#Toxic fandom

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[shouts-into-the-void]

You either die a fan of a series or live long enough to see yourself become completely exhausted by the fandom to the point of wanting to disengage with it entirely

[lily-s-world]

With this Manwhore AU going around, I made a joke about it on a YouTube video of Epic, just to have a guy come and try to explain me Greek Mythology.

Last week, I made a joke/comment in a post about WonderWoman, just to have some guy trying to explain to me who Wonder Woman is.

I'm not so glad to see how mansplaining is still a strong thing on fandoms. 😑

[wetsocksinbed]

genuinely hate how we are at a point where you can’t have a single criticism about a character without a good chunk of the fandom going for your throat. Especially when you actually like that character. The perfect example is Astarion from BG3. I absolutely love Astarion, he’s my favourite romance option, and I’ll defend him till the day I die.

However he is canonically an evil character. His alignment at the start of the game is Neutral Evil. He’s done terrible things, and was a terrible person even before Cazador met him. I am allowed to point that out while still loving him.

[waitmyturtles]

Clearing The Air On This Wack-Ass Event Of Toxic Fandom That My Brown Ass Was Recently Dragged Into

(*References and endnotes are posted in the comments.)

This past weekend, I was unwittingly brought into an event of toxic fandom instigated by @maybe-boys-do-love. The following is an account of that event, and a rebuttal to misrepresentations that he made in his posts.

1) Chronology of Events and Clarification of Communication, Connections, and Blocks

Late last week, @lurkingshan posted a thought piece about separating art and commerce in discussions of queer shows, and talked, in part, about Spare Me Your Mercy and the show's ratings popularity in Thailand as compared to its narrative shortcomings. The piece also talks about the artistic success, versus the public outcry, of the South Korean queer show, Love In The Big City. I, and a few others, reblogged the post with thought pieces of our own. (If you are interested in following along, reading the second link is a necessity.)

Tumblr user @maybe-boys-do-love subsequently posted, separately on his blog, a reaction post to Shan's post and my reblog of her post (1). His reaction contained misreads and dangerous misrepresentations of Shan's and my writing.

Shan and @maybe-boys-do-love had previously mutually blocked each other (2). Therefore, @maybe-boys-do-love went around the block to react to Shan's post.

He did not make clear to his audience that he was reacting to Shan's post. He wrote his reaction post without citing or linking to Shan's post, and did not tag me as well, thus removing both myself and Shan from a discourse that we had instigated, and prevented his audience from knowing or understanding his reference point for his reaction.

Mutuals reached out to me with @maybe-boys-do-love's piece, having previously read Shan's and my posts.

I DMed @maybe-boys-do-love to note to him that I had seen his post, and that I preferred to be tagged directly in discourse. I wrote that I would write today's post as a means of correcting the incorrect assumptions he made about my opinions. I also checked with @lurkingshan to make her aware of the post and ask if she wanted to be included in a response. Shan stated that she had already blocked @maybe-boys-do-love for previous instances where he indirectly vague-posted about her and misrepresented her writing, and that she had no interest in responding, but was fine with me doing so.

I then publicly reblogged @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post with a clarifying note, sharing the link to Shan's original post and my reblog of our original SMYM discourse. I noted publicly that his reaction post contained misreads and inaccuracies that I will be clarifying today.

@maybe-boys-do-love deleted my reblog. I do not see my original reblog of his reaction post in his reblog notes. Mutuals confirmed, from their blogs, that they also cannot see my original reblog of his reaction post.

I requested to him by DM that he reinstate my reblog. He did not. He reblogged my reblog from my own blog (sorry, y'all) with a response to me and a general defense of his original reaction post.

He denied in DMs that he had deleted my reblog. I stated that I didn't believe him, and requested for our DM conversation to end (3).

2) Toxic Fandom and Expectations of Personal Accountability in Public Forums

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of responding to @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post, I want to take a quick second to talk about toxic fandom and accountability, because it's been a topic bubbling up particularly in the world of the fandom of Asian, and specifically Thai, QLs. My public and private conversations with @maybe-boys-do-love about this reaction incident, prior to this post's publication, have been filled with a kind of noxious disingenuousness and deceit that has given me the damn creeps.

I've had tussles with other bloggers before about our disagreements of the art and economics of Asian QLs. The discourse has been almost always so much fun, often argumentative, sometimes gritty, sometimes passive aggressive, and sometimes parasocial involving the celebrities and creators of these shows.

I have always kept discourse respectful, and I pride myself with integrity on responding to any point that has been shot my way. I have been blocked for my takes, and I have encouraged others to block me if my takes are not to their liking, and they attack me for them. I encourage folks who don't like my takes to curate their Tumblr experiences, and take agency for what they agree with and want to read.

