fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #7004 ]

[ SECRET POST #7004 ]

⌈ Secret Post #7004 ⌋

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

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[Pokemon]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1000.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Am I the only one who was in a fandom, way before tumblr was even a thing, where people cared about "canon" pairings and what the writers said? Who remembers conservative fans raising a stink about slash/explicit works? When people were AWFUL about other people's fanfic?

I keep hearing about fandom being a paradise before tumblr, and I have no idea what they're on about. Because that was... not my experience.

Right? I honestly don't know if it was the same as now, but fandom has always had terrible parts of it.

Yes, but it was a lot easier to avoid/find your own niche. People were a lot more thicked skinned as well, I believe, and generally shrugged off death threats/you will burn in hell type comments. The anonymous aspect was a big part of that, I think.

This, exactly this. You could find a niche and be happy.

I have no doubt it was like that before, but I managed to worm my way into the slash side of fandom early in my fandom career (90s). The part where you had to know someone to get in. So I was pretty protected from "only canon couples" because none of our OTP would be canon; so many places forced any kind of slash to be R/NC-17 just by existing that very few people gave a damn what actually went on in the fic; and the fic was behind so many walls that no one really wanted to risk their access to the community by being dicks about other people's works.

There was still drama, but because of the small and insular nature of the communities we all knew the source of the drama was personal conflict. People couldn't really get away with moralizing, which is honestly the bane of fandom right now.

I miss the days when it was understood to be a freak community for a community of freaks.

It's true, there were always antis, and even corners of the internet that were stuck-up as hell, but never to this degree. Now the idiots are all over the place.

Fandom definitely got wanky and ship wars could get really heated. But as others have said, you could avoid it and still partake in fandom. Now antis are puriteens are everywhere. The most recent comments I’ve gotten on my fics from 2009-2012 are all bitching that my explicit fics have explicit content. My one kink fic must have come up on someone’s radar because for a month I was bombarded with comments from people outraged I wrote that kink that was clearly tagged and included in the summary. It’s literally insane.

My experience is that between then and now its just shifts in views. People were shitty in different ways about different things.

I find it much easier to deal with "LOL your fic is stupid and cringe and I'm going to laugh at you" versus "you shouldn't be writing that. I looked back at your ships and OMG you were in THAT fandom? HEY EVERYBODY THIS PERSON DREW ART FOR A BAD SHIP THEY'RE PROBABLY A PEDO"

I can deal with both yes. But some of the bullying in fandom then versus now - Based on things I've witnessed and seen - it's more pointed and more vicious now. You used to have people who would just laugh at you or call your OC a Mary Sue. Now you have people who would gleefully hope for your suicide if they think you deserve it.

The latter has gotten far too normalized lately, that's for sure. I do think the "kys" assholes existed back then, but in smaller numbers. Either that, or the separated spaces made it harder for the assholes to find each other, possibly.

There are aspects of fandom that are worse, but also I really appreciate that you don't get kicked out of fandom spaces for liking gay ships nowadays, YEAH. I think that there are a lot of things that are cyclical, like the things that are worse right now aren't new, are not due to tumblr, they're just some of the things that were also a problem in the lj days, in the mailing list days...

The only real new problem is access to creators being so much more, and the things that come with that-- entitlement for some, or showing creators fanworks that they do not need to be shown for others (or asking about rpf, good lord). Every other issue that I find annoying, I recognize as just a new wave of the same old shit people did back then too. Like, yes, there are some etiquette breakdowns, there are influxes of new fans who don't necessarily know how to behave in fan spaces, and some of them might not want to learn because the people they see complaining are 'too old' to have fun, but like... there were plenty of fan spaces back in the day that did not prize etiquette as a rule! And the generation thing is not new.

I literally got run off of a shipping comm when others on there found out I was a lesbian, but sure fandom today is so much worse.

Like there's shitty parts to fandom today because there always has been, but with m/m getting more popular it's helped to make attitudes towards irl gay people better, no perfect, but better and I can exist openly now when before I fucking couldn't.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #7004 ]

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