What a theme! There’s definitely been great many essays written about it and I am not sure what fresh and interesting take I can offer, but well, let’s try to organize some thoughts.
I think Ship Wars hail from the very fundamental way that people in large groups grow very confident that their truth is the only one that matters and that they have right to bully anyone out of theirs.
It is natural that different people care for different ships and different dynamics. It’s completely alright, to have the canon OTPs and to find these rareships created by maybe few sentences exchanged, based only on the potential what these two could have. It’s unavoidable that someone will think their interpretation of the character is more accurate than someone else’s - and they might even be right in a way. Such as they are paying attention to a nuance another group isn’t (and they might be missing out on some other) because of their unique perspective. It’s okay to just go hogwild and project wildly and run with a fanon or personal headcanons you love.
The problem comes when you decide to be hurtful and righteous about it, instead of accepting the other opinions, headcanons, projections and ships also have right to exist. That there will never be One Unique take and, gasp, even if there was, it might not be yours. Even if stuff goes canon, because as we all know, writers aren’t infallible.
I am not going to lie and pretend that I am not a snob about some ships, downright frustrated about some concepts that are prelevant in some of my fandoms or that I find some ships unpalatable, problematic or some such.
In fact, sometimes it is born from the way some people treat their favorites, going on offense even if there’s no negativity towards them, or how aggressive they are towards actors and so forth, which completely poisons my view of the ship and shippers alike over time.
Yes, I am a salty, opinionated bitch. But I know where to express it and where not to. If I talk about my opinion with likely minded individuals, don’t go to send anon hate or write meta that puts down another ship and then slap it in specific tags, I think it is within my right.
I think that when people are too caught up in their own passionate dislike of some ship and try to support their own, it can be actually harmful to themselves/their side of fandom as well, because it basically reduced the ship to the ship war, dragging your own content through mud of bitterness and annoyance.
I have been in a situation where I ship one ship and some old time mutuals ship an absolute NOTP and the absolute effort to find my ship content that doesn’t bash on their ship or character involved in it, to reblog was an absolute mine field. Exhausting. Annoying. Eventually enough to actually make me stop engaging with my OTPs content, because I was too tired of the negativity and the sifting through to not accidentally be a dick to my mutual (even if I agreed with some of the takes, in private).
I think the mob mentality that takes over people when ship wars arise is quite, quite scary as it would be in any other case and when it’s a widely known fandom with people all over the world, throwing their weight behind it... It can be absolutely horrifying and showing the worst people can do. It’s not pretty and I don’t think there’s universal advice to stop it. There will always be people who just Have To Do It Like This and they will find another person like that and grow in numbers, emboldened.
So, if you’re growing tired of it all, just try to curate your social media experience with what you block, who you follow or don’t. Find people to talk with about things you think in earnest, maybe post a carefully tagged rant or two if you must about your take on character or ship without going out of your way to bash other characters or ships to find more likely minded individuals. And, in the end, even if you fundamentally disagree about some things in a TV show or a book, it doesn’t actually mean you always have to throw the whole person (friend) out.
I could talk some about purity culture here, but I feel like much smarter people have spoken a lot better about these topics, so I will refrain, but it is a thing that also links back to ship wars, with this self acclaimed ‘moral superiority’ mentality that often comes with some shippers and ships. Things that make ship wars turn personal on some people.
Essentially, TL;DR is to not be a shitty person and let other people ship what they ship and vent your salt with people in private, if it really gets on your nerves so much and, hopefully, the other people will stick to their spaces as well. But in the end, ship wars are inevitable, so just do your part in not being casualty to them if you can.
Also, this is written at 1am so some errors in my logic or otherwise might occur.
Send me ☕️ for a rant on topic of your choice?<3