#i am not fandom guru i do not know everything i only know what iPERSONALLY experienced

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Fandom safe spaces are important. Let people be happy.

Hello!

So for those who like to avoid fandom drama, I’ll state right off the top that maybe you want to avoid this. But I got something to say! Jen has a story!

The alternative title to this was going to be “The accidental destruction of a fandom safe space” or “The ‘oops I found myself in fandom drama’ story”

I’m writing this more as a cautionary tale and before I continue I will not wish ill on anyone that was involved.

Also, the story I’m about to say is of my personal perspective of my personal memory that took a beating in the last year because of pandemic stress. Everyone involved has their own perspective. Personal stories will always have a bias. I try my hardest not to have a bias, but it’s just how storytelling works. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever type something like this up, but, here we are I suppose.

However, I am telling this because I think it’s important to truly, honestly, pay attention to fandom safe spaces. Not out of warnings, not out of ‘cults’, but that you—you—choose your fandom safe space; you choose your blanket fort, you choose your platform of choice and the people you want to interact with to make yourself feel safe and happy. This is especially important following the end of a comfort show like Supernatural (whether it frustrated you, or you unconditionally loved it, most of you I think it’s safe to assume viewed the show as a comfort show with comfort characters).

We as a fandom need to find where we feel comforted and safe and happy.

*Also keep in mind, I’m discussing average, every day fandom spaces. There are extremes, there are people who are in fandom spaces that feel like they can harass actors, threaten others, throw insults or slurs at others.*

I don’t know what your dashes look like, but mine is full of folks posting fics, gifs, fanart, and having fun little headcanons (along with cockles lol). I often unfollow some folk, not because I dislike them, but just that I really disliked show wank and negative posts about episodes or characters. Obviously, that changed post-15x20, I do like some salt posts now and some shit posts but I think folks know I truly love this show, top bottom left right—all of it.

I specifically seek this kind of energy out because I’ve had negative experiences in fandoms before and I have a very stressful job which is pretty hard to do with untreated ADHD and an eating disorder. Fandom is my safe space, my comfort space, my happy place, and I make sure it’s something that I want to open the computer to every single day.

And I know that’s how a lot of you operate as well.

So let’s dive in! [this got pretty long lol]

Before I go into my story, I want to just like—let y’all in on a little bit about myself so you can kind of understand really where my head is at a lot of the time. I’ll try not to embarrass myself but it’s going to happen anyway lol.

First things first, I work in the news/broadcasting industry. Day to day is pretty stressful and on a personal level, it’s been exponentially more stressful this year (though, not as stressful as doctors/nurses/first responders/frontline workers/essential workers. They have my heart and soul with them).

I have been diagnosed with depression and general anxiety. I’ve been in therapy since 2011 for that. I also have been diagnosed with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder which can lead to bouts of Anorexia (not Nervosa, just the occasion where I randomly stop eating mostly due to stress). Along with all of that, I have diagnosed ADHD and I am unable to take medication because of my restrictive eating disorder causing an already shaky relationship with hunger cues.

I’ve often had low self-esteem. I’m usually quiet but I can be loud and obnoxious sometimes, usually fueled by other peoples’ energy, sometimes I’m either overcompensating or just acting for the sake of acting. The whole ‘fake it til you make it’ thing. That loud and obnoxiousness has gotten me into trouble before because I allow myself to get lost in it because it’s not a feeling I have often.

It’s all that jumbled up, tangled mess in my head that often leads me to make rash decisions. I fall easily to adrenaline rushes, anything that stimulates me (not substances, just… things I can do), and, what I like to think is the worst of it all, I easily follow anyone who shows me any kind of love or respect. I have not had a date in over ten years because of this very problem. I am fearful of falling into bad relationships.

This is where the story essentially starts.

Some of y’all have seen me post a few times on my blog that I’m having a ‘low self-esteem moment’. Usually that comes with writing problems. But, know that I do have low self-esteem moments outside writing as well. I see groups all the time in the fandom of various blogs and, including very smart people, or writing groups that I don’t feel like I can be a part of, or fanart groups.

