#i mean in very basic terms i would consider rpf to be a different kind of story

[ishouldreallybeelsewhere]

i think november is just a bad month for me

maybe i’ll enjoy fanfic again one day but until then…

[dimples-of-discontent]

Hi, I'm new to this fandom. I'm cockles fan. What is tinhat?

Hi Nonnie,

First off, welcome! We are happy to have you in the fandom and also here in the dumpster mansion. I’m sure that there are plenty of fandom glossaries etc. that would be happy to give a history of the term’s origins and how its use has changed etc. but I can just tell you how I use it. The notion of a tinhat comes from the convention/joke that conspiracy theorists wear tinfoil hats (either to communicate with aliens or to keep the government out of their head or something…it probably varies depending on your individual conspiracy theorist). The wearer of a tinfoil hat in media/TV is likely to remind you of this guy:

It’s media shorthand for a mentally unstable conspiracy nut who thinks they have access to truth that regular folks don’t (WAKE UP SHEEPLE!).

So, that’s a tinhatter in general. When used in fandom, it’s It’s a term mostly associated with real person ships (RPS…and when they are made into real person fiction, RPF) because they tend to encourage the kind of “I see the real truth!” attitude a little more than fiction, which is deliberately constructed and can be read for subtext that someone has designed. (I’m sure they get used about people that ship fictional characters too though.)

The way the term is used can vary. If used by the person doing the postulating–which is how I use it–it’s kind of self-depreciating and also serves as a disclaimer: “I know how crazy I sound here so if you want to ignore me I totally understand.” If other people use it about you, it turns into an insult, although that’s maybe not universally true. Personally, I distinguish between being a shipper (or fan) and being a tinhat. When I blog about Jensen making a ridiculously sappy face at Misha (which happens a minimum of once a week) I don’t consider that tinhatting because it involves basically no theorizing. He made a doofy face and I point at it and flail. That’s real person shipping (for me).

Once you start conjecturing about the most probable reason behind face-making or clothes-sharing or whatever, then you are getting into tinhatting. It’s a fine line, because I feel that you can (for example) write meta about body language and not be a tinhatter because you’re saying: “Here’s what I see happening” but not “and from that we conclude that they have a secret love nest on set” or “Misha is the baby daddy.” The edges are fuzzy and, for me, have to do with whether you’re making an argumentative claim. “This looks like outrageous flirting to me” doesn’t meet the tinhat threshold. But a post like mine about JIB 7 and how (I think) they fucked right before the panel 100% does. So when I tag for tinhatting here it means that I feel I have ventured away from the realm of observation and idle speculation into making an argument based on conjecture and deductions that have very little real-world evidence.

Other people may use it differently, especially if they think that all real-person shippers are also tinhats. And not all tinhats are created equal, imo. I can give you my personal take on what this looks like in our fandom, but the fact that it’s my personal take means that it is biased and more sympathetic to Cockles. Within our particular fandom, there are the J2 tinhats and the Cockles tinhats. I would say they are “warring” except that, tbh, I don’t see Cockles people fighting with anyone very often. It’s more like when my aunt’s chihuahua used to bite and snap at her Labrador and the lab would just be all good-natured like “Huh? What is even happening?” as the chihuahua got more pissed off. (Again, that’s how it looks to me.) 

I’ve only accidentally encountered J2 content so I can speak super generally, but J2 tinhats tend to believe that their wives are “beards” enabling them to maintain a secret relationship that’s been going since the start of the show. I’ve seen some stuff suggesting that the pregnancies were somehow “fake” and/or at least didn’t involve actual sex (because no one can see those kids and not know they are related to their daddies, ffs) but I’m going to guess that’s pretty “fringe” behavior even in that group. The J2 tinhats are the ones who send the most hate to the wives. Like, it is vile, vile shit. You can find it pretty easily on any of Danneel and Gen’s social media posts (and often on Jared and Jensen’s too). There’s probably (unfortunately) another subset of people sending hate to the wives too who just wish J2 were single so they could indulge some kind of fantasy about dating them (which–guess what!–you can anyway! it’s a fantasy!). But J2 tinhats definitely do hate on their wives, looking for examples of how much J2 don’t love them and how they are in fact each other’s life partners though not ok with being Out about it for PR reasons.

Oh right, and the craziest J2 tinhat theory I ever saw was that Misha is actually a beard (meard, to be exact) to distract from how much Jensen loves Jared. I am not sure how that helps the J2 case, but at least it means they aren’t blind to those hearteyes Jen and Mish exchange. Honestly, there are probably some very nice J2 shippers who do not hate their wives and who think, like Cockles shippers do, that it can all be one happy non-monogamous party. They probably maintain quiet blogs that squee over hugs and head rubs or whatever. They don’t go on Twitter and scream about stuff. But that means I also don’t know that they are out there and that it feels much more like they’re the exception rather than the norm. I’m also not sure the extent to which J2 believers overlap with Wincest shippers or bronlies…probably a lot? This isn’t my area of expertise though.

The norm for Cockles tinhats, in my (fairly extensive) experience is that everyone believes that everything is done consensually and without angst; they love the wives and assume that, even if they’re not actively involved, they fully sanction (and perhaps even instigated) Misha and Jensen’s relationship. They think that they spend some family vacations together (which was confirmed) and that that means they are kind of raising them together. Essentially, the most extreme tinhatty end of Cockles shipping is still best described as “poly bliss” in which everyone is informed and consenting and full of love. I am not sure I’ve seen anyone pro-Cockles suggesting that Vicki and Danneel are beards, though again it may happen in a small and quieter minority. 

I could go on even longer about why I feel like tinhatting Cockles is less of a reach than tinhatting J2, but essentially it just comes down to the fact that a) Misha and Vicki have a marriage that has included a third serious partner before (in addition to including multiple people in bed) but I’ve never heard anything like that about Jared and b) the suggested scenario where the wives are involved and everyone is happy about it seems like it could actually be emotionally sustainable where what is suggested for J2 doesn’t.

I know that’s a longer answer than maybe you were expecting or wanted, but I have been thinking about tinhatting vs. shipping a lot recently so I thought I’d share those reflections. Again, though, this is my interpretation of the term and my way of using it so YMMV. Either way, welcome to the party!