It's interesting to read this and think back on some of our old fandom debates, especially about Keller in SGA. XD But also:
Complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is as big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it.
I FEEL THIS SO HARD. It is something I've been trying to be much more mindful of lately, too, in particular noticing how affected I am by negativity in my fandoms, and how both of my past big Western-media fandoms (SGA and White Collar) are fandoms that I noped out on largely because of negativity - in WC's case it was also because of being severely burned by the ending, but I think the reason why I didn't stick around anyway and write oodles of fixits was largely because I'd been sidling out of the fandom for the past year or so anyway due to unrelenting negativity from the rest of the fandom on the parts of it that I was most invested in. I mean, in SGA's case, having brought it up above, it definitely wasn't you at all, but it was the whole entire ... just ... inability to even be in the fandom while avoiding wholesale hatred of the show that ended up making the fandom intolerable for me.
And yet it is also a case of being hoisted by my own petard, because I know that I've trash-talked things in the past! I was thinking a little while back about the Grant Ward mess in Agents of SHIELD fandom, and how strongly at the time I came down on the side of "this character is terrible! It is Teaching Bad Things!" but now, holy freck, after several years on Tumblr, seeing what the ad absurdum level of that argument is like, as well as various experiences with falling in love with the hated characters/ships in a canon, I am now very firmly settled on the "love what you love" end of the fandom spectrum. (I mean, I think I always kinda was anyway; it's just that it's become much more firmly entrenched due to seeing just how far it can go when you start judging other people's tastes as Bad and Wrong.)
But at the same time it's just so hard to accommodate the full range of what people want and need in a fandom. Another recent thing: a discussion with a fandom friend about one of her canons, which is a horror show that has been explicitly stated (by the creator) that they are not going to incorporate domestic violence into the various storylines. And we talked about how, on one hand, this is explicitly a selling point for some of the fandom! And that is entirely valid! (I mean, for the record, neither of us actually think this is a bad or wrong decision on the creator's part.) And yet it also shuts the show off from being able to deal with certain angles of horror, of emotional experience, and ... that's also valid, to want to explore those things?
This is the even farther end of Tumblr's ad-absurdum nature of arguing about things, where there are certain schools of thought out there that writing about things that are wrong IRL (from rape and underage, to racism and homophobia) means that you condone them, and even seeing those posts go by on my dash usually makes me hit the ceiling so hard despite the fact that I usually don't write about them anyway. XD But also, I personally know people in fandom who are legit triggered by the flip side of that: soft fluffy *ism-free worlds are what throws them into a negative headspace, and their experience is valid too!
... uh, okay, this has now wandered pretty far afield from your point, but I guess bringing it back around to the topic: I completely agree about keeping things positive as much as possible, and yet, fandom is wide and diverse, and some people need squeeful talk about the best parts of canon, and some people need to vent about the bad parts, and often those are the same people at different times, so ... how do we handle that?! I guess proper cut-tagging and clear labeling is really all you can do. (This isn't even negativity per se, but I try to consistently tag my Iron Fist posts and often cut-tag as much as I can, both here and on Tumblr, because I know there are people who follow me who really hate it on a borderline triggery level, and I want to make it easy for them to avoid it -- if they want to continue engaging with me; I also understand and am fine with people simply unfollowing/blocking me because of it, and that's valid too! But I'm not going to just not talk about it at all -- I kinda did do that for awhile and then I was like, self, this is ridiculous -- because it's my big fandom right now and if the mere existence of it in my space is an issue for people, they are going to have to leave/avoid me. Which I'm totally okay with; I understand that protecting yourself is the most important thing! So I try to walk the line between being super happy and delighted with my canon, which I am, and not really wanting to engage with the bad/problematic bits because that's just not how I do fandom, in general; but also recognizing that for other people, the bad bits are too overwhelming for them to want to be in the same room with the canon, and making sure they have the space to have that, too.)
Anyway ... I guess what it comes down to is that I think "Make squee not war" is a good life strategy and I am going to try to follow it more myself. :D
ETA: Bet you missed these comment-box-breaking comments of mine, huh. XDDD
no subject
Complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is as big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it.
