Every fandom I’ve been in, I eventually leave because it gets too hard to stay. My fave charas become sources of anxiety bc I’ve defended them and had that turned against me. I don’t know how many more times I’ll have the energy to like things, when people turn them awful, and it’s happening to me again and I’m scared I’ll just disappear, lose the friends I’ve made because our common ground suddenly hurts too much to touch. I don’t know what to do. This site is hell.
Oh, honey. You sound so tired. That absolutely sucks and I’m so sorry.
I obviously don’t know exactly what’s going on, so I’m not sure how similar our situations are, but I know what it feels like to be made ashamed of something you love. It happened to me a lot for the first 20 or so years of my life. I was made fun of for liking childish or babyish things … when I was a child. I can’t handle listening to any of the bands I used to like when I was in middle school – they were objectively bad, but I loved them, and had a good time imagining being married to a favorite band member because that is what teenage girls do – because everyone from my friends to family members to my boyfriend made fun of them. An area of special interest of mine is soured forever by how someone close to me handled me talking about it a lot to them because that’s what bored and lonely people do when they have no phone, no internet, and go literal days without seeing anyone else.
It’s absolutely awful to feel like you’re losing something you used to love engaging with. It’s painful. It feels like being robbed. And it feels like anything you jump to will just be taken from you as well. It feels like there’s nowhere to go.
I wish people understood how painful that sort of bullying really is. And I do think that a lot of the behavior I see online in fandoms gone septic is just that: bullying. Bullying for liking an imperfect thing, or liking it the wrong way, or not being critical enough and performing your fannishness virtuously enough. People get really into tearing down elements of something they supposedly love, and it’s awful. It’s just an awful scene. I don’t understand it. It’s so unnecessary and small-hearted.
You said it yourself: this site is Hell. And it is. But it is also a Hell that we make for ourselves.
Is it possible for you to more strictly police what comes across your dash? Xkit filters, Tumblr savior, Tumblr’s own tagging feature? I don’t know if you do fandom stuff elsewhere, like Discord, so I don’t know what other filtering options you have, but if you have them, I think you should use them early and often.
Would it be possible for you to make a list of people you don’t want to lose track of, and then unfollow folks just for a while, give yourself a break? Or make another totally separate Tumblr and follow them there, so you can keep track of them without worrying about them changing their names or something like that?
I know how it is to have good friends who do fight and do get involved in drama, people you love, but who in the course of Having Discourse also expose you and their other their readers to contentious opinions and the nasty words of others. (I am one of those people sometimes! Less now than in the past, but yeah.) It’s a valid way to run a blog, but it’s also not required of anyone to expose themselves to that sort of thing because it can get very draining and negative. It’s not bad to be that way, but you may need some distance from the wank. If you can, approach your good friends with a request to tag the troublesome stuff so you can filter it out. Keep your daily feeds to a few low-drama blogs.
Because it sounds like what you need is a break, and some time to reconnect with the work you love, and not the fandom itself.
I’m pulling ideas out of my ass here, but could you create a trusted resource list for yourself of fannish works and fans (fave fics, authors who Get It, people who do cool art but don’t participate in wank) that make you feel good, and engage more intensively and deliberately with uplifting content for a while?
Also, something I do when I feel shitty is find work that isn’t appreciated enough – a fic with almost no notes, fanart by beginners who aren’t getting a lot of positive feedback – and show some love. Maybe you could do the same in your fandom? Put positivity out there in case someone else is feeling as exhausted as you are.
And last, hardest but also the most effective, what if you stopped defending what you love? It sounds awful, we all want to stick up for something we feel passionately about and that has value for us, I know how it is to love a character so much, and for it to hurt so much when you see people say awful things about them and the people who like them, but you don’t have to argue with anyone about any of it, you don’t have to engage. It’s fine to say “I like this thing, and I do not care what you think of that. I’m not even going to argue about it. Good day.” And then … block the people saying atrocious, toxic things. Let them be wrong. Let them say mean, stupid things into the thin air where you aren’t because you wandered off to do more interesting, better things, like care about your favorite book or show, and take ten thousand online quizzes as though you were your favorite character.
You can even type out the response. Just get it all out, then … don’t post it. Don’t click send. Just … release it. Let it go. You don’t owe anyone your time or your words. Let their negativity and awfulness be their own problem.
Let it be your job to love what you love, not to argue about it with petty people online.
I really hope this helps. It kind of hits me hard because like I said, it feels like familiar territory for me. I hope you can find your way through all this … and there IS a way through. There always is. No forest goes on forever.
Hozier recently crawled up out of whatever ancient bog church basement he’s been living in for the last thousand years and said this:
He’s right. He’s absolutely right.
this is very kind and gentle for people outside of fandom, as well.
The-Lounge 