#fandom spaces. like have you considered your internet echo chamber is just an echo chamber and that this is not a wide scale

[mossy-aro]

starting to get mildly annoyed at all these posts i keep seeing that are like no FUCK friendship you couldn’t pay me to write a gen fic🥱 i want them to french!!!! like fair and valid but theres something about the tone of it all. hm

[yuzuyoon]

I think a lot of these assumptions come from echo chambers by the way. Jimin, if anything, has gained a solo fandom, a very devoted one at that. A lot of them left Twitter because that place is insufferable some days. But his fandom has grown and they are organised as hell. Armies that didn’t support him during face are the same ones who has never wanted to support him any way, he hasn’t lost anything. You can have a double or triple bias but you will always prefer one over the other and if Jimin’s success hurt you because he outsold your fav, then you weren’t as fond of him any way. ARMY has supported Jimin music because it’s good music not because it’s Jimin’s. They could use it for bragging purposes. It stood out the most. ARMY are currently occupied cleaning out the Yoongi mess they have been consistently at it since two weeks. JM gets hit hate tweets because to most kpop fans he’s the representative of BTS, and he’s the one who introduced the band to them. All kpoppies jump on the wagon, but it’s the same circle jerk. And also once you go out, you will see “ratio” is a thing that exists in the stan world and literally nowhere else. I have two accounts - one for Jimin and one for my western and indie artists and I promise you every relevant artist gets lashings on Twitter. And Jimin is relevant. I also saw a GC being infiltrated by a bunch of kpoppies and all they did was say the most vile things about JK. The chat was outed, not a single account got suspended. The anti SUGA tweets are still there. But does any of it mean anything in real life? The answer is no.

people on twitter love to hate because it gets them attention and it's the only attention they're getting in the kpop world. these companies and idols literally do not care that you think their song is a "flop."

people hate because they can. they hate because they're hiding behind the safety of the internet where nothing can hurt them other than some words (which comes back to bite some of them when they end up getting sued)

jimin's fanbase is honestly one of the better ones i've seen throughout kpop fandom spaces. no matter what these "unproblematic" kpop fandoms say, there no such thing as a perfect fandom. there are always going to be toxic people in them. jimin's fanbase doesn't really have time to be toxic or to focus on the toxic ppl in our fandom because we're too busy organizing ourselves to do better. and honestly, it just proves that being off of twitter is better for fandoms considering jimin's following is huge compared to his twt fandom. we can be more focused on streaming and getting achievements rather than defending him pointlessly against people that are just going to hate because it gets them views and likes

[anamatics]

Your opinion on old fandom forums vs, fandom today?

I didn't answer this one last night as I wanted to be able to type out a proper response, and one that's partly adapted from an essay I wrote back in 2016.

As a fandom old, I’ve spent a long time in fandom spaces. I did my time with writing slash and het ships, but I always loved writing stories for me about people like me. I have witnessed first-hand the rise and fall of listservs and live journal as places where people who liked femslash gathered to discuss their favorite shows. I know a lot of fandom history. When I comment on the events in fandom, it still comes from my position as a fan, not as a creative. I want to preface all of these thoughts with this.

Fandom used to be something that you didn't talk about. It was secret, never mentioned in public, zines and stories mailed back and forth across the country. The internet changed that, people's attitudes toward things like queer and trans identity changed that, people's want to see diversity on their screens changed that. Yet, at the same time, there is a whole new generation of young queer creatives emerging onto the writing scene who have grown up witnessing the rise and fall of these great, monolithic fandoms that exist beyond the space of shows themselves. More and more, networks, writers, and producers are paying attention to what the fandom says and to what they react to.

This is why I don't really like fandom these days, because I've seen both sides. I struggled with this working on Carmilla as someone who had been, and in may ways still was, a fan. I know fans have power, I've done things because I know fans have power. And yet, I felt like I'd lost my place in a community - in old fandom - because of this realization. And I myself asking questions about my place in new fandom. Questions that, most of the time, had no answers.