I once told my therapist I often feel like I’m sitting outside multiple bubbles where I can see everyone interacting and having a good time, but I can’t join them.

In the summer of 2019, I mosied on over to Twitter because Tumblr was quiet leading up to SDCC where we were expecting more Season 15 finale news.

Twitter fandom is a little… rough. And I don’t say that with disrespect, but it’s loud, quick, and harder to curate what you see on your timeline. A lot of Tumblr folks had moved there over the years. Not just with the SPN fandom, just with a lot of fandoms. I have been on Tumblr since 2008, it’s easy to count the eras more or less (you’re probably familiar with ‘2012 Tumblr’ but I raise you 2010 Tumblr lol).

So off I went. There I met people I hadn’t met on Tumblr. I’m not naming names because I don’t want this dissolving into an image of me pointing fingers at people and flinging poo around like a baboon. I’m sure you can deduce who I’m talking about and if you need names, you can message me. Needless to say, I met some folks I hadn’t before along with blogs I had followed on Tumblr and absolutely enjoyed having on my dash for the most part.

I was invited into a friend group Twitter GC for the first time in my SPN fandom life. It was a little intense for me, but it was fun watching smart people talk about things, and I really did make some friends that I still love talking to.

I was invited into other peoples’ safe, fandom spaces, and in turn, felt like I had one as well. I could talk about spoilers, meta (though I didn’t understand a lot of it), and just kinda vent about some issues, particularly in fandom. I didn’t agree with everything I came across but we’re all individual people with individual thoughts and opinions and arguments so that’s just how life goes!

There was one instance where I maybe got a little too adrenaline rush-y and was kind of ranting about someone on Twitter (we’re only human!) and was ushered aside by one of the folks in the friend group that is also a blog I enjoyed following on Tumblr, we’ll call them Person C.

There were two of these people, these Tumblr-Twitter people. I was warned by Person C to kind of not let the friend group, or the group chat, kind of pull me into anger that deep because I’m a happy blog (and I like to maintain that status as much as possible!).

I thanked them and confirmed that yes maybe sometimes that GC got a little heated or maybe I got lost in it a little bit. In retrospect, and maybe you’ll agree or maybe you won’t, but when you’re surrounded by people who agree with you on something, excited adrenaline kind of takes over and it becomes a hype game.

Remember that for later.

Life moved on and as things kept coming out about the finale and the show began airing, we all shot off our thoughts and opinions and meta and all of that good stuff.

A couple weeks after 15x07 (my episode my god I love that episode so much) aired, I received Tumblr messages from the second of the two Twitter-Tumblr people that I liked following. This is Person A. They asked me an opinion on a response to someone who also originated from the friend group, someone I didn’t know on Tumblr only on Twitter. They are Person B.

It was an easy enough assessment I told myself as I read it, like, half awake lol. I had agreed that Person B, in that chat I was shown, maybe sounded a little rude or a little too intense about things, at least in this specific conversation.

I continued talking with Person A about Person B and in hindsight, I wish I saw this all coming. I let my own personal slight annoyances with Person B get blown way out of proportion, and found that I was hyping up Person A and justifying their grievances of Person B when in reality, looking back, there wasn’t much to get so upset over.

Even my own personal annoyances weren’t earth-shattering, it’s just one of those things where you understand that not every person will enjoy another person 100% (and if you find someone you gel with 100% then you should hold onto them for dear life lol). There’s always going to be some small thing that doesn’t vibe with someone else, but rarely is it extreme. Every human being isn’t going mesh 100% with another human being.

So anyway, the conversation grew with Person A and now with Person C, the person who had warned me a couple of months prior to the ‘toxicity’ of the Twitter friend group.

