#walking into your friend's dms and saying GOD I AM SO ANNOYED BY [other fandom] is a normal human impulse

[antimony-medusa]

Okay so inspired by nothing in particular (it's inspired by reading the notes on the ace swag final poll, fun stuff in there), I have been thinking about being Cringe. Cause like, you enter a fandom, and usually, you find out shortly that somebody else hates that fandom. There is no fandom niche enough that it's not Weird to somebody, and there's no fandom mainstream enough that it's not Annoying to somebody else. And given the fact that some people do hatred recreationally, there's often going to be somebody mad enough about your fandom that they're going to go on diatribes about how your fandom is bad and actually harmful and destroying the fabric of civilization, etc. They're gonna pull out anything negative and blow it up until it's the size of the skyline and attack you for liking this negative thing.

Fun times, we've all seen it.

And the thing is, there's an impulse to have this happen and immediately find somebody else to point to and say, yeah, well, I might be weird, but at least I'm not THAT guy. I might read YA, but at least I'm not a Furry— those guys are sexual deviants! I might be into actual play podcasts, but at least I'm not into mcyt— those guys are all harmful and my guy is fine. I might be into danmei, but at least I'm not into bandom— rpf is so gross. I might be a furry, but at least I'm not into mainstream romance novels— senseless drivel aimed at middle class white women. Y'know. Immediately find someone to punch down on.

And boy do I understand why you want to do that, when people are pointing at you, but I don't actually think that it's helpful.

Cause like, every fandom has a logical train of thought and reasonable human impulses behind it. You might not share those impulses— I'm not a furry I don't think, I don't really get true crime— but that doesn't mean I can't have it explained to me by a very patient person in in the writer's workshop common room and go "oh, yeah, kinda pretending to be an animal, but you're gay about it, yeah, makes sense", or "oh yeah, morbid curiosity from the safety of your headphones, it's like a horror movie but real" and nod. Like there isn't a fandom or group out there that doesn't look weird from the outside, and there isn't a fandom or group that can't be explained if someone has thought about the human psyche enough.

And that isn't to say that there isn't sometimes salient critiques for what fandoms are doing or not doing— to grab the two examples above, I have heard people talking about issues with true crime reinforcing the current fucked up justice system, or bigotry at furry cons. But a) most of the time, there is already somebody inside that community that's fighting against those issues, and you just threw them under the bus with the problem they're trying to fix b) you don't usually know the nuances of the actual conversation and problems, you saw a couple callout posts. You saying "Yeah I'm a board game nerd but at least I don't play competitive trading card cames, those guys are doing nothing but feeding the capitalist machine" is not usually helpful towards fixing the ctg scene. It's just a cheap way to score points.

Like, I assure you that the YA scene is aware of the calcification of the genre into a tighter and tighter romantic form and their dependence on going big on tik-tok to sell enough to keep publishing. They know.

You specifically saying that your fandom is better cause it's not [problems you heard about other fandom having] is not actually going to make the person who's hating on you stop hating. They already decided that you're the person they're better than and that they're punching down on, you passing the punching down on to another fandom just makes more people sad on the internet, and potentially starts yet another chain of someone punching down at someone else. The wheel grinds on, everybody gets punched.

I guess this is just kinda turning into a "why hate on the internet, what good does that do" post, which is broader than I meant it to be. But like, there's a difference between thoughtful critique of problems (complicated to do fairly but very necessary) and finding someone new to curbstomp to make yourself feel better/morally superior (look, I'm writing this on a mcyt blog, we've all seen this happen, it does not increase the joy in the world).

Like in MCYT, we all decide to punch down on [other server we hate], or RPF, or people who write kidfic, or people who write e-rated fic/art, or people doing the popular trope of the moment, and sure, it lets you feel morally superior for the moment, at the cost of slapping the guy next to you. Haven't we had enough slapping the guy next to you? There but for the grace of god (got a fun idea/watched the wrong stream/ended up in the wrong brainstorming circle/got fixated on the wrong funny guy) goes I. You're not better than another group just because you saw a couple more callout posts (usually from people inside the community trying to fix things) about them.

We are all Cringe. There is nobody who's not Cringe. Don't say that you're not Cringe because someone else is more Cringe. Stop that.