How To Be A BNF
So, I'm gonna talk about some things that People Don't Talk About.
Being a BNF is kind of a weird experience.
No shit, right?
You are, basically, a Tiny Celebrity. You get Tiny Celebrity perks, and Tiny Celebrity pitfalls. Whether the perks will outweigh the pitfalls depends on your personality, although, as a word of warning, I don't know any BNFs who unequivocably enjoyed their time in the sun, and most of them outright hated it sometimes. But if you want to have this experience, or if you find that you already are a BNF even though you didn't want to be one and now you don't want to fuck it up too bad (as happened to me), there are things you can do.
Becoming a BNF
Partly this is luck. But I don't think it's an especially big part.
Step 1: Be Good At Something.
This is not actually necessary. There are other ways to become a BNF; "being a wanky bitch" will certainly garner you attention, and even a degree of prestige. On the kinder, softer side of not being good at anything, there's the Social Butterfly path to BNFdom, where you know everybody and everybody knows you because you're seriously everywhere. But this won't give you the same experience as a Content-Producing BNF or even a Wank BNF, because while no one will have anything against you, no one will really look up to you, either.
Anyway, I only have experience with being the Content-Producing kind of BNF, specifically a fic writer, so I'm gonna talk about that.
Note that you do not need to be great at something. Good is good enough. But being bad at something is not going to get you very far.
Step 2: Specialize.
Not to the point of exclusivity or anything-I think only about half of my fanfic ended up being about my favorite pairing-but it's important that people have some idea of what to expect when they come to your journal. What's more, specialize in something that none of the other BNFs are specializing in. Fill a niche. If you desperately love a pairing that already has a power player (or a few), you'd better be doing something really different with it, or else you're not going to capture the fandom's imagination. You may be well-regarded, but you won't become a BNF.
Step 3: Produce Often.
For at least the first couple months in your new fandom, you need to put something out at least three times a week. Four or five times a week is better. There's a lot of white noise in fandom, and you want to make sure people can hear you over the din. Keep posting things, and as time goes on, more and more people will see something of yours that catches their eye. Those people may then decide to check out what else you've done. Then they may recommend you to their friends. This can lead to some of your fics becoming practically required reading. By the time this happens, you can probably call yourself a BNF.
(Obviously, the timetable above is from the reference point of a fic writer.)
Hopefully, updating three to five times a week for a few months should not be too hard. When you first join a fandom, you have a lot of energy to produce for it! When your enthusiasm begins to taper off, and you settle into a more sedate once-or-twice-a-week updating routine, you should already have a healthy and growing readership.
Step 4: Be nice to EVERYBODY.
Try to treat every comment as an opportunity to strike up a conversation. Respond to all comments with enthusiasm and kindness. Even the stupid ones.
On a related note…
Step 5: Participate In The Community.
If you are Too Fucking Good To Ever Leave Your Journal, people will assume that you think you're Too Fucking Good To Ever Leave Your Journal. Also, rolling up your sleeves and interacting with the community helps to get your name out. Once you are a BNF, you can safely withdraw to your fortress of solitude, because you will be recockulously busy answering comments, producing content, and outrunning anonymous wank. Join the occasional flagship event or holiday exchange, and retire with relief from the main comms. It's a jungle out there.
Step 6: Have A Lot Of Free Time.
As you might have gathered from Steps 3 and 4, being a BNF is really time consuming. Being depressed, unemployed, or an insomniac will help.
So now you should be on the path to becoming a BNF. Don't give me shit about this. "I've done all that in [X] fandom for six months, and I'm still being ignored, wibbly wibbly wibbly!" You're probably (1) not as good as you think you are at what you do, (2) not specialized enough (or not specialized into something that other people actually want), (3) not participating enough (by producing content, responding to comments, or showing an interest in the community), or (4) people think you're kind of a bitch. Or creepy. Or desperate. Or pretentious. Or just not very fun to talk to. Look inside your heart! Ask yourself which of these things may be the problem for you. I'll wait.
Possibly, if you are still not attracting any attention, you have just been tremendously unlucky…but I doubt it.
Why you should NOT be a BNF.
