fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2078 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2078 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Whenever I have to talk about RPF with someone, I say this:

Imagine you get famous for whatever reason. You're a celebrity. Now imagine you're married to your lad or lady of choice, very happily, and you've also got a wonderful best friend.

Now imagine a bunch of your fans, people who don't know you beyond your public image, spreading vitriolic lies about how your marriage is a sham, your spouse is a slut or a whore, and you're fucking your best friend.

People are drawing art of you with said friend, someone that you've never considered that way. Some of them are attacking you publicly at conventions or interviews, calling you names for hurting your 'true love'.

How would you feel? Would it strain your marriage? Imagine you're touchy feely and you tend to hug your friend a lot, but now you're uncomfortable doing it in public because you know there's a legion of people waiting for you to so much as look at them affectionately so that they can add it to their pile of 'evidence'.

If I were in that situation, I would feel physically ill. So no, I don't do RPF. And I don't think it's okay.

(Obviously, having a fantasy about celebrities is quite different - it's private, and it's not going to have an effect on their lives. It's the people who openly and sometimes violently ship it that I don't agree with.)

^That. That's why I don't mind harmless little things like totally gen drabbles. And, yeah, sometimes it's all in good fun. But I judge the hell out of people who think their pairing are TRU LOVERS 4EVA and insist that somehow the reams of NC-17 porn on their hard drive invalidates the person's RL marriage/partnership/romantic interests/life.

I don't mind the NC17 porn even, as long as they're not bashing or villainizing other real people to get there.

Yeah, no, that's what I was getting at. Crazy fans will insist that, say, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are eternally destined for each other and are "just pretending" to be married to Daneel and Gen. And then they will get all butthurt when one of them actually appears in public with his wife because "OMG SHE'S JUST A BEARD FOR J2'S SECRET LUUUURRVE!1".

I feel like even writing consensual RPF porn is implicitly bashing on someone's RL partner, but yeah, I agree that's not as bad as outright villainising.

Thread OP

I feel like even writing consensual RPF porn is implicitly bashing on someone's RL partner, but yeah, I agree that's not as bad as outright villainising.

Could you elaborate on this, if you wouldn't mind? Given how much RPF is AU, do you still feel like a fic where Jared is a space pirate and Jensen is an android is bashing on anyone's real life anything (android consent issues aside)? I can see what you mean in a non-AU context, but that's a tiny portion of J2 fandom (and a lot of RPF fandoms I've encountered).

Oh, right, sorry. I don't read RPF, so I didn't realise the fics were predominantly AU. I'm going by the attitudes of those people who manage to get themselves onto fandom_wank.
So, nope, AUs like that don't bother me, or wouldn't if I were interested in RPF.

AYRT

No worries! I actually have no idea if it's all RPF fandoms. I gather that band fandoms of various sorts have more non-AU, but I'm less familiar with those (apart from my wayward youth where it was self-insert "I become girlfriend of pop group member x" wall to wall).

And at least with SPN fandom, what I've seen make fandom_wank lately is the anon meme, and I always suspect the people there are too butthurt to actually write fic. ;)

This! If you write porn about a pairing but then acknowledge that it's not a real thing and are respectful about other real people, it personally doesn't bother me.

AYRT

I see your point, but a) I think there's a big difference between writing fic with the usual "none of this is real" disclaimer at the top and being a creepy stalker/calling someone's wife a slut and the former does not imply the latter, and b) celebrities have to deal with disgusting tabloid attention all the time, which makes a lot more claims about being "true" than any RPF does. So I guess I'd ask, if you're worried about dissolving celebrity marriages/friendships, why you're more concerned about tinhats than paparazzi? If I'm misunderstood something, please let me know. I'm just interested in the sources of this argument.

This is exactly how I feel too. I don't approve of people being creepy, mean, or nasty to celebrities, but I also don't feel "having a fantasy and writing it down" is inherently any of those things.

(Thank you for not jumping down my throat for having a strong opinion on this!)

Okay, let's start with a). You are right that fic writers are not on the same level as the batshit insane ones, and I shouldn't have implied that.

I, personally, am very uncomfortable with people writing fics about real people - to me, it's still appropriating their lives/relationships and using them for fap material.

Obviously people aren't going to stop RPF just because I don't like it, so I've got no issue with the shippers who keep their works clearly marked and have a clear line between fiction and reality. The concept is still problematic, but at least they're being respectful about it.

As for b), one form of bullshit (tabloids) doesn't negates another (RPF). They're both as bad as each other, and both have negative effects on the people they exploit. Just because I'm discussing the effects of RPF here doesn't mean I don't find the paparazzi just as bad.

Tbh, I actually don't care much about celebrities and their lives and all that. I just find the concept objectionable. I don't like it when people try to 'matchmake' either. (I had a friend who kept trying to set me up with 'cute nerdy guys' because I was a nerd and therefore that was my 'type'. I'm asexual. It was really insulting.) It's all sort of coming down into meddling with other people's relationships when it's not your business.

AYRT

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think what you said about meddling with other people's relationships makes a lot of sense, and that's a big reason why I dislike celebrity gossip sites. Because they claim to know things about real people's real lives, and I find it really intrusive. I guess for me most RPF is more like fancasting an original story. And if it's an AU, it basically is an original story, and if it's non-AU, it's basically like taking little bits of real life and recontextualizing them. Which doesn't seem to me to be "just as bad" as making up a rumor about a celebrity based on a blurry paparazzi photo and claiming that it's true. (Obviously there are horrifying bits of RPF fandom, like the subset of One Direction fans who've been hassling the band/their girlfriends/their management/other fans about their ship recently.)

Thiiis. When I first got into Avengers fandom - I honestly thought RDJ and the Dr Banner actor were together-together. With people's Meta of the interviews and all, I honestly thought they were a gay couple who got to play in the same movie and that = Iron man/hulk BFF.

Then I wiki'd both the actors and realised one was married and it wasn't to the other actor. But for a moment there I couldn't tell because the speculation and discussions were all so matter-of-fact like any other celeberity site/journal that I thought it was true.

Both RDJ and Banner's actor are married to the person they love and they both have children with their respective wives.

i'm not into rpf, but if i were in that situation, i truly wouldn't care. granted, i have no desire whatsoever to be famous, either, so maybe there's a connection there.

[ SECRET POST #2078 ]

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