I miss having a fandom. :(

[stoney321]

Which might sound strange, because I am still fannish about some shows. This post pretty much sums up how I feel about current fannish trends, aka - rolling around in spoilers and speculations and red herrings and becoming UNBELIEVABLY ANGRY about things and then spending the season bitching about how those spoilers and speculations and red herrings weren't accurate. (Oh, you don't say?)

I have not one single fannish Tumblr on my feed now. No one can be trusted (aside from my Miss Muse), I have painfully found out. I took K_B off my feed last night because someone put in their g.d. author's notes to a fic post "now that we all need a little..." blah blah - which means that they are hinting about a spoiler/speculation/red herring and now I AM INFECTED WITH IT. :(

Everyone can have the fannish experience they want. Which seems to be that they want to be angry and hate a show they continue to watch (oh my god, don't even get me started on the BZUH?-ness of that). So why can't I have the fannish experience I want? Which is to watch the show when it airs, and then talk - BEHIND A CUT - about what I liked, etc? Because people are selfish, that's why. I'm sorry if that makes you angry with me. (People who don't care about my wishes and wants make ME angry.) As flaming_muse said: spoilers should be OPT IN, not OPT OUT.

I've had four different fics on my hard drive that I've essentially deleted. I can't even consider moving forward with any of them, because my joy in the show and sharing it are pretty much gone - not to mention the whole "feeling paralyzed about writing the future with hints of what's to come having been carelessly posted."

I'm just tired of selfish behavior. It's like the majority of the people on the internet exhibit ADD behavior: complete lack of impulse control and thinking things through, or having empathy for others. /killjoy.

There are a handful of people that I enjoy in this fandom, and I'll continue to read them (and I'm talking, like six people), but man - the rest of the fandom has pretty much killed it for me. I've been in one fandom or another since I was, hmm. 11? I'm 40. I've never had such a negative experience. I say this not to be a whiner, but to stress how UNUSUAL this behavior is. This is not how fandoms typically behave, n00bs. As I tell my kids and their friends: Manners are free, so there's no excuse for you to not have any.

Not that it's a hardship to other fan-types in Glee that I'm not really wanting to play ball anymore, I'm not trying to prop myself up in importance (because let's face it - I'm not.) I'm just expressing myself in my personal fannish space.

ION, I bought my son skinny jeans and they bag on him. O_O The child eats almost $200 in groceries A WEEK. If I could bottle his metabolism...

[ETA]: Just to clear the record: I'm not trying to be all sniffy/flouncing. I'm expressing my frustration, is all. (And it should go without saying that there should be NO MENTIONS OF SPOILERS OF ANY KIND in comments here. Or speculation. Or red herrings. Or mention of Brussels sprouts. Because those are gross and make you fart.)

Comments

[kuzu-no-ha.livejournal.com]

Sweet jeezy chreesy, in the time it took me to reply someone on Twitter watched Hunger Games for a second time and said "I always get X when Y Zs" and it was a really monumental thing! WTF PEOPLE.

rageface

[dovil.livejournal.com]

You need a saying: 'Fandom is My Drug and Douchebags Are Cutting My Crack With Their Crap'. That's a TERRIBLE saying. Never use it.

People are the best things about fandoms, but also the worst. What I'm saying is that there need to be death squads and cullings - their saying can be 'Keeping Our Happy Place Happy!'. That's a perfect saying. The death squads should totally use that.

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

I'm sad for the deletion of those unfinished projects, but I totally understand not wanting to look at them after the joy's been sucked out. I'm so sorry. I'm not active enough to have to worry about spoilers--I just read you and F_M and chatter with my friends, and that's about it. I can't imagine having bunches of strangers accost me with spoilers. :(

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

I really am not a flouncing kinda girl, so it wasn't an act of petulance, the deleting of fics. It was the final result of me staring at a document and not having anything in me to finish them. (And feeling miserable the whole time.)