Remember what I said about an excited-adrenaline fueled hype game? That’s what it had started to turn into for me. My small little annoyances suddenly grew to epic proportions, and I ignored the fact I didn’t actually agree with what Person A and Person C were even saying half the time. My point of argument became about ‘attitude’, or, how to talk to others you don’t agree with when it came to Person B, while completely failing to understand that Person A and Person C were also not talking to or about someone with respect.

My annoyances with Person B was just sometimes how I personally read their tone online. That was it. That was the whole thing. It wasn’t a huge issue, it wasn’t earth shattering, it wasn’t life-altering.

I was never even spoken to that way. It was just a small thing that for months, I didn’t pay much attention to. But with Person A and Person C, I decided that was my central argument! ‘Why can’t you act better’, ‘why can’t you talk nicer’, ‘why do you talk like such a bully?’

I had begun to echo their talking points: Bully, bully pulpit, attack dogs, etc.

Eventually, almost exactly a year ago as I post this, it kind of all came to a head in the Twitter GC. Reportedly, Person A had gone into others’ inboxes or message chats and did the same kind of number they had done on me: Leading questions, escalating small problems into big problems, trying to get confirmation that Person A was in the right about their argument and meta. (I think I have seen one other instance of them doing this, but was told and read that there were more. Regardless, they had messaged me, and at least one other person. Hence the ‘reportedly’.)

But the fireworks had started, I said my piece, but I also watched things going back and forth and it was halfway through it I realized that I may not have judged this properly and stumbled into a situation I’ve found myself in twice before in my life. But, as it goes in the heat of ‘battle’ I guess, I couldn’t shut up, and I couldn’t shut anyone else up. Accusations also spilled onto Twitter outside the GC, discussions of the GC were also mentioned out in public as well as indications as to what was talked about there, and it also spilled onto Tumblr.

Before I realized what truly happened, the GC shattered.

A fandom safe space shattered.

By the end of it I was starting to feel that shaky crash from the adrenaline and as I spoke with a friend who also kind of felt caught in the middle, I realized just how much I fucked up. Like literally a short time later the crushing wave of guilt just poured over me.

I went to two people in the (now destroyed) GC and apologized, but the apology didn’t make me feel better, nor should it have. I did a lot of damage. Not 100% directly, but I assisted, and I hated that because not only did I shatter a safe space for many, over nothing, I had also shattered it for myself.

I allowed my own annoyances to get twisted and morphed and was selfish enough to believe that they were worthy enough to disrupt people’s safe spaces and happy places and places where they felt safe to talk to others about personal things.

I had been reinvited to the new GC after my apology but I left the morning after. I felt too horrible, and I knew that there would be some in there who didn’t trust me anymore (rightfully so). I went back to Person A and Person C who tried to carry on without the group as well and wound up listening to more grievances, but it all started to ring hollow. Sure enough, after a while communication with Person A and Person C just… stopped.

Then the pandemic hit, and I had a break down with my mental health issues triggering a hard bought with anorexia, I had guilt over being in Fandom already with what I did and then had guilt that if I enjoyed fandom now, that I would be ‘tempting fate’ with this virus. I kid you not I do not remember most of Spring.

The reason why I had outlined my issues at the beginning is to not offer an excuse, but offer a reason, and a sense of pathology as to how my brain worked in getting me to all of this. Two blogs on Tumblr I had enjoyed made me feel special like they could trust me, that they respected me, so, I went along with it even though I didn’t agree much with them and my argument was weak and selfish. I was shown attention by people I liked who I didn’t think would like me back, so I went along with what was happening without question because if I said anything to the contrary, I felt like I would lose that love and respect.

My low self-esteem issues and the desire to be part of a ‘bubble’ actually caused another bubble to pop. I did that.

The ironic thing was the annoyances I found that I had with Person B, the annoyances that grew so exponentially over nothing, were annoyances I also had with Person A. They were pretty similar.

So why am I bringing this all up now? What’s the ‘caution’?

I’m seeing talk about ‘cults’ and ‘conspiracy theory groups’.

A lot of these posts are targeting one specific person, Person B (so now maybe you know who I’m speaking about!) and their safe fandom space.

