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

[kayoko.livejournal.com]

The Glee fandom is a very unique environment. The majority of the fans are young, they have this strange sense of entitlement and it's all about instant satisfaction. Just think about the type of fanfiction that is produced, reaction fics and short random fics are produced in mass quantities. There aren't that many long plot/character driven fics out there that push the boundaries of what we know (I swear that 'Near Misses' is the only WIP fic worth my time nowadays).

Also, if you're looking for a new, possibly better fandom, I highly recommend Teen Wolf. A lot of people on my f-list have recently gotten into it. =)

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

(Ooooh, don't let Miss Muse hear you call Near Misses a WIP - a work in progress! That story has been completed for some time, now! :D)

The youth (at heart, or in actuality - both can apply) factor is definitely a problem. Not that there's anything wrong with learning how to participate in a fandom, we've all been there at some point, but it's the entitlement - as you've said - that absolutely baffles me.

No, the writers do NOT owe you a particular story. The actors do NOT owe you an explanation for why something is how it is. Etc. I find a lot of that behavior embarrassing, truth be told.

Oh, Teen Wolf is about to debut on my fan-media-site so I'm well aware of that juggernaut! But I think there is going to be the exact same issue there - it's targeted at high school-aged girls. (I should know, my daughter has watching parties each week!) I'm glad that people are happy with it - I just don't feel fannish about that show. I love many shows, but there are few where I want to explore character and story in a fannish way.

[kayoko.livejournal.com]

It's a WIP if I can't read it all in one sitting, just one that won't be abandoned near the end. At least, that's how I think of it.

I've learned my lesson with Glee fandom. I stay away from Tumblr and rely on other people to connect me with fics or fests. There's a small group of people from the Merlin fandom whom have joined the Teen Wolf fandom so I have high hopes for sanity and good ficcage, at least in my corner of fandom!

[stoney321.livejournal.com]

Hee, well...WiP has an actual definition, so us long-time fanfic writers tend to stick to those, is all. :)

I'm sure if there's an amazing fic out there, someone will send me a link. siiiiiiigh.