I honestly can't even think about the fact that there are adults who act like this. How would you feel if approximately a zillion people were out there absolutely convinced and trying to convince YOU that you and your best friend were dating? And that your ACTUAL significant other was nothing but a joke? I can't imagine there are a whole lot of people who would think that was a fun or exciting experience. I just.... I mean you're just so right, they're going to feel like they CAN'T be themselves anymore and that really sucks, not only for us few who know how to respect them but even more importantly for THEM, because as a band they all go on about how their thing is being who they really are, being able to act like themselves all the time and how great that is for them, and the thought that their FANS, the people who are supposed to be so supportive of them, are the ones who are making it so that they can't be as touchy feely and adorable and close -- I can't really stomach it sometimes. People are horrible.
I ACTUALLY CAN'T BELIEVE THAT? Some people are so .... I don't understand how anyone thinks that's a logical thing to say?? NEWSFLASH: Oppression is not asking someone to refrain from using slurs or placing labels on people that they don't actually claim. Louis has also never said he's gay, not to mention he has a girlfriend, and while having a girlfriend is not 100% proof that a man is straight, I just... That's not our place to say! Other peoples' sexualities are not for other people to discuss!! Why are people so horrible? How do you come to have these kind of standards by which you live your life? I think it's actually terrifying.
It absolutely kills me. I'm trying really hard not to get angry with all of fandom, but I have absolutely lost my ability to read or enjoy Harry/Louis in any format, and I WORRY about the real boys and their enjoyment of life and their jobs. The fact that Louis has said twice now by my count, explicitly, "I AM NOT DATING HARRY," and that otherwise sane people reply with "well, it's not DATING, is it?" or "he HAS to say that," or other bullshit makes me crazy. I run my school's gay-straight alliance and our #1 rule about making it a safe space is that NO ONE gets to decide anyone else's sexuality. We don't guess, we don't speculate. You are what you identify as end of story. Louis has a girlfriend and says he isn't dating Harry. The fucking end.
...sorry, that was a rant. It's just that you seem sane, and I'm so MAD and I'm trying not to feel >:( about a fandom that brings so much joy.
Rant away, dear! (Btw- I apologize if pet names aren't your thing! They're super natural to me, but I absolutely understand if that's not something you're interested in being called/if we aren't personally on a level where you're comfortable with that, please let me know!) I... I have had a LOT to say about this fandom today, which mockturtletale can attest to seeing as we've spent more or less all day ranting about fandom and this fandom and how these are really spectacularly not okay practices that are being practiced by the majority of fandom. I definitely share your anger!
I've never been a part of a GSA, but as someone not-heterosexual myself and someone who's spent a lot of time in conferences where the goal is to try and make safe communities for people of all sexual identities, gender identities, religions, races, ethnicities, ages, etc., I absolutely share that feeling. It's... There are no times when it's okay to discuss other peoples' sexualities. No matter what the reality is, it just isn't our place to say it's anything other than what someone says is what their reality is. People don't get to decide things about other people, and that's that! You know about a person what they tell you is true about them, you don't get to assume other things about anything, let alone subjects that are as sensitive as sexual orientation. I just... That's it. There are no ifs, no buts, no ands. I don't assume things about my closest friends, of course it isn't acceptable to assume things about people I DON'T KNOW.
I promise I'm sane, and I'm absolutely open to being ranted at whenever you'd like to rant about this fandom and get it off your chest! I'm also, even moreso, interested in talking about all the things about this fandom that make me happy, like Liam's stupid twitpics yesterday while he was watching the DVD, so if you want to talk about those things, too, my email inbox/anything really is always open! (It's open for everything, tbh, discussion, rant, fic, pictures. I am all for all things 1D.)
The thing... What I'm really trying to hold onto right now is this: This fandom may be an ocean of awful, but I believe that there's a boat of royalty out here that's worth holding onto. I've never been an active voice in fandom because I'm much more of an introverted, quiet, lurking personality, but in this fandom more than anything else I've experienced, I feel like I'm not only able to participate more actively with really quality members of the community, I feel like it's my responsibility to? There are just so FEW of us that are in this in the right way and for the right reasons, I think I need to put myself out there as one of those. But that's also really exciting, because I think it means that the tiny community I've found here is one that I can actually become a part of, and one that will grow very close together and have a lot of fun and write a lot of great fic and just generally make it fabulous. And I'm really looking forward to that.
Pet names don't bother me in the slightest! (Not when they're used affectionately, at least. I call most of my students "sweetheart" but it usually means I'm mad at them. "Sweetheart, I need you to stop hitting him, or we're gonna have to talk about this, honey.")
So far I've found some really excellent people (present company included) who are sane and thoughtful and respectful and able to have a version of the boys in their heads for fic, and a completely separate and sane appreciation for the in-real-life boys who are probably nothing like that and shouldn't be expected to behave that way. I have also found absolutely terrifying tin hatters who are old enough to know better and are rude and nasty people. I have given myself permission to defriend/unfollow at will if someone is making me uncomfortable, where normally I wouldn't. This fandom is just too horrible to feel guilt over that kind of thing.
But no matter what the boys themselves are a source of absolute joy and delight and every single day I find something new to enjoy, whether it's Liam and Louis having a nerf gun war or everyone ripping Harry's shirt off because they are assholes. ♥ I'm trying to focus on the positive.
"This fandom is just too horrible to feel guilt over that kind of thing." Ugh, you can say that again. I have never ever unfollowed somebody on Tumblr or defriended them on LJ before last week, but today alone it has happened four times. It is just too much to feel constantly ill at the level of terrible, no one decent could stomach it.
