I've seen quotes from Chappell Roan about no longer being able to do meet and greets because people would trauma dump on her and then she can't process it when she's about to get on stage to perform. There's a conversation to be had about boundaries and when the parasocial relationship has gone too far.
@@nyreebaldwin1642 I think people (often younger fans but really it could be anyone) will find relatability and association with an artist's work(s) and they don't consider that the artist themself is a real person, they just see them as an entity that they can relate to through their media. When they interact with the artist (online or offline) they feel the need to bombard the artist with their personal stories and experiences, and it's a lot, especially considering to an artist, fans are all complete strangers (and realistically, the artist is to the fans as well). Like I understand feeling seen, validated, or helped out by an artist in that regard, but the artist is a person too and it's reasonable to want to distance themselves!
Super Eyepatch Wolf says this thing: “When you meet a creator, treat them like a friend of a friend that you’ve heard really good things about.” It creates that perfect level of distance. I feel so bad that creators have to keep doing the “You don’t know me in real life” thing as though they’re not humans doing a job.
Yeah.. I never understood that. Like, when you put people on a pedestal, it creates a barrier. Sometimes it's needed when someone's super famous, but.. normal life??
I remember a a girl in my math class printed out fanfiction she liked and put in in a binder. She didn’t sell it, she was just always worried her favs would be deleted. Which is waaay different than stealing someone’s work.
This was a huge thing with me and my friends in high school. One of my friends went out of her way to find a long fic that she knew I would like but hadnt read to print out and give me in an envelope when I was going on a long trip without internet access. As a graduation present for one of my friends, I printed out and (rather messily) bound together an ao3 series that was one of her favorites to take with her to college. not a one of us would have ever considered trying to SELL it. No one wants to see their favorite fics or authors get taken down, and thats a pretty solid way to ensure that that happens.
i did this myself until high school cuz like....i didnt have a phone so if i found a fic i wanted to read id print that shit and read when i had downtime. eventually i got an ipod touch so i didnt need to anymore
Honestly there could be a whole discussion on how people use stuff like fan cast and rumors as an excuse to vent out their racism towards a group of people. Like Avantika never got confirmed to be Rapunzel, but people were more than eager to demean the Indian race as a whole.
@@Tallen79I honestly don't want her to go through what Halle did. So many horrific things were said to her over a shitty Disney movie. A less strong person may have taken their life over it due to how overwhelming, cruel and nonstop the comments were over a period of years.
People letting their kids in fandom spaces not meant for them is a big problem too. I get that families like to go to con together, but letting your 9 year old ask Blake Roman (Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel's VA) if it was uncomfortable making all the sex noises for the show at a huge panel made EVERYONE uncomfy (hell, the cast of Helluva Boss was at Summercon here in WA a week ago and they opened their panel with "anyone bring their 9 year old to ask us inappropriate questions?" Not all fandom spaces need to allow children if it's not a space meant for them.
just want to say i appreciate you straight up saying "we are not friends". the fans can be awful about boundaries but the celebrity industry also encourages unhealthy parasocial relationship with fans and both needs to stop
I actually hate when creators and celebs feel the need to specify that cause most people don't need to be reminded of it, it's kind of insulting to your audience that you think they are delusional enough to not get the relationship going on here, kind of comes off a bit like someone feeding their own ego
People who say it are saying it *because* their audience needs to hear it. Have you not seen the videos where she talks about some of the messages she’s gotten from viewers? Every RUclipsr past a certain size has someone that thinks they’re friends. Every streamer has the same. This is just a fact of the internet. Just because *you* don’t need to hear it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685 I'm glad you have faith in humanity but most people are stupid and make stupid mistakes, reminding them that something is inapropiate shouldnt bother you except if you're the one doing those things. We all know drunk driving is illegal and super dangerous and they still make new campains each year about it becasue people still do it.
@@qwinlynyou don't take time out of your day to address everyone just cause a few people don't get it, we've all heard it before, there are thousands of creators who have felt the need to say the same thing, it's a reality of being a creator/ performer whatever, you will attract attention you don't want sometimes, nature of the beast
uncomfortable fancalls doesnt even scratch the surface of how bad kpop fans are, they'll go to fan signs and disrespect an idol right in their face, and some of these companies will do nothing about it which just encourages that behavior even more
I mean the wildest stories about menstrual blood letters and sneaking into idols homes to “give herself” to him and stuff like that. Just the sky is the limit really
@@EraYaN that was tvxq right? sasaengs cant even be considered fans at that point. i feel so bad for idols whenever smth happens bc you kno it's their own staff thats selling their info for a quick buck
@@duckinaswing often not staff, but phone companies, leasing offices etc. Fans would get jobs at phone companies to more effectively stalk their faves too. It’s where the “don’t change your number we can find you anyway” thing comes from.
It's so bad because companies ENCOURAGE us fans so be delusional about idols so we'll buy a bunch of their merch and stuff. I don't buy into it, but I have come across some people online that are GENUINELY so obsessed that I think they can't live without their idol. It's off putting and clearly shows how people can become so unhinged.
One thing that I've noticed in fanfiction writer circles is that readers are VERY entitled and rude in comments sections. This has always been a bit of a problem but I've been noticing it more lately where people will comment to badger the author about updating. I've seen people tell authors not to post unfinished works because they don't like being left on a cliffhanger for however long it takes to get a chapter up, or straight up encouraging other readers to put the fic into chatgpt to get an ending. I don't understand how anyone can think that that behavior is ever ok. These authors are taking time out of their lives to write these incredible stories and share them with you FOR FREE, show some respect. To me it just screams that views on fanart and fanfiction are shifting from "a community sharing their art" to "free content to be consumed and then discarded"
Agreed! I’ve also noticed the decline in politeness and encouragement. It’s so hard to get motivated to write when the end result isn’t that different than telling myself the story in my head
mmm... I've been around for a pretty long time and reader entitlement hasn't changed imo. I've gotten plenty of kys messages back in the 00s I actually see a lot less UPDATE NOW messages, thought it might be the circles I float in.
“Free content to be consumed and discarded” hit the nail on the head. Everything is being turned into content and people are becoming more and more accustomed to what big corps can offer them and when a single person can’t keep up with that they have no empathy even when they have the context of how they’re producing. On the reverse I’ve also seen people be oddly way more patient and understanding with big corps than they are with indie artists and the like, it’s so bizarre the mindset many people have now.
It's so weird, cuz like, if you can't stand a work being left unfinished then just don't read WIPs? That's what I do, I sort on AO3 to only completed works most of the time cuz reading a work that never ends up getting completed is depressing. Harassing the author's just makes them more likely to abandon the work cuz they just can't deal with all of it.
A friend of mine is a popular fic writer in a certain TV fandom and they get SO MANY COMMENTS LIKE THIS! People are so entitled to other people's labors of love. Fanfic is a hobby and no "fans" are entitled to someone else's hobby or time! It honestly kinda reminds me of the logic people use surrounding AI art (I guess this includes people "finishing" other people's fics in ChatGPT which is awful). Writing GOOD fanfic is hard, yes, it's a skill you have to learn just like drawing. But in order to learn you just have to try! And ANYONE CAN TRY! If you have a headcanon or idea in a fandom, WRITE IT YOURSELF! Don't demand it from other people! The audacity, entitlement, and downright laziness is absurd. People talk down about fic authors and demand things of them but at the same they're scared to open a google doc
I remember when people thought that Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) and Jack Gleeson (Joffrey Baratheon - Game of Thrones) were terrible people because their characters were antagonists. Wtf, I will never understand people. They are *actors* doing a job.
I have heard SO many people quote or reference FICTIONAL Hollywood films to justify their misogyny or "prove" the existence of misandry (misandry is a comedic strawman, it isn't real.) 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Much Love!!
I remember that! I think out of the Harry Potter franchise, Cho Chang's actress got it the worst though. They created a whole hate campaign against her, even created a website (which back then, meant they had to know how to make one from scratch). It was dedicated to tearing the actual actress down and everything, all because she was shipped with Harry the character. It's crazy. Because she was also ethnically Asian, it was 10x worse.
I’m this day and age, everyone should brush up on copyright and intellectual property law in their area. I’m not saying get a degree, but know your rights and know the rights of others. This goes for fanfiction, RUclips strikes, AI, so many relevant topics.
I feel like people aren't motivated to do that because if they don't know the laws then they can truthfully play the ignorance card. It's not a valid legal defense but it certainly works in the court of public opinion.
Especially with “hustle” culture, I’ve had to have conversations with so many people about why selling home made items with their favourite popular IP they don’t own on them could get them into serious trouble. Like is Disney going to come after you for sticking the mouse on a tumbler you sell at a local craft fair, probably not but they will do sweeps on online selling platforms. Hopefully all you’ll get is a slap on the wrist but they could do worse or you may lose access to a platform you rely on for income. People have the misconception that since they’re small big corporations won’t come after them when in reality going after small people is way easier and helps prove that they’re protecting their IP. They also think because they see others selling stuff with it that it’s okay when in reality it could get you in serious trouble and some places just take the risk or also don’t know better. I’m all for sticking it to the big guys by making fan made items but I always want people to know how to project themselves legally. Plus it’s unfortunately a slippery slope from people thinking it’s okay to undercut someone like Disney and equating that for example with making merch from a favourite indies artist work and profiting off that when that’s an opportunity for Collaboration and community.
Back when I went to local Cons, every artist's alley was full of copyright infringement (mugs, prints, t-shirts, tote bags). Get the logos of the most popular franchises at the time, print it onto mugs, get there and sell them. Profit! No one will come after them in those spaces, because there was no one checking there, and probably there's no one doing it now.
This is a little bit of an older example at this point, but when David Tennant played Kilgrave in Jessica Jones I saw a fair amount of people talking about how his role in Doctor Who was "ruined" for them. Because the actor of a beloved character also played a character that was a villain. A completely separate role in a completely separate universe! He did a great job as Kilgrave and I still love 10. 🤷♀️
Ah this makes me sad!! I love David tennant and Killgrave absolutely terrifies me to the point I cannot watch Jessica Jones but he's my favorite dr who and second favorite deatheater!!!
Someone read one of my fics aloud on a podcast... Honestly, I was flattered, but I do wish they'd given me a heads up ahead of time. I discovered it quite by accident months later.
Utah! Know that feeling, it is unsettling for sure. I wish they would have just reached out to you first, I think people really discount industry integrity when the industry is an internet-based one, as if that makes the networks any less real 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Big yikes! Sorry you had to encounter that so unexpectedly 🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤 Much Love to You!
The rule of thumb in the podfic community is that the author needs to give permission to have their work adapted into audio form. This is concerning! And I really hope it isn't widespread because yikes, what a way to ruin it for everyone.
@@caustic1611 yeah, it became like that because people were uncomfortable when it first became popular. I believe that these are likely New people who never heard of podfic and arrived at this by themselves.
Recently a manhwa author was getting a lot of d*ath threats and sent sh photos because in the recent chapters one of the main characters weren’t being shown because we’re in a flashback arc and the two main characters haven’t even met yet, calling the author all types of names because of this, the lengths that people will go over fictional characters has gone too far where they start to care about them more than real people it’s very concerning.
There is also a lot of people coming into the AO3 space to complain we are writing m/m fiction and they want it taken down right now because those characters are not gay and that is a terrible thing to write. It is hurting a lot of the fandom and I think scaring away younger writers.
@@lexa4160 yes and the saddest part is her tweet was addressed to the English speaking audience even though the arc hasn’t even been officially translated into English yet so the people sending her these things aren’t even reading legally and they think they have any right over how she chooses to tell the story it’s a whole mess honestly
Honestly I blame it on how accessible creators are. Nagging and complaining to the author used to be hard. You had to like, send physical letters to the publisher and just hope they sent them on to the author. If they used a pen-name there was literally NO other way to reach out to them. Now everyone has an easily discovered social media. And so fans have a direct access point to them 24/7. Even if the creator doesn't check often, or at all. That's still access. Even if you're screaming into the void, that void belongs to the person you're screaming at,
@MsLilly200 yeah, idk, this is a pretty reasonable observation, but people have always been crazy. Like, have you heard of the bjork stalker? Or the dude who killed dimebag Darrel? And of course John Lennon. Like, all of those things happened before youtube even existed, people have always been crazy. I genuinely think it's just how society/specific people view famous people, we've always put these people on a pedestal and art is honestly about connection. So it's easier for weirdos to latch onto them through their art. I really think it's a deeper problem in humans
@@ambassadoroftheandromedagalaxy you know I've actually considered this, people who get all hatefully obsessed with other people absolutely would do shit like this.
@@ambassadoroftheandromedagalaxy She said there were folks who would leave angry voicemails for her at her job, even. Like fellas?? SHE IS NOT ABBY! Abby is not real, please be normal!
I write in my free time and had someone reach out to me asking if they could do book bindings and sell it. I obviously said no, and they had the audacity to say "I'll send you like 20$ bucks". Not a portion of what they were making from my writing(not that that would be better), but 20$ 🙃
As a kpop fan, kpop fans are some of the most entitled fans around and the companies basically encourage it. There are these chatting apps you can sign up for (monthly paid subscriptions) where the idol can text fans directly. To the person it looks like a 1:1 chat but the idol will see everyone’s messages. People will literally berate the idol if they feel like they aren’t online enough or if they feel like they aren’t getting enough direct responses from them. To the point I’ve literally seen them have to apologize for not being active. This kinda thing can be worse at in person events. Fansites (online blogs that take photos of idols at public appearances) have made idols CRY for not looking at their camera or smiling enough. Idols have some of the most grueling schedules and for fans to know this and still make a fuss if they feel like their idol isnt smiling enough is just fucking gross and entitled.
oh my gosh i forgot about bubble. you’re so correct, the way the companies ENCOURAGE bad behavior and tolerate sasaengs to the ACTIVE DETRIMENT of their idols is crazy. at this point companies are trading in the physical safety and mental health of their talent for a little cash. sickening
BTS fan here - the stuff people post on their chat site is appalling: rude posts, posts with straight up hate, posts about their ships, SOMEONE POSTED A PICTURE OF THEIR UNDERWEAR. I can't comprehend this mentality. I don't want any members of BTS to know I exist because I am a gremlin.
Seems like the K-pop bands/managing company encourages this sort of fan and interaction. Everything I have seen of the companies that run idol groups looks like they want that sort of community.
@@somegeesethe overwhelming majority of kpop fans that see this stuff are also repulsed by it- that's why we bring it up. we wouldn't even talk about it if we thought it was normal.
literally. 10-15 years ago when I was doing dumb teenager/young young adult stuff online I'm glad the "never show your face/post your personal information etc." was rampant because I definitely was unhinged with the fanfic I wrote and how I acted on tumblr lmao. Only a small circle of people knew who I was and we were all bonkers
Another thought I want to add: Stop harassing people's significant other. I see this mainly with male celebrities (examples that come to mind are any F1 guy and their girlfriend), and it has gotten so out of hand. People forget that celebrities don't owe them anything and that their private lives are different from their professional lives. I genuinely think celebrities might actually stop engaging with fans (if they are not already) because of the harassment and that the whole celebrity culture will change soon. Another thing: With the new season of House of the Dragon, the actor for Criston Cole, Fabien Frankel, has been getting so much hate for his role, which is just scary and absurd. Yes the character is pretty awful, but the fact that we collectively don't like him says something about how good a job the actor is doing. Fabien Frankel has recently started to limit his Instagram comments and I just feel so bad for him.
