fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2643 ]

[ SECRET POST #2643 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2643 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 075 secrets from Secret Submission Post #378.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Basic background: I'm a silent lurker on tumblr for many of the reasons that a lot of people don't like the site, on top of being personally pretty bad at overcoming my own shyness. I follow things for fannish content and entertainment, but do not interact. So when I see posts that get under my skin, instead of reblogging and participating, I often just vent privately to a close fandom friend in chat.

The issue I've noticed happening several times is that even though my friend and I often have very different takes on things, I'll shortly thereafter see her reblog the exact thing I mentioned... with what are basically my exact points retooled as if they're her original thoughts on the matter cleaned up into the kind of modes of speech that earn you tumblr-fame points. Being perfectly politically correct, etc. It kind of goes like this: I mention something knowing we'll probably disagree, but this is someone I feel (felt?) secure enough with to have little debates with. I sometimes convince her of my thinking whether trying to or not. She then presents my thinking as if it were always hers and then I see numerous reblogs praising "her" thinking and contributions.

Is it completely irrational for this to bother me, and should I mention it to her? It's not that I'm looking for name-dropping or anything-- the more invisible I stay on tumblr the better as far as my peace of mind goes. I think it's more that I feel used on these occasions, as if someone I trusted has started taking advantage of my private openness with her to piggyback on my thoughts without even saying anything so simple as "I just had a conversation with a friend and wound up feeling like such-and-such afterwards." It feels sort of like she's being intellectually dishonest and using me to do it.

(An example of the kind of thing I'm talking about: some sj-themed post goes around. Knowing her, she'd be likely to reblog it with approval. But I natter on at her about "this bugs me in its lack of attention to x and y and z issues, [insert complaints about tumblr culture here]." And then she's suddenly posting some lengthy essay on the subject of "friendly reminder, guys, we need to consider x and y and z." Cue dozens of reblogs and then a round of her publishing asks saying how great she is.)

tl;dr I'm starting to resent one of my best friends because it feels like she uses me to earn points on tumblr and its affecting my ability to be open with her like has always been important to me.

Would you feel better if they prefaced their amended statements with something like "A friend just brought to my attention that..."?

Something like that, yes. It seems ridiculous even to say since it's truly not that I want attention or specific credit. Just acknowledgment I guess in an indirect way. And to not feel capitalized on by the only person in fandom I've trusted for years.

Is it completely irrational for this to bother me, and should I mention it to her?

If I were you, I'd only mention it if you don't know how she'll react; if you are 100% sure she'll tell you you're overreacting or making a big deal out of nothing, then I wouldn't bother (and I would make a mental note to never tell her anything you're thinking about again).

Thanks. Probably good advice and probably should have been obvious. It's just a little saddening in facing the realization that our friendship has changed.

My sister does it (it's awesome when we're in the same fandoms)
I'm ok with it because I know that she loves me and her blog is more popular than mine anyway, so much more people will see it.

You could feel flattered - your friend agrees with you. Hmmm... Ask her to promote your blog or mention you in her posts maybe? Just a thought.

I had a friend who took something I said that she disagreed with and posted it without attribution for everyone to make fun of.

It took like 2, 3 years before I finally got through to her that it hurt my feelings.

That is horrible. I'm sorry that happened.

So let me get this straight. You don't want to blog a response that contains your precious, 100% original thoughts. Instead, you want to use your friend (and let's be clear, she's doing you a favor by being there to listen to you vent over stuff you don't want to air publicly) as an agony aunt to discuss them. You're upset that your friend shares the fruit of your discussions and presents them implicitly as though they're her precious, 100% original thoughts. But you don't want her to credit you by name.

Once, I had a cupcake I didn't want to eat for reasons. I left it on the kitchen counter. My roommate loves cupcakes and would like to eat that cupcake, but you know, it was my cupcake and even if I didn't want to eat it, I didn't want her to eat it, either. I'd prefer to let it just sit there and go stale, so that the only person who benefits from the cupcake is me. What do I get out of a cupcake I don't want to eat? Why, the pride of ownership knowing it's mine and nobody else can eat it, of course.