Is it valid to be both grateful for the acknowledgement of fan desires within the creative side of television and web writing and a little horrified by the amount of entitlement that any capitulation by those productions seems to engender within fans? Am I valid in feeling trapped by this feeling of wanting to be the best possible arbiter of representation and knowing that I can never be perfect because the perfection demanded by the queer community isn’t achievable? Does my voice even matter in fandom circles anymore because I’ve “crossed over” to the other side? Am I allowed to continue to speak critically about representation in shows that are not my own because I haven’t “fixed mine yet”?

I struggled with this when Carmilla was airing. I still struggle with it now, too, because I see how trolls on Twitter and Tumblr have reacted to folks like me speaking out about problems we see in our communities or within fandom. People like me aren’t allowed to criticize fandom, or fandom culture, because we’re no longer seen as truly a part of it: by being creators who can’t always live up to fandom’s sometimes unreasonable standards, we’re now considered just part of the problem. We can’t critique behaviors and call things out within this fandom community that should also represent us because when we do we’re hurting the fandom community.

Every queer creative out there has shouldered some of this hurt, I know I have. I stand by what I’ve said despite the backlash. If you cannot believe in the truth you speak, what good are you to a community looking to you for change?

Those who speak to the internal problems of fandom culture are shouted down. People with years of fandom experience, who are far more knowledgeable of the history of fandom (and especially the femslash corners of it) and presence in media than the present-day narrative setters, are shouted down and told that we are part of the problem. Creatives who speak out and criticize other works are treated equally poorly. The problem is that in refusing to look at the problems within our fandom spaces, and saying that everyone outside the group is to blame for the problems of poor representation, we are sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to look at what’s wrong with us. We eat our own.

The queer community – and by extension the queer fandom community – functions like an ouroboros as far as I can tell. That’s the snake from Norse mythology that eats its tail, representing infinity but also representing the inevitable crush of our own bullshit as it comes down around us with the hopes of becoming a better community. There should be a place within this community for everyone, and yet it’s this same space that is preoccupied with gatekeeping characterized by constant infighting, identity policing, and silencing or invalidating opinions that don’t perfectly align with this vision of what is considered acceptable in the eyes of the thinking of the day.

Queerness is messy. There’s a lot of nuance to it. And there will always be people who want their own community within that umbrella of queerness. That’s a valid want. You want to be around people who are homogenous, because it’s when variety is introduced that feelings get hurt. But the existence of a community for marginalized people should not come at the detriment and degradation of other vulnerable people, nor should it come at the expanse of dismissing intersectionality within our community.

But instead, we eat our own. We dismiss trans headcanons like people in old fandom used to dismiss queer headcanons. We're doing the same bullshit, just rinsed and repeated, directed at a new set of people whose voices are smaller than the small specks of power new fandom has granted (cis, white) queer people.

We fight ourselves amongst because we feel as though we cannot fight the forces of our own oppression. We censor ourselves to make sure that we don’t say anything to upend the proverbial apple cart. We do this not because we’re afraid of the problematic elements outside of the community that could come into our community, but rather because we’re afraid of those within our own community who have the power to kick us out from under our own umbrella and back into the rain.

So when I think about fandom these days, I imagine this moment of losing community. I imagine the hurtful message sent, the dismissive post on the forum, the hateful tweet, actions that cost nothing when they are directed at creators, fan writers, fan artists. These people exist to create content that is to be consumed. They aren't human. They aren't even real. They're just the producers of content that fandom sucks up like a vacuum cleaner without bothering to engage with the creators except to demand more or demand better. Nothing makes you feel alienated from your community like realizing you only exist to produce for it and when you don't produce to standards, you are attacked.

What's worse is that a lot of folks in fandom don't even think about this these days. There's no risk in blasting off a message or a tweet. But social media is an echo chamber. It’s a hive mind, and it’s a place where people can get hurt, very badly, and very quickly. Social media should not be used as a weapon to badger the people trying to get into positions where they can create change, which is what I feel new fandom has done. But at the same time, new fandom has also become a space where voices can be uplifted, where people can be seen and heard who maybe weren't before.