I FEEL THIS SO HARD. It is something I've been trying to be much more mindful of lately, too, in particular noticing how affected I am by negativity in my fandoms, and how both of my past big Western-media fandoms (SGA and White Collar) are fandoms that I noped out on largely because of negativity - in WC's case it was also because of being severely burned by the ending, but I think the reason why I didn't stick around anyway and write oodles of fixits was largely because I'd been sidling out of the fandom for the past year or so anyway due to unrelenting negativity from the rest of the fandom on the parts of it that I was most invested in. I mean, in SGA's case, having brought it up above, it definitely wasn't you at all, but it was the whole entire ... just ... inability to even be in the fandom while avoiding wholesale hatred of the show that ended up making the fandom intolerable for me.
And yet it is also a case of being hoisted by my own petard, because I know that I've trash-talked things in the past! I was thinking a little while back about the Grant Ward mess in Agents of SHIELD fandom, and how strongly at the time I came down on the side of "this character is terrible! It is Teaching Bad Things!" but now, holy freck, after several years on Tumblr, seeing what the ad absurdum level of that argument is like, as well as various experiences with falling in love with the hated characters/ships in a canon, I am now very firmly settled on the "love what you love" end of the fandom spectrum. (I mean, I think I always kinda was anyway; it's just that it's become much more firmly entrenched due to seeing just how far it can go when you start judging other people's tastes as Bad and Wrong.)
But at the same time it's just so hard to accommodate the full range of what people want and need in a fandom. Another recent thing: a discussion with a fandom friend about one of her canons, which is a horror show that has been explicitly stated (by the creator) that they are not going to incorporate domestic violence into the various storylines. And we talked about how, on one hand, this is explicitly a selling point for some of the fandom! And that is entirely valid! (I mean, for the record, neither of us actually think this is a bad or wrong decision on the creator's part.) And yet it also shuts the show off from being able to deal with certain angles of horror, of emotional experience, and ... that's also valid, to want to explore those things?
This is the even farther end of Tumblr's ad-absurdum nature of arguing about things, where there are certain schools of thought out there that writing about things that are wrong IRL (from rape and underage, to racism and homophobia) means that you condone them, and even seeing those posts go by on my dash usually makes me hit the ceiling so hard despite the fact that I usually don't write about them anyway. XD But also, I personally know people in fandom who are legit triggered by the flip side of that: soft fluffy *ism-free worlds are what throws them into a negative headspace, and their experience is valid too!
... uh, okay, this has now wandered pretty far afield from your point, but I guess bringing it back around to the topic: I completely agree about keeping things positive as much as possible, and yet, fandom is wide and diverse, and some people need squeeful talk about the best parts of canon, and some people need to vent about the bad parts, and often those are the same people at different times, so ... how do we handle that?! I guess proper cut-tagging and clear labeling is really all you can do. (This isn't even negativity per se, but I try to consistently tag my Iron Fist posts and often cut-tag as much as I can, both here and on Tumblr, because I know there are people who follow me who really hate it on a borderline triggery level, and I want to make it easy for them to avoid it -- if they want to continue engaging with me; I also understand and am fine with people simply unfollowing/blocking me because of it, and that's valid too! But I'm not going to just not talk about it at all -- I kinda did do that for awhile and then I was like, self, this is ridiculous -- because it's my big fandom right now and if the mere existence of it in my space is an issue for people, they are going to have to leave/avoid me. Which I'm totally okay with; I understand that protecting yourself is the most important thing! So I try to walk the line between being super happy and delighted with my canon, which I am, and not really wanting to engage with the bad/problematic bits because that's just not how I do fandom, in general; but also recognizing that for other people, the bad bits are too overwhelming for them to want to be in the same room with the canon, and making sure they have the space to have that, too.)
Anyway ... I guess what it comes down to is that I think "Make squee not war" is a good life strategy and I am going to try to follow it more myself. :D
ETA: Bet you missed these comment-box-breaking comments of mine, huh. XDDD