There are certain kinds of people who should stay away from notoriety, and you may not know that you're one of them. I didn't.
You should NOT be a BNF if you have a hot temper. Guilty. Even if you manage to keep it in check, you will be constantly infuriated by bitches and their whackness. And BNFs deal with a lot of bitches, and a lot of whack.
You should NOT be a BNF if you enjoy your solitude. Guilty. Does the prospect of talking one-on-one to twenty different people in a day make you uneasy? How about fifty? Or eighty? Nearly all of them strangers? If you are a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, you will eventually begin to face your prestigious mountain of reader feedback with dread. When even the positive feedback loses its appeal for you, it's dark times.
You should NOT be a BNF if you are uncomfortable with equivocating about your opinions. Or, short version: you will need to lie about things to keep the peace. Do you hate a pairing in your fandom? Or one of the characters in the canon? Or another person in your fandom? You cannot say so. BNFs do not have to love everything, but you cannot afford to hate anything. This is actually the only thing I really fucked up at, in my fandom, because I didn't realize how important it would be, and it's been my only serious source of wank. For the space of about three weeks (for context: I was in this fandom for two years), I really disliked one of the characters, and for two or three months, I really disliked one of the major fandom pairings which included that character. I said a few things about this in responses to comments on my journal, and I wrote two fics which showed that pairing in a bad light, and then I got over it, decided I actually liked that character and that I didn't mind the pairing, and moved on with my life.
Fandom will not get over it, and the haters will definitely not move on with their lives. A year and a half later, I was getting shit for being a Raging Psychotic Ship-Basher with a hysterical hate-on for a character I…liked quite a lot, by that point. So, my very earnest advice to all you young impressionable BNFs out there: don't express any negative opinions about anything. No matter how satisfying it might be at the time. Your opinion is fleeting. Wank is forever.
You should NOT be a BNF if you need validation in your work. Thankfully, this was not my problem, but it bit a couple of my friends pretty bad. If you crave approval, take criticism personally, or have a tendency to beat yourself up when you feel like you've let other people down, being a BNF will make you miserable. Being a Tiny Celebrity gives you screwy self-esteem issues. If you are starting out with self-esteem issues, you're in trouble.
You should NOT be a BNF if you really, really want to be a BNF. No matter how sane you are to start out, this will make you come off as entitled and snappish in the long run. I've seen it happen to otherwise very nice people. It ain't pretty.
All right. Are you all good? You cleared the checklist? Awesome. Onwards, to
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your Fans.
Be kind to these people. They look up to you, and a lot of them think you are very intimidating and will be hurt if you are harsh with them. Sometimes they say stupid things: try and let it slide. If you can't let it slide, try to correct them gently. If you can't correct them gently, at least correct them privately.
Don't worry too much about the fans who spaz out around you. You can't calm them down. They are just spazzy people. They are terrified that you're going to think they're stupid, so they fall all over themselves to make a good impression. Gently thank them for their feedback, reassure them (if they asked) that you don't hate them/think they're a stalker/judge them for rambling/whatever on Earth they think the problem is, and move on with your day. Getting spazzy fans to treat you like a normal person is a losing battle. They will either chill out on their own, or they won't.
Many of your fans are going to be cool, smart, creative people who would make awesome friends (real friends, not Livejournal friends). No matter how much of an unknown somebody is, they are never beneath your notice. Sometimes you're too busy to get back to everyone: it happens. But do your best. You never know when you're about to meet a badass.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your "Fans."
Ahahaha.
Be cordial but brief with the sycophants who just want you to like them because ~having you like them~ is a feather in their cap. Calling them on their insincere bullshit is not worth the wank, but if you talk to them too much, they'll never leave you alone. They will want you to friend them on Livejournal, and will make leading comments about it ("Is it okay if I friend you?" "Okay, I friended you!" "Did I friend you already?" "We should be friends-oh, haha, I friended you months ago!") until you give in.
Just give in.
