Toxic Fandom Culture

[rynling]

Waking Up: Neil Gaiman and Toxic Fandom
https://thelearnedfangirl.com/2018/07/waking-up-neil-gaiman-and-toxic-fandom/

There is no shortage of examples [of toxic fandom]. Much of this behavior is based in misogyny and racism, some of it is not, and all of it seems to shriek, “You did not do what I want, therefore you are bad, and I am going to tell the world.”

This is not love. It is not even fandom. It is a mob.

Preach.

I should mention two things about this short essay. First, it's about the author being a fan of Neil Gaiman, not about Neil Gaiman himself. Second, it was written in July 2018. I was going through an intense online experience at the time and wondering what in the world I had done to deserve what was happening, and reading this essay then would have helped me a lot, I think. It's definitely worth saying that, outside of a genuine #MeToo (or similar) situation, no artist or writer deserves this. I'm tentatively hopeful that this sort of culture has started to fade, not in the least because we all have much better things to devote our time and energy to.

Comments

[runicmagitek]

What a great article. It touches on so many toxic aspects of fandom. The part talking about people clinging too much to the thing they like and how it becomes their identity... yeah. It seems to get magnified with access to social media, but I do hope it's something that dies and stays dead.

[rynling]

Right?? I don't think I'm delusional in thinking that it didn't used to be like this. I keep dwelling on how the culture has changed since I was a dumb kid on LiveJournal saying some really stupid shit on anon memes, and I can't even imagine being a teenager on Tumblr circa 2018.

If nothing else, the tendency to treat individual fanblogs as if they're brands with PR managers wasn't healthy. You've mentioned this yourself, but treating any creator like that just because they make use of social media channels feels a little unbalanced. This whole "checking receipts" business needs to stop, you know? I'm starting to see a lot more tweets and Tumblr posts critiquing this mentality, and it's such a relief.

[runicmagitek]

So much yes to all of this.

Also, I'm really tired of the mindset some people have where they see a handful of people talk about A Thing in the same way on social media and then just... proceeds to believe that and talk about it like it's true... without doing any research on their part to better understand wtf is going on.

I say that because I'm dealing with a coworker talking about a game that came out that A) he didn't play, B) has no intention of playing, and C) got his "facts" from some people on Twitter who are screaming on certain tags and therefore is parroting what those people said without coming to any conclusion of his own. Granted, that's different from Actually Shitty Things People Do, but the social media hivemind needs to die in a fire.

Also, I love how our recent conversations seem to keep circling back to "what the hell is up with people not doing their own research?"