Dec 22, 2022
I have seen some people baffled by the amount of widely accepted fannon in the danny phantom phandom so I present to you:
The list of things you might think is cannon but actually isn't:
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Kingdom
I have seen some people baffled by the amount of widely accepted fannon in the danny phantom phandom so I present to you:
The list of things you might think is cannon but actually isn't:
I like that Danny Phantom is Science Fiction, his family are scientists, his powers come from a science accident, he uses futuristic technology, But he's a Ghost, which is a magical/fantasy creature.
So, as fan creators we can do whatever we want. We can sci-fi our way out of problems we magicked our way into (like Reign Storm, the ecto-skeleton vs the ghost king) or, we can magic our way out of sci-fi problems (like Masters of all Time, magic time-travel to solve sci-fi disease).
Some things I've noticed or think are unique to the DP fandom:
1. We fuel more material through the fandom than we do with the source material. We've bled that show dry, and we're left with an evolving fandom to get more material from. Most of the stuff we see as canon might actually be fanon, but after writing about it for 16 years, who can really tell the difference?
2. I read somehwere that a perk of fanfiction is that everyone knows the source material so you don't have to bother with reading/writing backstory. In the DP fandom, we've all collectively agreed to read and write the backstory anyway. Other fandoms write perfectly wonderful, self sustaining fics without having to include the backstory, but here, we almost always include Danny's accident either in the beginning or as a flashback of some sort. So you don't have to watch the show to know what the show was about- you can find a fic, any fic, and know exactly what happens. There are writers for other fandoms with similar mindsets, but not at the rate we see here. (Not that it's a bad thing, I think it's cool seeing different takes on the same story. Especially since we don't really see the initial accident except through the theme song, so most takes on the accident are potentially unique anyway.)
3. Honestly? There's not as much gate keeping here than there is in other fandoms. I know it's not unique to DP, but it's interesting I think, because there's a stark contrast from this fandom to other fandoms where half the audience is trying to out-fan the others, while everyone here is like "oh hello you're new can I introduce you to a good fic?" It's a nice break from "i know more than you. Im the bigger fan."
4. We're more interested in reveal fics than other fandoms might be. Reveal fics are fun for all fandoms imo but it's fascinating how many reveal fics you can find in this fandom alone. I can't even come up with an explanation for it, I just think it's interesting.
5. We manage to adopt people into the fandom a lot and some reason we never leave or move on? People fall out of other fandoms all of the time, but when we join DP, we stick around a while.
Not to mention Phanniemay and Ectober, the fact that everyone hates Butch Hartman, the way we create and spread background characters so quickly, the phases the fandom has gone through, and the canon we have all agreed to ignore.
So in short, somehow we have created a community that inspires not just through the source material but also through itself and each other while also often abandoning the source material.
Sorry. I know this strays from your question about how other fandoms are unique, not how DP is unique from other fandoms, but these are all notable things that make DP such a wild fandom to join. What do you think?
Gosh, this is such an awesome analysis of the phandom that I can’t even begin to add on. This is so cool? So nice? And I get to post it? Criminal. Get up here anon and take credit (jk jk, you don’t have to).
But, yeah! I think you’ve hit a lot of the big points-- It’s certainly why I stayed after falling in out of sheer nostalgia. I suspect a lot of it is because we’re a ‘mature’ fandom... As in, it has been a long, long time since we got new content or a new influx of people and a lot of the drama’s already been had. Also, we’ve decided to kill ‘god.’ Except whatever’s going on with instagram cosplayers? I don’t know.
I’ve seen a lot about how our phandom is different, but this is my primary (only, really) fandom, so I haven’t really seen how others act and interact. Not firsthand. And these little snippets mean a lot to me. It’s just so interesting. Because we’re all on the surface the same type of thing, but there are so many little differences?
Anyway, thank you for sharing this with me!
A genuine question: do you have an idea of why the phandom as a whole is so reactive and easily stressed out about everything, and I mean everything? I fully understand that the “hiatus” is making people feel extra tense, but it was the case even before this year - has been the whole time I’ve been following it, at least. It is a bit unsettling to always feel like everyone is walking on eggshells and the tiniest things can set people off.
I think Dan and Phil being very private people and the fact that some mild - hold onto your socks, I’m gonna use the word - gaslighting has been the basis of the fandom makes people distrust Dan and Phil, and each other’s perceptions.
They met. They fell for each other. They were pretty public about it. They came out. Those were things people knew, and trusted, because they saw it unfold.
They got more famous. They (for lack of better term) went back in the closet, re: their relationship. They put walls up where there hadn’t been before.
They got outed. Through no malicious action of any one person but still against their will, against their wishes. People saw that video. They heard those words. They trusted what they heard. Fans weren’t wrong for that.
And Dan and Phil weren’t wrong for doing what they felt like they needed to do in order to protect themselves from exposure they weren’t prepared to deal with. So they said the things that they felt like they needed to say. I use gaslighting because I think it’s the term that fits - they made people distrust their perception about things that seemed obviously true by staring right into the camera and saying you’re wrong, these things didn’t happen. But I don’t have any ill will against them for it. They were young, and scared, and felt vulnerable, and they did what they thought was good damage control.