Then there are your readers who think they own what you write. You will want to punch these readers in the mouth. Unfortunately, you can't, because being mean to your fans is a cardinal sin for a BNF. Stock phrases you will need include "I'll update when I have time =D," "That's not how I see the pairing, but I can appreciate your point of view =D," "I'm not a fan of that plot twist/relationship dynamic, but I'm sure there are a lot of other fics you could read that include those elements =D," and "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. =D" Don't bother debating this kind of thing. They don't want you to write a better story. They want you to write the story they want to read. And you are hopefully already writing the story that you want to read.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Other BNFs.
Most BNFs will say that there is no elite upper social echelon to which internet fame is your only passport, and that all the BNFs end up knowing each other because we're all legitimately fans of one another's work. This is not true. Or at least, it's disingenuous. On the other hand, it's not the way the bitches see it, either, with the BNFs all rubbing elbows in order to increase our own prominence and prestige, gloating behind our hands about how much better we are than the little people.
Mostly, BNFs get to know other BNFs because it's socially awkward not to.
At a certain point, it's just weird that you and Some Other BNF have never spoken to each other before. Obviously you're aware of each other; a lot of your fans are also their fans, and they like to compare your work. The fandom expects you to know Other BNF, and it will ask for your opinion about them, even though you write for different pairings (or whatever), and there's not really any reason why you ever would have come into contact with one another, except that you're both Tiny Celebrities. If this gets bad enough, the fandom will assume that you and Other BNF are ignoring one another, and then the speculation will begin about what drama lies between you.
This is retarded.
So eventually, you come up with some pretext to go over to their journal and say hello, and the Other BNF is so relieved that you've taken a step to mitigate this awkward situation you're both in that they make an extra effort to strike up a conversation with you, no matter how far it might be from the original topic. It is BNFs giving each other special consideration, but it's not for any kind of smug, self-serving reason. BNFs are just eager to forestall wank and gossip by appearing friendly with each other. A lot of what BNFs do is in an effort to forestall wank and gossip.
A lot of times, BNFs will then go from being Livejournal friends to actual friends, because, well, you have stuff in common. You like to think about meta, and canon, and you enjoy writing (or whatever), and you have the shared experience of being a BNF to talk about, if you need to grease those conversational wheels. If you read (or whatever) each other's work, you can talk about themes and narrative choices (or style and color composition, or etc etc).
So if you're a BNF, and you want to get to know another BNF, don't worry about it. Conjure up a flimsy pretext and say hello. They're probably curious about you, too, or at least they'll be willing to open up diplomatic channels. And if you're not a BNF, and you resent the BNFs for forming a clique, that's kind of fair, but keep in mind that for BNFs, befriending each other is just the path of least resistance.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your Haters.
Just ignore them.
That didn't work? Yeah, it never does. But "just ignore them" is the advice you'll get from everyone, everywhere, on all occasions, mostly from people who have never had haters.
All right, the truth is that there's nothing you can do about haters. They hate you, they don't want to not hate you, and they want other people to hate you too, because hating things together is fun. You can't apologize to them, or defend yourself from them, because they're not interested in relating to you as a human being. The way the haters see it, by allowing yourself to become a BNF, you have let yourself in to become public property, and now you exist to satisfy them. If you try to defend yourself, you're using your reputation to shield yourself from a deserved backlash. If you complain that the stress of being hated on is getting you down, then you want ~special treatment,~ and for everyone to treat you like a princess. If you try to insist that drama should have an expiry date and seriously, that happened two years ago, aren't we over it yet, it will simply fall on deaf ears. If you attack your haters, you'll just whip them into a greater frenzy. You can't win.
Take a deep breath, and let it out. You can't win.
The BNF Life Cycle
Unless they got a job or went to graduate school or did something else that made it necessary for them to leave the fandom before the cycle was complete, every BNF I know has gone through this.
The Honeymoon--4-8 months: You find a new fandom. You love it! You have tons of energy to write for it. You start putting things out there, and hey, what do you know, people are responding to you! That's so great! You're starting to get lots of comments, and people are talking about you in glowing terms on all the community sites. It feels fresh, it feels beautiful. You're finally home.
