meta: how fandom has changed your moral/political views

[kaiwynn]

A quick note before we begin: All experiences discussed henceforth are mine, and aren't intended to be a generalization. You don't have to agree with me. Actually, I prefer it if you don't: there's better discussion to be had that way. Also, I don't mean to be offensive in the least, to anyone. Honestly. These are just thoughts, and this is

Comments

[apresmoi]

I think fandom sort of reminds me of hypnotism sometimes. I learned about it during one of (many) psychology lessons, and here's the basic gist. When you are hypnotized, you may do some incredibly silly things. Things that you may not have realized that you were okay with doing. But, hypnotization can never ever make you do something that you are against doing. It can't compromise your willpower, only expand on things

[lastupenda]

Omg insightful discussion

[kaiwynn]

Well, I don't think BDSM is a bad thing at all. As long as it's between consensual adults, then I don't really care. And I've always found the idea intriguing as well -- so no worries.

Perhaps fic doesn't create spontaneous feelings that we've never had before, like apresmoi said earlier. It just builds on something we already have -- whether we know it or not. This is an interesting idea.

Don't worry about shutting up, hehe. It's a good thing that you're discussing. :)

[morlockiness]

I have always been for gay marriage, but I hated slash because it made the characters seem so OOC to me. Now I don't mind it in the least - in fact, I sometimes write it. I'm not entirely one for incest, until I watched Little Miss Sunshine and threw myself into the fandom, writing incest-based fiction and incest doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Fanfiction does have the power to change how we think and it's really interesting.

[kaiwynn]

It is interesting! I think fandom has a lot of good (and bad) effects on our lives, and this is just one of them.

[kaiwynn]

I guess you awesome Canadians are too cool for our gay controversies, hehe.

Yeah, but maybe if you did see real-life incest, your opinion might be influenced a little by Pevensiecest. I'm not saying it will, just that it might be. Do you think so? Maybe without fandom incest, instead of saying I don't know how I'd feel you might be saying No, no, that's gross.

Just food for thought.

And yeah. Maybe we don't start to believe it, but when it's everywhere, we definitely begin to see it as more "normal" -- which leads to it being more "accepted". You know what I mean?

[kaiwynn]

It makes me angry, too. You're making me want to go to Canada now.

Acceptance is definitely a good thing.

Long comment is long!

[tju_tju_tju_tju]

My first fandom was Harry Potter when I was eleven years old and back then, even though I wasn't against gay marriage, gayness still had a negative connotation to me, and I was disgusted that people were "dirtying" and "ruining" the characters I loved by writing slash about them. I remember taking this quiz one time to see which HP ship you were, and being replused by the slashy one... but I still took it anyway, and was majorly grossed out when I got Harry/Neville. The incest fics also freaked me the fuck out, even more than the slash fics. I didn't understand why people wanted to do these things to these children's book characters. I didn't understand it all, so I stayed away from it as best as I could

Re: Long comment is long!

[kaiwynn]

Haha, you were Harry/Neville. I imagine how traumatizing that must have been.

Maybe opinions change more because of fandom than of fanfic. After all, it would make sense that a lot of pro-gay people are concentrated in fandom, and being around all those people might change your opinions...I need to stop thinking.

Oh, I had no idea Heroes had so much incest. I think the fact that people shipped them before it was revealed they were related is a point for the incest side. Wouldn't you see past the "they're related!" to the real heart of things, like "they're in love!" I think that's maybe the best way to get people to agree with incest.

...I'm sorry if this doesn't make any sense at all.