Comments | sarashina_nikki: But what are your thoughts on yaoi?

sarashina_nikki

But what are your thoughts on yaoi?

Mar 09, 2010 00:41

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 )

meta, idol, merlin, spn

Comments 9

avocado_love March 9 2010, 05:52:17 UTC

Wow. You've opened my eyes a lot with this... I had no idea there was that level of cyber-stalking. I used to be in an RPF fandom for Korn, back in the day before Myspace had even gotten a foothold. The fandom was nowhere near that level of crazy -- sure, a couple of them had gotten Jon Davis' picture out of a yearbook, or photos when they appeared in magazines, but... wow.

I feel sorry for these guys, but you know what? They're also being stupid. Having a facebook or having your girlfriend have a facebook when you are this much of a public figure is sorta asking for it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It's not hard to not have one, or not put personal photos on the internet nowadays if they have direct evidence of being stalked.

Obviously the tax information is a whole other ball of wax. *sigh* Fans are obsessive, and clearly some of this women are dangerous to boot if they have that level of hacking skill.

sarashina_nikki March 9 2010, 09:59:11 UTC

A lot of the stuff that makes me feel the most awk is the level of cyberstalking that happens to all the people AROUND the fandom objects. Because, yeah, for the most part their own shit is locked down or deleted or whatever. But people like their third cousin and their freshmen college roommate aren't.

Which, lol, is still freaking dumb just from a "do you live in the 21st century" perspective, since the first thing potential employers do is google you.

But I'm sure if they found out 8247327493283924 fangirls traipsed merrily through all their wedding shots and party pics they'd figure out their privacy settings in a hurry. (Which is apparently what happened in Merlin fandom.)

IDK IDK. It's a brave new world and all that, I still haven't quite worked out how I feel about it. Obviously there's the levels of "that's gone too far" and "that's just harmless" but what about all the stuff in between? I just don't know.

aholiday March 9 2010, 06:12:47 UTC

tbh, it kind of scares me how desensitized to all of these things AI fandom has made me. I mean, I made that Kris primer post and when you think about it, 50% of that info was found through other people's internet stalking (facebooks, myspaces, old college blogs, etc, etc.). Granted, I'm not totally unaffected by it, because there were times (ex. Katy's blog leaking) where I felt really uncomfortable and gross, but still.

RPF fandoms are just weird places and it's hard to figure out where to draw lines. Is it better to be overly cautious or go all out? Because like you said, once you start crossing lines, everything becomes okay. And that's where I kind of like the reactions to these pictures in Merlin fandom. It's almost refreshing in contrast to the gross invasions of privacy I've come to perceive as normal (how and when my perceptions of these things changed, idek but, scary) since joining Idol fandom. I mean, outside of being annoyed, I don't even blink an eye when I see Idol fans spamming Katy's friend's twitter with the news ( ... )

sarashina_nikki March 9 2010, 08:19:36 UTC

how and when my perceptions of these things changed, idek but, scary

I had that exact realization the other day, which is what led to this post :/

My immediate gut reaction was "oh shit, DNFW my morals being influenced freaking AI fandom, the creepiest, most stalkerrific fandom that ever did stalk."

LOL IDK, I've thought about it a lot and it's not like I've come up with any answers. Even if you could figure out where you want to draw the line for you personally between "kinda creepy, but still okay" and "TOO CREEPY DNW", there's no fandom police to come and make everyone do the same. So in the end any limits you set for yourself don't serve any practical purpose beyond making yourself feel better, since it does nothing to affect the way the fandom functions at large.

And yeah, things have absolutely been devolving at an insane pace. :/

oatmeal_cookie March 9 2010, 07:06:21 UTC

tl;dr to me forever, Nikki. UNF. ;D

lol mostly I'm sitting here, horrified at all of AI's dirty laundry laid out like this, point by creepy point. Only since you tweeted about the Merlin stuff did I ever really think about things from a different perspective. I mean, it's a given that the entire fandom is cray, and I think we've all accepted that we're all creepers in a way. Especially with Twitter and other social networking sites open to the public, everything's just so easyI think the difference between, say, Merlin and AI is that Merlin fandom is primarily based on a TV show. There are characters and an entire universe of canon that (supposedly) comes before the Real People stuff. But with AI fandom, all we ever had were the Real People. It's a flimsy argument, and it's mostly rationalization fail, but I think that's where the discrepancy between fandom attitudes comes from ( ... )

sarashina_nikki March 9 2010, 08:37:54 UTC

I agree the ease of it is partially why it's so pervasive. Twitter is a huge part of it I think, not only for the fact that information travels at light speed through Twitter, but that fact that everyone and their dog has one now, and keeping yourself up to date on every thing Adam's ex-boyfriend's mother says is now as simple as clicking the "follow" button.

And, yeah, all my issues with the fan-idol relationship aside, it's all the internecine fan stuff that soured me on AI the most. I've definitely cut myself off from the rest of the fandom as best I can. I don't visit any of the comms and I don't talk to anyone not already on my twitter feed. I'm just... done. Some of the nastiest people I have ever encountered in fandom are in AI. I've been debating all week whether or not to lock my Twitter and just be done with it.

Keeping you forever tho, obvs. <3333

honey_wheeler March 9 2010, 07:49:01 UTC

Honestly, I have fewer issues with people finding and disseminating the "private" content that they do than with what people choose to do with it. Maybe it's just from seeing the shit that's happened with Idol and Lotrips before it, but the omnipresence of material of questionable origin is just kind of par for the course for being on the internet to me. It's what people have chosen to do with it, and how (as Holiday and Patmeal mentioned) it's caused a subsequent erosion of the way people treat both the RPF objects (and their adjacents) and fellow fans that unsettles me most about Idol. And I think it's mostly recent, too. I don't remember Cookleta or Cake causing these kinds of problems, man.

sarashina_nikki March 9 2010, 09:42:16 UTC

Seriously ( ... )

mistresscurvy March 9 2010, 22:12:27 UTC

I think that twitter and facebook and all other social networking sites have just taken what the paparazzi have done for YEARS and just put the power in fandom's hands, in terms of stalking. I mean, on a day to day basis, I'd bet you dollars to donuts that actual paparazzi are far more invasive for Adam than his fans online are, simply because if he doesn't want to see the invasion of privacy online, he doesn't actually have to. It's a lot easier to ignore than US Weekly or Perez or the cameras in his face. Hell, if they just avoid their @replies on twitter, they'll avoid the vast majority of it ( ... )