Ruining of a Fandom: Subjectivity & Entitlement (Patreon)

Ruin has come to our family. You remember our venerable fandom, opulent and imperial, gazing proudly from its stoic perch above the thread? I lived all my years in that ancient, rumor shadowed community, fattened by content and theories-

Okay that's MORE than enough of a meme reference to start off. Hello everyone, and welcome to another instalment of, 'Roxy talks about things she doesn't necessarily have a qualification to speak on, but still feels are important enough and should be, in fact, addressed'! I really don't have much of an outline or idea of how I want to go with this one essay in particular,  but if you've been following me for a while now, you most definitely know exactly what I want to address here.

Fandom can be quite the wonderful place. A group of people that share the same interests, coming together for their mutual love of that thing, sharing their experiences, showing their appreciation! On paper, it sounds like a fantastic thing, and you know what, it is! Communities built around shared interests, friend groups coming together to stay up to date on an ongoing series... But recently Fandom has started to become, honestly, exhausting. Discourse runs rampant, minor issues become major drama, toxicity rises...

And yet behind all of this hostility, there is a veneer of care and appreciation. Much of the outrage is generated, precisely, because of people's love for their Fandom, strong opinions about it. Of course, no amount of perceived love for something excuses much of what I have seen, but still, the excuses write themselves. X is not good! It used to be good, or it had potential, but now, the direction the show/series/book/game/whatever has taken, it's gone off the rails! It is bad now, and so, it deserves to be bashed, and people reminded constantly of how bad it is!

So let's take a look at this idea, of what is Good and what is Bad in content, the ways people have been handling shifts in content, the ways people interact with content in general, and answer the question:

Who ruins a Fandom? And what can we do about it?

The 'How'

Aaaah, don't you love when I do that? Going on a wild tangent from a question to another question? But seriously, if we're talking about the idea of content being ruined, of something that was good, but now isn't, or that has wasted potential, there are quite a few things that need to be addressed first. So, let us define, for the sake of this experiment, ruination.

When people talk about something that is 'ruined', in terms of consuming content, they usually refer to something that can not be enjoyed, that for one reason or another, sparks negative feelings to such an extent, that the rest of the content becomes impossible to go through. Sometimes this can happen because an event killed or changed certain characters that one felt were pivotal to the story, and removing a huge chunk of its charm. Sometimes this can happen, because what seemed like was going to be interesting to go through, turned out to be a predictable, cliche slog, or doesn't seem to make sense for the characters for the sake of adding conflict. Sometimes, the author's opinion is just, blatantly toxic, and as expected, bleeds into their work, as a huge reminder of them using what they're doing to spread beliefs that demean, ignore, or put in danger, vulnerable collectives of people. As such, a work is Ruined, when it's Flawed to the point it becomes impossible to enjoy.

However, even this definition doesn't give us what we want. Because with such a definition, content that picks a direction the reader doesn't enjoy, is pushed down on the same level as a work elevating nazism. If one's only measure of 'Ruination' is not enjoying it, there needs to be more nuance to separate "I don't like what they did" from "Hey, this work plays into racist caricatures and humiliates and shames people for extremely arbitrary reasons."

Ah, arbitrary, there is a word. We'll come back to it later.

You all see what I am trying to get at, though, right? Even within the description of 'unenjoyable', you have very, very different degrees of 'unenjoyability'.  Sometimes a work is a genre or has a story one doesn't vibe with, but that doesn't mean many others can't actually enjoy it just the same. Sometimes a work is deeply rooted in a bigoted point of view- Its entire point is to showcase X kind of people as Bad, Evil, Rotten, and deserving of punishment, and those authors should absolutely be held accountable for this. Of course the world isn't black and white, were it that easy, this would be it. There would be Good Works, and there would be Bad Works, and that would be it!

Oh, if it only it were that easy.

Grey Morality, Controversy, Critique

Herein we come to the crux of the problem regarding the idea of Content Ruination. The world is not clear-cut, it doesn't have easy and visible lines dividing Problematic and Unproblematic, Good and Bad. Yes, there are works which are entirely devoid of any sort of problematic content- Which isn't to say they're flawless, but at least, that they're uncontroversial. There's also works that are blatantly bad and awful, power trips by authors pushing their toxic ideals onto a world. But that is not usually the case.

