It's a message of sorts, from someone who's been in a few fandoms that have turned into sour memories because of real-person shipping. If that's what the kids are still calling it.
I'm seeing something in the Heated rivalry fandom - a fandom that, by the way, made me want to be in fandom spaces again after many years. Because everyone (nearly everyone) is really fucking great, high on a ride of a lifetime with these sweet, smart guys whose lives our changing as we speak.
The thing is: I've seen this before. I've seen beautiful love for actors and their work turn into something ugly with the kind of curiosity that is happening regarding the Heated rivalry guys.
Now, being older than dust, I will tell you things that are actually honest.
I get it, right?
It's super tempting to go there. They have chemistry, they're playful with each other, they know what their fans want and seem to genuinely like each other. If they feed into the attention that gives them, good for them. There is so much joy in their interactions.
It's tempting to go there. It's tempting to imagine a story within a story of these guys being sweet on each other in a romantic, sexual or partner-like way, because romantic stories are the stories we tell best. (A failure of culture if there ever was one.)
It's fun to go there, too. Imagine it - they fall in love in an improbable way while filming about falling in love in an improbable way. Soulmates. And you don't like that you're thinking about it, but maybe you are, and maybe you linger a bit too hard on the way they look at each other, the not-yet fully formed personas of new famous people being the kind of emotional porn that is so rare in this heavily recycled culture where everyone's botox-laced mask has been on for a decade.
You would never actually like, stalk them. You're firmly in the camp of - if they're friends, that's amazing, I love that for them. But like, let me have a fantasy.
It's not wrong. You're not wrong to think that, you're just a product of a culture that sells creators to promote art. It's a topic so complex that I have a PhD in it and I still feel like I haven't scratched the surface.
Now, for the honest part.
I've been on both sides.
I've been deep in a fandom where there was years of speculation of two dudes playing a couple being a couple. One of them was a theatre kid who didn't want to comment on his sexuality. Played queer roles. (He also played Harry Potter in a fan musical, but there you go.) Had a girlfriend from college that was being erased from the narrative and hated. They're married with I think a kid now, over a decade later, and some people might still think it's a conspiracy. The other guy was actually gay, though he didn't want to comment on his sexuality at first and faced tons of bullshit pressure from the queer fandom, saying he should represent - at, I believe, 18 years old, self-proclaimed virgin at the time. Even when he got a partner, that partner was hated by many, because he broke the fairytale.
The two actors used to be friendly. Excellent chemistry. Slowly, they started to avoid each other, because every interaction was scrutinised. It was tense and ugly. They are not in each other's circle, despite going through a cultural phenomena together and quite literally writing queer history. It makes me sad.
(I had access to the files. I had access to archives of old interactions, of out-of-context stolen private posts from before they were a Thing. I looked for ways to fit them into a satisfying narrative.
I never messaged them. I never interacted. But my attention to the possibility did enable others. Because that's what attention does.)
I was also in a fandom where we were right. It took 16 years for the two guys to come out and say yes, we've been together and yes, we're gay. That whole time. But the attention traumatised them. Outed them in real life. Made them scared, made them stop creating content for years. There was so many leaks, so many hidden secrets, so many of these little crimes that stacked up and enabled sharing of everything, from dating profiles made at 16 years old to a private video confessing feelings in a tender, loving way, seen by thousands, meant for one.
I saw the video. Because I'm not better than anyone. I am way worse than most, or at least I was. I remember messaging with a person that sat down in front of their London apartment (address also leaked) for hours to see if lights turned on in both bedrooms.
It doesn't matter that we were right. Not leaving it be made coming out for them so much harder, made living life so much harder, and while it started from a place of love, how could that matter if it also created so much pain?
The HR fandom has the potential to be better.
But it also has potential to repeat history. In corners. Only in tiny corners, the curiosity is starting. Whispers. Investigations. Digging into a past that may never was. I see it.
Most people I see are outraged that this is happening. Criticising leaks. Saying let's not do that - like me now. Saying let's protect these guys' privacy, come on, they deserve a piece of themselves for themselves, they give so much.
But if you prioritise performative outrage to silence, you give it more attention. You help give it life. You make people curious, because they want to be outraged, too. They want to be in on the outrage, because that's a strong, addictive emotion in this sensory deprivation chamber of constant irrelevant content that is the internet.
It's about choosing not to scratch an itch. It's so much easier to avoid crossing boundaries if you don't know someone already has, especially if your conscience is only monitored by your computer and a silent living room.
If you see something that you shouldn't, my advice, as someone who doesn't want the temptation, is to report it. Don't say you had. Just do it. Alert PR if you can, sure, but reporting a post and then shutting the fuck up is so much better than feeding the fire.
I know this, because I used to just love engaging with it too much. I would send myself anons so I could talk about it - speculating, saying "maybe" and "we'll see", saying "stop being gross". But giving it attention and seeing how much people wanted me to do that, to keep doing that, because it was the kind of forbidden desire that has, coincidentally, started the whole HR phenomenon.
(It's built on the same recipe, right? That's why we have to be even more careful with where we allow ourselves to go.)
Loving things from afar is hard. Those lines are made up. But they need to be there. So my advocacy is for silence, or rather my advocacy is for loud celebration of what is most certainly true, which is friendship and generosity and craft. My advocacy is being better, because I've seen loving wrong really really hurt before, and the idea of it happening again to this amazing fandom breaks my heart.
