But what are your thoughts on yaoi?
Some things have been happening on my flist recently that made me want to take a step back and think for a minute. I mentioned some of this stuff on Twitter before, but, well, it's Twitter. Not exactly the prime location for navel-gazing tl;dr.
( OH NO, IT'S A TEAL DEER STAMPEEEEEDE )
( OH NO, IT'S A TEAL DEER STAMPEEEEEDE )
The reason I think that I'm done with RPF as an overarching genre though, outside of still caring about Kradison, is because I'm getting this feeling that the fundamental nature of Real People Fandom in and of itself affects not only how fans relate to the fandom objects, but also each other.
There's this obsessive drive to know every. little. thing. about fandom objects like Kris and Adam and Jared and Jensen. It's an unending quest find out not only their deepest darkest secrets, but also where they were yesterday and what they wore and what did they eat for lunch and did anyone take any pictures. Fandom encourages this because it's fun to learn new things and see new pics, and I'm just as much a part of that as anyone else.
But I think in SPN and AI this quest leads to a certain level of disregard for the fandom objects as PEOPLE until they become, well, just objects. There's a degradation of respect. And then lines really start getting crossed, like with Jared's little sister or Adam having to keep changing his phone number.
And when people stop respecting their idols as real people, oh shit, watch out everyone who's merely tolerated or even outright resented. When people feel like it's acceptable to be creepy and invasive to Jared and Adam, whom they love, it's no surprise to me at all when they make that one short hop to being creepy and invasive and hostile towards Danneel and Katy and especially other fans.
I've been involved in internet fandoms for, idk, 10 years I guess. And Idol and SPN are BSC in way I've just never encountered before, in that this shit gets off the internet and goes RL. SPN fans once tried to get Jensen's fiancee thrown out of a convention. Real world stalking has happened to Idol fans because they disagreed with someone on the internet. It's chilling to think about.
And you're absolutely right, it just gets worse as time goes on. I think I was futilely hoping against hope that, since there was never any s7 fighting that I witnessed during s8, that s9 would arrive and some magical reset button would get pushed and people would just stop being fucking douches. But I feel like the hostility has skyrocketed instead D:
I really don't know.
ETA: lol holy shit I wrote another essay in this comment, sorry. Apparently I have a lot of feeling D:
Reply
Leave a comment