People were terrible to Laura Bailey because she voiced Abby in the games, it was truly wild to watch. Especially because she's typically such a beloved figured in the voice acting space.
@@FormalFilmsProductions She did, I remember all of the Critical Role fans being so confused because they were both getting so much hate and we didn't have the context.
i have a hard time the mainstream-ification of fanfic - on one hand, it’s good that more people can enjoy fic, that’s what it’s there for! but new readers and authors have intruded in the space without regards to basic etiquette and rules. obviously this includes fanfic sellers/buyers, but also the new authors who refuse to tag works correctly, or spam work into a tag to get it more “popular.” and more readers who are demanding fanfic cater to them (trying to regulate ao3, criticize authors for taking time to update). fandom can always get toxic, but the normies are really sucking the fun out of every basic fandom function :(
Same. The wattpad migration is particularly frustrating but it’s exactly as you said- fanfic has seen a HUGE influx of people and a terrifying level of popularization. Terrifying in that, I could not imagine being someone like MsKingbean89 dealing with the All the Young Dudes (waves hands) hullabaloo Fanfic has always operated with a sort of Gift Economy. If your friend makes you a hand crocheted scarf-You don’t complain about how the yarn is an ugly acrylic and it’s lumpy-Unless you’re a raging raging douche. You say thank you, because you know it took them hours to make and they spent that time crafting something for you, with you in mind. The Gift Economy worked relatively well since, until very recently, fanfic communities were: small, personal, and limited. Made up of dedicated fans who most often became friends, not on ao3, but on tumblr/Livejournal (I specify multiple platforms because it means that you’d often have to follow someone across multiple social media in order to become friendly. Ao3’s greatest strength and weakness being that it doesn’t have any Direct Messaging/Group Chats beyond the comment section) But now nobody knows each other. Everyone really is just a series of pseuds on a screen Edit: To add on, I originally said cupcakes instead of crocheted scarf, but I can make cupcakes in an hour, and writing is a far larger time investment. That time investment, the scarcity (to extend the bad economics analogy) is gone too. There’s so much fanfic now, it’s easy to find another one, and there’s less motivation to form interpersonal attachments/interact (comment, kudos, bookmark, social media) with the author.
exactly! the thing about ao3 is that anyone can write anything. if you don’t like something, don’t read it. it’s that simple. trying to control others to use the platform in a way you find acceptable defeats the whole purpose and freedom of it in the first place
THIS EXACTLY. I've been reading fanfic since before the Internet and back then there was pretty solid rules for all. Don't like, don't read being number one. The amount of people who waste their time leaving negative words on fics or trash talking fics on a public forum is crazy to me.
Fanfic technically began in the 70’s, just niche little Trekkie spaces where Kirk/Spock was being written and enthusiastically shared. They didn’t bother anyone, and the works were made by fans for fans. And now look at what fanfic has become… and it’s sad
For the fanfic crowd, it is couteous to ask fic authors if you can fanbind their fic if you want to have a copy for yourself. Some authors will even have a note in their profile that specificially says they're ok or not ok with fanbinding.
the way booktok girlies have invaded the fic space without understanding and acknowledgment of widely accepted etiquette is mind boggling. like you are new to the space, and are immediately taking advantage of people and trying to profit off of others. that is NOT OKAY. the first rule in fandom is ALWAYS TO ASK.
@@sophie427 its actually soo frustrating!!! im constantly battling being happy that fandom is becoming more mainstream (it still sometimes weirds me out how many people in my real life know i write fanfiction, despite me having zero shame for it whatsoever) vs. getting bitter and upset because so many people are coming into it with very little regard for fandom etiquette and the actual community aspect. that's what MAKES fandom so fun!!! plus the fact that for a long time common practice in fanbinding circles have been to make a copy as a gift for the fic author, as a way of giving back to the community and a little "thank you" for writing something you loved enough to bind. the COMPLETE opposite of putting everyone at risk in order to make a quick buck. its gross.
I never understood it. I love bl drama but I always shipped the characters in the series, not the actors. After the awkward OffGun situation, people should already know it's not that...
I did that when i was about 8 years old and my parents explained to me thats not how life works. Now im grown up and realized the ship i was imagining was actually happening IRL, the mid 30s something Harrison Ford cheating on his family with roughly 19 yo Carrie Fisher. The internet is bad but it also gives ppl like Swell to call it out to a big audience
That "monkeys that you can throw a quarter at to make dance" is why I feel so off about Cameo. It feels disingenuous and I hate feeling like I'm imposing, even if they sign up specifically for that by making a Cameo account
there's a cameo from the voice actor for one of the Baldur's Gate III cast proposing to someone's character name and it feels very weird, I can only hope they got paid a lot and consented to it being reuploaded
Yeah this makes me wildly uncomfortable too. I understand that it’s another source of revenue for the actor/singer/public figure, and that’s generally a good thing. But I’ve seen way too many instances of people asking for very questionable things through Cameo, and it almost feels like they’re using the platform as a tool to play out their real person fanfic-esque fantasies with the person they’re paying to make the video. It’s very gross and exploitative.
It feels less weird to pay for an autograph, like if it’s in a bundle for someone’s merch, than to ask someone to say whatever I’ve scripted them to say
the only way i would use cameo would be asking questions to actors of my favorite franchise, like how was filming, what kind of preparation they did, what did they think of x scene. otherwise it feels exactly how you describe it.
with fancall there is even a term for “serial fancaller” where is the same person constantly winning these calls for the same idol i guess to be remembered by then , but to me it’s even worse because some of these people will be following them around the airport and cities they visit if they have something scheduled - some even go as far as buying their hotel info to try to get inside their rooms, very creepy
Ooh yes! I'm a BTS fan and there is someone who is constantly winning EVERYTHING. they have contacts in Korea so she can have a Korean address on her profile and win things that are only created for Korean fans. It's insane and sad because everyone should have a fair chance.
That was one of the things about growing up in the LA metro area, was that ~back in my day, shaking my cane~ it was understood that if you saw a celebrity out and about just living their lives, you left them THE FRIG alone. I went to a concert and ended up sitting directly behind Mel Brooks. I ate breakfast a table away from Sinbad. I saw Johnny Depp at Disneyland and Justin Bieber and Katy Perry at Knotts Scary Farm. I was behind Henry Winkler in line at a Subway. It's just something that happens, you DON'T take their picture, you DON'T approach or bother them, you let them live their lives unless they're doing some kind of official meet and greet event as a celebrity. Most of the people who flipped out back in the day were out-of-towners who weren't brought up in the culture of "yeah, there's people you know from the TV all over here, that's just how it is" but these days with social media being so big everyone wants a picture or video for the easy likes and dopamine.
Never in the history of celebritydom were they ever left alone. So you're flat out wrong to say "it was understood that if you saw a celebrity out and about, you left them alone". That literally never happened. Justin Bieber has been swarmed since he was like 13 at the very start of his career. They SHOULD be left alone, but that has never been the case nor will it ever be.
@@Sephiroso. I'm not saying that it never happened. I'm saying that generally, if you weren't a screaming tween girl, the culture of the LA metro area was that you let people eat their dang breakfast and shop for paper towels and enjoy the musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic and didn't pester them.
Saying hi (name) while passing by has been the extent of that for me, anything else just feels creepy. Even at places where it's expected to ask for a pic or chat a little, I still ask permission and be polite and don't take up too much time. They've always been polite in return.
Reminds me of the tiktok video not too long ago, about a CHILD at a hazbin hotel panel with the creators, asking about recording lines for a SEX SCENE. (Yes the parents were there)
About 20 years ago my older sister went to the library and printed off a LOTR fanfiction that was the entire trilogy from the perspective of the ring, named Alphonse, and it was mostly graphic sex between the members of the fellowship. It was a whole ream of paper. I think she emptied the printer and had to come back later.
@@fosterkitteneos it was a university library, so it didn't have supervision. And this was 20 years ago, so there wasn't the same technology security. Anybody could come in and print whatever. That's not even the only time she emptied the machine. We didn't have internet/computer at home, so she'd have to print everything off on the weekend to read later.
As someone who’s won fancalls before, I don’t understand where some of these people are finding the audacity to be weird or rude to idols on calls. I was having mild panic all throughout my combined 2 minutes talking with Yuna and Lia of ITZY back in 2022.
I can’t imagine being weird or rude to people in general but i absolutely cannot imagine spending fancall money just to be weird to an idol like that’s another level of ridiculous
I’m so glad you said something about how your audience is starting to treat you in chat and in person, because Ive been seeing it with a ton of female creators I follow and it is just so disheartening to watch as a woman who used to want to stream
I don't think it's necessarily new that people are fucking weird about celebrities, but I do think the immediacy of the internet is making it worse and worse, and especially as we have more and more people born in a time where they've never known anything before the internet. I think especially since tiktok promotes things based on views, they you get people doing increasingly weird and outlandish shit in order to get famous and empathy starts falling to the wayside.
The Kpop fandom is a whole other can of worms, you could honestly make a documentary on the toxicity of the kpop fan culture and the sad part is I know they’re a lot of genuinely good kpop fan but from the airport mobs, fancalls, stalkers, unnecessary backlash from dating rumors, the online mob mentality, fan wars, etc it just ruins the whole bunch as someone who use to be heavily in that space it I’ll never go back into. I just enjoy the music and artists from a distance.
Always an advocate for saving and preserving fanfiction, websites can go down with no notice and with AI becoming a bigger problem quite a few are being removed out of fear it'll be stolen by some AI company. By all means, if you love a fanfic, save it! Do not sell it!!! And while I'm at it; *STOP ADVERTISING COMMISSIONS ON AO3*. I'm glad you're making money with your work but you can't fucking do that shit. People have been treating AO3 like a social media site for too damn long and it's going to get the site shut down sooner or later. Not quite what the video is about, but tangentially related.
this this this!! I definitely agree. I'm pretty sure it's against AO3's terms of service. and it's not a social media site! I hate when people use it to advertise, or when they post blank fics to make a tag have more fics and be more "popular". it doesn't work like that. some people also want there to be an algorithm like??? people also can't just demand for certain tags be be removed because they're "bad". it's an archive. those tags are actually *helpful* because readers can filter them out and avoid reading something they don't want to.
Yeah, ao3 will lock the account if they see advertisements in order to retain their Non-profit designation. so if you see it, report it bc while you may like their stories... losing the whole site is worth 1 person, no matter who they are.
I was an active fanfiction writer circa early 2010s and I am FASCINATED any time the modern fanfiction space comes up. Not to sound like a grandma but forum culture back then (on a relatively big german forum) was that everyone has to thread VERY lightly because any day a big author might decide to fight ffs and get the whole concept illegalized (there was a list of forbidden fandoms - authors that had publicly spoken out against people writing fanfictions of their work and basically everyone copypasted disclaimers about not owning the characters and not financially profitting) and that real person fanfiction was WEIRD. It wasnt against the rules of the website, but people considered it very weird, so weird in fact one of my more popular oneshots (and my only ""real person fanfic") was a meta parody of an allmighty writer putting two commonly shipped youtubers in contrived sitations to make them bone. Teen me could have been more tactful but the sentiment was pretty popular, ship Tiva and Mothpool all you like but shipping real people is weird. Its incredibly weird to me just that ff commissions became a thing, rpf becoming accepted, printing and selling copies and the entitlement towards the real people just flabberghasts me.
There’s also the weird side of fandom when someone is a massive fan but others aren’t. And it’s seen as a personal attack if your indifferent or just not a massive fan of their favorite star
I'm old enough to remember pre-internet fanfiction. They were published as physical "Zines" that you buy usually from conventions, but I think there was also a mail order option? I don't fully remember because I was too young to afford to buy any. I imagine that was super illegal, but it cost people money to publish and print the Zines. It seemed like a more underground thing though too so it likely wasn't as much on copyright owners' radar.
Yeah back in the day tons if stuff at conventions was illegal, that was kind of the point of having them. I remember watching bootleg tapes that had the FBI anti piracy warning and everyone laughing about it at the con in some small meeting room. Stuff you would never have any other way to see
Zines still exist actually with online groups who still print it physically/sell e-versions for those who preorder. Altho they have been few made recently because of issues of either people not knowing what they are doing so they cancel/someone taking all the money and then dipping. I would watch coleydoesthings she made a great vid about modern zines +the ups n downs
This is such a stupid problem, I swear. Self-binding books is VERY EASY. Will it look the same as a published book? No, but does it need to? No. You can still read it.
As an amateur book binder I just want to say it is absolutely not easy to do properly, there are many skills involved, that’s before even getting to tooling the covers and guiding. However if you don’t want/care to do everything the “proper” way (completely valid!) it can be done fairly easily :)
You can always just print them on nice paper, 3 hole punch, and then add those paper fasteners or put it in a binder! I save a lot of theatre scripts so that’s my go to
I am deeply uncomfortable with how comfortable people are with shipping real people. I was never in the supernatural fandom but I was in Tumblr so I saw more than I ever wanted to of people shipping the two brothers and shipping the actors who played the brothers. Shipping the brothers is weird but okay fine they're fictional so I guess it that floats your boat whatever. I think it's weird. But the actors? Two guys who are just doing their job and suddenly a whole side of Tumblr is dedicated to you two boning? I'd quit acting and run away to the woods.
my biggest gripe with fanfic right now is because of how mainstream it's gotten, it's easier for a fandom to collectively agree what fics are considered canon (marauders fandom...) and no one can challenge this new "canon". it's always been weird when there's an obvious "leader" or "famous" fan within the fandom and whatever they say goes. if for some reason people find out you don't gel with that #1 writer/artist/fan account, you're suddenly an enemy to the fandom.
No fr I feel like oc fics and shipping different characters from fic to fic was so fun but now it's like but wait no the "canon" ship is this one and if you don't like it you're x,y,z! Bro I just like reading lots of different things in this particular world 😭
I've been involved in fanfiction since before Anne Rice started issuing legal threats, and this is not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case. It started back when Star Trek fanzines were passed around, and the editors and creators of those zines would only publish the fanfics that agreed with their ideas of what fan-canon should be. It was the case when Cassie Claire and MsScribe dominated the Harry Potter Fandom and decided what was and wasn't okay to write and what was and wasn't fan-canon. It was the case in the Sherlock fandom when TJLC was the thing and its creators were able to dictate what was fan-canon and wasn't and going against them got you harassed. It was the case in Hamilton fandom for a while with the GCOC running fan-canon and driving out authors who disagreed. These are just some examples I can think of off the top of my head, most from fandoms I wasn't involved in. I would guess that it's been the case in just about every fandom ever.
