lamphoera:

i’ve observed a certain pushback recently against fandom and shipping culture and, to be fair, i absolutely understand why. some people who engross themselves in certain circles have fandom and shipping becomes the only lens through which they understand narratives, or it’s touted as the superior one – at best i think this is a shameful loss of like, robustness of experience in a lack of willingness to engage with certain things, and in the worst cases i find this to be extremely tasteless and disrespectful to an original work and intentions which doesn’t lend itself to fan appropriation (and i say appropriation neutrally, because i think appropriation is also what gives rise to the best aspects of fandom culture).

it’s like, i enjoy shipping. i also hate talking about my favorite things with people who are concerned with nothing other than shipping because it’s exhausting, because there are other things i also find interesting about stories. there are stories for which i’m disappointed that most of the people i see approach through like a, transformative fandom mindset because the significance of it to me is entirely in how the work itself is put together. this isn’t even getting into the whole laundry list of other frustrations and criticisms i have with fandom that have, at least to some degree, contributed to me not really participating in it anymore. like, i get it?

what i find. idk, bizarre. offputting. missing the point??? is how a lot of people who have these criticisms, which are at least in my opinion legitimate and worth getting people to consider, make it an issue of, idk how to explain this, habit and not hierarchy. the base issue is not that people engage in doing fandom things like shipping or writing fanfiction – and i get that people have criticisms with the way people make these things or the quality of them or the way they are valued but can you really make an argument against the bare concept itself lmao? – but that in some spaces this arguably narrow lens is perceived as the only path to engage with art. so by this logic we should be encouraging people to like, expand their horizons, right?

except the vast majority of posts i’ve seen about this are much more about talking about the inferiority of doing fandom stuff, which is characterized as inherently juvenile and unintellectual (i question both the truth of this and the valuation of it), than getting people to, like, approach media analysis in a certain way – the rejection of fandom rather than the embracing of evaluating art non-transformatively. the throughline is not that fandom is flawed, but that fandom is cringe. it’s very transparent that it’s primarily about asserting the superiority of the poster’s taste, intellect, and morals. this is frustrating to me because i care about the issue being used as a cover for this, idk, weird culture war. and like, i don’t think it’s a fault at all to advocate for your tastes or to have pretentious tastes, i just wish people would be honest.

musing from the place of a person who is like actively having this experience: i think a lot of these posts are made by people who spent their formative years totally engrossed in fandom and have since drifted from fandom and really found an identity in engaging with media in other ways, probably having to do with reading and analysis. it feels, in part, like this behavior is an overperformance of maturity, an assertion of adulthood through rejecting childhood. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that “30 year olds in fandom” (yes i know some people are shitty but is that really what you’re concerned with when you say this in this context?) are brought up pejoratively so often; the antithesis of who you want to be in the future when you’re a early 20-something unsure of your place in life and not feeling like an adult despite your age is somebody who has not changed from a lost child, who has failed to grow up – if fandom represents your juvenile self then somebody older than you who has not “developed” from what you perceive as the juvenile is to be rejected at all costs. the zeitgeist of tumblr, or at least the side of it i have a view into, seems to be about here, as ppl who were here as teens during the heyday of fandom age.  also i think the YA/adults who read YA (another thing there are numerous legit criticisms of but i think people stupid about how and why they criticize it) pushback is a product of the same thing

idk there isn’t a conclusion to this i was just thinking about things.

it speaks volumes that many people who make a big deal out of their supposed goal of criticizing fandom in order to improve upon the culture of a given space refuse to acknowledge possible positive aspects of fandom or to look at the entire thing through a non-hierarchical angle. the preoccupation some people have with asserting that fanwork, usually fanfiction, is an inferior art form, or that fans do not or cannot ever engage in meaningful analysis or engagement with art through fandom, or even to imply that engaging in fandom activity and idk being able to read are mutually exclusive, does not do anything to encourage critical discourse about art, media, and social spaces or display an actual willingness to understand these things. it strikes me as hypocritical to posture as an intellectual or thinker while refusing to engage with and accept the complexities of the actual thing you claim to be talking about. to ignore and not discuss these complex dynamics is to make it about one “side” winning or losing, which is the opposite of encouraging people to think critically, which is ostensibly the goal