So TL;DR, I think social media ruined fandom, I have a lot of baggage/trauma from working on a show as fandom was transitioning from old fandom to new fandom, and like... we have to be better to each other.

[captainfightingflower]

Whenever you’re in a fandom of any kind, please remember:

There is multiple right ways you can interpret something and being wrong doesn’t make you stupid and/or crazy.

The internet is horrible and your personal safe space is a myth, you will find something that upsets you and you have to accept that risk because fandom is communal and not a single house.

Porn exists, it will always exist, and unless law states that the way it’s presented is illegal and if it’s tagged well; it has the right to exist, the ice cream shop doesn’t just sell vanilla, fantasies aren’t subconscious wishes, dead doves aren’t a gateway drug and nobody is forcing you to eat dead dove flavored ice cream.

Nobody is anybody’s babysitter, if your child can’t read or doesn’t understand what they should and shouldn’t click on yet; they are not ready for the internet.

Problematic fiction is subjective, if you don’t like axes then don’t police the lumberyard, you are not ms/mr/mx morally right and your discomfort isn’t the universal guidebook.

Maybe and the morally grey are real things, yes or no and black or white are rarely if ever the case unless the law states otherwise and your emotions will never change that.

Do not let fiction become your reality, you have agency so take it if you must, stop eating the cake if the cake is making you sick.

Fandoms have long gone toxic: spaces have long become echo chambers and disagreements have long become life or death. You cannot damage control the entirety of fandoms but you can control your damage. Be kind online and other may eventually follow. 

List is a foreshortening of “Why Fandoms Are So Toxic” by The Sin Squad. Consider watching if you have the time.

[theawkwardvirgin]

So terms that are commonly used in this conversation are pro-shipper and anti-shipper, so I’m going to use them for ease. (NOTE: These terms are not really helpful other than broad categorizations, and are often used as a way of a person on one side of the divide attacking someone on the other.)

Pro-shippers don’t care what people ship, regardless of how problematic that ship may be. They may or may not ship problematic ships personally. Some pro-shippers may even find problematic ships distasteful, but they don’t try to dictate what other people can enjoy. They believe that what you enjoy in fiction is just that: fiction, and does not necessarily reflect your real-life beliefs. Essentially, they say “I might not like what you like, but that’s fine and it’s not my business.”

Anti-shippers care a lot about what other people ship and believe that only non-problematic ships should be allowed. This goes beyond personal preference and extends to what other people do/read/write. Anti-shippers are more likely to harass people for their ship preferences because they believe pro-shippers are morally wrong and bad people for liking or ignoring problematic ships. They believe that if you enjoy something problematic in fiction, it says something about you as a person. Essentially, they say “If you like reading/writing about this unhealthy/problematic/morally wrong relationship, you’re a bad person.”

More info under the cut, but TL;DR: a lot of anti-shippers are young people who are used to their online experience being curated for them, so they don’t take responsibility for their own fandom experiences. This desire for censorship is understandable but extremely dangerous for fandom spaces, as the line for what is “problematic” moves depending on the individual, and often results in queer creators/works being targeted and entire communities collapsing.

A lot of young people are anti-shippers, probably because of how the internet is being increasingly sanitized: These young individuals are used to everything they see being curated and censored for them, usually under the claim that “the children must be protected”. As a result, they’re not used to managing their own online experiences and don’t realize it’s their responsibility. When they enter fandom spaces, they’re often shocked and horrified to find problematic shipping content online. They lash out about this, and the young group becomes an echo chamber, reinforcing each other’s beliefs. If any of them do change their mind, they’re too scared to bring it up for fear of being attacked.

I understand the shock and the desire to have only morally good content available. When I first joined fandom 4 years ago, I was an anti-shipper. However, it’s important to understand the context that fandom exists in: Fandom is precariously balanced in society. It’s created and maintained by fans for free and for fun, entirely dependent on what the fanbase enjoys. And as soon as people start trying to put outside restrictions on that space, that balance is lost.

