#like seriously personal stuff about this blog and my place in fandom bla bla bla

[orionsangel86]

Hey All, 

So yeah I’ve been neglecting this blog big time since the season finale and I want to give an explanation. Which is more for my own benefit than anyone elses actually since sometimes writing things down can really help even if you don’t think anyone is gonna read it...

I’ve been running this blog for two and a half years now. Before this blog, I had never involved myself in online fandom or even internet communities in general. I just didn’t do that kind of thing because I didn’t even know about it. I have thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the time spent here. I have enjoyed building online friendships and getting to know this community - a community I have always seen as being honest and friendly and full of bloggers I respect and would hope also respect me. 

Because I am relatively new to online fandom, I guess I have also been extremely naive. When I first started this blog I didn’t do it because I wanted to validate my own opinion of this show, I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a big blogger with lots of followers and posts that gained a lot of notes either. None of that stuff has ever really bothered me too much, I’m not looking for fandom fame here, never have. At first I wasn’t really even seeking out friendships to bleed over into my real life - I was depressed and a bit of a hermit at the time so any idea of making friends outside of the online space just wasn’t on the agenda. My whole reason for joining fandom was because I had previously spent around a year lurking on certain meta writers blogs reading their stuff and thinking “wow” and “I want to interact with these people because this is all awesome”. I wanted to share my opinion and bounce ideas off of those bloggers who I respected and thought were funny and intelligent and kind people. I wanted to get to know them and discuss the show with them.

That was all I ever wanted. End of story. No fame, no massive following myself. No viral posts. Just communication with people I respected.

I got that. For a long time. I still have in a lot of ways. Along the line, I also somehow found myself meeting up with some of these people in real life, and getting closer to them, to the point that now some of them are people I consider my best friends. Others I may have only met for the first time recently, whose blogs I have followed since the beginning, and who I hope I will continue to meet and remain friends with for the foreseeable future - because they are awesome too.

I don’t regret those friendships for one second. But what I do regret is the mess caused by getting close to people who you also interact with in fandom. Because with fandom comes the wank, and when that wank then bleeds into your real life, it really fucks you up. 

So this is where I have been, not just for the past few weeks since I have been MIA, but in fact for around 3 months now. Mentally and emotionally exhausted because of drama that started in fandom that bled over into my real life, and has caused me more emotional upset and heartache than falling out with a former “best friend” a few years back ever did. It is actually shocking how much this former fandom drama has effected me, so much so, that even the people closest to me, who are aware of all the details, probably still don’t know just how much this has fucked with my head and caused me to regress into a shell. It’s really fucking bad and has been effecting my life in more ways than one. 

I don’t think people realise how much all this shit affects us. It was easier when I could separate it. Fandom in one box, real life in a different box. Use each one to escape the other. For the past 3 months there has been no fucking escape for me.

Why am I telling you all this? I guess because I feel like it could help others who are overwhelmed by fandom, by being in a community where it is possible for anyone to suddenly find themselves with a huge following and influence others. It's so fucking easy for that kind of thing to go to people's heads, and there are people in this community who will abuse that and use their status and power to abuse people and generally be shitty human beings because no matter what they do there will be others who will support them and think the sun shines out their ass.

Anyway. I'm not here to talk specifics. I did consider it, but I won't. Though some people in this fandom have really hurt me, I know they will never truly apologise for their actions, or even admit to being responsible. They don’t give a shit about me and in some cases barely know who I am. Doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt me and fuck up my life for a period of time. Others have sat at the side lines and watched as I slowly lost myself to all this shit and instead of being a friend and give me the support I desperately needed, have been complicit in the wank, and let themselves be influenced by the very assholes who started this crap.

Regardless, I wanted this post to be a lesson to those newer to fandom, perhaps there are people out there who have been in a position where they have been hurt by supposed "big name fans" and also get sick in their stomachs when people continue to sing their praises, and can't avoid those people no matter what they do since Tumblr doesn't give us the ability to truly avoid other bloggers even with block and blacklist available. That is my situation now. I cannot continue enjoying this community whilst I am constantly having to be reminded of what I have gone through over the past few months, and because of that, before I come back properly, I need to drastically curate my dash, utilise the unfollow, block and blacklist options, and I suppose carve myself out a new space. A fresh start perhaps. I am still so terribly disappointing in everything. I used to adore our corner of fandom, but it has become so fucking toxic if I don’t try to shelter myself from it I’ll never heal, and I don’t yet want to leave completely.

Nevertheless, I shall persist, because believe it or not, this show we all love still brings me joy, and I want to talk about it again, to my hearts content, with people I care about in this space. But I will be extra careful in future about those who try to connect with me. I have learned my lessons, and I am done. Shitty behaviour online won’t be taken lightly, and I won’t have any hesitation calling people out for it in future.

