#I’ve seen so many tiktoks talking about how they’re embarrassed to read fanfiction and like

[youling-the-ghost]

I don’t know if this is a hot take or a barely lukewarm take but I’ll say it: the trend of hating on cringe culture is ruining fandoms.

A but part of fandom culture is not giving a shit what other people think. Go wild with ships, write odd fanfiction, roleplay with other fans, make elaborate cosplays. The “cringe” part of fandoms is what makes it so fun. It’s a break from the suffocating rules that you have to conform to. But now people are being so self-conscious online that they’re too scared to even ship non-canon ships, and I absolutely blame the push against cringe culture for this. I’ve seen people attack someone on tiktok who shipped tododeku. Not even something toxic or illegal, fucking **tododeku**. This new fandom culture is taking what made the original fandom culture so enticing, and defenestrating it with the force of a thousand elephants stomping on the ground. It’s actually so sad to see fandoms slowly lose the creativity and imagination that it once has.

To new fandom members: do whatever the hell you want. You ship two characters who have never met in canon? Great! You want to write fanfiction about them? Awesome! Fandoms are supposed to be cringe, so don’t think too much about what others might think.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

tiktok kids confuse me so much. Ive seen multiple people show how their inappropriate messages (which they found funny) got them blocked by brian within one day. That tiktok you just got sent? The op said they had to make another account because he already blocked them. and these are the same people who are adamantly against RPF, like they wholeheartedly shame people who write and or read slash fanfiction about the band pairings saying it’s “weird and creepy” (theyre also against serious shipping which… is nice but then theyre so radical that they view all fanfiction about the band as just pure evil sooo 🤔🤔🤔) yet they’re the same group of people who pull this kind of shit??? the fact that brian blocks them quick suggests to me that he more often than not checks his dms frequently and i just feel so bad that he has to receive these immature tasteless messages from his own fans (ahem also theyre v young like tween age and that’s just concerning)

I have no idea if I have any teenagers following me, but in case I do, let me reassure you that absolutely none of you are cool or funny for being assholes to senior citizens you don't know on social media. You're extremely embarrassing.

Now that I got that out of the way lol, honestly? I full-heartedly agree with you. It's incredible what some people will consider creepy and invasive, and then they'll turn around and celebrate, like, actually harmful human behavior lol. It's fucking trollish to make multiple accounts to send inappropriate messages to celebrities because you keep getting blocked, but fanfiction is the ultimate no-no? That's hypocrisy.

Listen, real person fanfiction is a complicated topic and I understand why people are uncomfortable with it. With that said, no one is ever going to convince me that someone writing their maylor porn on AO3, a website explicitly for fanfiction where you'd have to know what you're getting into to stumble upon it, is worse than someone actively harassing a celebrity. I think these people have absolutely no leg to stand on regarding rpf if they're bragging about being assholes in Brian. I said it before, perhaps, but I was proven wrong in my assumptions about rpf writers when I actually began to talk to more people on tumblr; I realized that they, by and large, have a much firmer grasp of reality and healthier relationship with the band than insta stans insisting Brian hates Freddie because Adam wore a crown on stage, or the ones being weirdos in his DMs. I haven't personally talked to anyone who thinks that any of the band members actually fucked, but I've seen many people earnestly believing conspiracy theories about the band or thinking this ^ trolling is okay.

It does suck for Brian. I know he's been in the business a long time, but we know how much fan interaction means to him, and it's probably upsetting to receive messages like that after awhile.