The current climate of the Internet is a messy one. Tension is rising around the world at injustice and bad shit that keeps happening on a daily basis. We're all tired, we really are. And on the Internet, we all have our own pages, our own platforms, our own voices with which to speak to each other. We're not separated by distance, limited by the need to travel. We're aware, at all times, of everything going on, and we can, at all times, reach just about any person on the Internet. We become aware of so many bad things going on, and we do NOT want those things to happen, we don't want people to be hurt, we want to help, make a change, in any way we can!

And that is a good sentiment! It is such a good sentiment, and it is such a shame that it has been perverted and twisted to such an extent in Social Media. Caring about others and the consequences of our actions, being aware of injustice in society and how deeply rooted and ingrained it is, it's good! But morality has become less about actually fighting the injustice, and more about loudly accusing people and pointing at each other. People with good intentions overdo it, and come across as hostile. People with bad intentions frame things in such a way that good people bite the bait, and end up rallying behind a bad cause.

People are afraid to be marked as 'bad'. And in fearing the consequences of potentially making a mistake, even when their intentions are wholly good, everything becomes an issue of morality. And that ties into media one consumes. People are afraid of liking 'bad' media. To be seen as Problematic as an extension of liking something someone deems Problematic. The race to be perfectly flawless and moral, becomes a system in which people with complicated feelings about content that isn't necessarily bad will assume the worst out of it- And from there, said opinion will snowball onto people. Simple dislike becomes a question of whether content should exist or not, of authorial responsibility and blame. People who do enjoy the content will lash out at being told such things where they cannot see them, and in doing so, a battle of escalation will commence. Getting more virulent on both sides, digging up people's pasts in an attempt to justify a point.

Of course this is not always the case. Sometimes outrage is justified, and people defending something or someone can be blinded by their own nostalgia of a work they didn't realize was bigoted, for example. But when the system in place bashes and shuns people on the first strike, when it digs up the past of people who have changed, when it twists the words off the Author's mouth to give it a toxic feeling to justify one's own subjective distaste, then the line between a work that is genuinely harmful, and one that simply presents distasteful elements, blurs. And in being blurred, action against bigots is lessened, while people who genuinely want to do good are attacked out of a misguided idea of moral righteousness.

This essay has gotten a bit more complex than I imagined it would at first, so let me put it all together in simpler words:

What can 'ruin' a work is often, largely subjective, and an opinion. A lot of people like works others dislike, and vice-versa. But currently, the Internet values the idea of moral purity and fears being labelled as 'bad' and 'problematic'. In doing so, people are quick to associate their negative feelings towards a work they don't like, as something that is actually harmful, and begin to lash out against fans and content creators. And by creating this hostile environment where everyone walks on eggshells, it makes people trying to do good suffer, while those genuinely trying to push bigoted and toxic points of view, blend more easily in the crowd.

Being Good on the Internet has become a punitive system. And that is such extreme irony. The Justice System is largely fucked up, because it benefits from punishing people, and along with deeply rooted social biases, it perpetuates some really fucked up things. Many Parents use negative reinforcement that can fuck up their kids for life. Punishing them for small mistakes and making them fearful to ask for help or be unable to do things. These are things that need to change. And yet many, many people who agree with this point, will also use this exact same punitive, negative reinforcement idea, on morality and problematic content. They become fearful of being shunned by their peers, so they hop onto the bandwagon. They turn negative feelings into much bigger problems so that they have an excuse to punish, accuse and lash out.

People have become, simultaneously, more and less critical. They have become more critical in a negative sense, as they will nit-pick, de-construct and twist things in order to find bad meanings, so that their dislike of a thing will not just be justified, but also in a way, morally righteous. And in the same way, they have become less critical of these things presented as bad. Once it is labelled as bad, to contest the idea that it is bad, to wonder IF it is really bad or not, becomes controversial. If you say X is not problematic, it means you defend this problematic thing! That means YOU are problematic! And suddenly you're the one being attacked. It's a system that teaches to look the worst possible meaning, on everything we consume, but to never question whether these things are bad, whether the accusations are real, whether there is anything positive to be found out.

