fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3819 ]

[ SECRET POST #3819 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3819 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #547.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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I've been in online fandom for years and yet I never had a fandom friend until a few months ago. We exchanged messages at least once a day. Then she suddenly stopped. She has mental health issues, and life can be shitty in other ways too, so I worried sth had happened. I asked if she was ok via tumblr, twitter. Finally, I was about to bother someone I didn't know but she's close with in Real Life. That's how I stumbled on the fact that she was fine, but angry with me. I'd seen a comment/opinion on twitter that I thought was ridiculous, I mentioned it to her. Turns out she has several twitter accounts and shares that opinion, and it was probably her comment I'd seen.

At this point I kind of got upset, and asked why she didn't just tell me she felt insulted, why she let me worry. I also don't understand what she wants me to apologize for, as we've talked about this issue before and she knows we disagree about it. Even if we hadn't, it's not like I can take it back now without obviously lying to her. Anyway, now she's upset because after 'waiting for an apology' I've turned her into the bad guy.

I'm really bothered by this, because it came out of nowhere, I won't get any kind of resolution, and I'm upset she thought that disagreement over some triviality was more important than our friendship.

Does anyone have advice? Experience? Opinions? Words of comfort?

All the sympathy. I had something similar where someone suddenly stopped talking to me after about a year of online friendship and the only thing I can possibly figure is I'd gone on a rant about how "Cool motive, still murder" is stupid because we recognize that, say, if someone charges you with a knife yelling that they're going to kill you and you shoot them first, it's an entirely different situation than walking up to a stranger in the park and shooting them and killing them because you're in a bad mood.

ayrt

That sucks. Guess it's nice to know I'm not alone in this though. The weird thing is we've disagreed on bigger issues. This case had the added problem where I didn't know I was talking about her or her opinion, so I was maybe less tactful than I would have been if I'd known, but I wasn't outright mean. I don't think I said anything I hadn't already. I was just more blunt about it.

Rants in general don't win you a lot of friends.

..but that is a dumb rant. "Cool motive, still murder" is for, like, 'yes I killed him but he was a jerk to me in high school' or whatever. Not for things that aren't actually murder.

Except that's how it's used all the dang time in fandom. How dare you like Character, they're a Bad Person who did Bad Things.

Which is still not real murder because it's fictional so people can feel whatever they want about it.

The full rant was basically that it's a bad phrase to overuse because in fiction, motive is everything. Peter Quill murdered his own father, does that make you a bad person for liking him? I'd say no, because it's fictional and we're allowed to like characters who aren't pure. People are also allowed to dislike them, but when someone posts about Peter Quill being awesome and someone comes in all "Ummm, but he literally murders people. How can you support that?"
"Because Ego and Thanos were going to destroy entire planets?"
*Cool Motive, Still Murder gif*

And how because it's all fictional you can play with tropes like that. Like the original ending of I Am Legend dealt with the fact the guy saw himself as a lone hero fighting against the evil undead, but the infected saw him as a monster stalking them and killing them for no reason.

So dismissing the fact that most fiction is wish fulfilment and has characters doing 'problematic' things all the time is really kind of ridiculous.

Edit - Ronan, not Thanos.

She sounds....immature? You can try extending an olive branch, but honestly, considering you've only been friends for a few months, it might be best to shrug and just let it go.

ayrt

Yeah, that was my reaction as well. She's in her 20s, but that doesn't really mean anything, I guess. I think I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea of letting go. It just bums me out. I thought explaining to her that I had no idea it was her or that she was angry, that it was all a misunderstanding, would be the olive branch. I wouldn't really know what else to do. Especially because the issue she's angry over is the most ridiculous thing ever.

No one probably cares, but: It's a slow news cycle in our fandom, especially when it comes to one particular actor, so his fans started focusing on his hair. I know. Now, lots of fans have preferences for how their fave looks, or even speculate why someone got a haircut (maybe they're in a new project?). But for this guy there's a group that seems to think they can judge his mental/emotional/psychological state by his hair. I know. The tweet I saw took it even further and said sth like: short hair makes him sad. And I'm sorry, but that's beyond ridiculous. I told my friend 'IMO that's fans obsessing and projecting'.

