#yes netizens are responsible for their own experience and yes if you open an E fic you should know what you're getting

[maple-moose-muffin]

Seeing olds vs youths fandom etiquette discourse breaks my heart because there's such a lack of empathy. It's literally ageism and generation vs generation bullshit playing out the same way as always, except because it's painted over with a veneer of pixel men and literay analysis we preted it's actually a human rights fight and we're justified for spitting on our juniors.

I saw a post talking about squicks, where the Fandom Youths who hadn't encountered the word before were rolling their eyes and calling it millenial baby talk nonsense, while the Fandom Olds were responding with statements like "omfg why didnt you google it you dumbass!!" As if you, Fandom Old, ever learned that word by googling it. Fuck me, but I don't remember ever googling what 'whump' meant. I learned it by having it demonstrated by the fandom figures I looked up to. For years of my early fandom life I thought 'slash' meant gore. It wasn't until I saw other fans talking about the fluffiest slash pairings that I realized it was another word for yaoi, which was the term *I* knew, coming from an anime background.

Fandom is huge but we are still a subculture, and culture is taught through interaction, demonstration, and the kindness and *patience* of your culturemates. That means listening to each other and fucking explaining shit to those who will inheret our Discord servers and our Archives, not screaming at them for being too stupid to know the stove is hot before they touch it. And it means opening your damn minds and ears, and absorbing those lessons when your foremothers give them to you. It goes both ways. It's just that this post is mostly aimed at the Fandom Olds, my peers, whom I see berating people simply for being new. Who take screenshot of tags from Youths asking what the hell Superwholock is and wail, "What is the world coming to??" Instead of answering them. Instead of teaching them our history. Their history.

Do YOU know all about every Star Trek email chain that came before you? Do YOU know all the big names of the OG Buffy circles? Xena Warrior Princess? Do you even know the most famous fics of the contemporary fandoms you never participated in? YuGiOh, Sailor Moon, Homestuck, Big Time Rush? When exactly did you learn omegaverse was born of the Supernatural fandom? When did you discover hanahaki? Why didn't you just know about it the day you made your tumblr?

We cannot fall into the curmedgeoning ways of gatekeeping fandom from the new bloods simply because they haven't been around long enough to know their own history. I've been writing fanfic for fifteen years, and I learned the Fuck or Die trope was born in Star Trek THIS WEEK. Ignorance does not make you lazy, entitled, or unworthy. It does not make you a fake fandom citizen. For fuck's sake, do you really want to be the person who says "Oh you like fanfiction? Name five tropes that aren't fake dating and there was only one bed"?

Yes, there has been an uptick in lack of etiquette. Yes there is an issue of purity policing. But correct me if I'm wrong, as it was before *my* time -- isn't that what killed LiveJournal? Isn't that why we now have an Archive who explicitly states in their ToS they won't take down content just because it is deemed offensive? This shit isn't new, and the Fandoms Youths aren't single handedly killing the kinky fic industry.

The Youths These Days are not ruining fandom anymore than I used to ruin it when, at age 14, I used to lash out at female characters for 'ruining' the gay ships. I've grown. You have grown. The Youths will grow.

But not if you alientate and refuse to teach them.