stridercest and fandom etiquette rant LETS GO
so ive been looking around old fandom spaces recently (homestuck, obviously), and ive mostly been perusing dirkdave and/or stridercest equivalent areas of the internet, where i came across one conclusion:
stridercest is alive and well.
everywhere i look, every platform i search through, i find very recent posts and fanworks that clearly had so much hard work, talent, and love poured into their creation.
which is (obviously) ideal—not just for the stridercest fandom (small as it may be), but for fandoms as a whole. it reinforces community, creativity, and gives people a genuine outlet to express their ideas.
however, ive also noticed something else.
and it isnt nearly as wholesome.
more often than not, under art/writings/edits/etc., i see comments that usually fall into one of two categories:
“all proshippers have the same artstyle!”
and this pisses me off to no end.
not just because i post my own fan creations (of all types, not just 🍊x🍎), but also because im an adult who’s been in fandom spaces since my age was literally in the single digits.
i was around before fandom spaces became mainstream. more importantly, i was around before this massive shift in how people engaged with fanworks.
why does nobody have fandom etiquette anymore??
people will go out of their way to witchhunt artists, harass writers, and dogpile creators for making content they personally dislike.
the entire proship/anti argument is exhausting to me for a lot of reasons, but my biggest takeaway is this:
people act like they’re being forced to consume content.
they’ll deliberately enter spaces they know they dislike, seek out works they know they won’t enjoy, and then act offended that the content exists.
and then they feel entitled to insult the creator for it.
(which is especially frustrating when it’s minors deliberately entering adult-oriented spaces and then acting shocked that adult-oriented content exists there, but i digress.)
the phrase “don’t like, don’t read” exists for a reason.
and before anyone starts putting words in my mouth:
this is NOT me saying everyone has to approve of everything.
fandom has always had drama.
the early 2010s had drama.
homestuck in particular had enough ship wars and discourse to power a small city.
but there used to be a stronger understanding that:
- tags tell you what those things are
- you decide whether or not to engage
people disagreed constantly.
what they didn’t do nearly as often was treat disagreement as a call to action.
because there’s a huge difference between:
“i don’t like this ship.”
“i need to tell this artist they shouldn’t have made it.”
one is an opinion (totally valid at that),
and the other is a decision.
and a lot of modern fandom discourse seems incapable of distinguishing between the two.
which brings me back to dirkdave;
one thing ive noticed is that a lot of people spend an absurd amount of time trying to justify why they can or can’t ship them.
my own reasoning is pretty simple:
“they aren’t real. shipping them isn’t hurting anyone. shipping ANY fictional characters together isn’t hurting anyone. case closed.”
but then i see people bending over backwards trying to negotiate with antis by creating increasingly specific justifications:
- “they aren’t really related”
- “they were raised separately”
- “this version is an AU”
- “this timeline doesn’t count”
- “this interpretation changes things”
at a certain point, the conversation stops being about enjoying a fictional dynamic and starts sounding like a legal defense brief,
because a lot of this discourse isn’t actually about whether someone finds a ship acceptable.
it’s about people wanting a universally accepted justification.
you do NOT need an excuse to enjoy a ship.
you do NOT need to justify why you find a certain dynamic interesting.
you do NOT need to convince strangers that your interpretation is morally acceptable before you’re allowed to create fanart, write fic, or engage with fandom.
filter whatever you want,
because that’s what those tools are there for.
i personally have well over 100 ship-related tags blocked at this point (mostly alternate spellings and variations, but still), because curating your online experience is GENUINELY that easy.
you do not need to go out of your way to be miserable.
you do not need to harass strangers because they made something you don’t like.
you do not need to make your discomfort everyone else’s responsibility.
YOU CURATE YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE ONLINE,
-> STOP HARASSING ARTISTS, <-
HAVE FUN (BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FANDOM IS FOR),