So here are some lessons I have learned and try to remind myself of every day when dealing with fandom:

If you have been hurt by something, no matter how small, your emotions are valid and you deserve a sincere apology.

People who are truly your friends will stand by you. Those who don't stand by you are not worth your time.

Emotional manipulation is cruel. Don't let people do it. Don't let anyone invalidate your pain by making a situation about them.

Especially when you are then forced into impossible choices.

Especially when your feelings are ignored and you are put in situations that make you extremely uncomfortable.

Just because someone has a big following and comes across sweet and nice online doesn't mean they are. We all have online personas. A lot of people are fake. Take them off their pedestals before you watch them fall off.

Don't believe nasty rumours about people, but understand that blindly singing people's praises is just as bad. No one is fucking perfect no matter how much people may try to portray perfection.

Learn the difference between someone who genuinely wants your friendship and people who want to use you for online validation and popularity. This is important.

Even the smartest people can be emotionally manipulated. it’s not a flaw. It’s a product of someone elses cruelty. It’s not an insult for someone to try to tell you this either. It just means they care about you. 

If you are ever made to feel like your feeling don’t matter, or that you should get over your feelings, get those who tell you that out of your life.  Your feelings matter. You matter. You matter a hell of a lot more than the people who would try to deny you.

Social Justice issues are important, but social justice cannot be an excuse for nasty behaviour. Be wary of those that use social justice as a front for treating people badly. 

Be fucking kind to each other. Treat people with respect, and you will have their respect in return.

Lastly, I want to say that I know I’m not perfect. I can sometimes be pretty fucking horrible, especially when I’m feeling hurt and emotionally vulnerable. I have written the above lessons for me and that last point? To be kind to each other? I need to remind myself of that. To be kind to people I don’t agree with, even if those people attack me. Even if those people have caused me severe emotional stress. Sometimes I fail at being kind. Sometimes I am gonna hurt people including myself. I am sorry for that. I truly am. I do try to recognise my own flaws here and try to be sincere in my message.  I have been so stressed and I just can’t deal anymore. I’m not a bad person, but I know that some of you will read this post and seriously disapprove of it. Perhaps you feel it wasn’t necessary for me to post such a public message. Or that I am just trying to cause unnecessary drama (I’m really not). Or that I want attention (I don’t). I expect people to unfollow me because of this, and I’m okay with that. You do what you have to do. 

From my perspective I HAD to get it all down. I had to pour it all out of me like drawing poison from a wound. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. It’s been eating me alive. It was the only way I could bring myself to get back onto here because this place used to be my passion. I want my passion back.

What I don’t want is anyone asking me to tell them specifics. I want to put everything behind me and start afresh now. I need to rid myself of that negativity and just focus on the good stuff, on the stuff I came here for to begin with. I’ve got a lot going on in my real life separate to fandom drama and I want this to be my escape from that once again, I need this to be a happy place once more and will do whatever necessary to find that happy place.

I’m sorry guys, I know this was super long and prob super confusing for some people to read. I guess just know that I’m gonna try to be back and much more positive and happy than I was before now that this shit is behind me. I’m gonna keep this blog a happy place, ignore and block any sources of wank and negativity, and only post fun stuff about the show going forward. (Aside from the standard show related wank that may crop up here every now and again thanks to Bucklemming) If you are still with me after this long emotional essay, I hope you’ll still be with me going forward, and god knows I could use some actual real friends right now. 

Thanks for reading.

:)

[decoding1432]

The Art Behind Manipulating & Guarding a Fandom (p. I)

NOTES:

*I’ll be quoting a lot, esp the parts I consider more relevant, however if you want to study the whole thing [which I HIGHLY recommend] I’ll attached the link to each of the sources. It might seem like a lot of info but PLEASE do yourself a favour & check it ALL out.*

*I’ve divided the subject in FOUR PARTS bc since I need your total attention & I don’t want you to start sleeping halfway, I’ll be posting periodically, at least till you end processing the prior post*

*Most of the posts I direct you to, are SHORT & in my opinion not too dense to read. In fact, the great majority are Q&As. I'll identified every post with a letter, it means that throughout the various posts you’ll see them repeated, so no need to read one twice*

*If you’re starting to get tired or feeling swamped with the amount of info. Take a break, process it, go eat something & free your mind then come back. It’s highly relevant to read the whole & if you think it helps you to rest for a moment, I encourage you to do it*

*Everyone who has a 5H blog or related, READ & SPREAD THIS. At the end of the day we’re equal victims of this happening*

- decoding1432.

