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on negativity in fandom
I was writing this whole long rambling post about responsibility, and apologizing for and trying to minimize accidental harm, but then it changed tangents and I think what I most want to say is this:
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a 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. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.
This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.
I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.
Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.
There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)
And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?
Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.
To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.
For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a 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. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.
I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.
tl;dr: make squee, not war?
ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.
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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
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Fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended.
It's so fascinating to me how true this is! Criticism of shows and characters, especially the dismissive 'well this just SUCKS' kind, is really hard to handle - it's personal, in a weird sort of way, like someone talking about your family or your pet or your hometown. It feels like a slap in the face even though I understand that 99.9% of the time, it really isn't intended that way - it's just someone expressing their opinions! But it ends up feeling like criticism of you.
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(This isn't to say that some people don't genuinely like or hate things in fandom for those reasons; but I think the reasons are more commonly just good old-fashioned Fanning...)
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And also, yeah...SGA and the Keller situation was definitely one of the main things I was thinking about, because that got...tense. And some of it was satisfying but a lot wasn't, and if I could do it again...I don't think my opinion of the canon itself would change much, tbh; but hopefully the way I handled myself in the fandom would. It wasn't just me that soured that fandom, but I definitely didn't help, so.
Really I think cases of dealing with canon get difficult because for a lot of us, being critical of canon, or parts of canon, is crucial to how we fan -- I mentioned it in comment to Sheron above, but I've had fandoms that I hated the canon, and in fact the only reason I could stay in the fandom was by rejecting the canon, by viewing it as basically OOC nonsense.
Also with some canons, yeah, there is a level of bitterness that happens, when you get disillusioned with a show, that there is this impulse to drag others down too. It's weirdly painful to see people enjoying something you used to enjoy too but don't anymore?
Not to mention, as I've talked about before, I actually can really enjoy critical and negative takes on shows, especially the trainwreck pleasure of a show I'm not actually into (I enjoyed the downfall of GoT, I won't lie!) And you were reading my SPN rants. And that's a form of fanning too, and not one I want to give up!
But such negativity can at the same time ruin a fandom for some fans. And so I think it is important to keep it limited such that people who don't want to see it don't have to. Basically, to treat it like we treat other "problematic" content -- put it behind cuts, warn for it. Acknowledge that it can have a negative impact on other fans, and take care with it.
Though there are some platforms that make it easier than others, and Discord especially sounds like it's a nightmare as far as this goes, because there is no way to control the experience...and I don't know what to do about that, because yeah, there isn't one way to fan. But staying aware that what you say can spoil another fan's experience, even if you aren't intending that at all, I think that's important to remember. It shouldn't paralyze you or stop you from talking or expressing yourself, but it's something to keep in mind, too.
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Watching other people's fandoms self-destruct can be really fun to rubberneck on, I cannot lie. >_> But there often reaches a point when it's just not fun anymore -- I definitely hit that with The Magicians, where I was having a lot of fun watching people alternately squee and scream in frustration about their show, and then it trainwrecked so hard that everyone was really sad and I felt too bad for them to go on enjoying the reactions.
I think cases of dealing with canon get difficult because for a lot of us, being critical of canon, or parts of canon, is crucial to how we fan.
Yes, that too! I think we've also talked about this before, that for some people (and sometimes the same people for some canons but not others), the negativity and/or dissection of canon is a crucial part of the fanning process. I mean, even the distinction between loving dissection and negative dissection is often in the eye of the beholder! I really love squeeful analysis of my shows, but there are plenty of times when reading other people's analysis goes into a place that's too negative for me -- but I can recognize that they're having fun, and they still like the show, it's just that they either have a harsher discussion style than I prefer, or they hated some of the things I really liked.
But it can be incredibly cathartic when you hated something to go online and find out that other people hated it too. Especially that betrayed kind of hate when a canon does you wrong. Finding like-minded people to vent to, or just reading their hate posts, feels so good ...
... at least for awhile. I find that for me, at least, that kind of nega-fanning loses its charm very quickly, and it starts to feel like it's keeping me in the same unhappy/betrayed headspace without being able to move on. YMMV.
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The thing is, I was into SPN and I read *deeply* critical essays about where the show was going, what the characterizations were supposed to be or weren't supposed to be etc. This was literally wall to wall critique of some sort of stuff. And I was there for it, despite loving canon unreservedly at the time because...well, I came for what I got.
What bothers me is always the critique I didn't opt into. Where I'm not in the frame of mind to properly evaluate it but it's there it's in my face (I keep bringing up marvel so you know what I'm talking about) and I need to kind of be mentally into the thing. In the same way as rubbernecking at other fandom's drama can be interesting to you only when you're in a certain particular frame of mind, this is true for me for critique.
Anyway we've talked a bunch about this, I just wanted to state my feelings for the record -- no worries about replying ♥
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Especially when it comes to talking about canons, I think it's mostly just important to try to tag/mark for negativity/squee-harshing/what-have-you, so that people can opt out when they want to, but others can opt in.
Though how to handle that in places like Discord that don't have that kind of control...I have no idea? It seems like it would be really hard to create a positive-only channel, especially when fans have different ideas of what positive or negative even mean (like, I grew up on Adam West's Batman, I find cheesy special f/x hilarious and endearing more often than not, but for other people that breaks their immersion and they don't want to be reminded...?)