The Marriage - 6 months to 3 years: All right, so maybe your fandom isn't perfect. It's got annoying habits, and it's not 100% crazy about you anymore, either. But that's okay. You love your fandom. Maybe you've committed to a long, multi-part project for it. You're going to events together, you're representing it in the community. The sex is coming at a more sedate pace, but it's still pretty damn good. Maybe you fight sometimes, but that happens in any relationship. Through the ups and downs, you're going to make this work.
The Divorce-4 months to 1 year: The joy you used to take in each other's company has been supplanted by the strain of hiding the cracks in your marriage, and the effort of holding your relationship together. The fandom starts talking about you behind your back. It nitpicks you. It takes every little flaw it can find in you and blows it out of proportion. It doesn't tell you you're pretty anymore. It starts bitching to its friends (in the next room, where you can hear it) that it would be better off without you. It criticizes you for your friends, your taste, and your personal habits. If you get upset at how it's treating you, it says you're hysterical. If you get angry at it for its bullshit, it says you're a bitch. The relationship has become completely toxic. You have to get out.
No matter how 'good you are' at being a BNF, you'll go through the cycle. It's the full Tiny Celebrity journey, of getting built up and then getting torn down. If you're lucky-and I was lucky-the good parts last longer, and the bad part is fairly brief, and not too bitter. Maybe you and your fandom will just get sick of each other and agree to go your separate ways. But divorce is an ugly business, and none of the BNFs I know (and the BNFs I know include some of the sweetest people I've ever met) managed to escape their fandoms without ugliness.
I'm one of those people who never wanted to be a BNF. I just tried to enjoy the ride once I realized I was one. I've written this as a guide, but I didn't plan my 'ascent.' I've pulled this together from my experiences and the experiences of my friends, trying to look back and see what we did right and what we did wrong. If you want to be a BNF, these are the things that I found to be true.
I can't honestly recommend the experience. I was never comfortable with fame, even Tiny Internet Fame, and being paid so much attention made me uneasy. Others of my friends say they enjoyed the fame, but hated the pressure and expectations, or they got nailed by the Comment Count/Self-Worth Feedback Loop. None of them would say now, "It's great to be a BNF." It's like having a failed marriage under your belt. Okay, it ended badly, but was it worth it?
Matter of opinion, I would say.
Being a BNF is kind of a weird experience.
No shit, right?
You are, basically, a Tiny Celebrity. You get Tiny Celebrity perks, and Tiny Celebrity pitfalls. Whether the perks will outweigh the pitfalls depends on your personality, although, as a word of warning, I don't know any BNFs who unequivocably enjoyed their time in the sun, and most of them outright hated it sometimes. But if you want to have this experience, or if you find that you already are a BNF even though you didn't want to be one and now you don't want to fuck it up too bad (as happened to me), there are things you can do.
Becoming a BNF
Partly this is luck. But I don't think it's an especially big part.
Step 1: Be Good At Something.
This is not actually necessary. There are other ways to become a BNF; "being a wanky bitch" will certainly garner you attention, and even a degree of prestige. On the kinder, softer side of not being good at anything, there's the Social Butterfly path to BNFdom, where you know everybody and everybody knows you because you're seriously everywhere. But this won't give you the same experience as a Content-Producing BNF or even a Wank BNF, because while no one will have anything against you, no one will really look up to you, either.
Anyway, I only have experience with being the Content-Producing kind of BNF, specifically a fic writer, so I'm gonna talk about that.
Note that you do not need to be great at something. Good is good enough. But being bad at something is not going to get you very far.
Step 2: Specialize.
Not to the point of exclusivity or anything-I think only about half of my fanfic ended up being about my favorite pairing-but it's important that people have some idea of what to expect when they come to your journal. What's more, specialize in something that none of the other BNFs are specializing in. Fill a niche. If you desperately love a pairing that already has a power player (or a few), you'd better be doing something really different with it, or else you're not going to capture the fandom's imagination. You may be well-regarded, but you won't become a BNF.
Step 3: Produce Often.
For at least the first couple months in your new fandom, you need to put something out at least three times a week. Four or five times a week is better. There's a lot of white noise in fandom, and you want to make sure people can hear you over the din. Keep posting things, and as time goes on, more and more people will see something of yours that catches their eye. Those people may then decide to check out what else you've done. Then they may recommend you to their friends. This can lead to some of your fics becoming practically required reading. By the time this happens, you can probably call yourself a BNF.
