Comments | exsequar: And a few more of your least favorite things

exsequar

And a few more of your least favorite things

Aug 22, 2007 21:08

I don't quite understand why bandom is looked at with such disdain by so many people. Never before have I felt so supremely judged simply for taking part in a specific fandom. I don't see this one as any different from any of my others - in fact, it's kind of Jsquared to the nth power. And I thought we were all gay friendly around here? So what is ( Read more... )

bandom, bandom - vids, bandom - panic!, rl, bandom - decaydance, summer 07

Comments 84

expatiates August 23 2007, 01:16:48 UTC

invisible monsters is one of my absolute favorite books, and was before i even knew ryan ross existed, for whatever that's worth.

DECAYDANCE WEEEEEEEEEEEE.

BOYS WEEEEEEEEEEEE!

don't let anyone give you shit about loving those shiny boys, dude. srsly. ♥

exsequar August 23 2007, 01:25:14 UTC

It's so hard though, I'm at odds with at least two people that I like and respect a great deal because of my involvement in bandom and I just. I don't know. Fellow fangirls were always the ones I could trust to let me do my thing, and now some of them are criticizing me for my interest? That makes me feel uncomfortable and unsafe in my own little haven. Sigh.

DECAYDANCE OH MY GOD. This whole tour is the best idea EVER, except how it happened a month too early for me to see it. But whatever, VICARIOUS LIVING FTW.

Well I'm certainly willing to give the book a try! I hope I like it!

expatiates August 23 2007, 01:38:43 UTC

i don't understand why people would be, like, mean about it? frankly, there are people on my flist who are crazy about things that i think are totally lame (zac efron, come on! hell, to this day i honestly don't get the fuss over SPN, to be honest), but i would never judge them or criticize them for it. to each their own and all that. i really find it bewildering that people are giving you shit about it!

I WAS IN PARIS LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO. WHYYYYYY WHY WHY WHY? GOD.

fledmusic August 23 2007, 01:24:03 UTC

I don't quite understand why bandom is looked at with such disdain by so many people.

I know, it's quite sad. BUT SCREW THEM. IF THEY DON'T WANT TO LOVE THE SHINY PRETTY BOYS THEN THEY'RE THE ONES MISSING OUT ON INFINITE JOY.

I can't wait to get home so I can watch the Decaydance vids! *squeals* \O/!!!!!!!

winterweathered August 23 2007, 01:27:31 UTC

I really don't think it has to do with the boys acting feminine. I'd be really surprised if that's the case... since every time Jared wears pink or, you know, wears pigtails, everybody's panties explode.

I think it's the nature of the fandom - specifically, that it's music. People's tastes in music vary SO MUCH. Part of it is also probably about the fact that the bandslash boys are very 'mainstream' at the moment. They're on TRL, etc. I'd bet that when *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were at their height, popslash got looked down on quite a bit. A lot of fandom favorites tend to be cult hits - like SPN and Veronica Mars - as opposed to MTV-friendly stuff ( ... )

exsequar August 23 2007, 01:35:09 UTC

Thank you for answering me candidly and honestly, that's helped clear it up for me a lot. I've had one unpleasant encounter with a good friend who was pretty much strongly offended by the entire bandom aesthetic, so that's why I latched onto that as a sort of turnoff of the fandom. But in a general sense your reason makes much more sense - the mainstreamness turns people off. I, personally, kind of love that they're mainstream because we get interviews and material galore \o/ But I also understand the kneejerk "popular = bad" reaction because I've definitely had that in the past ( ... )

winterweathered August 23 2007, 02:09:12 UTC

I, personally, kind of love that they're mainstream because we get interviews and material galore

TOTALLY. When I was into the boy bands, it was five or six years ago, when they were SO COOL, and it was like... every day, there would be something new to record or listen to or read or whatever. It was a magical time. Haha.

There just seems to be such a widespread active antipathy.I really strongly think it's two things - first of all, that Pete is in the gossip rags all the time because of Ashlee, so the general view of him from OUTSIDE your fandom is that he's... THAT GUY. (I don't want that to sound wrong... What I mean is, the focus for people not in the fandom isn't really on his music or his words or his blogging or his Patrick-worship. It's on his penis pictures and the fact that he's banging a Simpson and that he was on One Tree Hill that one time ( ... )

exsequar August 23 2007, 02:23:53 UTC

God, right now all of our favorite bands are touring. Together. It's like daily orgies or something, wtf. I can't even handle this level of awesome! *g*

Oh, PETE. Yeah, sadly, that's very true. And god, I love the guy, I really really do, but he is not exactly all warmsquishy all the time even when you do pay attention to everything he actually does as opposed to what gets into the tabloids. He's a shrewd and ruthless businessman, honestly, and also has some psychological issues, most notably an extreme Peter Pan complex. He's a really complicated guy, and you kind of have to accept certain things about him as just who he is, but when that gets distilled down into tabloid fodder... ugh. He doesn't come out pretty.

RYANROSSOMG. *cough* Sorry :D Yeah, I kind of feel guilty that I have all these new fun toys while everyone else is sunk in the hiatus blues! :( Don't worry, only a month to go! Winchesters soooon!

vertrauen August 23 2007, 01:33:26 UTC

You are right, bandom is like JSquared. I'm not sure why it has the kind of stigma it does, 'cause it's not like it hasn't been around for years, just different names and faces.

I know I'm not into it because I'm just not into that music, so when my flist pops up with MCR or Panic! or FOB (the closest I ever got was All-American Rejects), it's just another opportunity for me to say "oops, can't participate" and move on.

I'll never fault you for the fandoms you play around in, and I hope that my friends offer me the same courtesy. I know there's plenty of my DW friends who are all "SPN? The Incest Fandom? Ew!" We just agree to disagree. We all play around in different sandboxes, and if bandom floats your boat, go all in sista. :)

exsequar August 23 2007, 01:37:38 UTC

Bandom is like Jsquared on their gayest day ever, all the time. It's really quite marvelous.

I think bandom is perceived as the realm of the teenybopper, as the commenter above said, because the subjects are so very mainstream, but that doesn't mean the fandom itself is composed of those teenyboppers, you know? I think it's a mistaken conflation of two phenomena that are actually quite separate.

I appreciate your attitude dear, thank you! *huggles* And I hope I'm not boring you too terribly with my ramblings on. They're just so pretty! *g*

vertrauen August 23 2007, 01:41:46 UTC

That's a very good point. I like the way that the both of you think.

HEE. You're not being boring, not at all. Actually, sometimes I get the slightest bit sad because I'm not full of squee like you and others on my flist who are into bandom. I'm not sure if that will ever change, but I am a Nosy Nellie and have to know everything about everything. At the moment, bandom is a foreign thing to me. ;)

cathybites August 23 2007, 01:49:50 UTC

For me, this whole new era of bandslash grates me because I really don't like the bands. at all. and I fully admit it's because I'm a music snob and look down on them as pseudo-punk wannabes.

Plus I really hate the fake-lesbian ploy for attention, and that doesn't change at all for me just because it's two guys doing it.

That said, I don't really look down on the fans for getting into it. It's just really annoying when it's post after post on my f'list about it. But I've learned the beauty of Adblock, so I've been seeing a lot less of the icons, and I've pretty much trained myself to skip as soon as I see a mention of any of the bands in a post.

exsequar August 23 2007, 02:00:40 UTC

Hm, okay. I guess I can understand that. It just seems odd that for everything else, all fans are content to let each other enjoy everything at will, but when it comes to this it actually offends? I suppose they are a bit extreme, but I don't know. It's not like we've got clips of their music embedded in our posts that play automatically, or something ( ... )