And something that suffers from this a lot? Is queer content. And authors, for that matter. Because many times, one's depictions come from their own experiences, and these experiences don't have to be pleasant. And sometimes, one's personal power fantasy about queer characters, can be taken the wrong way by people who simply have different experiences or takes. It has devolved to the point where you cannot even give genuine representation without it being a huge issue. A character comes out as a trans woman, and instead of being happy, people who headcanoned them as a trans man become hostile, they take, somehow, representation stemming from the author's own read of a character and their own experiences, as an attack on themselves. A character is confirmed to be trans, and the Fandom is split. People with headcanons of one kind attack and get attacked, by people who stick to canon. Personally identifying with a character in one way or another, suddenly becomes a fight of One Side Or The Other Is Transphobic, and people, real people, get hurt, because of fictional fucking characters.

Because that is the crux of the issue, isn't it? All these problems I'm talking about, these grand fights of morality and toxicity, of people accusing each other, threatening each other, ultimately? Happen entirely because of fictional context.

Be Kind To Each Other For God's Fucking Sake-

You know what? No. I am not going to even precede this section with an image. I try to break up things, with paragraphs, with images, with titles, to make it more readable and easy to digest, but I'm just going to continue straight away here. The irony of all of this is incredible. People accuse their trans peers of being transphobic, because they cannot accept that they could read a fictional character a different way for comfort and personal reasons. We're not even talking of trans people side-eyeing cis people ignoring the fact a character is trans because they don't want to deal with trans people. We're talking about queer people attacking queer people because they're not... The right kind of queer, I guess? I don't think I need to explain why this is fucked up.

And yes! I am not even going to hide it behind implications. This is about the Homestuck Fandom, about Roxy in the Epilogues, about John and June, about Jade. But this is not just about Homestuck. This is about Steven Universe, and how quick some people are to reduce it because redeeming the villains instead of killing them makes Rebecca Sugar 'downplay fascism', or how making Steven's Mom more selfish and make massive, huge mistakes, and trick and lie constantly, is BAD and it RUINS so much when it's the exact fucking point, that she fucked up and STILL ended up a symbol for good and idolized for many while also leaving them with scars that will stick with them for the rest of their lives and how to grapple with it! This is about complicated stories, about grey morality, and about representation that is not based around making a character good and queer, but queer authors projecting their own experiences on their own work, with all of the fucking ugliness the real world comes with, and putting it out there.

Things that make you feel bad deserve to exist. Yes, things that are heart-breaking to read, that make you cry and worry for a character, that leave you pensive for days, maybe that even change your perception of the entire world from the shock, they all deserve to exist! Some people enjoy feeling like shit after reading a book. They love the feeling of sadness and tragedy that comes from a completely fictional work. But if you, yourself, your mental state, is unable to handle the roughness of something, it is not the fault of the author for creating a rough work, it is your responsibility to know when to stop consuming media that is upsetting you. Everyone has personal, unique triggers that often times cannot be accounted for. Everyone has different degrees of tolerance to different kinds of story, and different kinds of details. And sometimes feeling bad is a completely valid thing for an author to do! Consider the Genocide Route in Undertale. The glee and euphoria you get from defeating the hard bosses vanish near instantly, as a reminder of the tedious, gruelling, and absolutely cruel task you're embarking on. It is meant to make you feel bad, for the choices you take. And many couldn't take that and instead watched, or simply read, about the Genocide Route, instead of playing it!

And so we return to the very beginning of this essay. Who ruins content? The issue is that, content is ruined for different reasons for different people. And that there is different kinds of dislike for a work. The answer is that, everyone has different thresholds of what they can handle, different preferences regarding characters, topics, and ways they like to see them handled. Some people can realize a work they like has major flaws, but still enjoy the content as a whole, while keeping those flaws in mind. Some people will experience a moment of discomfort in some work, and begin to enjoy it less and less from that point on, until they lose interest and have to stop it. 

