eyes on me—well intentioned or not.

but if you’ve stalked that woman’s ig and tiktok and investigated her friends and overanalyzed the 57.3 seconds of video and a bunch of still photographs from public appearances (and sm accounts of other private citizens!!) to prove that she is not dating hudson williams, if you do deep dives on song choices and create thesis-length documents about their every move to prove someone is cheating, if you’ve tried to meet her in person via a tattoo appointment, and get angry because she posted a picture of her own damn cat, you’re the problem.

i have blocked so many people about this and i still see this bs pop up.

in an ideal world, we wouldn’t know anything about her. but that was unsustainable. so they introduced her a little and said she doesn’t want the attention, but she’s part of his life. that is not an invitation to everyone and their brother to descend upon their relationship like locusts and find “proof” for their delusions.

please, please, please get a hold of yourself and try to be normal. take a walk. touch some grass. volunteer at an animal shelter. anything to occupy your time in a more worthwhile way.

social media isn’t fandom spaces. ao3 is. to a degree tumblr is. but your run-of-the-mill insta, twitter, threads… that’s not fandom spaces. that’s where some of an artist’s work happens nowadays.

and when you cross all sorts of boundaries in these spaces, then the celebrities you’re harassing are not the problem. you are!