why do you think hinny community is not that popular like Drarry or dramione or Jeagulus or wolfstar?
I feel like there's less....unity (for a lack of better word) between the authors. I see other members of other ships reblog everything and read everything, but ifl there is a sub community within the community.... What are your thoughts?
(ps: excited for my shift to end so I can read the new chapter is cmh <3)
Well I think these are two separate things and the lack of unity is not connected to the popularity. Except that the lack of unity is not helping us increase in numbers, but ultimately the numbers weren't there to start with (in comparison to other HP ships)
(fyi I am going to be anti-tagging this for the ships, not because I am against those ships or speak against them but ultimately doesn't need to end up in their tags)
Male gay ships have been popular across fandoms everywhere for a long time. I think there is a lot to unpack there but honestly I'm not going to contemplate about the impact of society and the patriarchy on fandom but here are a few reasons
if you're women reading it, you can feel more removed from the romance and experience it in a different way
men are better represented in fiction so statistically there are more men to write about
and the men are often written better (by male authors, while I think female authors do a better job at representing both genders)
there isn't an automatic power imbalance
As soon as a ship reaches a certain number, people will join it because it's popular and that really makes them stand apart from other ships and additionally ships within Harry Potter are going to go far because the fandom is big and so if you're looking for the most talked about ship for a fandom to join then yeah you'll end up there too
I used to be a Drarry shipper (while being a Hinny shipper simultaneously) and I was constantly spoiled for content and I honestly still miss because there was just so much to consume and mind you it was 12 years ago so the fandom was even more active than now. I shipped a lot of the popular male ships, the johnlock and the geraskier and there was the k-pop boy yaoi, like you won't hear me judge anyone's individual choice to ship two men but I do take issue with how women are sometimes used as a device to help the story along (read: incubator or evil)
You mentioned specifically ships where one of them is a Death Eater and that is also a reason, I think. A story exists because there is tension within it and often those ships exist because it's easy to create tension when characters are at odds with each other. Homophobia can also easily be used to instigate events within the story. Obviously not all fics are going to use those two things as tension but once a ship reaches popularity that ultimately stops mattering because they already have the numbers in their favour
J*gulus specifically is an odd one out but as far as a I recall it's all because of one popular fic (ATYD) featuring them and then again once you have a few people interested, the numbers increase themselves.
Specifically for Harry Potter as a fandom, there are so many people who have used and reused content and tropes and headcanons while not necessarily always going back to the source material that the actual idea of the character has been altered by fandom. I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with that and I'm definitely guilty of taking my headcanons and running with it BUT when it comes to ships like J*gulus you can't argue that Regulus was so insanely compelling in the books that it warrants this massive of a ship. Fandom made him interesting, I would almost consider it like a secondary ship, where it sprouted more from fandom than the source material.
I'm sorry this is gettting really long but I have a lot to say! Now onto the Hinny bit
The hinny community is fractured and when I came back to fandom around like 2021? I had no idea why that was but I felt like it was quite tangible that there were separate groups. I am not going to discuss as to the why that is. There are parts I know about and there are also probably even more I don't know about. Basically I think old drama has divided at least my corner of the Hinny community. I know a lot of people are drama-free and don't have issue with anyone but you're going to pick people you speak to and interact with that may not be speaking to some others. I think certain people's behaviour has also alienated people from fandom (and that's several people, in case you were thinking of one specific person). Such things happen within a lot of fandoms but considering we were already a smaller group, it feels more noticable.
Part of the reason I started another Hinny discord server is I wanted to be a more neutral space to be in. I was not involved in older stuff (even though I was in the fandom from like 2011-2014 but never really felt part of the community then) and the issues I've had with people was where they created issues themselves (plagiarism, harassment etc) and maybe only one or two people that I've personally had an issue with (and they can go wherever they want that's NOT our Disord server)
I do think the hinny community is a bit bad about reblogging and stuff. Even people I consider to be 'popular' can have like 10 or 20 likes on a post that in the jily fandom (much more active but still not a drarry) would have a 150. It gives me terrible FOMO. Again, the numbers play into this. No one reblogs so the people who follow other people also don't reblog because they never got to see those posts in the first place. That's why I appreciate blogs like the @myhinnyarchive so much, because they're honestly the backbone of our tumblr biome. Numbers exponentially increase as people share, and we're a bit bad at it. Sometime with events and stuff I feel like I'm talking to a wall. it's like no one cares, no one reblogs. It's a core group of people who give a damn and the rest...idk. And I can't complain, I know. I have lovely people around me and who make the effort and the events get some participants but I always feel like it could be so much more if people all just hit reblog even once. It's disheartening at times.
You don't join the hinny community for the popularity (i'd think, but correct me if I'm wrong?) so that does change the demographic of the people in it. Aka we are older and have other responsibilities and you can't prioritise fandom the way a hyperfocused teenager can, most of the time anyway. I would expect older people to be better about reblogging and things, but what do I know.
This general passiveness isn't just in reblogging, but also commenting etc and again I'm not judging individual people's choice on how they interact with fandom, but it's just the truth of why the community is just not doing any numbers. I think it's why get next to no fanart because why would you slave hours over an art piece that's going to get next to no interaction when you can do it for a ship slightly to the right that will get 10x the notes.
It shouldn't be just the most popular of the fandom accounts getting attention, we need to feel more interconnected by doing the effort ourselves. If you want it to be different, you need to start with yourself. Reblog (it doesn't fit your blog? Big whoop make a sideblog it's free), comment (no you're not too tired, short comments are valid too and better than nother) and for the love of god push all the buttons. Do it. Push like. Comment heart emojis for all I care but don't be a dead fish on land and wonder why you've run out of water, you know?
I don't want to judge anyone individually and I have met many amazing people who care and interact. I appreciate you and I see you. The general trend of passiveness is there and people like you notice, because you're right! That's just how it is
