(no subject)
Here, have some of my thoughts on the One Direction fandom tonight and how generally terrible I think it is.
I'm gonna put a disclaimer up here and say I haven't actually seen this Much Music interview yet because I'm not in Canada and I don't have the patience to go seeking these things out right now, but lord almighty I have heard enough about it. This rant isn't really about that interview, though, it's about how what I've heard of that interview displays an incredibly widespread issue in this fandom regarding the lack of a fourth wall and the consequences of that. And there's no one here that might be reading this that wouldn't already know all of this, I guess, there's no one I'm trying to call out or try to convince, this is really just me ranting about a lack of respect.
I generally try very hard not to dwell on the negative aspects of fandom because I don't think that's productive and I don't think that's fun. I'm pretty good at isolating myself into little bubbles of safe spaces where people are respectful, where they understand boundaries and lines and fourth walls and whatnot, and that works for me. I can live in these bubbles, even mostly as a lurker, and be really happy, because a lot of great writing and discussion comes from them.
And I understand that the One Direction fandom, on the whole, is incredibly young. That makes sense. The band is made up of young, cute boys singing pop music. It's certainly not unheard of for people out of the tween years to be interested in that, but for the most part, I'm guessing girls 12-15/6 make up most of the fanbase.
That said, that isn't an excuse for the kind of behavior that exists in this fandom. Just because somebody is young does not exempt them from the responsibility of being a decent human being, of respecting the privacy and space of these boys as celebrities. I was young when I entered fandom, and of course I had a brief moment of oh my god maybe some day Brendon Urie will notice me and he'll fall in love with me because let's be real, Brendon is hot as shit. But that moment passed, and I realized that the Brendon Urie that I'd created in my head from interviews, stories, media, etc. was an entirely separate Brendon Urie than the one that actually exists, in real life.
That's the thing about celebrities, about real person fandom, I think, or at least that's how I look at it. I have this image in my head of a guy, and in my head his name is, say, Harry Styles, and he looks like Harry Styles, and he shares some qualities that I have reason to believe the Real Harry Styles has, but he is, under no circumstances, the Real Harry Styles. I ... write and read fanfiction about real people only insofar as I'm writing and reading about their likenesses. There are two Harry Styleses in my head, and they are probably a lot alike, but they are entirely different entities. There's a separation between them.
For a lot of young people in fandom, I think that isn't the case. I was talking to mockturtletale the other day and we were sort of discussing why this fandom seems to be so much worse than others. And the conclusion that we, or at least I, tentatively came to is that for so many people, this is their first experience with fandom, and that experience is happening in a world where fans are more connected than ever to celebrities. There are so many avenues for interaction with celebrities now, with twitter and twitcams, meet and greets, answering twitter questions at concerts, everything -- and that can be such a great thing. How fantastic is it to feel like these people you look up to and admire are real people, people more or less just like you are except maybe a little luckier and maybe a little more talented, that they exist in the same space that you do and they misspell things on Twitter just like you do and they're dorks and they're human. I think that's really phenomenal for so many reasons and in so many ways.
But of course it has its downsides. When this is your first real experience with celebrities, it's so easy to forget that you DON'T actually know these people. You haven't met them, you don't know who they are underneath what they decide (or who knows, maybe it's what someone else decides for them, but that's beside the point) to show you, and you can't go around pretending you do. It's really easy to lose track of that, though, because it all feels so close. After all, I can @harry_styles just as easily as I can @oneofmyfriends, and if I can communicate just as easily, then we must be just as good of friends, right?
There's a certain warped logic behind it that almost makes some sense, or at least almost makes it seem understandable. But that doesn't make it okay. Kids in bands aren't your friends, they're kids you've heard of and kids you know certain things about and kids you admire, but they aren't kids you know. And it isn't okay to act like they are.
I'm losing steam here, but basically this: respect the privacy and sanctity of these kids' lives. Realize that when you're writing fanfiction, you aren't writing about them, or you shouldn't be, and under no circumstances do they need to know about it. And of course they'll find it, figure it out, but there is under no circumstances any reason to point them in the direction of fandom. They need to have nothing to do with it. It's one thing to talk about the things they do as if the real people have done them (e.g. Niall needs to learn how to cover his god damn arms, or talking about their tweets, or the things they explicitly state in interviews), it's another to make up fictional scenarios and impart them upon the factual people.
And this goes tenfold for families and girlfriends, but that's a whole other story that I just don't have the energy to get into, like, ever.
Ugh, enough of that. Is anyone up for discussing their DVD watch party earlier this afternoon (or yesterday afternoon, whatever)? These children are PRECIOUS, they are all sitting around in a room TOGETHER, tweeting AT EACH OTHER, and taking ridiculous pictures. I can't fucking stand it, it's too much, I'm going home, start digging my grave, etc.
