Okay there’s some weird trends and people in fandoms I’m in that I am starting to notice.
They treat fandoms at kind of ... a space, where they should be able to express whatever they want, and expect to receive 100% positive reception or at the least a low but pleasant hum to all of their negativity or dismissal of a concept no matter how abstract or irrelevant to their interests, especially if that interest is indeed popular among a majority of the fandom.
Now as some of you noticed at a time a month or two ago, I expressed a negative opinion to the idea that fans dictate what canon is in the absence of concrete fact without citing it as ‘headcanon’. I absolutely expected negative backlash. No one likes being told they’re wrong, or that their opinion is unpopular, or have mislabelled something. And took it in relatively pleasant and humour-addled stride, with a layer of light cynicism to once again being proven that people don’t just grow in the span of several minutes.
But the things I’m seeing in regards some of these concepts and the sheer level of vitriol aimed at people who enjoy popular ideas, and fun that might rub others the wrong way is severely concerning.
Some people seem to feel justified that because they are in a minority position their attacks and expressions towards those in the majority are perfectly reasonable and react accordingly when a VERY EASILY CALCULATED backlash awaits them.
Let’s rustle up an example shall we.
I enjoy a very obscure, manga based paring in the Yugioh fandom. It has no connotations or even reasonable arguments for it’s existence, in any of the other iterations (Anime, Abridged or Video Games)
Most people enjoy a very particular popular pairing based in pretty much all the iterations of the first series. The fans of that pairing are very vocal toward me and often express their interest of it TO me, despite my indifference.
Let’s say for example that I express to that majority, publicly, that I feel oppressed and attacked by them just because their pairing is all encompassing and intrudes on the ideas I have for the series with more enthusiastic fans and fan work that sometimes even bleed into my own tags and question box.
And let us REASONABLY assume that not everyone is going to look at my post and think ‘oh well I disagree, but I shall move on with my idea and pay this no mind’. Because tumblr is, if anything, a giant shouting match of ‘hey look at this’. If you think otherwise you’re in for a very nasty wake up call one of these days, I’m quite sorry to say that, but how things should be and how they are are never destined to quite line up.
I am going to get verbally ripped apart. Not because ‘obviously, the members of THAT area of the fandom are rude, horrible, shitty people, I’m leaving this horrible fandom!’. But because I couldn’t just try to grow and nurture the part of the fanbase that makes me happy and simply ignore and cut out the ones whose interest in the popular thing spills over to zealotry. I had to ‘call them out’, quite unnecessarily. And they feel, quite reasonably that I’ve made a very uncalled for assumption about all of them.
Fandoms, are large, all encompassing amorphous masses of people. And without fail. WITHOUT A SINGLE DOUBT. There will, be in there, an asshole. And as that number grows, so do the percentage of assholes. This will never ever ever ever stop being the case. Ever. Have I said ever? Because as horrible as facing that idea sounds. Worse, is never dealing with it at all. By not dealing with them. You get me? Do. What. MAKES. YOU. HAPPY. Fuck the rest of it.
You do not, need to look over at your neighbor's larger, greener, and more flowery lawn with his large pine tree that might have a couple of branches spilling over into your garden and tell him that he’s a massive prick, though.