Call em out Amanda!! Audiences’ parasocial relationships with RUclipsrs/celebrities they like can get out of hand so easily. Of course it comforts me to watch RUclipsrs I like, as if I’m hanging out with a friend, so I get it. But you have to remember that it is NOT a real two sided relationship and the RUclipsr/celebrity doesn’t know you, and doesn’t owe you anything.
This reminds me of a tiktok that made the rounds on twitter, it was a stitch of someone asking what people thought was the reason for the shift in fandom spaces and the person who stitched it made the observation that like you stated it was the pandemic and the fact that a lot of people who entered said spaces were people that most likely previously made fun of people who were part of fandom spaces. They pretty much made the observation that they indulged in the content but did not inmerse themselves into the nuances and etiquettes that comes with being in fandom spaces because deep down they still hold judgement of them.
When women fought for equality it was NOT to be as creepy to the opposite sex as men are sometimes. So calm down people and treat others with decency and respect, even if they are celebrities.
Forget fan fiction. I want to see flan fiction. I want to see 2 flans speaking to each other like the rocks from everything everywhere all at once. I want to see the life story and adventures of Flannery the Flan.
I saw a reel or something recently where it was like, "the people??? in your phones??? are actual real people, they don't just live in your phone!!!!" or something like that. I was just thinking about this today, how media literacy 15 years ago (when I started being on the Internet lol) was non-existent, but the consequences of that were so minimal. Now, it's concerning how I literally had to have this discussion with my 7 year old nephew about how he can't believe everything he sees online, how he shouldn't copy what he sees online, and that there are people on the internet who will lie and do bad things for attention (in much simpler terms lol).
something i’ve seen a lot of in the past few years that really frustrates me about fandom and honestly just the internet in general is people feeling the need to moralize the things they like and project them onto others. they can’t just allow fiction to exist in its own reality. it’s not “i don’t like this because it gives me the ick and so i won’t engage with it” anymore. it’s “i don’t like this, and it’s morally wrong to like it, and you’re a bad person for engaging.” instead of “i shouldn’t have read/watched this” it’s “how dare you write/make this.” additionally, projecting your own real life values into fictional work. i’ve seen people get super mad in the comments when they see fetishes or dead dove in fanfic. they accuse the author and their fans of personally wanting to engage in the same activities they read/write about. do you really think everyone who plays fps games dreams if becoming mass shooter? it’s fiction for a reason. it feels crazy seeing people on the internet demand that others curate their experiences for them. you curate your own experience on the internet. filter the words you don’t want to read. block the accounts you don’t want to see. you don’t need to justify it.
loooong time tumblr user 🙃 I’ve seen this ~discourse come up periodically, and it should just be so obvious that the number one rule for rpf is to never ever show it to the real people in it. I have no idea how the thought of showing someone you don’t know fanfic about them doesn’t make your soul cringe out of your body and into the next dimension of shame…. and like. once they’re in writing, they are just characters based on real people, they are not the real people themselves, just interpretations based off very limited knowledge. it’s the “I’m the main character” of it all
A recent article in Fortune was titled "Gen Zers are so disillusioned with the economy that they think it's OK to commit fraud" that feels (sort of) pertinent though not limited to just Gen Z.
One thing I’d add is people hyper sexualizing people(this happens a lot in kpop but I’ve seen it elsewhere too) or saying how much they want to do normally x rated stuff to these people in tweets/tiktoks. Like… y’all know this is public and they have the ability to see this. That’s gross keep it to yourself.
i was really weirdly parasocial with youtubers as a kid, when i think about it i cringe, but i remember that i was a kid. it’s insane to me that people behave the way i did as a kid but as AN ADULT
It's one of several things that's gotten worse since lockdowns- I'm assuming brain rot? There's a lot of things like that where I'm just like "mmm... yeah, we never recovered, did we?" Like, I watched Misery with some friends a while ago and all of us were talking about it "this is horrifying, and I know it is, but also... this is just half of stan twitter these days."
It’s always been a thing but social media in itself has made it so much worse. Some ppl are just obsessive about things. But the lockdown also took away some social skills and ppl got used to just seeing ppl online so they think that’s really that person not knowing it’s just 1 side of them.
oh my god thank you. something about everyone getting REALLY chronically online in 2020/21 broke peoples brains. how hard is it to just be normal to celebrities, internet ones or otherwise.
I've noticed a really disturbing trend where people think that just because someone has a fanbase that means that you are entitled to treat them as badly as you want, and if they are upset about it they're just complaining about how rich and famous and privileged they are. like that's still a person with feelings come on
I think some sections TikTok are becoming more like 2012-2014 Tumblr in the worst ways. Like all the people who were like this on Tumblr learned their lesson so now the next generation is stepping up to make those same mistakes
@@mr.bumbum9076there's having empathy and there's doing what you are doing in a comment like that, you are debasing yourself for approval man, it's pathetic
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685I think he’s just acknowledging the comment and expanding on it by adding his own experience being someone who used to identify with the group the original comment is talking about. Why does his own introspection bother you so much lmao
I've been a kpop fan since 2010 and there's so much wild behavior and now there's so much discourse about it too. I don't think there's anything wrong with wishing you were dating a celebrity but whenever someone talks about it i assume they have a level of understanding that their fantasy isn't real and it's not for the famous person. Some of the discourse makes me want to shut my computer and put my phone on airplane mode forever. Fanfiction in general is meant to be a way to stretch creativity and practice a hobby of writing for other people to enjoy. There's so much talk coming from so many directions about kpop fanfiction because it's rpf. People believe au is okay because it's not really them but it's still their face. Other people write "canon" content with a general understanding that people realize the nuance; it's just an idea of an idols facade not meant to be taken literally or seriously. There'll be people who talk about kpop fanfiction like it's this weird western influenced thing without considering that fans in Korea write fanfiction too. A lot of idols preform self insert encouragement and shipping culture as a form of fan service. There have always been idols like Max of DBSK who don't play into it even in a company like SM who would prefer their artists to be perfect little robots who never do anything that would lose them money. There have also always been idols who play into shipping culture like Heechul who has kissed how many members of Super Junior at this point, despite dating women? I feel like i'm an odd person out expecting that fans see the nuance in this type of fan service in how it translates to rpf and online videos. There's a boundary there. There should be a boundary there and an understanding that fanfiction and fanservice and shipping culture isn't serious and is not an indication of who an idol is or should be. But i also completely understand why rpf and fanservice videos make people uncomfortable. It dehumanizes celebrities. Especially when fans cross boundaries and bring the content to the idols. I don't think that's okay and i don't know anyone who does. Which is why it's so easy for me to assume that people aren't serious when they talk about wanting to date an idol, or that they feel like two idols are dating each other. I will never forget when Jonghyun cried on stage and apologized for dating Shin Se kyung. No one I knew understood why he couldn't date her, even if they did like other ships for him. This was in the height of jongkey shipping era when there was a literal roleplay dedicated to the ship; dozens of jonghyun's and kibum's in one writing community. I remember when Wooyoung of ateez griped on live about how he didn't want to say who his favorite member was because if he didn't say San, people would get on his case. He should feel free to talk about whatever he wants without people imposing their fantasies on him. Then you have the fans who think they know all the right ways to be a fan and they impose those ideas onto people in the fandom. This takes away the self agency of an idol to do what they want, like be an adult or go out drinking or go and date. "Don't sexualize them" is screamed when a dude takes their shirt off or a woman shakes ass. It creates this contradicting point of saviorism that I think does the same exact thing they're fighting against - dehumanizes them. Then there's the discourse of queerness and that is a can of worms ripe with homophobia. Their sexuality isn't our business in the first place. I've seen people take that "not our business" idea and use it to insert straight as the default. The discussions about this are very diverse and full of nuance. Everyone I know agrees that we don't know and it's none of our business, but that it's not more immoral to fantasize about queerness than it is to fantasize about straightness. At the end of the day there's a lot of gray morals sloshing around. It's important to be completely aware that we don't know these people and never will. That there's an understanding of distance that needs to be respected. That our fantasies about them are completely fictional and should always be completely fictional. I'm still unsure about the morals of rpf and shipping culture but i also find that people who are hyper against that content, lack nuance and can be just as bad with their own assumptions.
totally agree with all your points. i think that rpf/rps is kind of the backbone of fandom (in my opinion, anyway) and that if it's contained to the fandom and there's an agreement that it is all fiction and not meant for the idol/celebrity to see, then there shouldn't be any problems with it existing. also, most fanfic is so wildly out of character that you could replace the names with any other names and it would work lol. the fans that DO get the lines of fiction and reality crossed are absolutely the firestarters, but i've noticed that a lot of people involved in rps and just shipping in general are SUPER careful about censoring, because i imagine the last thing they'd want is for the celebrity to accidentally stumble across their work. your point about wooyoung and san is so true. and since kq has been marketing them as a duo from like day 1 i feel like they kind of planted the seed of woosan being a package deal anytime anywhere, and fans totally bought that. i hope that fandom spaces move to a place where fictional content can exist peacefully in its own private corner, where it's kept to the fans only and the fantasy aspect isn't pushed onto the idols, but the existence of it is respected and left as is.
@@ahousecatwhohasacellphone You summed it up perfectly. Especially about rps being private spaces and shipping content in general. Most of us just want the idols to be happy and themselves and all of this fandom fantasy content is a separate thing from that
re: homophobia being weird in fandom; i was in a fandom where people were SO insistent and outright aggressive about one member of a group being gay that if you so much as whispered "we dont know their sexuality" they would call you homophobic. even though you werent insinuating the member was straight or gay, and you were literally telling them to stop assuming either way. they basically used "silence, homophobe!" as a get out of jail free card for their rampant forcing of sexual orientation onto a man they DO NOT KNOW. it got so deeply uncomfortable for a gay male friend of mine that he had to leave the fandom entirely, bc of how these fans were commodifying the gay experience (an experience most of them do not have, since most are women) and forcing it onto this one group member. it was wild to see and broke my heart for my friend, i dont think he can even listen to the group anymore. bonus points, they insistent the member was gay bc he is not traditionally masculine, so like, way to enforce the idea that all gay men = feminine and all feminine men = gay, like thats not problematic and sterotypical and harmful AT ALL
Ooh this is actually relevant to my interests. I'm a fic author myself and have pondered the ethics of printing and binding fanfics that are not your own before, but never once did it occur to me someone would dare to sell someone else's works! I've always been baffled that authors (feel as though they) have to tag their fics with things like "don't repost elsewhere" because I figured it would be common sense; I see I've vastly underestimated the greed of some people. Thanks for talking about this! To answer the question of whether fandom has gotten worse since lockdown... yes. I have been away from most fandom spaces since right before lockdown started, and even from this distance I can see the fires roaring. I am constantly hearing about individuals who face a whole harassment campaigns over nothing but assumptions, authors receiving rude, entitled comments on their fics, and that's without even touching on the rise of the puritanical 'anti' culture. Obviously these things have always existed within fandom spaces, but they appear to be rampant right now, as if fandom is not a place to hang out and explore ideas, but instead a fortress to be fought over. It's really sad.
I have always wanted bindings of my favorite fics for my personal enjoyment and now I wonder is this okay? Obviously I would ask for permission but now I am even wondering if it’s worth it.
Oh man, I’ve been in fandoms for a while, but for a brief period I did community management for a AAA game, and the amount of things people had the GALL to say to me, good and bad, was really appalling. My brain still hasn’t recovered to this day. Fandom has always been nuts, but I feel it’s getting worse as the years go on.
Thai BL fans specifically do not know how to separate the actor from the character, and it doesn’t help that Thailand’s industry has people who have good chemistry often working in pairs throughout their career (a system which has its pros and cons). It is literally a real people shipping hell which should not exist, but the industry takes advantage of it and feeds it with fan service because of how much money it can make. Just recently, an acting pair that hasn’t been seen together in a while posted socials together, and literal death threats were sent for “cheating” since one of them has a girlfriend.
Being a k-pop fan has opened me up to seeing just how disrespectful or inappropriate people can be towards celebrities. You mentioned the fancalls and I totally agree. I’ve seen some cringy ass fancall videos 😭 There are also people that will break into an idol’s hotel room or tour bus, book the same flights and sit by them, or get their phone number and just spam call them. It’s insane.
I've seen way too many people try to use "if they're offended they can go comfort themselves with their bank acount balance!!" as a gotcha when it comes to criticism of RPF or IRL creepy behaviour. I feel like it's the norm now to scramble for any kind of vaguely self-righteous sounding yet snarky comeback and never actually try to understand where other people are coming from and why they're uncomfortable.
I am so sorry you and anyone else is going through all this with "fans." At the buffalo comic con I was at a Q&A with my favorite character's VA and he was asked what his worst fan interaction was and the stories he told were just HORRIFYING! Something's gotta change because no one should have to deal with this on a regular basis.
i've been in various sorts of fandoms for a long time now and honestly, i think there's a growing sense of entitlement among fans because they have such easy access to information about whatever fandom/celebrity/etc that they like and the nature of the social media beast being a prominent part of marketing ANYTHING means that fans also have easy access to channels to reach celebrities/creators/etc. for stuff like kpop, the parasocial relationship between the idol and the fans is also like a huge selling part of it. i'm in a discord server for fans of a certain music group and recently, said group came to perform locally. i was shocked that other fans were openly discussing possible flight details for the music group because they wanted to stake out the airport and meet the group (one fan did end up doing this). i realize it's fairly commonplace for fans to do that but it made me so super uncomfortable to hear about it and to see them talking about it so openly. i guess people really want to express their passion and support for the group and i think as a fan you do get kind of a rush out of being acknowledged but jfc but i can't imagine having your privacy constantly invaded like that. my sibling who is more into kpop also mentioned that a certain idol she liked just recently had his management have to put out a statement to fans, to request that they don't wait out at airports for him as he was feeling under the weather. i don't know!!! how is that not wild to people!!
Oh man, I'm glad you're talking about this. I've seen a handful of videos where people would go to convention panels at anime and comic cons and ask weird and HIGHLY inappropriate questions about their headcanons or fanfics or whatnot. I think the latest one I saw was a panel for Helluva Boss where a literal child was asking an inappropriate question. I'm not gonna tell kids they can't watch Helluva Boss at home. I'm not their parents. But the show is very openly made for adults, so what the hell is a child doing not only at a panel, but allowed to ask questions of the actors, and highly inappropriate panels at that. It's especially aggravating because as often as not, it feels like fans are trying to spin these situations as if the actors/creators are in the wrong when it's like, no, y'all just need to learn some damn boundaries.
dramione in the lords year of 2024.... damn. well, i guess fallout equestria you can buy bound, a copy of that lies in the library of congress. but that was set up by the team who made fallout equestria.