If I rant about someone's potential faves -- someone's fave shows or couples -- I put trigger warnings on those posts (here and here are two examples, and the most immediate link above also has a TW), knowing there's a lot of sensitivity out there over content. I trust the judgement of readers to read those trigger warnings and to skedaddle.

In other words, I take full responsibility and accountability for my writing, and I expect my readers to engage with me in good faith in return. I'm proud of the critical posts I've made over the last two and a half years here on Tumblr, especially my exploration of the history of the Thai BL genre through my Old GMMTV Challenge project.

I posted recently that the Asian QL scholar, Dr. Thomas Baudinette, believes that the number one threat to the growth of the Thai BL industry is toxic fandom and the prioritization of problematic markets.

It's funny that I posted that a few days before this incident happened. The specific elements of toxic behavior as demonstrated by @maybe-boys-do-love, as stated above, are that he

a) subverted blocks to read and respond to Shan's post without citing her, b) he did not clarify for his audience what he was reacting to, thus rendering untruthful his real intentions in writing his post, and c) his actual reaction post contained misreads and misinterpretations of Shan's and my analysis.

I'd like to name some elements of toxic behavior and fandom that occurred in the public communication I had with @maybe-boys-do-love to highlight them in order to emphasize the disrespectful nature of this incident.

In his reblog of my clarification post to his original reaction post, @maybe-boys-do-love writes,

"I also want to respect that not everyone wants to get involved in a back-and-forth on here."

Because of previous DMs, reblogs, tags, and comments on and of my work that @maybe-boys-do-love has made, I know that he is very familiar with my blog and my writing. We have previously communicated publicly and privately. I do not know why he would make an assumption that I would not have wanted to be tagged in his original reaction post, reacting inaccurately to points I made in my Spare Me Your Mercy post, considering that he and I have a public history of prior engagement. 

This assumption (remember the adage about assuming…) makes so little sense to me that I can only conclude he is coming from a stance of a disingenuous and untruthful defense.

More concerning, @maybe-boys-do-love follows with:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

Again, as @maybe-boys-do-love is familiar with my blog, I do not know why he would assume that my work is insular so as to not welcome different perspectives and discourse on my opinions -- as he and I had actually engaged, in the past, on our opinions of other content, and that there is overwhelming proof on my blog that I love engaging in discourse with others.

The statement that "there's not a single stance in the queer BL fandom" about my work is disingenuous, disrespectful, and toxic.

If it's not clear in the most obvious way -- and it may not be clear to some -- I am a personal blogger, posting my opinions and analysis, on a personal blog. My blog isn't Encyclopedia fucking Brittanica.

@maybe-boys-do-love indicates in his reblog that his mutuals helped him get around his and Shan's blocks. 

He also identifies as a "flaming gay guy" to characterize his position for his love of Spare Me Your Mercy, leading him to go around the blocks to comment on Shan's original post.

"Friends of mine shared the post with me knowing the love I, as a flaming gay guy, had for Spare Me Your Mercy."

I want to note that in the context of this characterization, I myself reached out to three gay male friends (one Asian friend, and two white friends married to each other). (There's nothing that IRL people love more than an Internet beef.) These three individuals range on the flaming spectrum, and assured me that @maybe-boys-do-love's position does not count as spoken monolithically for the gay male community (4).

Which leads me to my last point (for now) about toxic fandom. As iterated above: these Tumblr blogs we write on are personal blogs, homes to personal opinions, created by individuals.

The danger of trying to leverage group-think or group-speak to validate toxic opinions and toxic engagement with others is high within fandom discourse. I see it all the time on X in BL shipper circles. Maybe @maybe-boys-do-love's friends were too cowardly to write reaction posts of their own, and asked their friend to write one on their behalf. If that's the case, @maybe-boys-do-love can show us the receipts. But I'm guessing that didn't happen.

Within group and family therapy arenas, and human relations and business environments, counseling often focuses on "I-speak" -- the practice of using the "I" pronoun to claim accountability for facts, opinions, recounting of details, and so on. Using the "we" pronoun to justify a position -- without identifying who your "we" is -- weakens a stance, and at the same time, creates panic and fear within a group or community. It's a tactic often used in gaslighting or supremacist situations to generate collective fear over incorrect facts and threats.

This tactic is useless in a scenario like this, when there is ample published proof that @maybe-boys-do-love published a misrepresentative reaction post that did not link to the original source, deceiving his audience; he subsequently tried to monolithically speak for others, and to leverage and claim community to justify his doing so. It's wrong, it's disingenuous, and it's toxic.