Was that selfish of me?

I think it's more that I feel used on these occasions, as if someone I trusted has started taking advantage of my private openness with her to piggyback on my thoughts without even saying anything so simple as "I just had a conversation with a friend and wound up feeling like such-and-such afterwards." It feels sort of like she's being intellectually dishonest and using me to do it.

You know how you could fix this problem easily? By not using this person as your sounding board for discussion. There. Done. You've robbed her of your precious, 100% original thoughts and she no longer has material for her reblogs.

Ahhh, but then you'd have to do without your outlet of frustration, wouldn't you? Well, that's what you have to decide. If she's your best friend, you need to find the guts to talk to her about this in a way that doesn't sound so defensive or territorial. Good luck.

wooooowwww, do you view every conversation you have with friends as doing them a FAVOR by listening to them? what a sad fucking life you must have.

no. wait. what sad fucking lives anyone who's stupid enough to consider you a friend must have.

your analogy is also fucking stupid. this sounds more like OP made cupcakes and friend came along who doesn't even fucking LIKE cupcakes. but while they're shooting the shit as friends do about OP spending the day baking OP talks about how she feels about cupcakes so friend tries one. she unexpectedly enjoys it. then she goes and posts on tumblr about how she just had this delicious cupcake in a way that imlies she made the fucking cupcake in the first place.

OP: yes, you have to choose between letting it go, letting it fester, or talking to her. them's the breaks. just don't listen to assholes like this though about whether you're being irrational. sometimes it's the very faith we put in our friends that makes small slights hurt more than they should. that doesn't mean anything other than you're human and relationships are complicated and confusing since we can't read each other's minds.

If I'm venting about a topic that "gets under my skin" on a regular basis to a friend, then yes, they are doing me a favor by listening. This is a nice thing that friends do for one another, but here's what you don't seem to get: it takes time and it's emotionally draining to be someone's outlet for their frustrations. It is NOT something people owe you, and OP should recognize that the friend is indeed doing them a favor by being a sympathetic ear.

If you don't understand that, then I suspect it's you who are the crappy friend, not me.

The analogy stands. We only have the OP's word for it that the friend doesn't really like cupcakes and just wants to eat them for attention. But if the cupcake is a cupcake that the OP isn't going to eat and doesn't want to eat, then it's silly for them to call dibs on it when someone else is willing and wants to eat it. Whether or not the friend actually like cupcakes is irrelevant.

You sound like a real great friend. A fantastic human being, too. I bet you enrich the lives of everyone you bless with your attention.

OP is being a bit silly, yes. But you're being an asshole, and your idea of friendship is fucked up.

It sounds like she really listens and values your opinions, or else she wouldn't be repeating your ideas on her tumblr.

Does she know this bothers you? If you don't tell her, how can she know?

Presumably she knows you like to stay invisible on tumblr as you say you have lots of other conversations about fannish things. Perhaps she thinks you like that she widens the discussion to others without you having to stick your head up.

You're not wrong to resent it, you can't help your feelings. But if you don't even attempt to tell your friend it upsets you and she keeps on doing it, yes, then that is your fault.

Thanks. That all sounds-- really very reasonable, actually. I think I needed a reality check on my own odd reactions. There is actually a compliment in it when viewed that way, so I should just... brave up and mention that I get taken aback sometimes, see how it goes.

Tell her. Please.

I have no idea how likely this is, but I'm going to try offering a perspective from the other direction, here:

Your friend knows you are very shy and, from the sounds of it, possibly even have some anxiety issues concerning stepping out into fandom (or at least that's the vibe I'm getting from your few words here). But she also knows you have strong opinions, ones which are valid and one which you may want to be heard by other people, but are not quite up to saying/expressing yourself.

It might be that what your friend is trying to do is spread your ideas without 'putting you at risk' - that by taking the credit, she also takes the blame. The kind of stuff you described her as posting sounds like it makes her as much a target for SJWs, flamers, and trolls as it does for fans of what she posts. From her perspective, she is doing you a favor by 'protecting' you. Not asking you/telling you about it might be a dick move, or it can just be a stupid one.

