There are lots of reasons why fandom is "quieter" now than it used to be. Some theories are more compelling to me than others, and they all have a different scale of impact. We'll never know for sure, of course, but I like to think about it. Thus, this poll.
Of the list below, which reason do you find most compelling or do you think had the biggest impact?
New entrants to fandom don't know the old ways
fandom olds didn't teach the newcomers how to fandom
covid/surge in fandom due to quarantine and lockdowns
"antis" and other harassment campaigns against creators
creators posting complaints about comments (people worry about commenting wrong)
rise of discord popularity - fandom is walled off from each other
tumblr porn ban and other reasons people left the site
capitalism turning fandom into a passive "view and move on" commodity
rules from social media impacting fan culture (eg. don't comment on old posts)
general state of the world / burnout
social anxieties in an increasingly complex online culture
"surveillance state" worries and not wanting to be perceived
This is an incomplete list, so if your most compelling reason isn't listed, feel free to add it in the notes.
All of the above, but sometimes its too loud.
The fandom olds' "hands off parenting" approach of not teaching new comers "how to fandom" failed hard, gave way to the birth of antis and unfortunately coincided with the porn ban. Which caused a major displacement of fandom. The Great Migration to other shorter attention span platforms, like twitter and tiktok reenforced that, bad behavior is rewarded and there are no consequences. Because social media culture has evolved into something the thrives off of and breeds discourse, the more sensational and negative the more attention you get.
As our word count shrank and our attention spans dwindled, the commodification of fandom really started to kick off. Everyone was suddenly "consuming" everything. Art, media, fics. It was like out of nowhere the word "consume" was applied to everything. Consume, consume consume. Does anyone else feel that way? It seemed like over night '
"I am careful about what I consume...I only consume"
It was weird.
People stopped communicating, started consuming, and quickly moving on. Yet everything is "social" media. People don't even talk, if you try they act like "wtf why are you talking to me, on this platform meant for socializing? Just praise me, like and move on"
THEN COVID HAPPENED. Covid was 2/3 years and it did draw more people online, I do think this was a large contributing factor, specifically with people in a certain age range. But at what point to we stop letting a few years define and affect our entire lifetime? For as much as I think this is a legitimate cause of a lot of the issues going on, it has started to feel like an excuse people online use to not fix anything. "Well, its because of covid..."
But yes, cell phone/social media addiction peaked here. What else was there to do? This is where I believe a lot of people who otherwise would not be involved in fandom started to get their fix in fandom spaces, and they never left…but never really got what fandom is either.
So...everyone has anxiety now. There is a whole generation who can't and won't socialize like normal people and don't believe they have to. There has been "hands off parenting" everywhere, from everyone. We are all online together. yay
The time we had during covid to fuck around, soon became time to build up anxieties and worry about the state of the world. In between our fandom "view and move on", we started to watch the world on fire, because it was all conveniently in the same place. World events and politics became a fandom of its own. And guess what, we can now take whatever social/political/pseudo psyche slop we want and apply it over and over to whatever fandom is trendy, YAY Fandom! Covid ended, and attention spans shrank again...
This is also where "consume" stopped meaning "I watched the entire 30 episodes of this show" and began to mean "I watched a 30 sec edit on tiktok, of this show". And that's all you needed to be a "fan". You didn't need to know fuck all anything. This does not do well in an establish fandom, for a myriad of reasons. So... we can now take whatever social/political/pseudo psyche slop we want and apply it over and over to whatever is trendy, that we have also never even read/watched. YAY Fandom!
Media is to consume, fandom is to consume. Now people are entitled and want instant gratification. So since they never watched that show, they can pretend its about whatever they want! Yay. And demand that the others around them, other fans, fic writers, and even the creators adhere to their preferences. Antis round 2, the fandom locusts. They come in wreck havoc and leave shortly as their attention span is small and once they have satisfied the need to spew their 4 sanctioned talking points, they are ready to move on and do it elsewhere.
In order to be a good fandom dweller you can only like media with certain themes, characters, and you must constantly condemn and be "critical" of the media you "consume" in order to be "ethical" in what you "consume" and most importantly….you must not know how to read, comprehend basic story telling meant for children, or interact with said piece of media outside your fanon echo chamber. The 4 sanctioned talking points must be brought up at LEAST 12 times a day or you will be excommunicated! This is super stressful. This is not fun. WHO wants to do this? A person could burn out real quick like this, unless this is all they are really here for. hmm.
They don't really care about the media, they have learned they can gain clout and attention by spewing the same pseudo psyche slop over and over and apply it to whatever is trendy *hit tweet* even when it doesn't make sense. They could very easily go find what they really want, but they are lazy.
Because for a lot of people fandoms don't revolve around a shared interest or piece of media anymore, they revolve around shared morals. AKA, a set of preferred tropes (that will be forced onto everything, because they are better and everything else sucks, yes you over there and the actual story all suck, let us tell you about it, everyday) and rules for other people to follow (that they probably won't follow themselves).
So everyone and their 3 friends had to run to discord and honestly its probably for the best. You know what you are getting at least.
Back when I first joined fandom, everything was separate. You had a few larger art and fic sites, Live journal came around at some point, but for the most part everything was dedicated forums or websites. It took you hours to go around and check them all the couple times a week you could. It was more fun, felt like an adventure.
Fandom now is all quick consumption, entitlement, self centered and instant gratification. It takes 2 min tops to check all socmed sites and all it is, is bullshit, advertisements, politics and people complaining.
And its fucking exhausting.
There is also an issue with a need for validation and assurance. Stop. You don't need it. The best reason to like something is no reason at all. People need to stop needing to justify, moralize, validate and need assurance for their enjoyment of things. You do not need to be right. You can be wrong. So you wanna pretend something about a story that makes no fucking sense, just do it. Stop pretending there is some conspiracy or secret meaning there. Like the people fighting over all that money grab gatcha shit. My god.
People are stressing themselves the fuck out on top of all the rest of it.
Consumption fatigue. Too many things. The moralization. Enjoying things has become a chore. Everything is a contest. No one knows how to talk. No one likes anything. Who wants to be here? And at this point for what? Is fandom fun anymore or is it more of a stressful social pressure? I think people are tired.
What fandom is anymore?
Fandom is shallow, it is uncomfortable, it is a chore.