I remember watching an adorable but slightly sad clip where Tom Felton was meeting a kid, I think with Make A Wish. The kid came running up and Tom immediately hugged them but also started saying about he's Tom not Draco and that he's really a nice guy not like the character he played.
All of Swell's vids are great but this is my favorite one in a while. This has been an issue that's needed someone with an audience to address it out loud and without mincing words for a WHILE. Excellent video and great coverage - and damn, I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences with your audience :(
The Anthony Starr homelander thing cracks me up. I saw him at the movies once in West Auckland while he was filming a very popular show based there. It was new years day everyone (the other 6 people in the theatre) seemed a bit hungover. Everyone left him alone. Pretty common in New Zealand. (We don't really have paparazzi) I think a lot of people here are pretty respectful of other people's space.
As a long-time netizen--so long that I use the term 'netizen'--I think that the prevalence of video content has changed fandom. When you can see and hear someone in a way that feels up close and maybe personal it becomes much easier to form a parasocial connection of some kind. With on-demand content and the ability to binge-watch someone's work on RUclips, that gets even more exaggerated. Thanks for addressing the issue. Keep up the good work!
Early newsgroups & irc user here & that’s what I went by for years. Now, I just don’t interact on a personal level with people outside my community (local/interest) on a personal basis. Parasocial relationships creep me out, and I’ve been involved with record labels & studio productions since I was in my late teens 🤷🏼♀️
first off, love you going in to fanfic this time. I dont have tiktok so I have no sight in to just how insane some people can get around fanfiction. The entitlement of a lot of fans online has gotten worse and weirder over time, and its nice to see someone talk about it. I appreciate the hostility, its good to say we're not friends. You're a woman in my screen and 99% of us will never meet you and boundaries are necessary.
literally getting a masters degree solely bc the way fandom has developed over the past like 5-10 years has driven me up the wall - i was like i quite literally need to study you people. just a complete erasure of boundaries, of respect, of thinking past yourself. it's bonkers. and i do think certain celebs/creators/etc DO enable the worst tendencies of their fans because they like having a ride or die attack dog army even if it also makes their own lives worse bc their fans become so entitled
Before smartphones, celebs would mix & mingle with us in Montana. Because we knew how to behave! My friend saw her favorite soap star at happy hour & started getting so excited til we told her, he’s actually from here, those are his real friends from high school, you can’t approach. You either meet like regular people or you stay quiet. Exceptions for certain legends - Larry Bird had to talk to everybody lol, but I sat next to Batman beetlejuice for 3 hours & spoke maybe 5 words, acted like normal strangers in a bar who were both in separate conversations. Tbh I bet that was a great gift from a fan…three hours of not having fans. I’m not actually a Keaton fan but I was happy to give him some peace.
Absolutely agreed 100%, anecdotally i noticed fanfic commenters being rude or trying to take "control" of work and fandom in general having such... audacity in the behaviors fans can have. The F1 story and alleged rumor you pointed out REALLY made my eyebrows raise.
I'm gonna be honest. When I saw the title, I though you mean the video of people complaining about Mitski asking people to not call her Mother. I like fanfics (Original Roswell: Candygirl and Lamptrimmer. I also like Draco and Harry which . . yeah.)
idk about other fandoms but i've seen this in kpop and the thai entertainment industry. but this big spender entitlement is insane. these people really think that because they spend insane amounts of money on merch/concerts/events that they somehow have a right to the person. i need people to chill 😭 they won't date you. they are scared of you!
Seeing you talk about this is blowing my mind. It always feels weird when my other interests cross with Swell content. Haha! I whole heartedly Stan this whole video. Fan Fiction is a beautiful outlet. People need to stop being so greedy. Which I don't see this happening anytime soon. It just sucks.
I've been in motorsports for most of my life (20+ years), both as a fan and as a driver at local short tracks and smaller national events. I will say, even at a small level, I've had some pretty bad fan interactions. It seems to have definitely gotten worse since the pandemic as well. It seems like a lot of fans forget that drivers are people as well. Yes, I'm technically an entertainer and wouldn't be able to partake in my passion without fans buying tickets. However, I'm still a person and have boundaries and insecurities. I've had people much, much older than me forcibly hug and grope me. I've had people peer at me through bathroom stalls to see me with my suit down. I've had people openly comment on how bad I smell or how disheveled I look minutes after I get out of the car after a race. I've had people stop me and demand pictures from me at 1 in the morning as I'm trying to go home from being at the track for 14 hours. The list goes on and on. Yes, the positive experience far outnumber the negative experiences, but the negative experiences really do a lot of harm. Yes, athletes, content creators, actors, etc, are entertainers at their core and need fans to be able to do their craft. However people need to recognize that this aspect does not make them lesser in terms of the human dignity they deserve. You are far more likely to have a genuine and positive experience with someone you're a fan of by just treating them like a normal person. Freaking out and idolizing them only puts them on guard and leads to negative experiences all around.
This reminds me of the stage door fans on Broadway. I’ve always felt weird about waiting for someone who just got done doing a very physically demanding job for 3-4 hours and then expecting them to be nice and do pics and autographs, etc. when all they want to do is go home
Fan culture online is a lot. I remember hearing that the actor who plays Nick on Heartstopper announced he was leaving social media after, essentially, being bullied and harassed into coming out before he was ready because unhinged fans accused him of queerbaiting or some bizarre shit like that. The Walking Dead is one of the worst examples of fan harassment that I've ever seen as someone who was in the community for years. The amount of fans who defended harassing the cast and crew for storylines and things characters did into leaving social media is insane. The fans who tried to petition to get the show canceled over a character death (and harassing the producers) is insane. The fans who began to spread so many rumors that actors were dating for their weird shipping nonsense that the actors own PR teams has to dismiss them is unreal. The fans who have defended stalking the actors (including a woman who defended biting Norman Reedus at a convention because of his "bite me" shirt in a photo shoot) is some creepy Play Misty For Me shit if I've ever seen it.
HI! Rotten nepo baby here. My parents are decently big in the canadian music industry and are close friends with some pretty big names here. One time, we were running a radio show and concert out of a hotel room, with a live audience (only like 30 people). We had one guy come in (not to stereotype but imagine a reddit neckbeard who smelt AWFUL) who kept asking if the artist was going to do a meet and greet or autographs. I said id ask her about it (even though i doubt the artist would've they hate people) and just forgot about the guy. At the end of the show he ran past security onstage, We didn't do anything at first assuming he just wanted to say hi but when we tried to usher him away he grabbed on to her arm tight and started shoving the artist around (shes 80 years old) yelling that he deserved to be with her. Eventually security dragged him out by his stained hawaiian shirt. Strange feller.
Many people are defining themselves thru other’s ideas, IP and success. Think capital G gamers, sports fans, big movie franchises fans. Other peoples work and success becomes the fan’s identity. This leads to lots of problems where some people choose to blur the line between themselves and others. Acting terribly to other humans. When one lacks identity for one’s self any change to the IP becomes a deep personal insult to the fan.
I’m an amateur fanbinder (meaning I bind fanfics, if that wasn’t clear) and people who sell their works really make me angry. Like, personally, I feel super awkward even formatting the fic for printing, because I feel like I’m stealing someone’s work, even though it’s technically all fine and whatever. The amount of audacity someone has to have in order to take someone else’s fanfic, print it, bind it, and then sell it for a profit is insane. I really hate that people like this are giving fanbinding a bad name, especially since I and many others make sure we’re not using services that make a profit off of fanbinding (ex. Those book-printing services online-which, fun fact, sending in fanfiction to any of those services to have them make it into a book for you is illegal!). And also especially since the authors probably have no clue what these people are doing with their works-which, might I add, are posted online entirely for free! Anyway, for me, fanbinding is a way for me to appreciate the works I love so much, and it makes me sad to see people exploiting it.
As a DW/Star wars/marvel fan I am so sick of fandoms. Really I should unfollow all fan pages but a decade and a half of being on social media has built an insanely long list of groups I'm following. actors/creators/musicians/celebs/etc owe us nothing. you're allowed to not agree with the direction of a story and still enjoy it. you're allowed to think something is just ok without acting it's like the worst thing to ever be made. Mid isn't a bad thing.
Fans of real people should not assume they know a single thing about them. They should not speculate about their personal lives, they should not have nicknames for them, and they ABSOLUTELY should not headcanon them. This is related to formula 1 of which I am a huge fan, it it's true in every space. These drivers are not your friends, you do not know who they are or what they do, and everything they do is a curated image
I’ve seen shippers abuse actors real life spouses, in order to get them to break up so then the actors who are in the ship get together. Also when people see a celebrity irl and they roughly push past or be rude to the people they’re with. Like if you see an celeb and they are with someone assume they like them and wouldn’t want them to be treated with respect.
I was just thinking about this. Thank you for bringing it up, I would love to hear more about people making merch off of things, like people selling camp half blood or percy jackson merch, and where the line is on legality for that Hope you're feeling better!
*kicks down door* fanfiction is my bread and butter. I adore fanfiction because it IS passion. You love the world, you love other fanfics, and you want to give, and explore new angles of relationships. I've dipped my toe in booktwt because I want to join it, not because I want to be a full time bookwriter, but as more of a challenge for myself. I'm not claiming to be the best (by far) but I am good enough that I could make money with luck and dedication. Most of my long time internet friends can create deep emotional stories and standard publishing is not even close to their level of quality. I subscribed to a few book channels on yt to get to know the community and one of the channels went on about how great Manacled was and how she wanted to buy a hardbound copy. I had followed her for two weeks and I went off on her comments. I tried to be educational and not angry but I was so utterly revolted on how someone claims they love the story but were perfectly fine putting the writer at risk of a lawsuit and spitting on all their work by supporting a thief. I'm pretty sure I unsubscribed. I tried to continue watching but I was so annoyed I couldn't get over it. Anyway, good for the fanfic writer for getting a book deal ☺☺☺☺☺
Tbh i can’t say if it’s better or worse since lockdown, but it’s definitely DIFFERENT. i remember as a preteen in the early 2010s people would make the NASTIEST comments about people they found attractive and then yell those things at them in person which was so bizarre. we had very infamous fan fictions just bc they were nasty, like that was the whole fame to them was them just being too much. Now, it seems like people have a much more parasocial attachment to these people so they are less “fans” and truly think they know these people because they’ve interacted online one time, ya know? during the pandemic a ton of celebs were doing lives and were extra active in their online spaces and i think that complicated things for a lot of people. like i said, i think it’s just different now. it’s much more parasocial now but almost tamer? in a way? i think we hold each other to a higher standard now which is a good thing but i don’t think it takes away that violation that was previously popular. Idk, i think that’s a good think piece. i’ll have to do more research and write a paper on it.
Im in the seiyuu (anime voice actors) space because I'm a really big fan of a lot of Japanese voice actors. Some of them have taken up performing live, web shows, full on music careers... basically they're idols. It's pretty cool because a lot of them are visibly delighted by it. However, these fandoms get so fucking weird. People lost their god damn minds when one of them got married and like... yall. The parasocial nature of fandom these days is fucking wild and I hate it
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
I've seen quotes from Chappell Roan about no longer being able to do meet and greets because people would trauma dump on her and then she can't process it when she's about to get on stage to perform. There's a conversation to be had about boundaries and when the parasocial relationship has gone too far.
you should see the Chappell Roan subreddit, honestly a few months from now I can see it mirroring the most insane swiftie subs -- if it isnt already
This happens CONSTANTLY in streams as well even if the streamer is tiny.
I just saw shes bipolar i cant imagine having to navigate such a intimate yet polarizing relationship with your fanbase. I hope shes doing well
Trauma dump??? Huh??????? I don't understand why someone would do this please help
@@nyreebaldwin1642 I think people (often younger fans but really it could be anyone) will find relatability and association with an artist's work(s) and they don't consider that the artist themself is a real person, they just see them as an entity that they can relate to through their media. When they interact with the artist (online or offline) they feel the need to bombard the artist with their personal stories and experiences, and it's a lot, especially considering to an artist, fans are all complete strangers (and realistically, the artist is to the fans as well). Like I understand feeling seen, validated, or helped out by an artist in that regard, but the artist is a person too and it's reasonable to want to distance themselves!
Ao3 literally lets you download fics so you can read them offline anyway...
how hard is it to just copy and paste it into ur notes app anyway lol
exactly!!
@@whatthehelliotdepends on the formatting tbh, sometimes it works smoothly though
which is fine! but distributing then on for-profit platforms is legally not
I literally have ao3 fanfics downloaded on my kindle, it's like reading any book
Super Eyepatch Wolf says this thing: “When you meet a creator, treat them like a friend of a friend that you’ve heard really good things about.” It creates that perfect level of distance. I feel so bad that creators have to keep doing the “You don’t know me in real life” thing as though they’re not humans doing a job.
That’s honestly such solid advice. He makes great content too
Yeah, there's a big difference between having a friend who is a creator and being friends with a creator.
Yeah.. I never understood that. Like, when you put people on a pedestal, it creates a barrier. Sometimes it's needed when someone's super famous, but.. normal life??
Ooh, that's a good one!
I remember a a girl in my math class printed out fanfiction she liked and put in in a binder. She didn’t sell it, she was just always worried her favs would be deleted. Which is waaay different than stealing someone’s work.
Honestly this is something I wish I had done, haha. I have a few that I cannot find anymore so I assume they’ve been deleted 🥲
This was a huge thing with me and my friends in high school. One of my friends went out of her way to find a long fic that she knew I would like but hadnt read to print out and give me in an envelope when I was going on a long trip without internet access. As a graduation present for one of my friends, I printed out and (rather messily) bound together an ao3 series that was one of her favorites to take with her to college. not a one of us would have ever considered trying to SELL it. No one wants to see their favorite fics or authors get taken down, and thats a pretty solid way to ensure that that happens.
i did this myself until high school cuz like....i didnt have a phone so if i found a fic i wanted to read id print that shit and read when i had downtime. eventually i got an ipod touch so i didnt need to anymore
Wish I’d done this! The amount of fanfics that became parts of my core memory that I simply cannot find or don’t exist anymore- RIP 😭
I used to print out my favorite fanfiction as a kid. I had to stop because of life and our printer wasnt working for a while
People were upset with Avantika for a FANCAST of a live action version of Tangled that WAS NOT EVEN IN THE WORKS!!! THE MOVIE WASNT EVEN REAL!!
Except now I think it would be REALLY REALLY awesome if it was real, just a straight bollywood reinterpretation of the story Avantika or not.
@@Tallen79 I would love that omg
this is why they need to get overly litigious
Honestly there could be a whole discussion on how people use stuff like fan cast and rumors as an excuse to vent out their racism towards a group of people. Like Avantika never got confirmed to be Rapunzel, but people were more than eager to demean the Indian race as a whole.
@@Tallen79I honestly don't want her to go through what Halle did. So many horrific things were said to her over a shitty Disney movie. A less strong person may have taken their life over it due to how overwhelming, cruel and nonstop the comments were over a period of years.