Throughout fandom’s history, there have been attempts to purify it and only allow morally good content. Every time this happens, the community doing the purifying ends up collapsing. Most recently, it happened to fanfiction.net, which used to be one of the biggest fanfiction websites around and is now a ghost town.

The problem is, the censorship process is a slippery slope: What is considered problematic depends entirely on the individual. You might consider age-gap relationships to be problematic, and get rid of those, the next person in charge might think that all queer relationships are problematic and ban those next.

Ultimately, the only way to protect fandom is the way AO3 is doing it: They act as an archive, collecting all kinds of content with no restrictions on “problematic” content. And they have an excellent filtering system so you can manage your own experience and make sure you only see what you’re comfortable with.

Hope this helped!

why are people upset about you saying people can ship whatever they want

Someone who can explain this better then me pls help!!!

[mentaldisordercartooncharac-blog]

The trickiest thing about tumblr is its level of anonymity, and the ability it gives a person to not be entirely truthful about who they are. You can be whoever you want to be! Nobody will know. You can roleplay anyone and no one can question you. In most cases, this is a good thing. Protecting one’s privacy is important, especially online. But in a lot of cases, it creates awkward situations where you might need to question the legitimacy of someone’s claim because they’re dropping red flags that they’re lying just to have an excuse to be abusive and avoid criticism, but in doing so you risk being labeled -phobic or -ist or a horrible person in general for daring to invalidate someone’s experience or abuse.

so when I see someone throwing a tantrum all over ship tags and equating shippers with pedophiles, while blatantly misusing that word in the same sentence as claiming to be CSA survivors themselves, that really makes me doubt that they’re being entirely truthful about their trauma, and that they’re likely just making up some story out of the mistaken assumption it will add some legitimacy to their false accusations. If you were really a victim of child sexual abuse, you wouldn’t belittle it so candidly just for a cheap attempt at policing strangers on the internet, you wouldn’t exploit it as a manipulation tactic, and you’d have a little more respect for the term (and actual survivors of it) and use it appropriately.

that goes for the transtrender thing too. Believe it or not, I dislike transphobes and terfs as much as the next guy, but when it seems like being a trans guy is the new iteration of last decade’s empty boast of “not like other girls”, and then seeing so many teenagers on here who have clearly never experienced dysphoria in their lives and are solely using that identity as a means to shit on girls for shipping the wrong ship and backing up their reasoning with “well AS A GAY MAN~~ I’M TELLING YOU HOW STUPID YOU ARE BECAUSE I’M TOTALLY A GAY MAN THEREFORE I’M THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY ON GAY MEN,” you’ll see why I’m so doubtful of a lot of people about who they claim to be. I doubt actual trans men would dedicate such a large portion of their leisure time to yelling at strangers on the internet over inane trivia, because I’m assuming they’d have bigger fish to fry, and actual real life problems to worry about. And probably also a considerable level of empathy on the subject of bullying and harassment, so…needless to say, that sort of behavior would likely be, erm…beneath them. Also, maybe let’s not appropriate that identity, because I imagine it’s demeaning to actual trans guys and the shit they’ve had to go through when all you’ve done is tapped off a hasty afterthought of pronouns in your bio and then assume to speak for them.

There’s also the implication it carries that it’s apparently a lot more beneficial on this site to be othergendered than it is to be female, that we’re still stuck in this shitty online culture where being female is still considered unfashionable and the Absolute Worst Possible Thing a person can be and that claiming to be anything but female is ideal, but that’s a conversation for another time. It’s just, illuminating, I suppose. 

