"amazondotjon @zachdft @thisisryanross @thespencersmith
GET OFF THE INTERNET
about 1 hour ago from web"
Oh Jon Walker never change. You make me happy. And laugh out loud in an office full of people, but that's not important.
Also, that message makes me want to post a few things I've been thinking lately. I'm rather looking forward to the weekend because I think a couple of days without the internet will do me good. Fandom has been depressing me lately, and it's possibly my own fault for reading stuff I know is going to make me feel weird, but really, enough is enough.
I've been reading RPS for a few years now. Enough that I'm not really bothered by the idea of them being "Real People" any more. The people I read about are characters, not the actual people. I can distinguish between the two. There is real life and there is fandom.
The problem with liking "real people" and following their bands and meeting them and reading about them and writing about them though, is that sometimes "fandom" loses the ability to seperate real and fake. Sometimes it forgets that there are boundaries. Sometimes it forgets that these people are not the people they "know".
I like reading fic. I like writing fic. I like looking at pictures and listening to music and joking with my friends and squeeing with anyone who will listen about these people. They give us a lot to work with. I hope that goes on for a long time to come.
But their personal lives aren't really our business anymore than the average stranger on the street. What they do with their lives isn't up to us. We have no say in it. Thank God we have no say in it. It's not our place to judge them or worse still, to tell them that we judge them and how they should behave.
I love my flist and 99% of the time I love fandom. It's filled with good things. But I'm getting tired of everything being debated to death and having people make something out of nothing. It's time for a collective step back.