People letting their kids in fandom spaces not meant for them is a big problem too. I get that families like to go to con together, but letting your 9 year old ask Blake Roman (Angel Dust from Hazbin Hotel's VA) if it was uncomfortable making all the sex noises for the show at a huge panel made EVERYONE uncomfy (hell, the cast of Helluva Boss was at Summercon here in WA a week ago and they opened their panel with "anyone bring their 9 year old to ask us inappropriate questions?"
Not all fandom spaces need to allow children if it's not a space meant for them.
This, omg
EW WHAT
Ahhhh!!! NOOOO!! WHY?!
just want to say i appreciate you straight up saying "we are not friends". the fans can be awful about boundaries but the celebrity industry also encourages unhealthy parasocial relationship with fans and both needs to stop
I actually hate when creators and celebs feel the need to specify that cause most people don't need to be reminded of it, it's kind of insulting to your audience that you think they are delusional enough to not get the relationship going on here, kind of comes off a bit like someone feeding their own ego
People who say it are saying it *because* their audience needs to hear it.
Have you not seen the videos where she talks about some of the messages she’s gotten from viewers? Every RUclipsr past a certain size has someone that thinks they’re friends. Every streamer has the same. This is just a fact of the internet.
Just because *you* don’t need to hear it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said.
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685 I'm glad you have faith in humanity but most people are stupid and make stupid mistakes, reminding them that something is inapropiate shouldnt bother you except if you're the one doing those things. We all know drunk driving is illegal and super dangerous and they still make new campains each year about it becasue people still do it.
@@qwinlynyou don't take time out of your day to address everyone just cause a few people don't get it, we've all heard it before, there are thousands of creators who have felt the need to say the same thing, it's a reality of being a creator/ performer whatever, you will attract attention you don't want sometimes, nature of the beast
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685 I mean obviously certain fans don't understand that and do need to be reminded because they will take things too far.
uncomfortable fancalls doesnt even scratch the surface of how bad kpop fans are, they'll go to fan signs and disrespect an idol right in their face, and some of these companies will do nothing about it which just encourages that behavior even more
I mean the wildest stories about menstrual blood letters and sneaking into idols homes to “give herself” to him and stuff like that. Just the sky is the limit really
@@EraYaN ...what letters
@@EraYaN that was tvxq right? sasaengs cant even be considered fans at that point. i feel so bad for idols whenever smth happens bc you kno it's their own staff thats selling their info for a quick buck
@@duckinaswing often not staff, but phone companies, leasing offices etc. Fans would get jobs at phone companies to more effectively stalk their faves too. It’s where the “don’t change your number we can find you anyway” thing comes from.
It's so bad because companies ENCOURAGE us fans so be delusional about idols so we'll buy a bunch of their merch and stuff. I don't buy into it, but I have come across some people online that are GENUINELY so obsessed that I think they can't live without their idol. It's off putting and clearly shows how people can become so unhinged.
One thing that I've noticed in fanfiction writer circles is that readers are VERY entitled and rude in comments sections. This has always been a bit of a problem but I've been noticing it more lately where people will comment to badger the author about updating. I've seen people tell authors not to post unfinished works because they don't like being left on a cliffhanger for however long it takes to get a chapter up, or straight up encouraging other readers to put the fic into chatgpt to get an ending. I don't understand how anyone can think that that behavior is ever ok. These authors are taking time out of their lives to write these incredible stories and share them with you FOR FREE, show some respect. To me it just screams that views on fanart and fanfiction are shifting from "a community sharing their art" to "free content to be consumed and then discarded"
Agreed! I’ve also noticed the decline in politeness and encouragement. It’s so hard to get motivated to write when the end result isn’t that different than telling myself the story in my head
mmm... I've been around for a pretty long time and reader entitlement hasn't changed imo. I've gotten plenty of kys messages back in the 00s I actually see a lot less UPDATE NOW messages, thought it might be the circles I float in.
“Free content to be consumed and discarded” hit the nail on the head.
Everything is being turned into content and people are becoming more and more accustomed to what big corps can offer them and when a single person can’t keep up with that they have no empathy even when they have the context of how they’re producing. On the reverse I’ve also seen people be oddly way more patient and understanding with big corps than they are with indie artists and the like, it’s so bizarre the mindset many people have now.
It's so weird, cuz like, if you can't stand a work being left unfinished then just don't read WIPs? That's what I do, I sort on AO3 to only completed works most of the time cuz reading a work that never ends up getting completed is depressing. Harassing the author's just makes them more likely to abandon the work cuz they just can't deal with all of it.
A friend of mine is a popular fic writer in a certain TV fandom and they get SO MANY COMMENTS LIKE THIS! People are so entitled to other people's labors of love. Fanfic is a hobby and no "fans" are entitled to someone else's hobby or time! It honestly kinda reminds me of the logic people use surrounding AI art (I guess this includes people "finishing" other people's fics in ChatGPT which is awful). Writing GOOD fanfic is hard, yes, it's a skill you have to learn just like drawing. But in order to learn you just have to try! And ANYONE CAN TRY! If you have a headcanon or idea in a fandom, WRITE IT YOURSELF! Don't demand it from other people! The audacity, entitlement, and downright laziness is absurd. People talk down about fic authors and demand things of them but at the same they're scared to open a google doc
I remember when people thought that Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) and Jack Gleeson (Joffrey Baratheon - Game of Thrones) were terrible people because their characters were antagonists.
Wtf, I will never understand people. They are *actors* doing a job.
I have heard SO many people quote or reference FICTIONAL Hollywood films to justify their misogyny or "prove" the existence of misandry (misandry is a comedic strawman, it isn't real.)
🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤
Much Love!!
FR don’t even get me STARTED on the actresses who played Circe and Skylar White!! The hate they got and *still get* is absolutely nasty :(
Tbf Tom Felton is bad, he's been transphobic and homophobic at times
I remember that! I think out of the Harry Potter franchise, Cho Chang's actress got it the worst though. They created a whole hate campaign against her, even created a website (which back then, meant they had to know how to make one from scratch). It was dedicated to tearing the actual actress down and everything, all because she was shipped with Harry the character. It's crazy. Because she was also ethnically Asian, it was 10x worse.
And social media just made this problem even worst ..
Some actors just lock their accounts and other just dont pay attention to them
I’m this day and age, everyone should brush up on copyright and intellectual property law in their area. I’m not saying get a degree, but know your rights and know the rights of others. This goes for fanfiction, RUclips strikes, AI, so many relevant topics.
I feel like people aren't motivated to do that because if they don't know the laws then they can truthfully play the ignorance card. It's not a valid legal defense but it certainly works in the court of public opinion.
Especially with “hustle” culture, I’ve had to have conversations with so many people about why selling home made items with their favourite popular IP they don’t own on them could get them into serious trouble. Like is Disney going to come after you for sticking the mouse on a tumbler you sell at a local craft fair, probably not but they will do sweeps on online selling platforms. Hopefully all you’ll get is a slap on the wrist but they could do worse or you may lose access to a platform you rely on for income.
People have the misconception that since they’re small big corporations won’t come after them when in reality going after small people is way easier and helps prove that they’re protecting their IP. They also think because they see others selling stuff with it that it’s okay when in reality it could get you in serious trouble and some places just take the risk or also don’t know better.
I’m all for sticking it to the big guys by making fan made items but I always want people to know how to project themselves legally. Plus it’s unfortunately a slippery slope from people thinking it’s okay to undercut someone like Disney and equating that for example with making merch from a favourite indies artist work and profiting off that when that’s an opportunity for Collaboration and community.
Back when I went to local Cons, every artist's alley was full of copyright infringement (mugs, prints, t-shirts, tote bags). Get the logos of the most popular franchises at the time, print it onto mugs, get there and sell them. Profit! No one will come after them in those spaces, because there was no one checking there, and probably there's no one doing it now.
I am taking a class on copyright and trademark in the fall! (Although I am in law school but I am very excited)
It changes so often, I don't know. I only research it when I have a trouble, cause it can get outdated quickly.
This is a little bit of an older example at this point, but when David Tennant played Kilgrave in Jessica Jones I saw a fair amount of people talking about how his role in Doctor Who was "ruined" for them. Because the actor of a beloved character also played a character that was a villain. A completely separate role in a completely separate universe! He did a great job as Kilgrave and I still love 10. 🤷♀️
Which is hilarious to me because imo that’s literally one of his best performances lol, he devoured that role!
Ah this makes me sad!! I love David tennant and Killgrave absolutely terrifies me to the point I cannot watch Jessica Jones but he's my favorite dr who and second favorite deatheater!!!
I lost hope on people after reading this kinds of comments.
David Tennant is so good at playing villians! But I also love him as 10. Just shows he's got a wide range as an actor
People's inability to separate the actor from the role is really disturbing
Someone read one of my fics aloud on a podcast... Honestly, I was flattered, but I do wish they'd given me a heads up ahead of time. I discovered it quite by accident months later.
Pod fics are kinda popular but yeah typically people should ask the writer beforehand
Utah! Know that feeling, it is unsettling for sure. I wish they would have just reached out to you first, I think people really discount industry integrity when the industry is an internet-based one, as if that makes the networks any less real
🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤
Big yikes! Sorry you had to encounter that so unexpectedly
🖤💜💙💚💙💜🖤
Much Love to You!
The rule of thumb in the podfic community is that the author needs to give permission to have their work adapted into audio form. This is concerning! And I really hope it isn't widespread because yikes, what a way to ruin it for everyone.
yeah id be weirded out too if someone did that without asking. Id say yes if they did.
@@caustic1611 yeah, it became like that because people were uncomfortable when it first became popular. I believe that these are likely New people who never heard of podfic and arrived at this by themselves.
Recently a manhwa author was getting a lot of d*ath threats and sent sh photos because in the recent chapters one of the main characters weren’t being shown because we’re in a flashback arc and the two main characters haven’t even met yet, calling the author all types of names because of this, the lengths that people will go over fictional characters has gone too far where they start to care about them more than real people it’s very concerning.
There is also a lot of people coming into the AO3 space to complain we are writing m/m fiction and they want it taken down right now because those characters are not gay and that is a terrible thing to write.
It is hurting a lot of the fandom and I think scaring away younger writers.
That's about Lost in the Cloud right? I couldn't believe it when I saw the author's tweets, how can people be this awful....
@@lexa4160 yes and the saddest part is her tweet was addressed to the English speaking audience even though the arc hasn’t even been officially translated into English yet so the people sending her these things aren’t even reading legally and they think they have any right over how she chooses to tell the story it’s a whole mess honestly
Honestly I blame it on how accessible creators are.
Nagging and complaining to the author used to be hard. You had to like, send physical letters to the publisher and just hope they sent them on to the author. If they used a pen-name there was literally NO other way to reach out to them.
Now everyone has an easily discovered social media. And so fans have a direct access point to them 24/7. Even if the creator doesn't check often, or at all. That's still access. Even if you're screaming into the void, that void belongs to the person you're screaming at,
@MsLilly200 yeah, idk, this is a pretty reasonable observation, but people have always been crazy. Like, have you heard of the bjork stalker? Or the dude who killed dimebag Darrel? And of course John Lennon. Like, all of those things happened before youtube even existed, people have always been crazy. I genuinely think it's just how society/specific people view famous people, we've always put these people on a pedestal and art is honestly about connection. So it's easier for weirdos to latch onto them through their art. I really think it's a deeper problem in humans
I remember the Last of Us game problem. She got death threats towards her toddler, not just her. It was crazy and I felt awful for her.
@@ambassadoroftheandromedagalaxy you know I've actually considered this, people who get all hatefully obsessed with other people absolutely would do shit like this.
Oh yeah, Lara Bailey! She's gotten this a lot, both with Last of Us 2 and Uncharted 4.
@@ambassadoroftheandromedagalaxy She said there were folks who would leave angry voicemails for her at her job, even. Like fellas?? SHE IS NOT ABBY! Abby is not real, please be normal!
I write in my free time and had someone reach out to me asking if they could do book bindings and sell it. I obviously said no, and they had the audacity to say "I'll send you like 20$ bucks". Not a portion of what they were making from my writing(not that that would be better), but 20$ 🙃
Lmao where do these people spawn from
I'll give you $30 CASH! JK.
That's horrible. Hopefully they aren't doing it anyways.. ugh
As a kpop fan, kpop fans are some of the most entitled fans around and the companies basically encourage it.
There are these chatting apps you can sign up for (monthly paid subscriptions) where the idol can text fans directly. To the person it looks like a 1:1 chat but the idol will see everyone’s messages. People will literally berate the idol if they feel like they aren’t online enough or if they feel like they aren’t getting enough direct responses from them. To the point I’ve literally seen them have to apologize for not being active. This kinda thing can be worse at in person events. Fansites (online blogs that take photos of idols at public appearances) have made idols CRY for not looking at their camera or smiling enough. Idols have some of the most grueling schedules and for fans to know this and still make a fuss if they feel like their idol isnt smiling enough is just fucking gross and entitled.
oh my gosh i forgot about bubble. you’re so correct, the way the companies ENCOURAGE bad behavior and tolerate sasaengs to the ACTIVE DETRIMENT of their idols is crazy. at this point companies are trading in the physical safety and mental health of their talent for a little cash. sickening
BTS fan here - the stuff people post on their chat site is appalling: rude posts, posts with straight up hate, posts about their ships, SOMEONE POSTED A PICTURE OF THEIR UNDERWEAR. I can't comprehend this mentality. I don't want any members of BTS to know I exist because I am a gremlin.
Seems like the K-pop bands/managing company encourages this sort of fan and interaction. Everything I have seen of the companies that run idol groups looks like they want that sort of community.
Everything I learn about kpop culture makes me ever-more repulsed by kpop fans
@@somegeesethe overwhelming majority of kpop fans that see this stuff are also repulsed by it- that's why we bring it up. we wouldn't even talk about it if we thought it was normal.
It really does seem like nobody cares about a digital foorprint or basic internet safety at all anymore
literally. 10-15 years ago when I was doing dumb teenager/young young adult stuff online I'm glad the "never show your face/post your personal information etc." was rampant because I definitely was unhinged with the fanfic I wrote and how I acted on tumblr lmao. Only a small circle of people knew who I was and we were all bonkers
Another thought I want to add: Stop harassing people's significant other. I see this mainly with male celebrities (examples that come to mind are any F1 guy and their girlfriend), and it has gotten so out of hand. People forget that celebrities don't owe them anything and that their private lives are different from their professional lives. I genuinely think celebrities might actually stop engaging with fans (if they are not already) because of the harassment and that the whole celebrity culture will change soon.
Another thing: With the new season of House of the Dragon, the actor for Criston Cole, Fabien Frankel, has been getting so much hate for his role, which is just scary and absurd. Yes the character is pretty awful, but the fact that we collectively don't like him says something about how good a job the actor is doing. Fabien Frankel has recently started to limit his Instagram comments and I just feel so bad for him.
This, omg
People were terrible to Laura Bailey because she voiced Abby in the games, it was truly wild to watch. Especially because she's typically such a beloved figured in the voice acting space.
