Okay, I donāt usually pitch in because discourse generally irritates me since a lot of the time itās senseless bullshit. But this seems to be a very honest and open - also casual, bravo - debate, so Iād like to throw in my two cents.
Just to preface, I took a lot of my upper level bachelor specific college courses with a teacher who was very into fandom, so we talked about that a lot. Iām going to try and approach this rhetorically since Iām not otherwise using my degree š
Letās start with the age argument.
No, we donāt have a set age for Zim, and I think we all know and can agree on the fact that Jhonen isnāt exactly always reliable with details - which is fine. Is he an adult? Is he a young adult? Is he legally able to give consent? Who knows, and who cares. Dib is canonically well under 18 so in that regard it doesnāt matter either way.
So no, shipping canon age Dib with Zim (at any age) is pedophiliac and is not okay. But thatās obvious so letās move on.
Thereās clearly an issue people have with aging characters up - and I donāt understand why (mostly, and Iāll get to that). Iāve mentioned this before but Iāll expand on it here: it is not a fandom requirement to portray characters exclusively as they exist in canon, age included. Jhonen is not a creator that generally caters to children, so itās not far fetched to imagine that he expected his audience to be a little older, particularly given the showās brand of humor. If not, at this point most of us have grown up and are out of our teen years if weāve stuck around (and I know Iām showing my age). So thereās going to be adults that interact with this content, and thereās no getting around it.
That means that, and Iām going to say this as an adult myself, if we want to ethically interact with this content, especially given the canon age of the characters, aging up is a tool we use to be responsible content creators. Listen, when I was watching this show in middle school, I related to it because the characters were about my age at the time. But this fandom is in such a unique position to have stuck around to see its fanbase literally grow up. So naturally, weāre going to interact with the content differently. Not gonna lie to you, as a 24 year old woman, Iām not totally comfortable even writing G rated stuff about middle schoolers, it makes me feel weird. I would much prefer to age these characters up in such a way that gives me a better base to relate to them to, so that thereās a more familiar proximity between myself and them.
Donāt forget that people who make art generally make art for themselves. I write my fanfiction for me first and then share it, and because I no longer relate to middle schoolers, I wonāt ever write them as middle schoolers. Simple as that. And that means that, if Iām going to portray them as legal adults (Zim is canonically older than Dib so for Earthās purposes, if Dib is at least 18 then legally, by Earth standards, Zim is also at least 18 and considered a legal adult) Iām allowed to portray them in any situation that legal adults are legally allowed to be in.
Letās relate this to the pedophilia grooming/apologism. I see this brought up in regards mainly against people who age these characters up for the sole purpose of fucking. And hereās where Iād like to draw a distinctive line: there is a major difference between aging these characters up in a way that makes their older age very apparent and then portraying them (visually usually but it can work in writing too) almost exactly as they are in canon while simply stating they are 18+. If I see fanart of the two of them goin at it and Dibās tall with facial hair and piercings, and Zim at least looks like heās matured in some fashion, Iām not going to really look twice or question whether or not theyāre 18+ if the artist says so. But if I see fanart where they look exactly the same as they do in canon - and I mean exactly - then I got a problem with the artist slapping a āall characters portrayed are 18+ā comment on it in a piss poor means of covering their ass. And Iāve seen content like this, mostly on deviantART. But thatās a huge distinction. The latter is whatās fueling pedophiliac apologism, because pedophiles arenāt interested in adults, theyāre interestedin children, so child characters visually and honestly portrayed as adults (actual adults, not 14 but looks 24 bullshit) is not the same thing to them, otherwise they wouldnāt be pedophiles.
In my personal experience, and somehow even moreso on tumblr, I donāt see a lot of fanworks where the aging up isnāt obvious in some way. Generally when these characters are aged up they look aged up, or theyāre very obviously written aged up. I havenāt been in a lot of situations where I really had to question the authenticity of the creator. So generally, as far as Iām concerned, the creators are doing their due diligence so that they can make their fanworks in an ethical manner. Again, my problem is with the people who draw the characters like theyāre still in middle school and just make me take their word that theyāre 18+, thatās pedophiliac.
As far as feeling grossed out that thereās so much nsfw content to the point where people feel like thatās the sole purpose creators are aging the characters up for in the first place: just block it. Iām not gonna sit here and try and justify the quantity of that content (again, provided the above) but Iām also not going to ignore the fact that I think a lot of these arguments are stemmed from the simple fact that some people just donāt like the ship and donāt want anyone else to like it either - so they try and paint the creators to look like pedophiles illegally indulging in their āmental disorderā as itās being referred to now I guess. Iāve been around since the beginning (showing my age again) and Iāve seen children, at the time, treat their peers with such hate and malice over this ship that I simply do not tolerate arguments and rhetoric against it when it comes from a place of baseless contempt. That I have just as much of an issue with.
Before I get off my soapbox I wanted to touch specifically on a point @z1mzam made about fiction and media influencing consumers. I specifically disagree with the statement about children accessing (Iām assuming nsfw specifically) media that āshouldnāt be there to begin with.ā When it comes to consuming media, itās the responsibility of the consumer to make the distinction between things they should and shouldnāt be accessing, the creator has zero control over that and stating that certain media shouldnāt be on the internet to begin with doesnāt address the issue - again, considering the points I stated above about the difference between when the 18+ is ethical and when itās a baseless ass-covering mechanic. If people who are accessing adult media illegally due to their age, thatās on them and the fact that they didnāt take the necessary steps to avoid such content. Sure, things slip through the cracks, not all creators are always as diligent as they should be with tagging/displaying their adult works, things happen. But it would have to happen on a much larger scale then occasional accidents for it have any real impact on the consumer, and at that point that responsibility falls onto them, and their legal guardians if theyāre underage. We cannot punish artists for unethical and dishonest consumers.
However, we can step up when the content weāre seeing is legitimately pedophiliac in nature hiding behind a useless āall characters portrayed are 18+ā wall when thatās (again, clearly and obviously) not the case. Thatās a real problem, thatās legitimate pedophiliac apology and itās not okay.
But we have to be responsible and recognize the difference.