(Obviously, the timetable above is from the reference point of a fic writer.)
Hopefully, updating three to five times a week for a few months should not be too hard. When you first join a fandom, you have a lot of energy to produce for it! When your enthusiasm begins to taper off, and you settle into a more sedate once-or-twice-a-week updating routine, you should already have a healthy and growing readership.
Step 4: Be nice to EVERYBODY.
Try to treat every comment as an opportunity to strike up a conversation. Respond to all comments with enthusiasm and kindness. Even the stupid ones.
On a related note…
Step 5: Participate In The Community.
If you are Too Fucking Good To Ever Leave Your Journal, people will assume that you think you're Too Fucking Good To Ever Leave Your Journal. Also, rolling up your sleeves and interacting with the community helps to get your name out. Once you are a BNF, you can safely withdraw to your fortress of solitude, because you will be recockulously busy answering comments, producing content, and outrunning anonymous wank. Join the occasional flagship event or holiday exchange, and retire with relief from the main comms. It's a jungle out there.
Step 6: Have A Lot Of Free Time.
As you might have gathered from Steps 3 and 4, being a BNF is really time consuming. Being depressed, unemployed, or an insomniac will help.
So now you should be on the path to becoming a BNF. Don't give me shit about this. "I've done all that in [X] fandom for six months, and I'm still being ignored, wibbly wibbly wibbly!" You're probably (1) not as good as you think you are at what you do, (2) not specialized enough (or not specialized into something that other people actually want), (3) not participating enough (by producing content, responding to comments, or showing an interest in the community), or (4) people think you're kind of a bitch. Or creepy. Or desperate. Or pretentious. Or just not very fun to talk to. Look inside your heart! Ask yourself which of these things may be the problem for you. I'll wait.
Possibly, if you are still not attracting any attention, you have just been tremendously unlucky…but I doubt it.
Why you should NOT be a BNF.
There are certain kinds of people who should stay away from notoriety, and you may not know that you're one of them. I didn't.
You should NOT be a BNF if you have a hot temper. Guilty. Even if you manage to keep it in check, you will be constantly infuriated by bitches and their whackness. And BNFs deal with a lot of bitches, and a lot of whack.
You should NOT be a BNF if you enjoy your solitude. Guilty. Does the prospect of talking one-on-one to twenty different people in a day make you uneasy? How about fifty? Or eighty? Nearly all of them strangers? If you are a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, you will eventually begin to face your prestigious mountain of reader feedback with dread. When even the positive feedback loses its appeal for you, it's dark times.
You should NOT be a BNF if you are uncomfortable with equivocating about your opinions. Or, short version: you will need to lie about things to keep the peace. Do you hate a pairing in your fandom? Or one of the characters in the canon? Or another person in your fandom? You cannot say so. BNFs do not have to love everything, but you cannot afford to hate anything. This is actually the only thing I really fucked up at, in my fandom, because I didn't realize how important it would be, and it's been my only serious source of wank. For the space of about three weeks (for context: I was in this fandom for two years), I really disliked one of the characters, and for two or three months, I really disliked one of the major fandom pairings which included that character. I said a few things about this in responses to comments on my journal, and I wrote two fics which showed that pairing in a bad light, and then I got over it, decided I actually liked that character and that I didn't mind the pairing, and moved on with my life.
Fandom will not get over it, and the haters will definitely not move on with their lives. A year and a half later, I was getting shit for being a Raging Psychotic Ship-Basher with a hysterical hate-on for a character I…liked quite a lot, by that point. So, my very earnest advice to all you young impressionable BNFs out there: don't express any negative opinions about anything. No matter how satisfying it might be at the time. Your opinion is fleeting. Wank is forever.
You should NOT be a BNF if you need validation in your work. Thankfully, this was not my problem, but it bit a couple of my friends pretty bad. If you crave approval, take criticism personally, or have a tendency to beat yourself up when you feel like you've let other people down, being a BNF will make you miserable. Being a Tiny Celebrity gives you screwy self-esteem issues. If you are starting out with self-esteem issues, you're in trouble.