Don’t think I don’t feel bad for pointing this out. I really don’t intend to invalidate anyone’s identity or past abuse, but when it seems like most of you are simply using those labels as weapons for the lone purpose of being huge steaming shitbags to people in fan spaces, you’ll understand why I can’t really take anyone seriously, and why my knee-jerk reaction on this site is to immediately disbelieve that anyone is really who they say they are and not just catfishing for catfishing’s sake. It’s a red flag that goes up whenever someone makes claims as to their identity or education or general worldly experience, when everything about their personality and claims suggest otherwise. Like CSA survivors misusing the word pedophilia, presumed law students making serious accusations of federal crimes with absolutely no evidence to corroborate it, trans people whose only motivation to be on this site is bullying and harassment. 

Pardon if I’m way off base here, I don’t mean to assume what might be considered “normal” behavior for any of these groups of people, but these traits seem a little out of character for those identities, so you’ll forgive me for my skepticism. I think a lot of people here are exaggerating a little about who they say they are. I know it must have been unpleasant, but accidentally stumbling across your parents’ porn stash doesn’t make you a CSA survivor. Occasionally attending a paralegal night class at your local community college for burnouts and recent divorcees doesn’t make you a law student. If you really want to make a convincing case for any of these things that you kids are impersonating, you need to start…well, playing the part a little more convincingly. You’re too obvious in your lie. 

So just a little litmus test the next time you find yourself arrogantly opening any rebuttal with “As a _______, I’m telling you with unassailable authority that you’re wrong/immoral/harmful for liking this thing”, perhaps delete that and try again with something a little more substantial. Because for any of you that haven’t yet made it to sophomore-level debate class, that is a fallacy called “Appeal to Authority,” and it fails from the start because it assumes an individual’s dubious claim on an identity/experience gives them justification to speak for all people in that group. 

This is flawed because it doesn’t rule out the imperfections of personal bias or intersectionality. Instead of using your identity to condescendingly explain why you’re right, try using factual evidence or actual statistics from reliable sources and studies rather than anecdotal evidence. We’re in a post-truth world now (in case any of you haven’t peeked out from under the tumblr-echo-chamber-induced rock you all obviously like to hide under and haven’t noticed), and you’d do best to not contribute to it if you want anyone to take you even remotely seriously when you claim to represent the rights of all those innocents and Others that make up the downtrodden minority of society. Just remember, anecdotal evidence cannot be proven, and it’s useless because literally anyone can just make up some bullshit and apply it to a situation to make themselves look right. 

You know who else does this? Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his lackeys. This little missive is directed mostly at fandom antis, but this can apply to anyone on here who claims to be of any left-leaning persuasion: maybe don’t do that, because you start looking like the very people you claim to oppose, and it weakens every argument you’ll ever make. And I have faith in all of you, that you’re better than that. That you’re smarter than that. Even if your anecdotal evidence is true, it’s inadmissible because it can’t be proven. And it shouldn’t be, for that matter, because you don’t owe that to anyone. All it’s going to do is result in some asshole at some point coming out with their own anecdotal data that’s made up or highly embellished for the sole purpose of belittling yours, and then you’re at an impasse because A) you just spilled your most painful, humiliating memories in vain and B) you either have to acknowledge both accounts or acknowledge neither, and everybody loses. You’ve achieved nothing.

So we’re not here to play oppression olympics or win edgiest blogger award. There’s this really gross thing about tumblr where people are pressured into exposing their traumatic histories and deeply personal information in order to validate enjoyment of their fucking hobbies, and in turn it inspires the children harassing them to “beat the score” or whatever, and that’s when you have them firing back with really dubious accounts of their own, more seriouser trauma that makes them totally righter than you!!! (and is in actuality just a regurgitation of a Law & Order episode they saw once, and very obviously never fucking happened). Fake Tumblr Stories are everywhere, we all know this, we’ve all encountered plenty, but you’re not allowed to question the veracity of any of them or you risk being labeled an abuse apologist or victim blamer or something.

