Let Me Explain To You A Thing.
“This fandom is shit. I’m leaving.”
“Wow this fandom is so hostile.”
“It’s like everywhere I look in this fandom there’s drama.”
“God I hate this fandom.”
“Haha now I remember why I left this fandom.”
“Oh man now I remember why I didn’t want to come back. Bye.”
This is a thing I see quite a bit. It’s generally something that is said by either young roleplayers or frequent fandom hoppers. But let me tell you something, coming from someone with 12+ years of rp experience. If you find the perfect fandom... and this is your mindset? Don’t join it because you’re only going to ruin it.
Harsh? Yeah. It is. But guess what? EVERY fandom has this. Every fandom has its downs. Every fandom has its ups. There are elitists and godmodders and people who really just are there to cause drama. In. Every. Single. Fandom.
Why is this? Because we are humans. By getting into something like a tumblr roleplaying community (or any rp community really) you are willingly joining a large group of people that share one thing and one thing only. Their love of that thing. Transformers. Mass Effect. Supernatural. Sherlock. Dr.Who. AvP. The Walking Dead. Osmosis Jones. DnD. WoW. Skyrim. Pacific Rim. Teen Wolf. TF2. etc, etc, etc.
The only thing you know you have in common with these people... is that one thing. And no matter where you go.. you will have drama. No fandom is going to be more chill than another. Calling an entire group of people shitty, or dramatic, or hostile, or toxic... is only adding to the hostility. By labeling an entire group like that, many whom you have never met... or never bothered to get to know... you are essentially becoming one of those hostile, dramatic, and toxic people. This has never, and will never solve anything.
Sure. People can be shitty. There are people who start drama. There are people who are nasty and mean and just not fun to deal with. And sometimes it’s hard to tell who is and isn’t at first. Sometimes you don’t realize it till you’re in too deep that you’ve found a bad crowd. But that’s all it is. You’ve fallen in a bad crowd. So get out of that crowd. Anyone can become cynical and hateful and just hop on to something else because the grass is greener there. But let’s think of this in real life terms.
Just because you have a coworker you don’t get along with... maybe that coworker has friends. And you don’t get along with those friends. Does that mean everyone at that workplace is hostile and toxic? Just because one person causes you tons of problems by being dramatic... does that mean everyone is? It’s easy to label an entire place. Call it shitty. Quit. Get a new job. But guess what. That job won’t be any better.
If you’re only looking at the bad.. that’s all you’re going to see. Sometimes you gotta get back up, and be more mature. Stop being immature and quitting every time you skin your knee. Stop whining about how toxic it is here. Get back up and try again and maybe when you stop telling your own fandom how shitty they are.. you’ll start finding friends again. Sometimes it’s not the fandom. Sometimes it’s how you react to things.
You wanna know why things look bad? Why you’re losing followers? Why don’t you take a look at yourself first? Have you been hostile? Have you become so cynical that perhaps your former followers and even former friends are scared to approach you? Have you become the very toxicity you ran away to avoid?
Think about it. Really think. And then do something not many people think to do.
Wipe yourself off. Clean up your boo-boos. Wipe away your tears. Get your feelings off your shoulders...
Move on. Whatever that means to you. If that means leave the fandom? So be it. But you’ll go through it again, and again, and again. Until eventually you’ll stop letting other people make you hate what you once loved. It took me a long time to realize that. And I stopped loving things because I let others ruin it for me. Until I figured out... the only one in control of my emotions... is me.
The fandom isn’t toxic. People can be toxic. But not all of them. You just have to weed through them to find the right ones and stop scaring off the ones who cared by becoming just like the ones you hate.