Ever felt like you get fishy anons? Ever questioned whether if your blog or Twitter acc is monitored? Ever doubt those “exposing accounts” claiming to be insiders? Ever mistrust a mutual or similar? Yeah, well all that encircles a phenomenon better known as:

Astroturfing

Before we jumped into the meaning & detailed explanation of it, allow me to tell you the story of how I found out this fascinating concept. I’ve been wanting to do a post about “bot accounts” & “fanbase manipulation” since I read this post about the way Sony deals with fandoms. If there’s someone out there who knows about this better than anyone else, is the directioners. I swear the amount of data they own regarding the industry is enough to fill 10 libraries (I went through hell to find everything lol)

I must say in advance that most of the information obtained in my research are posts from theirs– all credit to them for their masterposts– so I apologise if you get too tired of reading “Harry, Louis, Ziam, Modest & bla, bla, bla” but it is ultimately very worthy stuff & let’s not forget that band came out from the same womb (great thing fans over there are too woke & we can grab a lot from their knowledge, seriously I have insane respect for that fanbase). Anyway, like I was telling, I first heard the word “astroturfing” when I was talking to lawyerlarry:

I asked her with the purpose of being linked to a post relating “bot accounts” or alike but to my surprise I was lead to a much more complex principle. At first, I deadass thought my lack of vocabulary in English was the cause I hadn’t understood what lawyerlarry was trying to tell me. When you look it in the dictionary, you’ll probably get something like this:

Now, what does it really mean in the SM context?

(NOTE: I’ll leave several definitions so that you can get a clearer idea).

No.1 *link A*

“This sounds very much like, trolling, you say. It does, but whereas trolling is done by one or several individuals for mischief, astroturfing is an organised, professional form of trolling with an agenda, an objective, a set mode of operation and an end-goal. Think trolling on steroids.

It sounds very far-fetched and very conspiracy theory-ish, but it’s been used in a lot of forms, from maligning celebrities and high-profile people to companies using astroturfers to provide fake consumer reviews, boost their credibility (thank you for reblogging that article mirandaskye, btw!), or discredit their competition. Some even go on a nationalistic scale of seeding political dissent among political parties. Because of the anonymity that the internet can provide, astroturfing is mostly common online.

Astroturfers can take several forms:

Posts, comments, etc from fake social media identities

Fake consumer reviews or brand/product testimonials

Fake online organisations/watchdog communities”

No. 2 (summarised) *link B*

Means pretending to be a fan, when in reality the agenda and strategy are controlled by a non-fan or “tptb” organisation. (‘tptb= the powers that be’ for the 1D fam is what we refer here to men in suits).

“Astroturfing takes place all the time it happens all across the internet everyday. There are varying degrees in which it happens. There are corporate bought twitter followers (x) and paid for positive and negative yelp reviews (x). It goes on and on. It is just part of business. Unethical? Misleading? Yeah but they’ve been doing it since forever. Big multibillion dollars have been fined for engaging in astroturfing (x) yet they still engage in it. The financial benefits must outweigh the risk.”

No. 3 *link C* (more summarised)

No. 4 *link D* (even more summarised)

If you ask me, I would personally keep the first definition because certainly astroturfing encompasses more than just Tumblr. It extends to Twitter up to the political world. If you’ve gotten to this point thinking it’s a conspirative aspect, watch the following video, IT’S A MUST:

Since I’m such a nerd for TED Talks I enjoyed it besides  I’m so fascinated by this concept. But in all honesty, ten minutes of your life that won’t go to waste.. However if you decide to keep scrolling down at least I suggest you skip to minute 2:08- 2:48 & 8:56- till the end. For anyone who can’t play the video, I’ll remark the points:

Min 2:08- 2:48

“What is Astroturf? It’s a perversion of grassroots, as in fake grassroots. Astroturf is when political, corporate, or other special interest disguise themselves & publish blogs, start Facebook & Twitter accounts, publish ads, letter to the editor, or simply posts comments online to try to fool you into thinking an independent or grassroots movement (in our case fans) is speaking. The whole point of Astroturf is to try to get the impression there’s widespread support for or against an agenda when there’s not. Astroturf seeks to manipulate you into changing your opinion by making you feel as if you’re an outlier when you’re not.”

Min 8:56- till the end

“I have a few strategies that I can tell you about, to help you recognise signs of propaganda and astroturf. Once you start to know what to look for you’ll begin to recognise it everywhere.

First, hallmarks of astroturfing include use of inflammatory language such as crack, nutty, lies, paranoid, and conspiracy. Astroturfers often claim to debunk myths that aren’t myths at all. Use of the charged language tests well, people hear something’s a myth, maybe they find it on snopes, and they instantly declare themselves too smart to fall for it. But what if the whole notion of the myth is itself a myth and you and snopes fell for that?

Beware when interests attack an issue by controversialising or attacking the people, personalities, and organizations surrounding it rather than addressing the facts, that could be astroturf.

And most of all, astroturfers tend to reserve all of their public skepticism for those exposing wrongdoing rather than the wrongdoers. In other words instead of questioning authority, they question those who question authority.”

Why is this so incredibly familiar…?