Escalation of Commitment in Fandom
You know that feeling when you’re standing at a bus stop at the end of day, and the bus doesn’t come and yet you keep waiting, even though it’s already been fifteen minutes and you’d aready be almos home if you’d walked instead? That feeling that the bus has to arrive any minute now, even though you know that at rush hour all bets are off? That feeling that keeps you rooted to the spot, because you don’t want to admit that you made the wrong decision? That feeling that makes you invest even more time even though you’re already invested too much time in waiting as it is?
That feeling right there is what behavioural economics call Escalation of Commitment. It’s a useful concept to explain why people make irrational investment decisions, be it that they’re investing time, money, or any other resource known to mankind, to justify a previously made investment that hasn’t payed off.
In fandom we invest time, love,and thought, to name just three. We spend a lot of time watching and re-watching our favourite shows, we write long analyses about them, and, above all, we are deeply invested in them on an emotional level. And the more committed we are, the more it hurts to leave that fandom behind, even if we haven’t been happy with the direction canon has taken for quite some time.
(Of course, the paradox of being a fan is that you’re more likely to spot the flaws of the thing you love, but that discovering them also hurts you more than a casual consumer.)
Perhaps the strongest form of fannish commitment are endgame and tinhat theories. The level of wank in the Sherlock fandom surrounding TJLC certainly testifies to this, as does the fame of spn_gossip well outside of SPN fan circles. What distinguishes these types of fannish commitment is the ensuing level of escalation, i.e. the abjuration of all reason in favour of more and more convoluted conspiracy theories.
For instance, a lot of people watching the early seasons of SPN probably thought that Jared and Jensen looked hot together and had great chemistry. Quite a few fans could probably get behind the idea that the two of them were dating. But then they got married. And while a lot of fans then abandoned their previous tinhatting and stuck to writing fic about them, a small group interpreted these weddings as proof that they were secretly together. Because, you know, if they weren’t together, they’d have no need to be married to prove their heterosexuality. Jensen and Jared then added a couple of kids into the mix, probably causing yet more fans to jump the ship (pun intented!), while the remaining tinhatters only became more convinced that they were secretly involved.
What we can witness here is the evolution of a particular fannish reading practice that takes every new canon detail as a confirmation of the existing hypothesis even (and especially) if it openly contradicts it. What follows is a more and more vicious and violent attempt to bend reality to fit said hypothesis, including death threats sent to actors or producers and the bullying of other fans who dare to disagree. Anything rather than having to admit that the inital hypothesis might have been wrong.
In the case of endgame theories this type of escalation usually comes along with accusations of queerbaiting. Unfortunately, this drowns out the critcism of actual queerbaiting in favour of calling out what is essentially fans queerbaiting themselves. (Which is what fans truly want, so the remarkble conclusion of Britta Lundin’s remarkably awful novel Ship It.)
If one of the actors or writers comments on the strength of Dean and Cas’s frienship, this is proof that Destiel will become canon.
If one of the actors or writers states that there’s nothing going on between Dean and Cas, this is also proof that Destiel will become canon. Because it’s obviously a lie, meant to protect the secret.
If Dean and Cas share a scene, it’s proof of Destiel.
If Dean and Cas share less than ten minutes of screen time over the course of a whole season, it’s likewise proof of Destiel, because clearly the entire significance of the season rests in said absence.*
And, true to the nature of escalation of commitment, this type of reading the show only intensifies year after year. When I first entered fandom during season 9, people were already saying that Destiel would be canon any day now, writing long, long metas to prove their point. When S10 aired, people once again stated that there was no way Destiel wouldn’t become canon by the end of the season, only more intensely, insisting that the clues this season were even more significant than they’d been the previous one. Which is what led us to endgame Destiel meta for S14 stating that S9 was nothing compared to what’s going on now. The overall message being: That we were wrong in the past only enforces our present argument.
We might find that ludicrous, or we might not; we might believe or we might not. It’s all fine.
Except that what’s not fine is that a lot of very young and easily impressionable fans are being set up for a huge disappointment.
If I spend forever waiting for a delayed bus, to come back to the introductory example, that’s my problem. However, if a manager of a multi-national enterprise decides to invest more resources into a project that’s proven to be a mistake, chances are that he’s not the one who’s ultimately going to pay the price for that. Just think of the financial crisis of 2007/2008 - the product of massive failures in executive and supervisory boards, yet the cost is being shouldered by the (future) taxpayer.
So I really wish that there was a bit more awareness in fandom of how endgame narrative theories can impact other fans. I’m not sure how often I’ve seen asks in the SPN tags where some poor fan pinned their entire hopes and happiness on their OTP becoming canon. Way too often. And while no fan’s meta is the root of another fan’s neurosis, we (as in: fandom as a whole) might consider a little more closely just how much we’re enabling other people’s escalation through our own.
*Needless to say, but I’m pointing it out all the same because this is Tumblr, the same logical fallacies colour the anti-shipping discourse within fandom. Shipping isn’t irrational per se, no matter what canon vs. fanon wankers would like us to believe. It’s a perfectly valid reading of canon - and canon as such isn’t accessible to us without some kind of interpretation.