Have a picture of Harry that actually killed me:
I'm gonna put a disclaimer up here and say I haven't actually seen this Much Music interview yet because I'm not in Canada and I don't have the patience to go seeking these things out right now, but lord almighty I have heard enough about it. This rant isn't really about that interview, though, it's about how what I've heard of that interview displays an incredibly widespread issue in this fandom regarding the lack of a fourth wall and the consequences of that. And there's no one here that might be reading this that wouldn't already know all of this, I guess, there's no one I'm trying to call out or try to convince, this is really just me ranting about a lack of respect.
I generally try very hard not to dwell on the negative aspects of fandom because I don't think that's productive and I don't think that's fun. I'm pretty good at isolating myself into little bubbles of safe spaces where people are respectful, where they understand boundaries and lines and fourth walls and whatnot, and that works for me. I can live in these bubbles, even mostly as a lurker, and be really happy, because a lot of great writing and discussion comes from them.
And I understand that the One Direction fandom, on the whole, is incredibly young. That makes sense. The band is made up of young, cute boys singing pop music. It's certainly not unheard of for people out of the tween years to be interested in that, but for the most part, I'm guessing girls 12-15/6 make up most of the fanbase.
That said, that isn't an excuse for the kind of behavior that exists in this fandom. Just because somebody is young does not exempt them from the responsibility of being a decent human being, of respecting the privacy and space of these boys as celebrities. I was young when I entered fandom, and of course I had a brief moment of oh my god maybe some day Brendon Urie will notice me and he'll fall in love with me because let's be real, Brendon is hot as shit. But that moment passed, and I realized that the Brendon Urie that I'd created in my head from interviews, stories, media, etc. was an entirely separate Brendon Urie than the one that actually exists, in real life.
That's the thing about celebrities, about real person fandom, I think, or at least that's how I look at it. I have this image in my head of a guy, and in my head his name is, say, Harry Styles, and he looks like Harry Styles, and he shares some qualities that I have reason to believe the Real Harry Styles has, but he is, under no circumstances, the Real Harry Styles. I ... write and read fanfiction about real people only insofar as I'm writing and reading about their likenesses. There are two Harry Styleses in my head, and they are probably a lot alike, but they are entirely different entities. There's a separation between them.
For a lot of young people in fandom, I think that isn't the case. I was talking to mockturtletale the other day and we were sort of discussing why this fandom seems to be so much worse than others. And the conclusion that we, or at least I, tentatively came to is that for so many people, this is their first experience with fandom, and that experience is happening in a world where fans are more connected than ever to celebrities. There are so many avenues for interaction with celebrities now, with twitter and twitcams, meet and greets, answering twitter questions at concerts, everything -- and that can be such a great thing. How fantastic is it to feel like these people you look up to and admire are real people, people more or less just like you are except maybe a little luckier and maybe a little more talented, that they exist in the same space that you do and they misspell things on Twitter just like you do and they're dorks and they're human. I think that's really phenomenal for so many reasons and in so many ways.
But of course it has its downsides. When this is your first real experience with celebrities, it's so easy to forget that you DON'T actually know these people. You haven't met them, you don't know who they are underneath what they decide (or who knows, maybe it's what someone else decides for them, but that's beside the point) to show you, and you can't go around pretending you do. It's really easy to lose track of that, though, because it all feels so close. After all, I can @harry_styles just as easily as I can @oneofmyfriends, and if I can communicate just as easily, then we must be just as good of friends, right?
There's a certain warped logic behind it that almost makes some sense, or at least almost makes it seem understandable. But that doesn't make it okay. Kids in bands aren't your friends, they're kids you've heard of and kids you know certain things about and kids you admire, but they aren't kids you know. And it isn't okay to act like they are.
I'm losing steam here, but basically this: respect the privacy and sanctity of these kids' lives. Realize that when you're writing fanfiction, you aren't writing about them, or you shouldn't be, and under no circumstances do they need to know about it. And of course they'll find it, figure it out, but there is under no circumstances any reason to point them in the direction of fandom. They need to have nothing to do with it. It's one thing to talk about the things they do as if the real people have done them (e.g. Niall needs to learn how to cover his god damn arms, or talking about their tweets, or the things they explicitly state in interviews), it's another to make up fictional scenarios and impart them upon the factual people.
And this goes tenfold for families and girlfriends, but that's a whole other story that I just don't have the energy to get into, like, ever.
Ugh, enough of that. Is anyone up for discussing their DVD watch party earlier this afternoon (or yesterday afternoon, whatever)? These children are PRECIOUS, they are all sitting around in a room TOGETHER, tweeting AT EACH OTHER, and taking ridiculous pictures. I can't fucking stand it, it's too much, I'm going home, start digging my grave, etc.
Have a picture of Harry that actually killed me: