For those of you who don't know, a fandom is basically a group of people who all love the same thing. Personally, I'm okay with liking things and not becoming a part of a community celebrating that. The reason is that fandoms can get crazy. The people in these fandoms can have a wide range of feelings about their interest. I'd say it's a scale from this cat, who's happy to see it's owner:
To Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss:
It's the Nicolas Cages of fandoms that make me cringe. What follows are some instances of the extreme end of fandoms:
Harassment. This past winter actor Tom Hiddleston (or Loki, as some people know him) was in a production of Coriolanus. Every night when the play was over he would come out and meet with his fans, signing autographs and whatnot. As time went by though, things got crazy. There would be too many people wanting too much and at one point the security guards themselves were actually scared. Hiddleston then stopped coming out to meet people, and it made him sad that he had to do that. There was even an incident where a group of fans followed him and Benedict Cumberbatch to a restaurant where they were just trying to have dinner. These are only two examples (Please don't get me started on the person who stalked Benedict Cumberbatch in his own home). While famous people do open themselves up to their lives being more public, they still deserve respect, and honestly, they don't owe you anything.
Premature Obsession. Now I'm going to talk about Frozen. First, I have not seen it yet. And while I have a strong suspicion I won't like it, the jury is still out. That being said, do you know one of the reasons I feel like I won't like it? The fans. Before Frozen even came out it was all over tumblr. People were freaking out and saying how much they were going to love it, and this was all based on concept art, pictures, and a minute long teaser trailer. And Disney didn't help by prematurely producing Frozen merchandise. I can understand fans getting this excited over a sequel to a movie, because they have something substantial to base their love on, but this is a little much. Not to mention Frozen fans are a little too excited in general. I'm tired of hearing the songs and seeing it on tumblr. I'll get around to seeing the movie eventually, and that, I'm sure, will be a blog post in itself.
Fanfiction. In general I don't find anything wrong with fanfiction. It's a form of creative writing, and I would never discourage someone from writing, especially if they're passionate about it. However, there will always be the slightly deranged ones. Apparently there is a whole genre of sexual and really creepy/strange fanfic. I've never read any, and I don't want to. In addition to that, there's some extremely explicit art that circulates around tumblr, especially in the Sherlock fandom. I know, because I once followed a Benedict Cumberbatch blog for a month before unfollowing when one of those explicit images showed up on my dash. The girl that created it reblogged WAY to many pictures anyways, and I got tired of seeing it all. I recently found a blog whose creator is way more toned down, and now I only see just enough to know that my favorite actor still exists. I have to say, though, that while I haven't read any fanfic, I've seen some really amazing fan artwork. Keep it up guys! Maybe you can drown out the crazies.
Shipping. Behind harassment this is probably one of the worst things I've encountered about fandoms. Shipping is basically when a person really likes two characters together, romantically. It's not limited to inside of fandoms: a character of one fandom can be shipped with a character from another fandom. It's also not limited to male-female pairings. There are so many things I don't like about shipping. First, people become very obsessed about their ships, to the point of invalidating other people's ships. Very recently this term was added to the dictionary, with an example of a popular Sherlock (BBC series, awesome by the way) ship: Sherlolly (Sherlock and Molly). The actress who plays Molly, Louise Brealey, was excited about it and tweeted about it. But count on someone to ruin it. The fans of another Sherlock ship, Johnlock (John Watson and Sherlock) became enraged because they thought their ship should have been the example, merely because it had "been around longer" and "was more popular." They proceeded to rant about it over the internet and harass Brealey because of her tweets. This kind of behavior is really creepy and it's divisive to the Sherlock fandom, not to mention the fact that it makes the docile end of the fandom look crazy too. Another element I don't like is that shipping diminishes the existence and importance of platonic friendships. Can characters be close friends without people trying to put them in a romantic relationship? Not according to some fans.
If I'm going to rant on the bad end, I feel like I should give a little credit to the adorable kitty end of the spectrum. These are the people who don't do any (or most) of the things that I've mentioned above. Not only that, but they actively speak out against these things like I am right now. They don't like being grouped with the bad part of their fandom and they aren't against chastising those people either. The best part is seeing people from different fandoms getting along well, and I've heard that some of the best fanfic has come from fandom crossovers.
I'm still not convinced that being a part of a fandom is such a good idea, though. I think I'll stick to distanced admiration for now. How about you? Are you a part of a fandom? Have you ever had any bad experiences with a fandom?
And yes, Vampire's Kiss is a real movie.
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