Or, she may not be doing this consciously at all - her opinion may genuinely be changed by what you said, so now she is just posting stuff with her own opinions or thoughts on them, ones which only just happen to exist because you talked to her in the first place, but which she may not see as being 'yours' (as a possessive issue), or that it would look like she is reposting your opinions instead of her own that happen to mirror yours.

While Cupcake Analogy Anon above was unnecessarily abrasive about it, they do have one point - opinions aren't territory or possession, and can't be owned. I'm not saying your friend isn't being a bit dickish in just 'copying' your words and point, but that leads into the second issue: they also do have a point that it is a little on the paradoxical side if you want credit but don't want to be named (I'm not saying there isn't a way out of it, but when you are the one stuck between a rock and a hard place, it can be hard to realize where the space to move is).

Bring it up with your friend - but do so by saying that while you don't know what she thinks of it and want to believe it isn't her intention, you still feel like she is just using you for Tumblr brownie points.

Somewhere in there is where you'll need to set a hard rule, one of how you want to be credited or just want her to acknowledge that the thoughts/posts came from someone other than herself, or that you don't want her to post the kind of stuff you say at all.

But if you do, there is one other risk you need to accept beforehand: that your friend may say that if you want that kind of rule, they do not feel safe/secure in being your venting/sounding board and would prefer you to stop. Because if she really was just trying to help you in a kind of faily way, or if she was posting her own thoughts on the matter that happened to have been changed by what you said, then listening to you may very well end up becoming 'dangerous' to you because from her perspective, she no longer knows what you consider 'yours' and what you don't and what thoughts of hers are safe to post because you might interpret it as thoughts of yours.

I don't know your friend, but it sounds more like her opinions are changing because of what you said, and she might just be having trouble admitting, to herself or to others, that it is changing because of what someone else said. That, or she's trying to help you and kind of just failed with a few crucial parts (namely telling you that she is 'posting on your behalf').

I can understand feeling a bit miffed here, but there really is no good way to say, "Friend, I want to keep venting my opinions to you instead of posting them myself, but I don't want you to post any of the things we talked about because I feel like you're getting credit for my good ideas, the same ideas I don't want to share."

You could totally say this if the topics you discussed were personal and confidential in nature, but... they're not. You guys are just talking about public stuff and your individual opinions. Even if she doesn't initially share your opinion, if your discussion means she changes her mind and now your opinions are her opinions you really do not have the right to tell her she can't share her opinions because you had them first. They're ideas. Nobody gets to keep ideas all to themselves. The way I see it, you've got three options:

1) Have that awkward chat with your friend about getting partial credit. You don't want her to mention you by name, just acknowledge that her posts were inspired by a discussion with an unnamed friend.

Pros: You get your credit-without-names for your ideas! She still gets to post her opinions!
Cons: It makes you sound just a tiny bit douchebaggy. "I want credit for those good ideas you couldn't come up with on your own" is never going to sound nice. Never.

2) Do nothing.

Pros: Really easy and effortless. Bonus points if you could learn to feel like this doesn't matter, that ideas are and should be free and shared with anyone who wants them, and that you are a secure, well-rounded person who realizes that tumblr reblogs don't actually mean anything in real life and that if you wanted something as trivial as headpats from total strangers on tumblr, you could have them.
Cons: Potential source of resentment because in your head, it feels like your friend is using you for your ideas. Friendship blows up because again, in your head, this feels like stealing.

3) Stop venting to your friend.

Pros: Your friend can no longer mine your opinions for tumblr points. If she's unable to form these favorable opinions and insightful commentaries without you as you say, then her rise to tumblr fame is dead in the water.
Cons: You'll have to find someone else to vent to, or start a private journal and be satisfied with not having an audience for your opinions. Have the cake or eat the cake? You get to make that call.

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[ SECRET POST #2643 ]

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