I wouldn't want this guy speaking for me, and I hope readers of this post wouldn't want him to, either.

3) Responding to Misrepresented Points in MBDL's Reaction Post

Note: Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post reacted to points that @lurkingshan made about Spare Me Your Mercy and the Asian QL genre. I have consulted with Shan on my responses and she has approved them.

My entire rebuttal is long. An abridged version is below, and the entire rebuttal is linked here at this private link.

I want to start my response to misrepresented points in @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post by highlighting the most noxious misread he made. He writes,

"and just a friendly reminder that a simple BL romcom is equally as queer of a story as a story about HIV."

Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post seemed magically conjured out of his ass to assume or imply that certain points were made by @lurkingshan when they were most certainly not.

NOT ONCE IN @lurkingshan's POST WAS LOVE IN THE BIG CITY DESCRIBED AS A "STORY ABOUT HIV." IN FACT, HIV WAS NEVER MENTIONED AT ALL, BY ANYONE, IN THE ORIGINAL POST, OR ANY OF THE REBLOGS AND ADDITIONS.

That was a heinous and noxious misread and reduction of @lurkingshan's post, wholly inaccurate and misrepresentative of the tone and content of Shan's original writing, and more revealing about him and his perspectives about the shows, than anyone he was pretending to fight.

And nowhere in @lurkingshan's original post did she claim that a BL romcom was not as "equally as queer" as any other story.

I want to respond specifically to an analysis of capitalism and markets that I made in my reblog of Shan's post, that @maybe-boys-do-love then reacted to.

"just a reminder, if we wanna talk about capitalism, that the whole idea of a work being better or worse, queerer or less queer, more valuable or less valuable based on it’s reception in numbers (either higher or lower) is not something Marx and Engels would be into, since they ascribed to exchange value over use value. The labor put into the work is where it’s at—and all of these shows had plentiful hours of (queer) labor put into them! But not everyone who talks about the wrongs of capitalism on here is actually interested in the finer details of how capitalism operates, the full political and economic realities of the companies making these shows, nor the individuals who are forced to fight for change within capitalism’s global structure."

This was such a convoluted, random, and inaccurate reaction to my post that I had to send it to a family member who is an actual professional economist (again, remember, IRL people love internet beefs) (5). He assured me that Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels would NOT have wanted to get tangled up in this beef.

But, anyway. I'm not a communist, and when I speak about capitalism and the markets to which Asian QL content is marketed to, I'm not analyzing the quantity of labor put into these shows that needs to be exchanged on the various Asian markets in order for the shows to be made. That's a very specific sightline into production budgets that maybe tingles @maybe-boys-do-love's brain. I think he was just trying to sound smart.

I want to be clear that he reacted to nothing I wrote in my post. This was a made-up stream of something that only established how he watches and judges shows.

But because I used the word "capitalism" in my post to talk about how GMMTV and other studios are addressing queerness and queer perspectives in their shows, @maybe-boys-do-love found reason to take issue with my writing, and to assume an air of intellectualism to establish a false sense of superiority -- by posting drivel.

All responses can be found at this link.

4) Conclusion and a Public Request to Respect Boundaries

As I wrote above: I wrote this post to make a public record of rebuttal against misinterpretations made about my writing by @maybe-boys-do-love.

I will publicly request that @maybe-boys-do-love do not contact me again. Do not reblog, tag, or comment on my posts.

If I have to block @maybe-boys-do-love, I will. However, I want the ability to read any further reaction he might have to this rebuttal, especially if he continues to besmirch my writing inaccurately and disingenuously.

As he demonstrated that he could not respect Shan's boundaries prior to this incident, I will say publicly now:

RESPECT MY BOUNDARIES.

And I want to thank the many mutuals who reached out to me during this incident to offer your support, and to notify me that this public incident of misrepresentation was taking place.

[allaboutalf]

“We’re just having fun”, “No one can have fun anymore”, “It’s a joke”, “why are you taking things so seriously?” and it’s in response to people taking issue with toxic shippers hating on an actor for playing a LI they think stands in the way of their ship. Cropping him out of a bts photo or putting pie on his face. Saying he’s ‘there’, he’s ‘ugly’, he’s whatever negative thing you dream up. That’s not jokes, babes, that’s being a crappy person.

[karkatvantaslover420]

Guys, people are allowed to like Jimmy 😭 Do not act like we weren’t all simping over William Afton who literally MURDERED MULTIPLE CHILDREN and is responsible for the deaths of his own children, and then go and hate on other people who think Jimmy is a well written villain. I don’t like him for his actions, I like him cus he’s a well written villain and it’s silly to bully him, he’s like a little rat and I love him in that way-

I think it’s absolutely insane that we are like, criminalizing people for enjoying characters that are designed to be hated. Why are we allowed to love William Afton? What about the AM lovers? The sentient robot that killed / enslaved all of humanity?