And neither is invalid. I am not coming here, telling someone, that they should NOT feel uncomfortable, or ignore a work's flaws, and just keep going, lol. No. Fuck that. But I am saying that, a work making people feel bad, tackling controversial topics, and tackling sensitive topics in ways some people don't like, doesn't mean the work is inherently deserving of being burnt, and that the worst shouldn't be assumed from the author. Because a lot of the time, people are hyper-nitpicking, and assuming the worst kind of will, out of people who wanted to make something personal and entertaining, and are harming not just the author, but the people that do resonate with these stories, in the process.

I am coming here, telling people that, if they dislike a work, they should stop consuming it. The hate-dom of reminding everyone about how bad X thing is, making 2-hour-long rant videos about everything wrong with something, all it does is create a negative, hostile environment where this one-strike, hyper-critiquing, un-checked set of mind thrives and stagnates, getting worse and worse and leading people to act on worse and worse shit on people over, again, fictional characters, while they alienate people who like it and make them feel bad for simply having enjoyed something that others didn't.

This is the kind of mindset that twists good intentions into self-righteous and harmful bullshit. This is the kind of mindset that genuinely leads to hyper-policing of content, and censorship.

So when I ask Who ruins content, I am not asking who to point fingers at. I am not asking who we should harass to change things. When I ask it, I am pointing out the toxic behavior and hypocrisy that stems from the idea of content being ruined in the first place, the entitlement of turning simple negative feelings into an unchecked crusade that ends up, majoritarily, minorities trying to express themselves in one way or another.

When I ask it, I ask to think where the line lies, between something that is Bad, and something that just Isnt' For You. I ask to think whether you dislike a development because it breaks your headcanons, or because it's deeply rooted in some bigoted bullshit. I ask whether you're trying to do good for the world, or you're just trying to make sure people don't THINK you're problematic, and following the crowd of the hatedom because it feels your own gripes and distaste feel somehow morally right.

When I began this Essay, I also asked about how we fix this ruination of content. But the tables have turned now. Because sometimes, sometimes there is nothing to fix. There's no one to call to fix it, there's no one to ask to please fix it. Sometimes we simply don't like it, and we have to deal with something others enjoy not being for us. We have to deal with not enjoying something others find comfort in, and that is entirely okay. It doesn't mean you're wrong. It's an opinion, and a preference, no one is wrong. It simply is.

What we can do, however, is keep this in mind as we go on. Be critical of mindless hate of something, and be informed, lest you fall on one of these moral crusades. Be aware of the flaws of the work you consume, but also, know that you can enjoy a work even with its flaws. Be accepting, of other people having different takes, experiences, than you have, and that them having a different view of the world or a different kind of story they want to tell, so long as it's not rooted in hate and bigotry, is completely valid. Walk away from things you don't enjoy, keep calm, and don't use negative feelings as an excuse to be a shithead to other people.

Because that's what it's about. Not everyone is out to get you. Not everyone is out to harm you. Things not made to cater you, aren't inherently made to OPPOSE you. And sometimes what you think is pushing for something good in your community, turns out to be harming to a different part of the same community. And above all? Fictional characters are that. Fictional. They are written, to be a way, act a way, and do certain things. And people can project onto them, yes, and they can help people feel better, good, safer, and discover more about themselves. But they're still Fictional tools. An author making a fictional character go through something tough, is not a reflection of something the author wants to do in real life. And prioritizing a character's happiness over that of a real, living person, I don't know how to explain that you shouldn't, do that? Please don't harass, threaten, or aggress someone because they have a different take on a character.

It all comes down to the things I've preached ad-nauseum here though. Be kind to people. Don't assume ill will. Be critical of the work you consume, but also of the mindless hate addressed to it. Seek out context, and be open to changing your mind and admitting you were wrong. Don't seek out to harm others for having different takes or preferences. Don't assume your personal experience is universal and the Only Thing That Exists And Matters.

There are so many bad things going on in the world, making people feel bad and suffer.

So please, don't be one of them, and take care of your siblings. And stay safe yourself. Tailor your experience, know your limits, be mindful.

And as per usual, stay safe everyone! <3