#fandom problem 9233

Fandom Problem #9233:

I've taught for twenty years and this may be coincidence, but I have noticed a marked increase in students who struggle with socialization since COVID. Even making eye contact seems to be difficult. I wish I could say it was just a student or two, but I see the majority of students per class not able to keep eye contact, and they are extremely timid. To say I'm worried is an understatement. At the same time they spend all their time on their phones and our curriculum has shifted from group work over the years, to more online-based projects that, while they do work on them with their peers, they miss out on the face-to-face engagement. I'm troubled because I've had multiple students need to leave my class over cyberbullying in a single term alone (they broke out in tears), and the problem students did not seen to understand why their behavior was wrong. They laughed. They didn't even seem concerned. I wonder if the lack of face-to-face is damaging their intuition on what is acceptable conduct.

This is really weird timing. I was just reading some threads on another site and a lot of early-mid 20s and even teens said they felt like they didn't age at all during covid. One person said they were 19 but still felt 15.

I'm not a conspiracy person (would that be a conspiracy?) but it does fit with the attitude problems I see in a lot of people who are on paper supposed to be functioning adults with I guess, more social finesse and consideration.

"I like waffles." <- OP and the first anon.

"So you hate pancakes lol?" <- You.

In reply to the comment:

*Insert Biden would you shut up, man gif*

I do what OP does too and it's just called curating your blog with things that bring you joy? If you look at a thing and it reminds you of a gross person, you just delete it so you never have to see it if you're reviewing tags on your blog or something. That isn't ~neurodivergent~ behavior.

I (very clearly) meant there's a pronounced generational gap between young fans and older fans when it comes to how they engage with media, and older fans by far tend to explore media more in-depth. Hence why I mentioned younger fans using "presets" and only typing things like "she gay" for every character they like. Older fans still do their gay thing, heck, I do, but that's not the extent of the engagement a lot of the time, so that's why my suggestion to them was to find older fans.

I feel this lol.

You have to find people your age, who aren't like, socially backed-up early 20s or younger people aping the last ten trendy things they saw online. It's annoying and difficult, because so many older fans have just left tumblr (weird vibes, young fans being shitstains, not liking moral panic culture, oddly socially acceptable chronically online-ness etc). But they're out there!

This is true across so many fandoms. As someone who LOVES writing meta for media, the amount of people who write it has fallen off a cliff, people new to fandom just have a few presets that they slot their new favs into, and that results in this kind of blanket, boring posting.