I am mostly just incredibly thankful that it seems like the boys haven't been too bothered by recent goings on. They are still adorable and affectionate and magical, and I had been incredibly terrified that the things happening recently would make them shy away from that a little. I'm just so, so glad that they haven't done that for a plethora of reasons. (They actually almost seem MORE affectionate in the past couple of days than they had for a while before that? Potentially I am projecting, here.)
Unfollowing or defriending is the only way to handle some of this fandom, honestly. Even Liam had a bit of a breakdown on twitter yesterday, so you know things are genuinely rough in the 1D camp right now. I feel like if you can push Liam to swearing -- even if he turned around and was adorable about it later, of course he was, he's Liam -- then you have gone so far past acceptable you can't even see the line anymore.
I THINK SO TOO. Sorry, it's my own personal conspiracy theory. (I don't think management would give a fuck if one of them were gay, particularly not Simon Cowell, who loves Adam Lambert.) I genuinely have been wondering if the other boys have been stepping up their physical affection to distract everyone and take some of the pressure off Harry and Louis lately, because they have been out-of-control handsy on stage and off, wrestling and sitting on each other and genuinely going, "Me! I love my bandmates, look at me!!!!" and it's been a HUGE increase in Niall and Zayn in particular suddenly being all over everyone. If that's what they're doing it's absolutely lovely and I love them even more than usual for it. ♥
I ACTUALLY CAN'T BELIEVE THAT? Some people are so .... I don't understand how anyone thinks that's a logical thing to say?? NEWSFLASH: Oppression is not asking someone to refrain from using slurs or placing labels on people that they don't actually claim. Louis has also never said he's gay, not to mention he has a girlfriend, and while having a girlfriend is not 100% proof that a man is straight, I just... That's not our place to say! Other peoples' sexualities are not for other people to discuss!! Why are people so horrible? How do you come to have these kind of standards by which you live your life? I think it's actually terrifying.
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...sorry, that was a rant. It's just that you seem sane, and I'm so MAD and I'm trying not to feel >:( about a fandom that brings so much joy.
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I've never been a part of a GSA, but as someone not-heterosexual myself and someone who's spent a lot of time in conferences where the goal is to try and make safe communities for people of all sexual identities, gender identities, religions, races, ethnicities, ages, etc., I absolutely share that feeling. It's... There are no times when it's okay to discuss other peoples' sexualities. No matter what the reality is, it just isn't our place to say it's anything other than what someone says is what their reality is. People don't get to decide things about other people, and that's that! You know about a person what they tell you is true about them, you don't get to assume other things about anything, let alone subjects that are as sensitive as sexual orientation. I just... That's it. There are no ifs, no buts, no ands. I don't assume things about my closest friends, of course it isn't acceptable to assume things about people I DON'T KNOW.
I promise I'm sane, and I'm absolutely open to being ranted at whenever you'd like to rant about this fandom and get it off your chest! I'm also, even moreso, interested in talking about all the things about this fandom that make me happy, like Liam's stupid twitpics yesterday while he was watching the DVD, so if you want to talk about those things, too, my email inbox/anything really is always open! (It's open for everything, tbh, discussion, rant, fic, pictures. I am all for all things 1D.)
The thing... What I'm really trying to hold onto right now is this: This fandom may be an ocean of awful, but I believe that there's a boat of royalty out here that's worth holding onto. I've never been an active voice in fandom because I'm much more of an introverted, quiet, lurking personality, but in this fandom more than anything else I've experienced, I feel like I'm not only able to participate more actively with really quality members of the community, I feel like it's my responsibility to? There are just so FEW of us that are in this in the right way and for the right reasons, I think I need to put myself out there as one of those. But that's also really exciting, because I think it means that the tiny community I've found here is one that I can actually become a part of, and one that will grow very close together and have a lot of fun and write a lot of great fic and just generally make it fabulous. And I'm really looking forward to that.
Reply
So far I've found some really excellent people (present company included) who are sane and thoughtful and respectful and able to have a version of the boys in their heads for fic, and a completely separate and sane appreciation for the in-real-life boys who are probably nothing like that and shouldn't be expected to behave that way. I have also found absolutely terrifying tin hatters who are old enough to know better and are rude and nasty people. I have given myself permission to defriend/unfollow at will if someone is making me uncomfortable, where normally I wouldn't. This fandom is just too horrible to feel guilt over that kind of thing.
But no matter what the boys themselves are a source of absolute joy and delight and every single day I find something new to enjoy, whether it's Liam and Louis having a nerf gun war or everyone ripping Harry's shirt off because they are assholes. ♥ I'm trying to focus on the positive.
Reply
"This fandom is just too horrible to feel guilt over that kind of thing." Ugh, you can say that again. I have never ever unfollowed somebody on Tumblr or defriended them on LJ before last week, but today alone it has happened four times. It is just too much to feel constantly ill at the level of terrible, no one decent could stomach it.
I am mostly just incredibly thankful that it seems like the boys haven't been too bothered by recent goings on. They are still adorable and affectionate and magical, and I had been incredibly terrified that the things happening recently would make them shy away from that a little. I'm just so, so glad that they haven't done that for a plethora of reasons. (They actually almost seem MORE affectionate in the past couple of days than they had for a while before that? Potentially I am projecting, here.)
Reply
I THINK SO TOO. Sorry, it's my own personal conspiracy theory. (I don't think management would give a fuck if one of them were gay, particularly not Simon Cowell, who loves Adam Lambert.) I genuinely have been wondering if the other boys have been stepping up their physical affection to distract everyone and take some of the pressure off Harry and Louis lately, because they have been out-of-control handsy on stage and off, wrestling and sitting on each other and genuinely going, "Me! I love my bandmates, look at me!!!!" and it's been a HUGE increase in Niall and Zayn in particular suddenly being all over everyone. If that's what they're doing it's absolutely lovely and I love them even more than usual for it. ♥
Reply
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