I remember both her and Ashley Johnson (Ellie's VO) both got hate doing that time
@@FormalFilmsProductions She did, I remember all of the Critical Role fans being so confused because they were both getting so much hate and we didn't have the context.
@@shirothebunny It was definitely a wild time
i have a hard time the mainstream-ification of fanfic - on one hand, it’s good that more people can enjoy fic, that’s what it’s there for! but new readers and authors have intruded in the space without regards to basic etiquette and rules. obviously this includes fanfic sellers/buyers, but also the new authors who refuse to tag works correctly, or spam work into a tag to get it more “popular.” and more readers who are demanding fanfic cater to them (trying to regulate ao3, criticize authors for taking time to update). fandom can always get toxic, but the normies are really sucking the fun out of every basic fandom function :(
Same. The wattpad migration is particularly frustrating but it’s exactly as you said- fanfic has seen a HUGE influx of people and a terrifying level of popularization.
Terrifying in that, I could not imagine being someone like MsKingbean89 dealing with the All the Young Dudes (waves hands) hullabaloo
Fanfic has always operated with a sort of Gift Economy. If your friend makes you a hand crocheted scarf-You don’t complain about how the yarn is an ugly acrylic and it’s lumpy-Unless you’re a raging raging douche. You say thank you, because you know it took them hours to make and they spent that time crafting something for you, with you in mind.
The Gift Economy worked relatively well since, until very recently, fanfic communities were: small, personal, and limited. Made up of dedicated fans who most often became friends, not on ao3, but on tumblr/Livejournal
(I specify multiple platforms because it means that you’d often have to follow someone across multiple social media in order to become friendly. Ao3’s greatest strength and weakness being that it doesn’t have any Direct Messaging/Group Chats beyond the comment section)
But now nobody knows each other. Everyone really is just a series of pseuds on a screen
Edit: To add on, I originally said cupcakes instead of crocheted scarf, but I can make cupcakes in an hour, and writing is a far larger time investment.
That time investment, the scarcity (to extend the bad economics analogy) is gone too. There’s so much fanfic now, it’s easy to find another one, and there’s less motivation to form interpersonal attachments/interact (comment, kudos, bookmark, social media) with the author.
exactly! the thing about ao3 is that anyone can write anything. if you don’t like something, don’t read it. it’s that simple. trying to control others to use the platform in a way you find acceptable defeats the whole purpose and freedom of it in the first place
THIS EXACTLY. I've been reading fanfic since before the Internet and back then there was pretty solid rules for all. Don't like, don't read being number one. The amount of people who waste their time leaving negative words on fics or trash talking fics on a public forum is crazy to me.
Fanfic technically began in the 70’s, just niche little Trekkie spaces where Kirk/Spock was being written and enthusiastically shared. They didn’t bother anyone, and the works were made by fans for fans. And now look at what fanfic has become… and it’s sad
People are just too used to everything online being "content" and monetized. We should shame these fans for ruining it for everyone.
For the fanfic crowd, it is couteous to ask fic authors if you can fanbind their fic if you want to have a copy for yourself. Some authors will even have a note in their profile that specificially says they're ok or not ok with fanbinding.
the way booktok girlies have invaded the fic space without understanding and acknowledgment of widely accepted etiquette is mind boggling. like you are new to the space, and are immediately taking advantage of people and trying to profit off of others. that is NOT OKAY. the first rule in fandom is ALWAYS TO ASK.
@@sophie427 its actually soo frustrating!!! im constantly battling being happy that fandom is becoming more mainstream (it still sometimes weirds me out how many people in my real life know i write fanfiction, despite me having zero shame for it whatsoever) vs. getting bitter and upset because so many people are coming into it with very little regard for fandom etiquette and the actual community aspect. that's what MAKES fandom so fun!!!
plus the fact that for a long time common practice in fanbinding circles have been to make a copy as a gift for the fic author, as a way of giving back to the community and a little "thank you" for writing something you loved enough to bind. the COMPLETE opposite of putting everyone at risk in order to make a quick buck. its gross.
I would love if we could bring back the phrase 'I love your work'. the work is what your know of a person, talk about that
Yes please. I noticed people seem relieved or more chatty and friendly when you talk about the work vs. idk their relationships or weird fan theories.
I hate it when fans ship actors just because they were co-stars, they're ACTORS.
I never understood it. I love bl drama but I always shipped the characters in the series, not the actors. After the awkward OffGun situation, people should already know it's not that...
I did that when i was about 8 years old and my parents explained to me thats not how life works. Now im grown up and realized the ship i was imagining was actually happening IRL, the mid 30s something Harrison Ford cheating on his family with roughly 19 yo Carrie Fisher. The internet is bad but it also gives ppl like Swell to call it out to a big audience
dare i say genuine cockles (misha collins and jensen ackles) shippers
yeah, the person they show on-camera is their persona. we don't know how they are behind the screen.
It’s so weird. You see it a lot when they go on press tours.
That "monkeys that you can throw a quarter at to make dance" is why I feel so off about Cameo. It feels disingenuous and I hate feeling like I'm imposing, even if they sign up specifically for that by making a Cameo account
there's a cameo from the voice actor for one of the Baldur's Gate III cast proposing to someone's character name and it feels very weird, I can only hope they got paid a lot and consented to it being reuploaded
Exactly - like this person doesn't know you, you've just paid them for a few fake lines
Yeah this makes me wildly uncomfortable too. I understand that it’s another source of revenue for the actor/singer/public figure, and that’s generally a good thing. But I’ve seen way too many instances of people asking for very questionable things through Cameo, and it almost feels like they’re using the platform as a tool to play out their real person fanfic-esque fantasies with the person they’re paying to make the video. It’s very gross and exploitative.
It feels less weird to pay for an autograph, like if it’s in a bundle for someone’s merch, than to ask someone to say whatever I’ve scripted them to say
the only way i would use cameo would be asking questions to actors of my favorite franchise, like how was filming, what kind of preparation they did, what did they think of x scene. otherwise it feels exactly how you describe it.
with fancall there is even a term for “serial fancaller” where is the same person constantly winning these calls for the same idol i guess to be remembered by then , but to me it’s even worse because some of these people will be following them around the airport and cities they visit if they have something scheduled - some even go as far as buying their hotel info to try to get inside their rooms, very creepy
The NCT stan who literally broke into the hotel rooms and took videos while the guys were out.
Ooh yes! I'm a BTS fan and there is someone who is constantly winning EVERYTHING. they have contacts in Korea so she can have a Korean address on her profile and win things that are only created for Korean fans. It's insane and sad because everyone should have a fair chance.
@@katisawriter can you drop the name cause I wana investigate lol literally how do they get the money
@@artmaks9363 step one be born rich
@@blackroseinbloom that was literally insane bc they recorded themselves too , very creepy
That was one of the things about growing up in the LA metro area, was that ~back in my day, shaking my cane~ it was understood that if you saw a celebrity out and about just living their lives, you left them THE FRIG alone. I went to a concert and ended up sitting directly behind Mel Brooks. I ate breakfast a table away from Sinbad. I saw Johnny Depp at Disneyland and Justin Bieber and Katy Perry at Knotts Scary Farm. I was behind Henry Winkler in line at a Subway. It's just something that happens, you DON'T take their picture, you DON'T approach or bother them, you let them live their lives unless they're doing some kind of official meet and greet event as a celebrity. Most of the people who flipped out back in the day were out-of-towners who weren't brought up in the culture of "yeah, there's people you know from the TV all over here, that's just how it is" but these days with social media being so big everyone wants a picture or video for the easy likes and dopamine.
Never in the history of celebritydom were they ever left alone. So you're flat out wrong to say "it was understood that if you saw a celebrity out and about, you left them alone". That literally never happened. Justin Bieber has been swarmed since he was like 13 at the very start of his career.
They SHOULD be left alone, but that has never been the case nor will it ever be.
@@Sephiroso. I'm not saying that it never happened. I'm saying that generally, if you weren't a screaming tween girl, the culture of the LA metro area was that you let people eat their dang breakfast and shop for paper towels and enjoy the musical stylings of Weird Al Yankovic and didn't pester them.
In NYC it is considered uncool to do this to celebrities. Obviously there are uncool people.
I grew up close to NYC- and I was always taught to treat them like normal people.. with normal lives.
Saying hi (name) while passing by has been the extent of that for me, anything else just feels creepy. Even at places where it's expected to ask for a pic or chat a little, I still ask permission and be polite and don't take up too much time. They've always been polite in return.
Reminds me of the tiktok video not too long ago, about a CHILD at a hazbin hotel panel with the creators, asking about recording lines for a SEX SCENE. (Yes the parents were there)
I saw children, probably under the age of 10, cosplaying Hazbin at a convention. They were matching with their mom. It made me wanna throw up 🤢
FR tho the amount like 12 y/o cosplaying Hazbin at conventions is fucking sickening
Yikes 😬
And Hazbin is targeted at adults! What is a kid even doing?!
@@maninanikittycat4238 kid is following their rotten parents.
About 20 years ago my older sister went to the library and printed off a LOTR fanfiction that was the entire trilogy from the perspective of the ring, named Alphonse, and it was mostly graphic sex between the members of the fellowship.
It was a whole ream of paper. I think she emptied the printer and had to come back later.
This is the most insane comment I have read on RUclips in a while
Holy good lord
Jesus christ how long was that fic
Wow! She really didn’t care if ppl saw what she was printing.
@@fosterkitteneos it was a university library, so it didn't have supervision. And this was 20 years ago, so there wasn't the same technology security. Anybody could come in and print whatever.
That's not even the only time she emptied the machine. We didn't have internet/computer at home, so she'd have to print everything off on the weekend to read later.
"Can you guys fucking go outside, please?" I feel this in my bones, Swell. I really do.
these guys are getting real bold despite the fact that they get scared/angry talking to women with opinions
As someone who’s won fancalls before, I don’t understand where some of these people are finding the audacity to be weird or rude to idols on calls. I was having mild panic all throughout my combined 2 minutes talking with Yuna and Lia of ITZY back in 2022.
I can’t imagine being weird or rude to people in general but i absolutely cannot imagine spending fancall money just to be weird to an idol like that’s another level of ridiculous
I’m so glad you said something about how your audience is starting to treat you in chat and in person, because Ive been seeing it with a ton of female creators I follow and it is just so disheartening to watch as a woman who used to want to stream
I love how this video dropped right after AO3 went back online after being down for maintenance 😂
those hours were a struggle, i usually read by chapter, and forgot to switch to "entire work" before the site went down, lol
I don't think it's necessarily new that people are fucking weird about celebrities, but I do think the immediacy of the internet is making it worse and worse, and especially as we have more and more people born in a time where they've never known anything before the internet. I think especially since tiktok promotes things based on views, they you get people doing increasingly weird and outlandish shit in order to get famous and empathy starts falling to the wayside.
People have stopped seeing performers and other celebrities as human beings and it's getting kind of scary
The Kpop fandom is a whole other can of worms, you could honestly make a documentary on the toxicity of the kpop fan culture and the sad part is I know they’re a lot of genuinely good kpop fan but from the airport mobs, fancalls, stalkers, unnecessary backlash from dating rumors, the online mob mentality, fan wars, etc it just ruins the whole bunch as someone who use to be heavily in that space it I’ll never go back into. I just enjoy the music and artists from a distance.
exactly this.
Always an advocate for saving and preserving fanfiction, websites can go down with no notice and with AI becoming a bigger problem quite a few are being removed out of fear it'll be stolen by some AI company.
By all means, if you love a fanfic, save it! Do not sell it!!!
And while I'm at it; *STOP ADVERTISING COMMISSIONS ON AO3*. I'm glad you're making money with your work but you can't fucking do that shit. People have been treating AO3 like a social media site for too damn long and it's going to get the site shut down sooner or later.
Not quite what the video is about, but tangentially related.
this this this!! I definitely agree. I'm pretty sure it's against AO3's terms of service. and it's not a social media site! I hate when people use it to advertise, or when they post blank fics to make a tag have more fics and be more "popular". it doesn't work like that. some people also want there to be an algorithm like???
people also can't just demand for certain tags be be removed because they're "bad". it's an archive. those tags are actually *helpful* because readers can filter them out and avoid reading something they don't want to.
Yeah, ao3 will lock the account if they see advertisements in order to retain their Non-profit designation. so if you see it, report it bc while you may like their stories... losing the whole site is worth 1 person, no matter who they are.
Booktok has been literally terrifying the way they treat people the last few years.
especially w how they treat cosplayers...... (exposing myself here) i cosplay a CoD character and i have in my bio that i am 16, (
I was an active fanfiction writer circa early 2010s and I am FASCINATED any time the modern fanfiction space comes up.
Not to sound like a grandma but forum culture back then (on a relatively big german forum) was that everyone has to thread VERY lightly because any day a big author might decide to fight ffs and get the whole concept illegalized (there was a list of forbidden fandoms - authors that had publicly spoken out against people writing fanfictions of their work and basically everyone copypasted disclaimers about not owning the characters and not financially profitting) and that real person fanfiction was WEIRD. It wasnt against the rules of the website, but people considered it very weird, so weird in fact one of my more popular oneshots (and my only ""real person fanfic") was a meta parody of an allmighty writer putting two commonly shipped youtubers in contrived sitations to make them bone. Teen me could have been more tactful but the sentiment was pretty popular, ship Tiva and Mothpool all you like but shipping real people is weird.
Its incredibly weird to me just that ff commissions became a thing, rpf becoming accepted, printing and selling copies and the entitlement towards the real people just flabberghasts me.
Also yeah definitely rusty on the phrasing front in case it isnt obvious, but I dont want to keep editing my comment because of repeating phrases
There’s also the weird side of fandom when someone is a massive fan but others aren’t. And it’s seen as a personal attack if your indifferent or just not a massive fan of their favorite star
I'm old enough to remember pre-internet fanfiction. They were published as physical "Zines" that you buy usually from conventions, but I think there was also a mail order option? I don't fully remember because I was too young to afford to buy any. I imagine that was super illegal, but it cost people money to publish and print the Zines. It seemed like a more underground thing though too so it likely wasn't as much on copyright owners' radar.
Yeah back in the day tons if stuff at conventions was illegal, that was kind of the point of having them. I remember watching bootleg tapes that had the FBI anti piracy warning and everyone laughing about it at the con in some small meeting room. Stuff you would never have any other way to see
Zines still exist actually with online groups who still print it physically/sell e-versions for those who preorder. Altho they have been few made recently because of issues of either people not knowing what they are doing so they cancel/someone taking all the money and then dipping. I would watch coleydoesthings she made a great vid about modern zines +the ups n downs
This is such a stupid problem, I swear. Self-binding books is VERY EASY. Will it look the same as a published book? No, but does it need to? No. You can still read it.