You should NOT be a BNF if you really, really want to be a BNF. No matter how sane you are to start out, this will make you come off as entitled and snappish in the long run. I've seen it happen to otherwise very nice people. It ain't pretty.
All right. Are you all good? You cleared the checklist? Awesome. Onwards, to
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your Fans.
Be kind to these people. They look up to you, and a lot of them think you are very intimidating and will be hurt if you are harsh with them. Sometimes they say stupid things: try and let it slide. If you can't let it slide, try to correct them gently. If you can't correct them gently, at least correct them privately.
Don't worry too much about the fans who spaz out around you. You can't calm them down. They are just spazzy people. They are terrified that you're going to think they're stupid, so they fall all over themselves to make a good impression. Gently thank them for their feedback, reassure them (if they asked) that you don't hate them/think they're a stalker/judge them for rambling/whatever on Earth they think the problem is, and move on with your day. Getting spazzy fans to treat you like a normal person is a losing battle. They will either chill out on their own, or they won't.
Many of your fans are going to be cool, smart, creative people who would make awesome friends (real friends, not Livejournal friends). No matter how much of an unknown somebody is, they are never beneath your notice. Sometimes you're too busy to get back to everyone: it happens. But do your best. You never know when you're about to meet a badass.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your "Fans."
Ahahaha.
Be cordial but brief with the sycophants who just want you to like them because ~having you like them~ is a feather in their cap. Calling them on their insincere bullshit is not worth the wank, but if you talk to them too much, they'll never leave you alone. They will want you to friend them on Livejournal, and will make leading comments about it ("Is it okay if I friend you?" "Okay, I friended you!" "Did I friend you already?" "We should be friends-oh, haha, I friended you months ago!") until you give in.
Just give in.
Then there are your readers who think they own what you write. You will want to punch these readers in the mouth. Unfortunately, you can't, because being mean to your fans is a cardinal sin for a BNF. Stock phrases you will need include "I'll update when I have time =D," "That's not how I see the pairing, but I can appreciate your point of view =D," "I'm not a fan of that plot twist/relationship dynamic, but I'm sure there are a lot of other fics you could read that include those elements =D," and "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. =D" Don't bother debating this kind of thing. They don't want you to write a better story. They want you to write the story they want to read. And you are hopefully already writing the story that you want to read.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Other BNFs.
Most BNFs will say that there is no elite upper social echelon to which internet fame is your only passport, and that all the BNFs end up knowing each other because we're all legitimately fans of one another's work. This is not true. Or at least, it's disingenuous. On the other hand, it's not the way the bitches see it, either, with the BNFs all rubbing elbows in order to increase our own prominence and prestige, gloating behind our hands about how much better we are than the little people.
Mostly, BNFs get to know other BNFs because it's socially awkward not to.
At a certain point, it's just weird that you and Some Other BNF have never spoken to each other before. Obviously you're aware of each other; a lot of your fans are also their fans, and they like to compare your work. The fandom expects you to know Other BNF, and it will ask for your opinion about them, even though you write for different pairings (or whatever), and there's not really any reason why you ever would have come into contact with one another, except that you're both Tiny Celebrities. If this gets bad enough, the fandom will assume that you and Other BNF are ignoring one another, and then the speculation will begin about what drama lies between you.
This is retarded.
So eventually, you come up with some pretext to go over to their journal and say hello, and the Other BNF is so relieved that you've taken a step to mitigate this awkward situation you're both in that they make an extra effort to strike up a conversation with you, no matter how far it might be from the original topic. It is BNFs giving each other special consideration, but it's not for any kind of smug, self-serving reason. BNFs are just eager to forestall wank and gossip by appearing friendly with each other. A lot of what BNFs do is in an effort to forestall wank and gossip.
A lot of times, BNFs will then go from being Livejournal friends to actual friends, because, well, you have stuff in common. You like to think about meta, and canon, and you enjoy writing (or whatever), and you have the shared experience of being a BNF to talk about, if you need to grease those conversational wheels. If you read (or whatever) each other's work, you can talk about themes and narrative choices (or style and color composition, or etc etc).