That damage control paved the way for a solid 2-3 years of doubt cast on everything, and that’s not something easily undone. There are people who want to trust their own instinct and perception above everything else, there are people who want to believe Dan and Phil above everything else, and there are people who just feel anxious at the fact that they’re caught somewhere in between. The fact is that a good portion of the fanbase spent years staring at Dan and Phil in their glass closets and going: I think you’re lying to me. From Dan’s customer service blog to the lies about how they met to the lies of omission and mild misleads, things accumulated. There are people now who still feel like it’s their obligation to not have opinions on their relationship because they (Dan) drove that home so hard. But either way ‘catch Dan and Phil in the lie’ has been a phandom pasttime since the first time they uttered the first mistruth about themselves. Fandom is tense with each other about the ideological differences in whether your obligation should be to believing what seems to make sense or what it seems like Dan and Phil want you to believe.
But! Good thing is! Things change. Dan and Phil grew. We grew. But I think the attitude phandom adopted, whether you were there during those earlier years or you just absorbed it via osmosis, is to constantly be wary about mistruths and half truths and lies. It sucks for us, because we can’t relax, and it sucks for Dan and Phil because there are things they absolutely should be able to keep to themselves and us understand it’s none of our business. But because our ingrained pattern is to scrutinize everything with an attitude of distrust, and their ingrained pattern is to be wary of us and not trust us, the whole cycle of our overreaction leading to them pulling back goes on and on and on. I’m sure if we were a smaller, chiller audience not so quick to point fingers and say you always lie, you never communicate then they’d probably be a little more clear with us. I’m sure if they were more honest about things, even the struggles or the times when they don’t know what to tell us because it’s out of their hands, then we’d feel a little more secure in everything. But we’re a big group of people that you can’t really control and they’re two human beings just trying to make the best decision when they have no way of knowing the outcome and what kind of backlash they’ll get who are probably (rightfully) terrified of us. It’s hard to unlearn the feeling like you need to protect yourself from something that’s hurt you in the past; I don’t think we, as fans specifically, hurt Dan and Phil. But sharing too much on social media did - both the things outside of their control (like the video leaking) and the things they’d shared before that made it harder to hide themselves away.
I don’t think there are many people out there in 2019 who would say they’re mad at Dan and Phil for not being honest when the video leaked. But I guess my whole point here is that I think they don’t always trust us and we don’t always trust them and neither side is entirely wrong and I think that’s why we’re always so fucking anxious and why they’re always so fucking secretive.
Realising that dannyversary, the dreaded dannypocalypse, my beloved danno-day, is ONCE AGAIN THE DAY BEFORE MY VERY IMPORTANT EXAM HOW CAN I LICE UNDER THIS CONDITIONS
You know, Danny was probably exactly like Jazz before the accident. He probably also had straight A's, and did his chores, and was as perfect as he could be with the only difference being Danny had two friends more than Jazz. But after the accident, he started "slacking off", not doing homework or chores anymore. And his parents, in canon, write it off as "boys being boys". You know? He's got two whole friends, with one being a girl to impress, of course he's going to be irresponsible and distant from his family. If he slips too much, they'll give him a talking to and it'll put him back on track.
Except of course, we know they don't know how much he's slipping, and they don't know why his grades are falling or his chores are going undone. They think he's like his dad and just letting things go undone until someone else gets annoyed enough to force him to do it or do it for him. They think his priorities have shifted from Family to Friends, not Family and Friends to Entire World.
Do you think Dan and Phil will ever sit down and make a video fully addressing phan? I feel like if they just clarified their relationship, it would stop being this huge spectre that looms over their brand. On the flip side, do you think part of the reason why they keep phan ambiguous is because that uncertainty is now part of their brand? But the effort they put into hiding (booking separate rooms, zero pda, etc) is surely a big hassle?
No, I don’t think they’ll ever do that. I think an underlying goal of theirs has always been to accomplish clarity in their relationship without giving anyone concrete statements about themselves, and I don’t see them deviating from that.
I think to them having the spotlight be on them for their relationship directly would be a much more traumatic thing than their current process of just living their life and offering no explanation for the things that they don’t want us to feel like we have the right to ask about. Coming out would open that door. If they look directly into the camera and make a firm statement, then that gives everyone - fans, media, peers - a sense of entitlement about to what level commentary is allowed. And I don’t mean people discussing it amongst themselves on tumblr; right now it’s an understood taboo that you don’t ask them about their relationship. If they acknowledged they were in a relationship, the self-restraint this fandom shows based on a desire to not break that taboo would go away. People could ask. They would ask. They’d probably never stop asking. What would feel like a celebration for us would probably feel like being cornered to them.
I think ambiguity is comforting to them and I’m sure a lot of that can be traced back to being outed right at the most formative point of their career (and lives, I’d even say, especially Dan only being 19/20 at the time). I’m really proud that they’re at a point now where they’re not going to let the need to not give us any insight stop them from living their lives - traveling together, family holidays, etc. I think that’s the path they’ll continue to walk with their dog and their forever home until the question in people’s minds disappears without them having ever had to voice an answer. And until then - I think to them I think booking an extra hotel room is probably not that much of an inconvenience for the peace of mind that plausible deniability gives them.