I bound a book for my now ex-girlfriend last year and it was sooooo easy!! honestly the hardest part was gluing leather to cardboard lmao
It may look allot better
As an amateur book binder I just want to say it is absolutely not easy to do properly, there are many skills involved, that’s before even getting to tooling the covers and guiding.
However if you don’t want/care to do everything the “proper” way (completely valid!) it can be done fairly easily :)
Also it makes it more unique and you can individualize it to your hearts content
You can always just print them on nice paper, 3 hole punch, and then add those paper fasteners or put it in a binder! I save a lot of theatre scripts so that’s my go to
I am deeply uncomfortable with how comfortable people are with shipping real people. I was never in the supernatural fandom but I was in Tumblr so I saw more than I ever wanted to of people shipping the two brothers and shipping the actors who played the brothers.
Shipping the brothers is weird but okay fine they're fictional so I guess it that floats your boat whatever. I think it's weird. But the actors? Two guys who are just doing their job and suddenly a whole side of Tumblr is dedicated to you two boning? I'd quit acting and run away to the woods.
Agreed! People shipping other real people gives me the biggest ick 🤮🤮
my biggest gripe with fanfic right now is because of how mainstream it's gotten, it's easier for a fandom to collectively agree what fics are considered canon (marauders fandom...) and no one can challenge this new "canon". it's always been weird when there's an obvious "leader" or "famous" fan within the fandom and whatever they say goes. if for some reason people find out you don't gel with that #1 writer/artist/fan account, you're suddenly an enemy to the fandom.
No fr I feel like oc fics and shipping different characters from fic to fic was so fun but now it's like but wait no the "canon" ship is this one and if you don't like it you're x,y,z! Bro I just like reading lots of different things in this particular world 😭
I've been involved in fanfiction since before Anne Rice started issuing legal threats, and this is not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case. It started back when Star Trek fanzines were passed around, and the editors and creators of those zines would only publish the fanfics that agreed with their ideas of what fan-canon should be.
It was the case when Cassie Claire and MsScribe dominated the Harry Potter Fandom and decided what was and wasn't okay to write and what was and wasn't fan-canon.
It was the case in the Sherlock fandom when TJLC was the thing and its creators were able to dictate what was fan-canon and wasn't and going against them got you harassed.
It was the case in Hamilton fandom for a while with the GCOC running fan-canon and driving out authors who disagreed.
These are just some examples I can think of off the top of my head, most from fandoms I wasn't involved in. I would guess that it's been the case in just about every fandom ever.
Call em out Amanda!! Audiences’ parasocial relationships with RUclipsrs/celebrities they like can get out of hand so easily. Of course it comforts me to watch RUclipsrs I like, as if I’m hanging out with a friend, so I get it. But you have to remember that it is NOT a real two sided relationship and the RUclipsr/celebrity doesn’t know you, and doesn’t owe you anything.
This reminds me of a tiktok that made the rounds on twitter, it was a stitch of someone asking what people thought was the reason for the shift in fandom spaces and the person who stitched it made the observation that like you stated it was the pandemic and the fact that a lot of people who entered said spaces were people that most likely previously made fun of people who were part of fandom spaces. They pretty much made the observation that they indulged in the content but did not inmerse themselves into the nuances and etiquettes that comes with being in fandom spaces because deep down they still hold judgement of them.
When women fought for equality it was NOT to be as creepy to the opposite sex as men are sometimes. So calm down people and treat others with decency and respect, even if they are celebrities.
Forget fan fiction. I want to see flan fiction. I want to see 2 flans speaking to each other like the rocks from everything everywhere all at once. I want to see the life story and adventures of Flannery the Flan.
You can be the change you want to see in the world. Make this a reality I believe in you.
Be the flan you've always wanted to be.
It is indeed very weird that people on the internet do not act like they are addressing a real person when talking in chat or video comments.
I saw a reel or something recently where it was like, "the people??? in your phones??? are actual real people, they don't just live in your phone!!!!" or something like that. I was just thinking about this today, how media literacy 15 years ago (when I started being on the Internet lol) was non-existent, but the consequences of that were so minimal. Now, it's concerning how I literally had to have this discussion with my 7 year old nephew about how he can't believe everything he sees online, how he shouldn't copy what he sees online, and that there are people on the internet who will lie and do bad things for attention (in much simpler terms lol).
something i’ve seen a lot of in the past few years that really frustrates me about fandom and honestly just the internet in general is people feeling the need to moralize the things they like and project them onto others. they can’t just allow fiction to exist in its own reality. it’s not “i don’t like this because it gives me the ick and so i won’t engage with it” anymore. it’s “i don’t like this, and it’s morally wrong to like it, and you’re a bad person for engaging.” instead of “i shouldn’t have read/watched this” it’s “how dare you write/make this.”
additionally, projecting your own real life values into fictional work. i’ve seen people get super mad in the comments when they see fetishes or dead dove in fanfic. they accuse the author and their fans of personally wanting to engage in the same activities they read/write about. do you really think everyone who plays fps games dreams if becoming mass shooter? it’s fiction for a reason.
it feels crazy seeing people on the internet demand that others curate their experiences for them. you curate your own experience on the internet. filter the words you don’t want to read. block the accounts you don’t want to see. you don’t need to justify it.
loooong time tumblr user 🙃 I’ve seen this ~discourse come up periodically, and it should just be so obvious that the number one rule for rpf is to never ever show it to the real people in it. I have no idea how the thought of showing someone you don’t know fanfic about them doesn’t make your soul cringe out of your body and into the next dimension of shame…. and like. once they’re in writing, they are just characters based on real people, they are not the real people themselves, just interpretations based off very limited knowledge. it’s the “I’m the main character” of it all
I really like that you don't fake saying "i love you" or whatever that other people do to their fans/ watchers. I trust that a lot more
A recent article in Fortune was titled "Gen Zers are so disillusioned with the economy that they think it's OK to commit fraud" that feels (sort of) pertinent though not limited to just Gen Z.
One thing I’d add is people hyper sexualizing people(this happens a lot in kpop but I’ve seen it elsewhere too) or saying how much they want to do normally x rated stuff to these people in tweets/tiktoks. Like… y’all know this is public and they have the ability to see this. That’s gross keep it to yourself.
i was really weirdly parasocial with youtubers as a kid, when i think about it i cringe, but i remember that i was a kid. it’s insane to me that people behave the way i did as a kid but as AN ADULT
but lets be honest, most of the youtubers of our time got cancelled for grooming, so it's also why we felt like that lol
If you cringed, that just means you’ve reflected and matured.
It's one of several things that's gotten worse since lockdowns- I'm assuming brain rot? There's a lot of things like that where I'm just like "mmm... yeah, we never recovered, did we?" Like, I watched Misery with some friends a while ago and all of us were talking about it "this is horrifying, and I know it is, but also... this is just half of stan twitter these days."
It’s always been a thing but social media in itself has made it so much worse. Some ppl are just obsessive about things. But the lockdown also took away some social skills and ppl got used to just seeing ppl online so they think that’s really that person not knowing it’s just 1 side of them.
Then they are the people throwing things at artist at concert and its awful
oh my god thank you. something about everyone getting REALLY chronically online in 2020/21 broke peoples brains. how hard is it to just be normal to celebrities, internet ones or otherwise.
I've noticed a really disturbing trend where people think that just because someone has a fanbase that means that you are entitled to treat them as badly as you want, and if they are upset about it they're just complaining about how rich and famous and privileged they are. like that's still a person with feelings come on
I think some sections TikTok are becoming more like 2012-2014 Tumblr in the worst ways. Like all the people who were like this on Tumblr learned their lesson so now the next generation is stepping up to make those same mistakes
Btw. If you heard the male fan call-out at the end and instead of thinking "thats worrying" you thought "actually, not all male fans..."
STOP
GET HELP
@@mr.bumbum9076do you need some antiseptic cream for your wounds? All that self flagellating your doing for being a man could lead to an infection
@@mr.bumbum9076there's having empathy and there's doing what you are doing in a comment like that, you are debasing yourself for approval man, it's pathetic
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685I think he’s just acknowledging the comment and expanding on it by adding his own experience being someone who used to identify with the group the original comment is talking about. Why does his own introspection bother you so much lmao
@@dean.mcmxcviit doesn't, I just find it servile and cringe
@@justheretocommentokdontwan685 fair
I've been a kpop fan since 2010 and there's so much wild behavior and now there's so much discourse about it too. I don't think there's anything wrong with wishing you were dating a celebrity but whenever someone talks about it i assume they have a level of understanding that their fantasy isn't real and it's not for the famous person.
Some of the discourse makes me want to shut my computer and put my phone on airplane mode forever.
Fanfiction in general is meant to be a way to stretch creativity and practice a hobby of writing for other people to enjoy. There's so much talk coming from so many directions about kpop fanfiction because it's rpf.
People believe au is okay because it's not really them but it's still their face. Other people write "canon" content with a general understanding that people realize the nuance; it's just an idea of an idols facade not meant to be taken literally or seriously.
There'll be people who talk about kpop fanfiction like it's this weird western influenced thing without considering that fans in Korea write fanfiction too.
A lot of idols preform self insert encouragement and shipping culture as a form of fan service. There have always been idols like Max of DBSK who don't play into it even in a company like SM who would prefer their artists to be perfect little robots who never do anything that would lose them money. There have also always been idols who play into shipping culture like Heechul who has kissed how many members of Super Junior at this point, despite dating women?
I feel like i'm an odd person out expecting that fans see the nuance in this type of fan service in how it translates to rpf and online videos. There's a boundary there. There should be a boundary there and an understanding that fanfiction and fanservice and shipping culture isn't serious and is not an indication of who an idol is or should be.
But i also completely understand why rpf and fanservice videos make people uncomfortable. It dehumanizes celebrities. Especially when fans cross boundaries and bring the content to the idols. I don't think that's okay and i don't know anyone who does. Which is why it's so easy for me to assume that people aren't serious when they talk about wanting to date an idol, or that they feel like two idols are dating each other.
I will never forget when Jonghyun cried on stage and apologized for dating Shin Se kyung. No one I knew understood why he couldn't date her, even if they did like other ships for him. This was in the height of jongkey shipping era when there was a literal roleplay dedicated to the ship; dozens of jonghyun's and kibum's in one writing community.
I remember when Wooyoung of ateez griped on live about how he didn't want to say who his favorite member was because if he didn't say San, people would get on his case. He should feel free to talk about whatever he wants without people imposing their fantasies on him.
Then you have the fans who think they know all the right ways to be a fan and they impose those ideas onto people in the fandom. This takes away the self agency of an idol to do what they want, like be an adult or go out drinking or go and date. "Don't sexualize them" is screamed when a dude takes their shirt off or a woman shakes ass. It creates this contradicting point of saviorism that I think does the same exact thing they're fighting against - dehumanizes them.
Then there's the discourse of queerness and that is a can of worms ripe with homophobia. Their sexuality isn't our business in the first place. I've seen people take that "not our business" idea and use it to insert straight as the default. The discussions about this are very diverse and full of nuance. Everyone I know agrees that we don't know and it's none of our business, but that it's not more immoral to fantasize about queerness than it is to fantasize about straightness.
At the end of the day there's a lot of gray morals sloshing around. It's important to be completely aware that we don't know these people and never will. That there's an understanding of distance that needs to be respected. That our fantasies about them are completely fictional and should always be completely fictional.
I'm still unsure about the morals of rpf and shipping culture but i also find that people who are hyper against that content, lack nuance and can be just as bad with their own assumptions.
totally agree with all your points. i think that rpf/rps is kind of the backbone of fandom (in my opinion, anyway) and that if it's contained to the fandom and there's an agreement that it is all fiction and not meant for the idol/celebrity to see, then there shouldn't be any problems with it existing. also, most fanfic is so wildly out of character that you could replace the names with any other names and it would work lol.
the fans that DO get the lines of fiction and reality crossed are absolutely the firestarters, but i've noticed that a lot of people involved in rps and just shipping in general are SUPER careful about censoring, because i imagine the last thing they'd want is for the celebrity to accidentally stumble across their work.
your point about wooyoung and san is so true. and since kq has been marketing them as a duo from like day 1 i feel like they kind of planted the seed of woosan being a package deal anytime anywhere, and fans totally bought that.
i hope that fandom spaces move to a place where fictional content can exist peacefully in its own private corner, where it's kept to the fans only and the fantasy aspect isn't pushed onto the idols, but the existence of it is respected and left as is.
@@ahousecatwhohasacellphone
You summed it up perfectly. Especially about rps being private spaces and shipping content in general.
Most of us just want the idols to be happy and themselves and all of this fandom fantasy content is a separate thing from that
re: homophobia being weird in fandom; i was in a fandom where people were SO insistent and outright aggressive about one member of a group being gay that if you so much as whispered "we dont know their sexuality" they would call you homophobic. even though you werent insinuating the member was straight or gay, and you were literally telling them to stop assuming either way. they basically used "silence, homophobe!" as a get out of jail free card for their rampant forcing of sexual orientation onto a man they DO NOT KNOW. it got so deeply uncomfortable for a gay male friend of mine that he had to leave the fandom entirely, bc of how these fans were commodifying the gay experience (an experience most of them do not have, since most are women) and forcing it onto this one group member. it was wild to see and broke my heart for my friend, i dont think he can even listen to the group anymore. bonus points, they insistent the member was gay bc he is not traditionally masculine, so like, way to enforce the idea that all gay men = feminine and all feminine men = gay, like thats not problematic and sterotypical and harmful AT ALL
This is so incredibly well-written!!! Wow I am in awe of everything you said and agree 10000%
Ooh this is actually relevant to my interests. I'm a fic author myself and have pondered the ethics of printing and binding fanfics that are not your own before, but never once did it occur to me someone would dare to sell someone else's works! I've always been baffled that authors (feel as though they) have to tag their fics with things like "don't repost elsewhere" because I figured it would be common sense; I see I've vastly underestimated the greed of some people. Thanks for talking about this!
To answer the question of whether fandom has gotten worse since lockdown... yes. I have been away from most fandom spaces since right before lockdown started, and even from this distance I can see the fires roaring. I am constantly hearing about individuals who face a whole harassment campaigns over nothing but assumptions, authors receiving rude, entitled comments on their fics, and that's without even touching on the rise of the puritanical 'anti' culture. Obviously these things have always existed within fandom spaces, but they appear to be rampant right now, as if fandom is not a place to hang out and explore ideas, but instead a fortress to be fought over. It's really sad.
I have always wanted bindings of my favorite fics for my personal enjoyment and now I wonder is this okay? Obviously I would ask for permission but now I am even wondering if it’s worth it.
Oh man, I’ve been in fandoms for a while, but for a brief period I did community management for a AAA game, and the amount of things people had the GALL to say to me, good and bad, was really appalling. My brain still hasn’t recovered to this day. Fandom has always been nuts, but I feel it’s getting worse as the years go on.
