Fandom ups and downs.
Aug. 13th, 2021 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rogueslayer452Taken from the Crunchy Questions Meme:
What are some improvements that have occurred within the fandom community over the years? What are things that you wish would cease or that people would stop doing?
I would say one improvement would probably be the ceasing of snark communities, where the entire purpose was to mock fans, particularly younger fans, for the fanworks they created. Now, I enjoy a good snark, but the lines can blur easily into just being plain mean-spirited and unfortunately that's what a lot of those communities ended up becoming. And looking back, while it can be fun to mock mainstream entertainment MST3k-style it's not a good idea to do that with fan-created works, especially without their knowledge or permission which was sadly very common back in the day. I have no doubt that stuff like this still exists, since hate communities in general still exist no matter the platform, it's just not as widely known or accessible as it used to be back in the day, which is good. Fandom is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and seeing hate towards fans, even in a mocking way, can be incredibly discouraging.
I also think that blatant internalized misogyny has lessened over the years. It obviously still does exist, unfortunately, but I also think there's more conversation surrounding the topic of defending female characters (and actresses/performers/creators/etc) and examining this kind of toxic mindset. There's less mockery of Mary Sues, bashing of female characters in fanfiction is greatly frowned upon, and so on.
At the same time, though, I do think that while some things have improved much has also remained the same, just repackaged differently with the social climate we're currently in.
Like yes, internalized misogyny has lessened in certain fandom circles, but it has also created this toxic positive mentality where no criticism or examination of the flaws and nuances of female characters should exist, that women, fictional and real alike, are queens and flawless goddesses that can do no wrong, which is just incredibly dehumanizing and is just as bad as outright hating on them for no reason. This is doubly so for WOC, as well, which yes racism in fandom is still a massive problem that needs to be addressed but this is not the way of combatting it. There are other examples of this, but essentially the gist is that we went from one extreme to a complete 180 into another extreme which is rather counterproductive in fandom spaces where discussions of these particular topics need to be addressed rather than brushed aside or treated like some shallow hot take on social media, be it internalized misogyny/homophobia, generational gaps in the overall fandom community, attitudes towards fanworks vs mainstream media and the influence they both have as a whole, etc. The latter especially since it is very much tied with purity culture, which needs to be eradicated, as far as I'm concerned. Purity culture, and all it entails, has done nothing good for anyone, fandom and non-fandom alike, and seeing so many people repeat these ideologies and views across all sorts of places is deeply concerning to me, to be honest.
So yeah, I think that this gradual shift within the fandom community over the years has been something that has been bothering me for a long time. Whether or not this was the natural state of progression of fandom as platforms and online interaction changed, who knows, it could very well have been inevitable. So while I think some things have improved, other things really haven't, either having gotten worse or more or less remained the same. I do think that, with all things, it will always fluctuate as time goes on, we'll have our ups and downs, improvements and setbacks.
So yeah, this kind of got long, longer than I initially intended, and it's not even everything that I wanted to include because I do have specific examples that I wanted to get into more with things that do need more improvement within the online fandom community, but that will have to wait for another day. I had certain thoughts I needed to write out, I just hope that it was coherent enough to make sense.
What are some improvements that have occurred within the fandom community over the years? What are things that you wish would cease or that people would stop doing?
I would say one improvement would probably be the ceasing of snark communities, where the entire purpose was to mock fans, particularly younger fans, for the fanworks they created. Now, I enjoy a good snark, but the lines can blur easily into just being plain mean-spirited and unfortunately that's what a lot of those communities ended up becoming. And looking back, while it can be fun to mock mainstream entertainment MST3k-style it's not a good idea to do that with fan-created works, especially without their knowledge or permission which was sadly very common back in the day. I have no doubt that stuff like this still exists, since hate communities in general still exist no matter the platform, it's just not as widely known or accessible as it used to be back in the day, which is good. Fandom is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and seeing hate towards fans, even in a mocking way, can be incredibly discouraging.
I also think that blatant internalized misogyny has lessened over the years. It obviously still does exist, unfortunately, but I also think there's more conversation surrounding the topic of defending female characters (and actresses/performers/creators/etc) and examining this kind of toxic mindset. There's less mockery of Mary Sues, bashing of female characters in fanfiction is greatly frowned upon, and so on.
At the same time, though, I do think that while some things have improved much has also remained the same, just repackaged differently with the social climate we're currently in.
Like yes, internalized misogyny has lessened in certain fandom circles, but it has also created this toxic positive mentality where no criticism or examination of the flaws and nuances of female characters should exist, that women, fictional and real alike, are queens and flawless goddesses that can do no wrong, which is just incredibly dehumanizing and is just as bad as outright hating on them for no reason. This is doubly so for WOC, as well, which yes racism in fandom is still a massive problem that needs to be addressed but this is not the way of combatting it. There are other examples of this, but essentially the gist is that we went from one extreme to a complete 180 into another extreme which is rather counterproductive in fandom spaces where discussions of these particular topics need to be addressed rather than brushed aside or treated like some shallow hot take on social media, be it internalized misogyny/homophobia, generational gaps in the overall fandom community, attitudes towards fanworks vs mainstream media and the influence they both have as a whole, etc. The latter especially since it is very much tied with purity culture, which needs to be eradicated, as far as I'm concerned. Purity culture, and all it entails, has done nothing good for anyone, fandom and non-fandom alike, and seeing so many people repeat these ideologies and views across all sorts of places is deeply concerning to me, to be honest.
So yeah, I think that this gradual shift within the fandom community over the years has been something that has been bothering me for a long time. Whether or not this was the natural state of progression of fandom as platforms and online interaction changed, who knows, it could very well have been inevitable. So while I think some things have improved, other things really haven't, either having gotten worse or more or less remained the same. I do think that, with all things, it will always fluctuate as time goes on, we'll have our ups and downs, improvements and setbacks.
So yeah, this kind of got long, longer than I initially intended, and it's not even everything that I wanted to include because I do have specific examples that I wanted to get into more with things that do need more improvement within the online fandom community, but that will have to wait for another day. I had certain thoughts I needed to write out, I just hope that it was coherent enough to make sense.