So if you're a BNF, and you want to get to know another BNF, don't worry about it. Conjure up a flimsy pretext and say hello. They're probably curious about you, too, or at least they'll be willing to open up diplomatic channels. And if you're not a BNF, and you resent the BNFs for forming a clique, that's kind of fair, but keep in mind that for BNFs, befriending each other is just the path of least resistance.
Life As A BNF: Dealing With Your Haters.
Just ignore them.
That didn't work? Yeah, it never does. But "just ignore them" is the advice you'll get from everyone, everywhere, on all occasions, mostly from people who have never had haters.
All right, the truth is that there's nothing you can do about haters. They hate you, they don't want to not hate you, and they want other people to hate you too, because hating things together is fun. You can't apologize to them, or defend yourself from them, because they're not interested in relating to you as a human being. The way the haters see it, by allowing yourself to become a BNF, you have let yourself in to become public property, and now you exist to satisfy them. If you try to defend yourself, you're using your reputation to shield yourself from a deserved backlash. If you complain that the stress of being hated on is getting you down, then you want ~special treatment,~ and for everyone to treat you like a princess. If you try to insist that drama should have an expiry date and seriously, that happened two years ago, aren't we over it yet, it will simply fall on deaf ears. If you attack your haters, you'll just whip them into a greater frenzy. You can't win.
Take a deep breath, and let it out. You can't win.
The BNF Life Cycle
Unless they got a job or went to graduate school or did something else that made it necessary for them to leave the fandom before the cycle was complete, every BNF I know has gone through this.
The Honeymoon--4-8 months: You find a new fandom. You love it! You have tons of energy to write for it. You start putting things out there, and hey, what do you know, people are responding to you! That's so great! You're starting to get lots of comments, and people are talking about you in glowing terms on all the community sites. It feels fresh, it feels beautiful. You're finally home.
The Marriage - 6 months to 3 years: All right, so maybe your fandom isn't perfect. It's got annoying habits, and it's not 100% crazy about you anymore, either. But that's okay. You love your fandom. Maybe you've committed to a long, multi-part project for it. You're going to events together, you're representing it in the community. The sex is coming at a more sedate pace, but it's still pretty damn good. Maybe you fight sometimes, but that happens in any relationship. Through the ups and downs, you're going to make this work.
The Divorce-4 months to 1 year: The joy you used to take in each other's company has been supplanted by the strain of hiding the cracks in your marriage, and the effort of holding your relationship together. The fandom starts talking about you behind your back. It nitpicks you. It takes every little flaw it can find in you and blows it out of proportion. It doesn't tell you you're pretty anymore. It starts bitching to its friends (in the next room, where you can hear it) that it would be better off without you. It criticizes you for your friends, your taste, and your personal habits. If you get upset at how it's treating you, it says you're hysterical. If you get angry at it for its bullshit, it says you're a bitch. The relationship has become completely toxic. You have to get out.
No matter how 'good you are' at being a BNF, you'll go through the cycle. It's the full Tiny Celebrity journey, of getting built up and then getting torn down. If you're lucky-and I was lucky-the good parts last longer, and the bad part is fairly brief, and not too bitter. Maybe you and your fandom will just get sick of each other and agree to go your separate ways. But divorce is an ugly business, and none of the BNFs I know (and the BNFs I know include some of the sweetest people I've ever met) managed to escape their fandoms without ugliness.
I'm one of those people who never wanted to be a BNF. I just tried to enjoy the ride once I realized I was one. I've written this as a guide, but I didn't plan my 'ascent.' I've pulled this together from my experiences and the experiences of my friends, trying to look back and see what we did right and what we did wrong. If you want to be a BNF, these are the things that I found to be true.
I can't honestly recommend the experience. I was never comfortable with fame, even Tiny Internet Fame, and being paid so much attention made me uneasy. Others of my friends say they enjoyed the fame, but hated the pressure and expectations, or they got nailed by the Comment Count/Self-Worth Feedback Loop. None of them would say now, "It's great to be a BNF." It's like having a failed marriage under your belt. Okay, it ended badly, but was it worth it?
Matter of opinion, I would say.