Saw the title and my first thought was "did Swell end up on the Kpop side of the Internet?" Which kind of shows how insanely widespread bad fans are
This was mg thought too 😅😅
I don’t think I could handle being a public figure. I’m too much of a people pleaser to effectively set these kinds of boundaries
Thai BL fans specifically do not know how to separate the actor from the character, and it doesn’t help that Thailand’s industry has people who have good chemistry often working in pairs throughout their career (a system which has its pros and cons). It is literally a real people shipping hell which should not exist, but the industry takes advantage of it and feeds it with fan service because of how much money it can make.
Just recently, an acting pair that hasn’t been seen together in a while posted socials together, and literal death threats were sent for “cheating” since one of them has a girlfriend.
Being a k-pop fan has opened me up to seeing just how disrespectful or inappropriate people can be towards celebrities. You mentioned the fancalls and I totally agree. I’ve seen some cringy ass fancall videos 😭 There are also people that will break into an idol’s hotel room or tour bus, book the same flights and sit by them, or get their phone number and just spam call them. It’s insane.
I've seen way too many people try to use "if they're offended they can go comfort themselves with their bank acount balance!!" as a gotcha when it comes to criticism of RPF or IRL creepy behaviour. I feel like it's the norm now to scramble for any kind of vaguely self-righteous sounding yet snarky comeback and never actually try to understand where other people are coming from and why they're uncomfortable.
I am so sorry you and anyone else is going through all this with "fans." At the buffalo comic con I was at a Q&A with my favorite character's VA and he was asked what his worst fan interaction was and the stories he told were just HORRIFYING! Something's gotta change because no one should have to deal with this on a regular basis.
i've been in various sorts of fandoms for a long time now and honestly, i think there's a growing sense of entitlement among fans because they have such easy access to information about whatever fandom/celebrity/etc that they like and the nature of the social media beast being a prominent part of marketing ANYTHING means that fans also have easy access to channels to reach celebrities/creators/etc. for stuff like kpop, the parasocial relationship between the idol and the fans is also like a huge selling part of it.
i'm in a discord server for fans of a certain music group and recently, said group came to perform locally. i was shocked that other fans were openly discussing possible flight details for the music group because they wanted to stake out the airport and meet the group (one fan did end up doing this). i realize it's fairly commonplace for fans to do that but it made me so super uncomfortable to hear about it and to see them talking about it so openly. i guess people really want to express their passion and support for the group and i think as a fan you do get kind of a rush out of being acknowledged but jfc but i can't imagine having your privacy constantly invaded like that. my sibling who is more into kpop also mentioned that a certain idol she liked just recently had his management have to put out a statement to fans, to request that they don't wait out at airports for him as he was feeling under the weather. i don't know!!! how is that not wild to people!!
Oh man, I'm glad you're talking about this. I've seen a handful of videos where people would go to convention panels at anime and comic cons and ask weird and HIGHLY inappropriate questions about their headcanons or fanfics or whatnot.
I think the latest one I saw was a panel for Helluva Boss where a literal child was asking an inappropriate question. I'm not gonna tell kids they can't watch Helluva Boss at home. I'm not their parents. But the show is very openly made for adults, so what the hell is a child doing not only at a panel, but allowed to ask questions of the actors, and highly inappropriate panels at that.
It's especially aggravating because as often as not, it feels like fans are trying to spin these situations as if the actors/creators are in the wrong when it's like, no, y'all just need to learn some damn boundaries.
dramione in the lords year of 2024.... damn.
well, i guess fallout equestria you can buy bound, a copy of that lies in the library of congress. but that was set up by the team who made fallout equestria.
I remember watching an adorable but slightly sad clip where Tom Felton was meeting a kid, I think with Make A Wish. The kid came running up and Tom immediately hugged them but also started saying about he's Tom not Draco and that he's really a nice guy not like the character he played.
All of Swell's vids are great but this is my favorite one in a while. This has been an issue that's needed someone with an audience to address it out loud and without mincing words for a WHILE. Excellent video and great coverage - and damn, I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences with your audience :(
The Anthony Starr homelander thing cracks me up. I saw him at the movies once in West Auckland while he was filming a very popular show based there. It was new years day everyone (the other 6 people in the theatre) seemed a bit hungover. Everyone left him alone. Pretty common in New Zealand. (We don't really have paparazzi) I think a lot of people here are pretty respectful of other people's space.
Same thing happens in Australia, they walk around casually and noone loses their mind about it, celebrity worship is more of an American thing
He also looks very different irl than he does on the show, probably on purpose
As a long-time netizen--so long that I use the term 'netizen'--I think that the prevalence of video content has changed fandom. When you can see and hear someone in a way that feels up close and maybe personal it becomes much easier to form a parasocial connection of some kind. With on-demand content and the ability to binge-watch someone's work on RUclips, that gets even more exaggerated.
Thanks for addressing the issue. Keep up the good work!
Early newsgroups & irc user here & that’s what I went by for years. Now, I just don’t interact on a personal level with people outside my community (local/interest) on a personal basis. Parasocial relationships creep me out, and I’ve been involved with record labels & studio productions since I was in my late teens 🤷🏼♀️
first off, love you going in to fanfic this time. I dont have tiktok so I have no sight in to just how insane some people can get around fanfiction. The entitlement of a lot of fans online has gotten worse and weirder over time, and its nice to see someone talk about it. I appreciate the hostility, its good to say we're not friends. You're a woman in my screen and 99% of us will never meet you and boundaries are necessary.
literally getting a masters degree solely bc the way fandom has developed over the past like 5-10 years has driven me up the wall - i was like i quite literally need to study you people. just a complete erasure of boundaries, of respect, of thinking past yourself. it's bonkers. and i do think certain celebs/creators/etc DO enable the worst tendencies of their fans because they like having a ride or die attack dog army even if it also makes their own lives worse bc their fans become so entitled
Before smartphones, celebs would mix & mingle with us in Montana. Because we knew how to behave! My friend saw her favorite soap star at happy hour & started getting so excited til we told her, he’s actually from here, those are his real friends from high school, you can’t approach. You either meet like regular people or you stay quiet. Exceptions for certain legends - Larry Bird had to talk to everybody lol, but I sat next to Batman beetlejuice for 3 hours & spoke maybe 5 words, acted like normal strangers in a bar who were both in separate conversations. Tbh I bet that was a great gift from a fan…three hours of not having fans. I’m not actually a Keaton fan but I was happy to give him some peace.
Absolutely agreed 100%, anecdotally i noticed fanfic commenters being rude or trying to take "control" of work and fandom in general having such... audacity in the behaviors fans can have.
The F1 story and alleged rumor you pointed out REALLY made my eyebrows raise.
I'm gonna be honest. When I saw the title, I though you mean the video of people complaining about Mitski asking people to not call her Mother. I like fanfics (Original Roswell: Candygirl and Lamptrimmer. I also like Draco and Harry which . . yeah.)
idk about other fandoms but i've seen this in kpop and the thai entertainment industry. but this big spender entitlement is insane. these people really think that because they spend insane amounts of money on merch/concerts/events that they somehow have a right to the person. i need people to chill 😭 they won't date you. they are scared of you!
The fact that we have to talk about this is dystopian LOL
Seeing you talk about this is blowing my mind. It always feels weird when my other interests cross with Swell content. Haha!
I whole heartedly Stan this whole video. Fan Fiction is a beautiful outlet. People need to stop being so greedy. Which I don't see this happening anytime soon.
It just sucks.
I've been in motorsports for most of my life (20+ years), both as a fan and as a driver at local short tracks and smaller national events. I will say, even at a small level, I've had some pretty bad fan interactions. It seems to have definitely gotten worse since the pandemic as well.
It seems like a lot of fans forget that drivers are people as well. Yes, I'm technically an entertainer and wouldn't be able to partake in my passion without fans buying tickets. However, I'm still a person and have boundaries and insecurities. I've had people much, much older than me forcibly hug and grope me. I've had people peer at me through bathroom stalls to see me with my suit down. I've had people openly comment on how bad I smell or how disheveled I look minutes after I get out of the car after a race. I've had people stop me and demand pictures from me at 1 in the morning as I'm trying to go home from being at the track for 14 hours. The list goes on and on. Yes, the positive experience far outnumber the negative experiences, but the negative experiences really do a lot of harm.
Yes, athletes, content creators, actors, etc, are entertainers at their core and need fans to be able to do their craft. However people need to recognize that this aspect does not make them lesser in terms of the human dignity they deserve. You are far more likely to have a genuine and positive experience with someone you're a fan of by just treating them like a normal person. Freaking out and idolizing them only puts them on guard and leads to negative experiences all around.
This reminds me of the stage door fans on Broadway. I’ve always felt weird about waiting for someone who just got done doing a very physically demanding job for 3-4 hours and then expecting them to be nice and do pics and autographs, etc. when all they want to do is go home
Fan culture online is a lot. I remember hearing that the actor who plays Nick on Heartstopper announced he was leaving social media after, essentially, being bullied and harassed into coming out before he was ready because unhinged fans accused him of queerbaiting or some bizarre shit like that.
The Walking Dead is one of the worst examples of fan harassment that I've ever seen as someone who was in the community for years. The amount of fans who defended harassing the cast and crew for storylines and things characters did into leaving social media is insane. The fans who tried to petition to get the show canceled over a character death (and harassing the producers) is insane. The fans who began to spread so many rumors that actors were dating for their weird shipping nonsense that the actors own PR teams has to dismiss them is unreal. The fans who have defended stalking the actors (including a woman who defended biting Norman Reedus at a convention because of his "bite me" shirt in a photo shoot) is some creepy Play Misty For Me shit if I've ever seen it.
I remember Nick getting so much harassment that he had to come out 😡
That made me so mad
The legality of fan fiction is not so clear. I wouldn’t make such blanket statements unless they have been vetted by a copyright lawyer.
HI! Rotten nepo baby here. My parents are decently big in the canadian music industry and are close friends with some pretty big names here. One time, we were running a radio show and concert out of a hotel room, with a live audience (only like 30 people). We had one guy come in (not to stereotype but imagine a reddit neckbeard who smelt AWFUL) who kept asking if the artist was going to do a meet and greet or autographs. I said id ask her about it (even though i doubt the artist would've they hate people) and just forgot about the guy. At the end of the show he ran past security onstage, We didn't do anything at first assuming he just wanted to say hi but when we tried to usher him away he grabbed on to her arm tight and started shoving the artist around (shes 80 years old) yelling that he deserved to be with her. Eventually security dragged him out by his stained hawaiian shirt. Strange feller.
Many people are defining themselves thru other’s ideas, IP and success. Think capital G gamers, sports fans, big movie franchises fans. Other peoples work and success becomes the fan’s identity. This leads to lots of problems where some people choose to blur the line between themselves and others. Acting terribly to other humans. When one lacks identity for one’s self any change to the IP becomes a deep personal insult to the fan.
this, i think this perspective is valuable and probably does pin one part of the problem.
I’m an amateur fanbinder (meaning I bind fanfics, if that wasn’t clear) and people who sell their works really make me angry. Like, personally, I feel super awkward even formatting the fic for printing, because I feel like I’m stealing someone’s work, even though it’s technically all fine and whatever. The amount of audacity someone has to have in order to take someone else’s fanfic, print it, bind it, and then sell it for a profit is insane. I really hate that people like this are giving fanbinding a bad name, especially since I and many others make sure we’re not using services that make a profit off of fanbinding (ex. Those book-printing services online-which, fun fact, sending in fanfiction to any of those services to have them make it into a book for you is illegal!). And also especially since the authors probably have no clue what these people are doing with their works-which, might I add, are posted online entirely for free!
Anyway, for me, fanbinding is a way for me to appreciate the works I love so much, and it makes me sad to see people exploiting it.
As a DW/Star wars/marvel fan I am so sick of fandoms. Really I should unfollow all fan pages but a decade and a half of being on social media has built an insanely long list of groups I'm following. actors/creators/musicians/celebs/etc owe us nothing. you're allowed to not agree with the direction of a story and still enjoy it. you're allowed to think something is just ok without acting it's like the worst thing to ever be made. Mid isn't a bad thing.
Fans of real people should not assume they know a single thing about them. They should not speculate about their personal lives, they should not have nicknames for them, and they ABSOLUTELY should not headcanon them. This is related to formula 1 of which I am a huge fan, it it's true in every space. These drivers are not your friends, you do not know who they are or what they do, and everything they do is a curated image
I’ve seen shippers abuse actors real life spouses, in order to get them to break up so then the actors who are in the ship get together.
Also when people see a celebrity irl and they roughly push past or be rude to the people they’re with. Like if you see an celeb and they are with someone assume they like them and wouldn’t want them to be treated with respect.
I was just thinking about this. Thank you for bringing it up, I would love to hear more about people making merch off of things, like people selling camp half blood or percy jackson merch, and where the line is on legality for that
Hope you're feeling better!
*kicks down door* fanfiction is my bread and butter. I adore fanfiction because it IS passion. You love the world, you love other fanfics, and you want to give, and explore new angles of relationships. I've dipped my toe in booktwt because I want to join it, not because I want to be a full time bookwriter, but as more of a challenge for myself. I'm not claiming to be the best (by far) but I am good enough that I could make money with luck and dedication. Most of my long time internet friends can create deep emotional stories and standard publishing is not even close to their level of quality.
I subscribed to a few book channels on yt to get to know the community and one of the channels went on about how great Manacled was and how she wanted to buy a hardbound copy.
I had followed her for two weeks and I went off on her comments.
I tried to be educational and not angry but I was so utterly revolted on how someone claims they love the story but were perfectly fine putting the writer at risk of a lawsuit and spitting on all their work by supporting a thief.
I'm pretty sure I unsubscribed. I tried to continue watching but I was so annoyed I couldn't get over it. Anyway, good for the fanfic writer for getting a book deal ☺☺☺☺☺
Tbh i can’t say if it’s better or worse since lockdown, but it’s definitely DIFFERENT. i remember as a preteen in the early 2010s people would make the NASTIEST comments about people they found attractive and then yell those things at them in person which was so bizarre. we had very infamous fan fictions just bc they were nasty, like that was the whole fame to them was them just being too much. Now, it seems like people have a much more parasocial attachment to these people so they are less “fans” and truly think they know these people because they’ve interacted online one time, ya know? during the pandemic a ton of celebs were doing lives and were extra active in their online spaces and i think that complicated things for a lot of people. like i said, i think it’s just different now. it’s much more parasocial now but almost tamer? in a way? i think we hold each other to a higher standard now which is a good thing but i don’t think it takes away that violation that was previously popular. Idk, i think that’s a good think piece. i’ll have to do more research and write a paper on it.
Im in the seiyuu (anime voice actors) space because I'm a really big fan of a lot of Japanese voice actors. Some of them have taken up performing live, web shows, full on music careers... basically they're idols. It's pretty cool because a lot of them are visibly delighted by it. However, these fandoms get so fucking weird. People lost their god damn minds when one of them got married and like... yall. The parasocial nature of fandom these days is fucking wild and I hate it
As 5sos fans we are experts in the topic of crazy fans🙂↕️