“B-b-but it’s different!” It’s actually really not… 😭 All these characters are horrible individuals and are still loved by many, yet Jimbalya gets mass hate and people get harassed for liking him, how is that fair?

And technically, if Jimmy is a terrible person, and needs to be hated, so does Curly! He was an accomplice. Anya told him what happened, she confided in him, and he just said he’d “take care of it.” And did nothing, stood by and just let Jimmy keep doing all the horrible shit he did. “Oh, but C-C-Curly is hot…! And… h-he didn’t know..!! He had mental health issues!” So did Jimmy? But that doesn’t excuse him literally doing non consensual shit to Anya, and being mentally ill doesn’t excuse not standing up for your crew members AS A CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP, WHO IS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT HIS CREW. But apparently you people don’t know how to like, handle representation. 😭

“M-media literacy!” People who use this as a means to make harassing other people over a CHARACTER, clearly don’t fucking know what media literacy means. PLEASEEEE let me enjoy a character in peace.

Have a silly picture of “my baby” pregnant because of two other Jimmies. Have a good day.

[floralcavern]

Fuck toxic stans

[theflagscene]

What I hope people take away from ThamePo the most, isn’t ‘omg EstWilliam are so cute! UwU!’

But instead people see exactly what the show is trying to tell you, that being that kind of fan—you know the type—ruins these people’s lives.

Idols, actors, models, etc. They are all human beings, being in the spotlight is their job! They are allowed to live their lives, they are allowed to have wants and dreams, families and friends, lovers and exes. That is none of our business, firstly. And secondly, that has nothing to do with their job!

If you dislike one of your ‘faves’ because they are in a relationship with someone, then were they ever really your fave? News flash sweetheart, they’re never gonna date you! So let these people live their damn lives.

Get your head out of your ass, y’all were never special, they didn’t love you the way you thought they did, you and every other fan and fanclub are just one more in a sea of hundreds of thousands. Idols appreciate their fans, absolutely. But they’re also being controlled by their fans, which breeds disdain and annoyance. So if you really want your idols to think of you as a good part of their lives, then letting to have a life is the best way to go about it.

[petewentzsvaginabones]

you realize that mcr vintage vinyl was posted 8 years ago right? and that everyone and their mother has seen that video? please dont act like you've found a holy grail of mcr content. children shouldnt be on tumblr let alone in a fandom space full of actual adults who know everything there is to know. nobody wants some middle school weirdo in their space going off about old content. keep your thoughts to yourself next time lmao

someone woke up and decided to be unpleasant today damn.

Who the hell crowned you “king millennial”? I’m just some fuckin high schooler trying to enjoy content. I know for a fact that there are some newer mcr fans in the community who haven’t seen that show before. I don’t give a shit if you were there from the beginning we were all new at some point. We don’t all start out as some rock elitist with godly knowledge of everything our favorite bands have ever done. Most of us were (and still are) some nerdy ass people who enjoy music and so did my chemical romance. that’s probably a huge reason a lot of us like them so much.

i’m sorry that you feel the need to start beef with some 14 year old because you’re still just as insecure as you were at my age. It sucks that so many music communities love to gatekeep and hate on younger fans just because that’s how the scene was when they were coming into it.

i genuinely hope you can grow as a person.

[unhinged-as-hell]

Rant about melvik antis because this is actually bothering tf out of me.

I'm happy melvik is getting more traction, but at the same time I'm not yknow? I loveeeeee everything about melvik, the dynamic they could have, the parallels they do have, and even that it's a rarepair. But now people are going to go out of their way to hate it and the shippers, and put the ship in a box where everything is black and white when it's clear everything in the show is anything but. I don't understand when people act like a ship personally offends them.

The entire point of a rarepair is that the characters just interacting is rare. That's why people like exploring them, because they wanna know how they could've have been. "In canon" this "But in canon-" that. We know we don't have anything in canon about them, that's half of the reason why we like them. Also I have it very strange when people think they didn't interact at all in the 7-8 years they knew each other before season 1.

I don't want it to be canon, I'm happy with Meljay being canon, or even Jayvik(since I love them both too), I just want to be able to have something to myself without people making it seem like it's a terrible thing, and that all melvik shippers ruin both of their characters while me(and other melvik fans I know) love them mostly because of how their characters are. I love their canon character development, erasing it would be the worst thing I can think of.