That is so stupid.

hahaha, wow. I'm sorry, but lol. she definitely sounds immature. I'm....not surprised to find you have to walk on eggshells around her. it seems like a friendship that only lasts for as long as you continue placating her opinions. I wouldn't find it worth it tbh, but you could try politely bullshitting her from time to time and dial it back to just a friendly fandom acquaintance relationship rather than a meaningful friendship. keeps the drama low, but you still have someone to gush with.

ayrt

Looking back, I find I already sort of had to dial back certain opinions or accept stuff I'd usually find stupid. But yeah, I have no one else to gush or talk about this stuff with, so I put up with it. This is a bit too far though.

So, wait, she was "waiting for an apology" without telling you she felt insulted by what you said? Were you supposed to read her damn mind?

If she's going to blow her stack over something as dumb as an actor's hair, you're better off without her.

ayrt

Yeah, that's the bit that bugs me the most. How does she navigate relationships and arguments if that's how she responds? I'm not the most mature person myself when it comes to confrontation, but I know you can't expect people to just know when you're upset. Especially online, when there's no body language or other cues you can use.

welcome to the 21st century internet.

chatting every single day about things you have in common doesn't necessarily solidify friendships, so don't feel bad about writing this person off and finding someone less unreasonable. But really, this is pretty much a story which plays out every single day, particularly in internet fandom. you think you're friends, something trivial suddenly becomes life or death, and you're left realizing you never really were friends if all it takes to make someone cold-shoulder and reject you is a differing opinion on an actor's hair. Consider it a bullet dodged and continue on looking for someone else to chat with.

having a healthy sense of perspective is the only way to safely navigate online fandom anymore, you can't treat everyone who chats for hours about your pet topics as a bosom friend for life. it's perfectly okay to have online fandom "friends" who really are just acquaintances at heart; in fact, reminding yourself that you're not that close after all makes it easy to disengage when someone rolls right off the deep end on you out of nowhere.

ayrt

I guess I knew all that, but it's harder to actually deal with it. And I hear about other people who have fandom friends, seemingly for years and even when they change fandoms, and it just sounds so great. I have a hard time just finding people to chat with, so I was happy to have one go-to person. It's just that I can't imagine reacting like that myself. Live and learn, I suppose.

yeah, living and learning is all you can do. You hear similar stories all the time but until it actually happens to you, there's a sort of impersonal distance that makes it harder to recognize right away that yeah, it really is happening to you.

You're not dealing with a reasonable person here. Someone who expects you to apologize for having a different opinion and thinks you should read their mind and figure out they're upset with you isn't behaving reasonably.

On the other hand, did you know she shared Opinion X before you ridiculed a tweet with that opinion? If you did, that wasn't very smart.

She sounds terribly immature and frankly, looking for a reason to start drama or pick a fight. Nobody needs a "friend" like that. I'm afraid you're learning one of the hard lessons of fandom friendships - sometimes people are flaky weirdos who are emotionally equipped to be a good friend. Don't be discouraged, but don't bother chasing after this one, either.

I was in kind of a similar situation. We exchanged messages frequently about fandom stuff (we had several in common) and occasionally about personal stuff, and out of nowhere she just stopped replying to me. I knew she had some stuff going on in her personal life so after a couple weeks of not hearing from her (which was unusual) I sent her a message saying basically "hey, I hope you're doing okay, I'm here if you need to talk about anything". After like a week she responded back with a fairly rude message saying essentially to leave her alone, I responded asking if I'd done something to upset her, and I was really sorry if I had, after a couple weeks she replied back saying no but she was really busy and didn't have time to message me anymore (despite posting stuff on social media and having conversations with other people pretty much 24/7). After that I let it go, but it really bothered me for awhile. It's been a long time now but I still think of her occasionally and to this day I have NO CLUE what I did to piss her off. Clearly she had her own issues, though, so I try not to take it personally.

With a drama llama, you have to decide whether the positives of continuing friendships with them vs. the down sides of having to deal with the dramatics.

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[ SECRET POST #3819 ]

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