Again.

And in those voices is Person A.

Again.

And there’s this growing group of people who think their logic is irrefutable when it comes to Person B and their friends and view a fandom safe space, a happy place with people like to chat and stuff, as ‘evil’.

Again.

And this is what I really want to talk about.

It’s not okay to disrupt someone’s safe fandom space just because you don’t like them. I feel like it’s not okay in general, outside of fandom, to make someone feel like they are a bad person when they aren’t and to pin their safe spaces as bad just because you don’t like them or how they go about things.

Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean they are the worst a person can be. You just don’t like them. That’s it. You don’t have to like everyone.

Person A has also discussed ‘attack dogs’—

Again.

Yes, some people in these groups can be outspoken, hell maybe even rude in some peoples’ eyes, and yes that shouldn’t be tolerated. But, at the same time, not everyone is like that, and people like Person A knows that.

This is really, I feel like, a universal message across platforms, across fandoms: Do not invalidate someone’s safe and happy fandom space unless it’s causing abject harm (threatening, harassment, mortal danger, promotion of unhealthy behavior).

And before I get this comment, someone defending themselves on Twitter is not harassment, especially when someone else fired the first shot.

Harassment has been talked about a lot with Person B and this friend group and yeah, there have been arguments on Twitter but I think that’s less of a personality thing and more of a “Twitter makes debates and arguments with unpleasant people easy to engage in”. That’s a story for a different day. There is good in calling out behavior you find questionable. But, please do it respectfully. It’s easy to get lost in personal grievances, and online debates, but finding the middle ground again is beneficial for everyone. It’s a larger talk for a different day.

As for these servers of Person B that seem to be in a constant talk on some peoples’ blogs, I myself am part of two of them. I had apologized to Person B before going into them because I hadn’t acknowledged to them that my actions were inexcusable. I was allowed in, I wasn’t recruited or anything, I just saw a link on their blog several weeks ago saying people could join if they wanted. If I did not feel safe there, I could have just left the server.

One of the servers I am more involved with than the other, and I am having a blast. It’s another fandom safe space to add onto my Tumblr blog. There are some channels I don’t go into because I don’t understand the discussion, but there are other channels I just thrive on!

I enjoy speaking with people, a lot of whom also find the area to be their safe space. It’s not a ‘cult’, it’s just a bunch of SPN fans having fun, and, like any discord server, it has rules much like ‘don’t be an asshole’ and the like.

I don’t have to subscribe to any ‘philosophy’, and I don’t. I also disagree with many on said server about the SPN ending, but I’m not an asshole about it. I mostly keep finale talk on my Tumblr anyway, and I respect their viewpoints and logic.

This story isn’t about my defending every action or post or whatever of Person B, but basically to say that sometimes every slight annoyance we feel can seem like a mountain if we find others who have the same annoyances. A personal feeling over someone isn’t enough reason to try and disrupt their safe space.

So, the tl;dr?

It’s very important you have a place you feel comfortable in when it comes to fandom be it a casual consumer or someone who wants to be deeply embedded.

It’s important that you find people you feel like you can go to, to trust, to talk to, to laugh and cry with, etc. It’s important those spaces stay intact, especially post-finale of SPN, but again, I feel like this can be applied to other fandoms as well.

It’s also important to ground yourself and not get swept away in online debate. Person C with their original discussion with me about reeling it back in when I went too far was good. That was a good discussion to have with me. Twitter especially is an easy place to lose yourself. We all have opinions. We all have something to say. It’s just important to ground yourself as well.

Fandom, especially in ones as large as SPN, has lots of nooks and crannies and long twisted alleyways into other sections of fandom. It’s difficult to navigate. If someone finds a place they feel like they belong, feel safe, feel happy, then they have a right to be there. If you don’t like said person, or where that person wound up, for no other reason other than you just don’t like them, then you don’t have a right to shatter that space.

Let people find their happiness and let them stay there if they so choose. We all deserve some happiness <3