One of the reasons why I jumped on the melvik train was because it was further away from how toxic this fandom is with ships.

That's all.

[hellaversity]

Reminder that ch*footsteps is responsible for the Hazbin Hotel leaks. Not only has he tried to doxx Viv's siblings over Blitzker, he illegally tried to release fake footage of Hazbin Hotel season 2 without any permission from Vivizepop or SpindleHorse. Again, over a fictional ship between fictional characters. He became a hate-watcher and has been bashing Viv ever since Western Energy came out and got pissed that his fantasies of Striker "saving" Blitzø from his made up, fanon version of Stolas didn't become true. He has written several fanfics involving NTR and beastiality. The worst part is that he has many followers who support him and try to justify his actions. He started a whole cult and committed actual felonies over a damn ship. This man is a criminal and if posts on Twitter saying he's been thrown in jail because of the Hazbin leaks are telling the truth, god fucking bless because Ch*i is finally getting exactly what he deserves.

[shyjusticewarrior]

(Some) Dickkory shippers are obsessed with Dickbabs.

On Tiktok there's one of those "bro you can't come on my fucking date" videos with kid Jason, Dick, and Kory. The comments are filled with people saying how much they'd hate if Barbara was used.

How'd you make this video about your ship about another ship? Why'd you do that?

[kleptozoology]

Listen I am really happy that the United Healthcare CEO got shot, but yall are saying some CONCERNING shit about his suspected killer. First of all, you are innocent until proven guilty, so stop calling Luigi Mangione the assassin when he literally hasnt even had his trial yet. Secondly, yall treating him like a saint, a martyr, and the Second Coming of Christ (literally wtf, I've seen the art yall make) is fucking creepy. Seeing people compare him to art of the arrest of Jesus and making votive candles of him dressed as a saint? Fucking weird. That is not a normal thing to do no matter how much I hate UHC (I'm a disabled American who has had them deny my treatments repeatedly). Yall need to put some ice on your murder boners. I was pretty excited about this at first too, but yall have taken this to a crazy extreme. You've made a fandom. You've made a fandom that is bordering uncomfortably close to a cult. I think yall need a few deep breaths, a glass of water, and a fuckin wake up call. This did not hurt UHC in any measurable way. They replaced the CEO immediately as if they were cycling the laundry and the money machine kept churning. Hell, their stock actually increased in value immediately following the assassination.

My treatments still arent fully covered and my insurance keeps shifting me onto less effective medication because they dont want to pay for me to actually get well. Nothing has changed. This was a deeply satisfying moment of national catharsis, but the moment has passed and yall are making it weird.

[emmy-hunterson-schofield]

all I’m seeing and hearing on this tag today is static and white noise. Everyone whining and crying about him being at the biggest night of Hollywood (which can burn to the ground in those fires) 🔥 and he’s got a movie coming out to promote in a month and people complaining about not having their precious meet and greet with him at a Con. Blame his team, not him. Not even gonna touch the DC thing as whatever she’s done, when/if he dates someone else after her, you’ll dig up whatever dirt she’s got in the past to justify why she’s not good enough for him and on the cycle goes of toxic and immature behavior of entitled fans acting like brats. Be grateful you have jobs and working limbs and a roof over your head… I hate everyone right now. 😴

[allaboutalf]

So yet another Top Gun and TGM sereshaw/hangster fan artist has had buddie shippers commenting on their art trying to claim their art is buddie and not what it actually is.

And doubling down when the artist calls them out to say they have no right to be upset and that people can interact with their art however they want…

It’s just bloody rude and disrespectful. And so entitled and selfish.

And again it doesn’t look like buddie. It looks like Jake and Bradley. It looks like Glen and Miles. Who don’t look like Oliver and RG.

RG has had a moustache for a few weeks only and Eddie hasn’t even appeared in an episode with it yet. Whereas it’s iconic to Rooster (and Goose before him). Stop trying to overtake another fandom because of a recent development in yours. And again, the actors don’t even look alike anyway and the artists capture Hangman and Rooster really well.

It speaks so much about how certain shippers in the 9-1-1 fandom see their interpretation and fandom experience as more important and more centered than everyone else. That everything else is irrelevant except for their opinions. That they think they can just speak over others because they’re louder. And they don’t get how bad that makes the rest of the fandom look.

Just stop it! Stop it. It’s incredibly infuriating to see and can be exceptionally disheartening for fan artists to deal with.

Once again apologising on behalf of 9-1-1 fandom and giving my support on behalf of TGM fandom.

And if anyone can point me in the direction of that artist on here (it’s the Olympics AU art), I’d appreciate it as I’d love to reblog.