I feel like I distinctly remember when this social contract was breached, and it has everything to do with Tumblr and the BBC television show Sherlock.
Back in 2013 or so, Sherlock had exploded in popularity among teen girls, fed through the conduit of Tumblr (and soon further fueled by the advent of SuperWhoLock.) This was a funny (affectionate) turn of events to me, because I had watched Sherlock when it first came out and enjoyed it enough to recommend to my father and then moved on. Now, a few years later, the show was suddenly everywhere on Tumblr driven by an interest in JohnLock. I believe this was around the time season 2 came out which might have caused renewed attention.
Sidebar: fandom was historically a very contained thing in the early days of the internet where adult women (from careered professionals to stay-at-home moms) hosted domains and zines with very specific rules and moderators who oversaw a set of agreed upon expectations. Fics and art were not hosted in common spaces until sites like wattpad, tumblr, and fanfiction.net. If you liked The Magnificent Seven or The West Wing you had to go find the fandom websites that were paid for and run by individuals / small groups who hosted people's fics and ran the shared au's, etc.
Now (stay with me) I had become a kpop fan in 2011, and experienced enormous culture shock when I saw how open and public fandom was in Korea. Fans brought signs promoting their favorite ships to concerts, hosts asked about them on talk shows, fans publicly shared their art, professionals read fanfic about themselves, etc. I distinctly remember how uncomfortable I was with the idea. I remember feeling that the relationship between fan and artist was weirdly inappropriate, especially when I saw how artists were expected to behave at fan meetings (this was before we were gifted the word parasocial) but I adjusted to the idea that even if it FELT wrong, there was clearly a different social contract with fans and celebrities when it came to kpop. While I still didn't think it was publicly okay it felt alright in fandom spaces. I was very relieved at the time, though, that this same open concept of fandom was not present in America.
Then, a few years later, I have this clear memory of watching a late night host expose Martin Freeman or Benedict Cumberbatch to explict fanart about JohnLock. (I know this happened with Graham Norton, but my memory is very much of an American host like Stephen Colbert doing the same thing.) I tried to find the video and the only thing I could find was from 2017 or so which feels too recent. (Maybe it was re-uploaded? I guess 2017 was almost a decade ago).
Regardless, I distinctly remember that feeling of oh god no because I did not want kpop-style fandoms becoming a thing in the U.S. and this was the first time anything like this had ever happened in America in my memory: a completely taboo moment that violated the unspoken rules and norms. What was worse is that someone respected on late night television was the one to open the pandora's box, thus legitimizing the idea that you could broadcast fandom. That video is, in my memory, the watershed moment when fandom become outed to the public and to corporations as anything more than Star Trek Conventions. (It would be many more years before fanfiction was considered something you could mention in mixed company without ridicule, though we had mostly fallen out of the habit of seeing or writing disclaimers on fics due to the success of AO3.)
What followed was a massive breach of the social distance between creators and artists and fans, happening right around the time that celebrities were more accessible online through Twitter. We soon saw a huge rise in intentional queer baiting by television show-runners and media executives who sought to profit from this untapped, intensely loyal fan base (this was also a staple of the kpop industry which, simultaneously, oppressed the open expression of queer artists). We also saw the gross overstepping of boundaries between fans and actors, with fans treating creatives and artists like property ("You're only popular because of us so you don't get to complain about how we treat you.") Later on, we saw the forced outing of queer actors in a misguided and cruel bid to lessen queer baiting which caused its own irreversible damage. Finally, while I get the feeling that the end of Stranger Things is the end of this particular era previously described, we are still experiencing the interview hell-scape where amatanormatity is reinforced through professionals badgering actors about ships and comparing every dynamic to Heated Rivalry.
Taking stock, I do expect we are moving into a different era, now. The call to reestablish the "separation of church and state," the prevalence of actors and celebrities who experienced this era from the fan side growing up into adults who can better navigate the conversation, and the "physical media" movement visually putting media "back in the box" all give me hope that we'll navigate into a more measured and healthy place soon. Of course, corporate interests still want to exploit fandom for their own gain and the romantasy boom seems to be sweeping Gen X into more bold public fandom mixing (I witnessed peers wantonly discuss smut books at work in front of our mixed gendered colleagues in a professional meeting which. . . didn't feel cool) but perhaps there is still time to right the ship (no pun intended).
the fact that this was mostly unscripted and Isa and Gerran broke for real makes Gerran trying to keep it at a "jeez" but breaking and dragging it out into a "jesus christ" so funny
Hey, so, I know everyone was saying it already, but they've gotten SO loud about Robby's suicidal ideation that it's increasingly clear to me that Santos (or someone else we've overlooked) is actually the one in mortal danger because they're tried to emphasize that trauma doesn't always look the way you think it will and Robby's been TOO obvious while Santos has been less and less empathetic to an almost cartoonish degree that it even pushed McKay away.
(On a sidenote, the only time Robby's said "when I come back" so far was to Javadi and not to promote nuclear family analogies or anything but. . . that's his youngest daughter, man.)
Also, the Pitt drawing a direct parallel between Santos (hotshot gunner, deeply insecure and wounded) and Ogilvie (hot shot gunner who we know nothing about) by using Garcia who is literally sleeping with Santos and knows her well—They are really asking: can we get you to fall for the same easy and unquestioning villainizing of a character trope twice!
We’ve all analyzed that scene where Moriarty’s digging for info about what Sherlock was like as a small boy to death but I’m watching the show for—oh I don’t know—the 8th time and I’m still peeling back layers on the onion and so I’m adding the layer where yes he says he can’t imagine Sherlock as a child because it’s funny and yes he’s wondering if he’s always been a bit uncomfortably intense or if his peculiar episodes recently are concerning and yes he’s just kind of filing away secret knowledge and weaknesses for later but also maybe Moriarty really can’t imagine what growing up in that house with people waiting on your beck and call and all the wealth and comfort and ease and honeybees and bright, teasing siblings is like and he means it because of the class difference and Mycroft confirms that belief by quipping: “Let’s just say I took a job in the foreign office in pursuit of an easier life: war, famines that sort of thing” and like . . . Oh my God Mycroft. . .to Kerriarty???
I promise this is my last post about The Pitt, but . . . they had Patrick Ball wince when he put that kid down, right? I rewound three times to check because my stomach dropped. If they decide to play the back pain he told Robby about from season 1 as real, then they just introduced a thread to the story that could absolutely be used to challenge or derail his recovery and . . . please don't. Do not.
This episode had so much going on but, like, Mel having the two parent figures of the ED talk to her about her feelings and offer what seemed like genuine support only to abandon her or tell her to suck it up had me in tears--that girl lost her mother to aggressive cancer and then was abandoned to look after herself and her sister on her own by her father and she is so starved for ordinary human kindness that the incomplete attempts at kindness feel so much worse.
Hey so: the women of the Pitt being told to suck it up and stop feeling sorry for themselves and leave their personal shit at home over and over and over again even by other women while the men are coddled and told they’ll do better next time is going to make me eat a concrete wall.
Oh God, this episode made me sick to my stomach they really said "and for all the people in the back who didn't catch the previous and more subtle red flags, Robby is planning to die."
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