That’s fucking psychotic. Someone shouldn’t have to bleed their darkest moments to some snot-nosed 16 year old brat just to keep from being harassed or falsely reported as a pedophile, and some asshole who arrogantly self-identifies as the fucking moral police shouldn’t be so obsessed with getting the last word on trivial nonsense that they feel obligated to play this woker-than-thou pissing contest with people who have experienced *actual* trauma. I mean, do you kids not see how completely unhinged this behavior is? You children need to be fucking sedated. You’re goddamn nuts. I fear for the day we have to rely on you assholes in the job market, because you’re just gunna fuck everything up. You’ll always be failures. You’ll make a trainwreck of everything.

For lack of a better word,

Yikes. 

Anyway, the point is just a reminder that your identity shouldn’t be relevant when you’re trying to prove a logical point or have any of your arguments taken seriously, if you really are right or justified in your stance. If your argument has any basis in sustainable fact, then your gender/orientation/mental illness/personal history will have no impact whatsoever. So lying about them really isn’t worth it and gains nothing. Just be yourself! I know at the tender ages of ~14-20 you’re desperate to be recognized for how unique you are and you’re struggling to be celebrated as a special individual when you’ve done absolutely nothing, but realistically…that’s a pretty tall order, there are like 7 billion people on the planet, so nothing you can make up about yourself will ever really be that impressive. Stop trying so hard and enjoy your fucking childhood.

And if you find you can’t make a stable argument without using a desperate appeal to authority like that, then maybe you should reassess your stance on things because chances are, it’s because you’re wrong. 

[shantelemile]

The Untraditional Culture: Fandoms

A fan is the shortened term for fanatic. The word fanatic was associated with people who were, “insanely but divinely inspired” with temples and sacred places. The word’s meaning has shifted to, “marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion”and has entered our pop culture and everyday lives. “Fandom is a sociocultural phenomenon largely associated with capitalist societies, electronic media, mass culture and public performance.” (Duffett, Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture). A fandom is a group that expresses their love and dedication to something in a creative form of art (fan fiction, drawings, cosplay, etc.). Fans are allowed to creatively express their love without being judged.

A fandom can be considered a culture because it follows the definition of what a culture is, “Culture is the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them.” (Lederach, Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures.). A culture is something taught and passed down through generations. Fandoms are establishing knowledge pertaining to the object being liked and the code of conduct within a fandom. They are also growing in size which can classify it as an actual culture.

Being a part of fandom is like an echo chamber, it becomes a space where ideas and beliefs are reinforced because it is closed off to outside opinions. Mark Duffett uses the example of Rupert Till’s experience at the Free Nelson Mandela concert in London. He states, “Rupert Till’s pleasure seems to spring unbidden from his experience of a live performance and yet it likely represents the culmination of an extended engagement with Sting’s recorded and broadcast music. Till is in a leisure environment surrounded by like-minded people, at an event that could resonate with his value system.” Till was able to feel a strong connection to this concert and the people around him because they had a common interest and they were able to reflect these interests to the public.

Just liking something is not enough to consider yourself a part of a fandom or a fan, there are steps to the process. There are three key stages of the fandom initiation according to John Fiske discussed in the book Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates: 1. The Semiotic Productivity: Do you feel empowered when you see that thing on TV? 2. Enunciative Productivity: Do you talk about the thing outside and proudly own their merchandise (posters, shirts, CDs etc.)? 3. The Textual Productivity: Do you write about your thing of interest and share it? When you can answer yes to all of these things, you are considered to be a part of a fandom.

Fandoms are popular, one of a kind, and grow in size every day. The question is what makes fandoms so appealing to the public. Since being a part of a fandom means you are entering a culture, John Jenkins brakes down what fan culture really means. He stated that there are five characteristics of fan culture: 1. When watching whatever it is on TV, you feel as though you are right there in the crowd even though you are not. 2. When you become a fan you have to understand all the inside jokes, you read and do whatever everyone else in the fandom is doing. 3. You can and will call radio stations to request a song or TV shows to gain attention or express your displeasure to whatever it is you like. 4. A fandom culture develops their own style and traditions. 5. A fandom is like a getaway from reality. (Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates). In a fandom, fans refuse to succumb to the social norms of the regular world, so they are able to express themselves freely there.