BAH.

One good thing to come out of this (aside from your hilarious icon, ha!) is that I'm meeting more adults in the fandom who share my anti-spoiler/behave, girls! mindset, so that's a huge bonus.

<3 You're such a sweetheart, I should add. Thanks.

[whisperyvoices.livejournal.com]

:'( Sigh. I'm so sorry. Every time someone in fandom does something stupid, I feel the need to take some responsibility - because we're in a community together, and that sorta feels like we should be responsible for each other? The flip side of feeling so Proud and Happy when a fellow fan does something good and kind...? Anyway, I'm terribly sorry. I've given up [for now] going on Tumblr - it was short lived and lovely while it lasted [and I may venture back on if feeling brave and able to unfollow all these folks], but for now, I'm staying away because too many people are posting spoilers w/o tagging them.

I just don't get it ...they are called "spoilers" - that has to be the most obvious, self-explanatory name ever. What about that says "this is good, let's share this with the world"? NOTHING!

I'm just going to offer you a hug now - and a wish that maybe you'll find a part of this community to come back to, that is respectful and manners-filled, so that you'll have a fandom to roll around in again. (((big.hug)))

p.s: When you figure out how to bottle your son's metabolism, I demand [with painful, but polite, urgency] that you share it with me! PLEASE!

p.p.s: ....these people made Stoney delete fics? FOUR FICS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OUT HERE IN THE WORLD, making us smile and cry and think and feel? *I'm gritting my teeth so hard now in anger* *^#(*^#(*!(&#)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Oh, the majority of fandom doesn't feel responsible for anything, so why should you? ;)

And THANK YOU: SPOILERS. The name says it all! It spoils it. Mold. Rotten. Ruined. Trash. No wonder they're all angry all the time! Pfft.

(You know, the stories I deleted had just turned into utter bunk and weren't worth saving. No big loss to the world. Not to mention that the reminder that they were sitting on my computer made me feel miserable. So. Practicing self-care! <3)

[beth rakel (from livejournal.com)]

Now I admit I like to read the spoilers but maybe because I've been in soap opera fandoms for so long where we have websites that are known to just make stuff up, I also realize what gets written as a spoiler is often unrecognizable on screen. So I take everything wtih a wait and see attitude. I'm also older than most of the fandom and I realize taht just because most of the cast and production crew is readily accessable to me via social media this doesn't mean I'm entitled for them to write a specific story just to please me or I'll send them threatening tweets. Whenever I saw fans start up on taht to BRad and Dante last year I just had to laugh. I'm pretty sure they don't check their @ mentions just to save their sanity.

(Also I realize that things they want to be kept secret they aren't going to film in front of people to prevent spoiler leakage so lets use some common sense people. The truly big things we are likely not going to know)

I'm sorry you were spoiled when you didn't want to be. I'm sorry PSR (Pre-SHow Rage) ruined things for you. You are welcome to join me in the sane corner of the fandom where spoiler free is respected and people are rational in conversation.

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

*hugs on you*

You know, I would love to go to this magical place where there are no spoiler leaks. :( I've had people comment to fics, etc. WITH SPOILERS. Even though I put at the end of every fic post "I am anti-spoiler!" It makes me SAD.

I'm trying to just pull back enough that I can keep a kernel of squee and let it grow back into the flower of I LOVE THIS SHOOOOW! again.

[beth rakel (from livejournal.com)]

for what it's worth i've taken mini breaks from fandom and that does seem to do the trick. Weeks of just reading fic by authors I love and respect does indeed get rid of the "SHOO TROLLS!" feelings I sometimes get. I've also trained myself not to read comments 99% of the time since I know they aren't going to make me happy. I admit it's harder for you with posting stories to opt out of that but just not scrolling down helps me tremendously.

I saw this comment on You Tube the other day and I wish I had icon making skills causes I wants it as icon badly "Don't Scroll down: Shit storm be brewin'!"