Even though within a fandom you are given unlimited freedom, the freedom and behavior are seen as crazy to people outside of the fandom. Like the definition stated earlier, a fan is a crazed person who would go to great lengths for the thing they love. People in a fandom would see this as dedication and an undying love whereas others would see it as being a lunatic. This is especially true for fandoms surrounding musical artists, celebrities, and television shows. The downfalls of having a fandom is the consumption of time and the stalker like behavior that people engage in. Being in a fandom requires spending a lot of time online and in communities to create new content for the fandom. There has to be new fanfictions, art works, and having to constantly be up to date with whatever is going on with the artist/celebrity, so it becomes very time consuming.

Fans are [sometimes] borderline psychotic. The term “stan” means when you obsess over a celebrity in an extremely overzealous way. It is derived from the Eminem song Stan (2000) which tells the story of an obsessive fan who is being ignored by his idol and kills his family and himself after he continuously gets overlooked. The musical group, One Direction, their fans would pay people to get information about which airport or hotel to stalk or harass them for a picture or try to talk to them. They would sometimes leak this information online and hordes of people would gather in these places making it dangerous.

Aimee Wilson, a 20-year-old that left the One Direction fandom believes leaving the fandom was the best choice for her. “There were people who were actually mean on Twitter. Other fans would dismiss them just saying that they were just protecting the One Direction members, but no it was bullying. Some of the Directioners would act like they owned the members and would tweet them non-stop demanding that they follow them or to do something. I remember they even made up this thing where they wanted two of the members to date each other and they found ‘evidence’ of their relationship. Some people would cut themselves because they were so sad they weren’t being noticed. I couldn’t even. As I got older I realized it’s not that serious, you can enjoy an artist and their music without being crazy.”

The good thing about having fandoms is that it has proven to benefit companies because they are making money from these fans. Dedicated fans will buy merchandise with the musical group(s) faces on it or anything referencing/promoting them. At concerts, they have multiple booths that have t-shirts, mugs, CDs, posters, and light sticks. Buying the concert ticket is the first way the companies that manage singers make money, then selling merchandise on the side is another way. Having fandoms also helps add hype to the company and the musical group. Simon Cowell is known for discovering the One Direction members on The X Factor UK and managed them under his record label, Syco Music. One Direction became the world’s biggest boyband during their six-year reign. Their success has been nothing but great for the founder and the company. This would not be possible without the fandom that demanded and supported the music they released. The use of social media sites like Twitter allowed the people who are in charge of the group to directly see the public’s response to the group and what they should incorporate or change.

The internet is aiding in shaping the identities of those in a fandom. Fandoms have a hierarchy system which determines who has power and who is popular. The number of followers you have indicates who’s the “leader” of the fandom. The more followers you have the more influence you have within the fandom, people are more likely to turn to you for information about the artists and what you say will be taken more seriously than other people. The PBS documentary Generation Like, Ceili the super Hunger Games fan, dedicated a lot of her time to getting more spark points and earning a higher level. The higher the level she had the more people would see her posts, and she would be able to enter the list of the top Hunger Games fan. Fandoms have helped reinforce this system in our society, fans want the high levels and followers to show off to the public so that their love is known within the fandom and not questioned.

Melanie Sanchez, a 19-year-old fan has been a fan of One Direction since their debut on The X Factor. She is still supporting them even though they are on an indefinite hiatus. “I liked the music that the boys put out, that’s why I liked them. But then I followed them on Twitter just to see what they’d tweet about and I don’t know when, but I entered the fandom. I kept posting memes and talked about how much I loved the boys and I gained a lot of followers over time, like 10,000. I would post something and if it didn’t get enough likes I’d delete it- I didn’t want to be lame.” When asked about the people in the fandom she said, “The community was filled with girls my age (at the time I was like 13-14). We cried, screamed, and laughed over these boys who didn’t know us personally. We all understood each other. We were all Directioners. I made friends online and we planned and met up in person in the city. It was the best time of my life.”

Within the fandom’s hierarchy system there are the OGs (Original Gangsters: people who’ve been around for a long time). They are constantly nitpicking and weeding out the fake fans. Since a fandom is its own culture, to just one day say; “Oh, I’m going to stan this thing” will not sit well with other people, especially the OGs within that fandom. That’s almost like culture appropriation to them. You are just wearing the name of the fandom for show, you have no idea what it is truly about. To test the loyalty and authenticity of fans in the fandom they might ask questions to test your knowledge and ask you about certain milestones. Some OGs base how long you have been interested in that specific thing to determine your fan status. Because fans treasure the artist and the fandom so much they do not want it to be disrupted by anyone who does not share the same feelings as them.

Fandoms are also shaping our gender roles/stereotypes. Gender roles have been instilled in society since the beginning of time, so it is only natural that they travel into our communities. In the Bible, 1 Timothy 2: 12-13 it states, “And I do permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first then Eve.” According to the Bible, men were born to be natural leaders and with leadership comes strength and authority. When men stray from these characteristics it raises criticism and some concerns towards their sexuality. For example, in the movie Grease (1978), the character Danny Zuko was a badass with a leather jacket, had a gang, a sweet ride, and girls swooned over him. In the Summer Loving scene of the film, he exaggerates what happened over the summer making everything more sexual than what it was. He makes Sandy change because he is embarrassed to be seen in public with her. Scenes like this have been translated and repeated throughout Hollywood, we see a repeat of similar characters like Danny, so it became the norm for men to act like him.

However, the children’s television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2010) is changing this long running gender stereotype of men. The show has a fan club of grown men who call themselves bronies.The show’s intended audience is children and airs on a children’s tv show network. The show has gained an unintended audience of males and these men are seen as weirdos to the public because the shows target audience is little kids. Yet, it does not say anywhere that children and their parents or males cannot bond over the shows storyline or the lessons it teaches at the end. The grown men who watch this show are most likely enjoying the experience that the show has to offer them. These men are not living up to the gender roles set up by characters like Danny Zuko. The scenes that have constantly been on replay in Hollywood have been disrupted by a children’s show about ponies. Because this is out of the social norm the public is perceiving this as something bad, a taboo. The bronies are facing a problem similar to those of actors in the film Chocolate Babies. In this film the group of friends were HIV positive and they always received the shorter end of the stick. They were mistreated by the government and they had to form a group of their own to get the support and love they deserved. The bronies are being ostracized for liking a children’s show and they find comfort within one another because they understand the situation they are facing with the public.

Nashaun, a 22-year-old African American father who is not a part of a fandom stated, “People can like whatever they want. It’s just that it’s weird to want to be in something for little kids, it makes me wonder if they got other motives in mind. Why would I want grown men associating with my kid? Something doesn’t add up there.”

There are many cultures around the world that are not accepted or understood, and fandoms are falling into that category. Humans are conditioned to repel what they do not know. Our automatic responses to the unknown are fear and to destroy it. The behavior and the craze that comes along with fandoms cannot be processed by people outside of it. The One Direction fandom and the My Little Pony fandom are only some of the many fandoms out there and they carry many controversies. Even though they have these negative connotations surrounding them people still flock to these fandoms because of the community they provide. If you never had a place to fit in in the real world, you can most likely find your spot within a fandom. The judgement free zone is something we don’t see a lot in everyday life. I think this is the biggest factor as to why fandoms are appealing to more and more people.

Works Cited

Chocolate Babies (n.d). Retrieved April 21, 2018.

https://vimeo.com/62632619

Devereux, Eoin. (2007). Media studies: Key issues and debates. London, UK: Routledge.

Duffett, M. (2015). Understanding fandom: An introduction to the study of media fan culture. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Generation Like (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2018, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/generation-like/

Lederach, J. P. (2008). Preparing for peace: Conflict transformation across cultures. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University.

PBSoffbook. (2012, September 06). Can Fandom Change Society? Retrieved April 23, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9Zum7azNIQ