Campfire Stories | Toxic Fandoms Aren’t Real And Here’s Why
*Note: Thanks to everybody for being patient. I’ve had to take a brief hiatus while getting situated at college, so I haven’t been able to write for a while. But, for now, I’m back and will make an effort to write as often as I can.*
I remember July 2, 2020 as if it was yesterday. It was a sleepy Thursday, nothing out of the ordinary. I woke up, ate breakfast, and pulled up all my social media, ready to catch up with my favorite Smash Bros content creators (oh yeah, I’m a Smash Bros enthusiast by the way). I pulled up YouTube, Reddit and Twitter, ready to be entertained with funny clips and montages, but instead…
Actually, let’s back up a bit, because that’s WAY too much for me to get into now, and all the therapy in the world won’t help me process the turmoil from the week following that fateful July 2nd.
As you may be aware, the Smash community isn’t exactly the most loved on the Internet, for a variety of reasons, most of them unfair (often amounting to jokes that got too much traction). *That* certainly didn’t help. But for now we’re here to discuss the trend of hated fandoms in general. And when I say “trend”, I mean a goddamn international pastime that seems inescapable.
(That gag took me way too long. You’re welcome.)
If you’ve been on the Internet longer than three days, you’ve likely heard horror stories of groups of fans doing “cringey”, immoral, and sometimes illegal things. These get passed around like dust in the wind, and soon the actions of a few become interchangeable with the whole fandom, in the eyes of an outsider. Hell, some people get popular for doing this exact thing. Some people even turn it into a game of sorts.
Fandom hating is so popular, it even comes up in completely irrelevant contexts. Video essayist EmpLemon just couldn’t make a video about Nintendo’s terrible business practices without talking about “their rabid fans”. At the time of me writing this, Yahtzee Croshaw, creator of the Zero Punctuation reviews, recently did a video on Ace Attorney and had this to say about anime fans:
“Hey, if you like sputtering one out to greasy cartoon tits that jiggle like semi-sentient party balloons then more power to you, just seems weird to get so evangelical about it. Anime fans are like vegans without the moral superiority or the — no actually, about the same body odor.”
He’s not alone on this. Every group has its associated stereotypes; for instance, that anime fans are all basement-dwelling neckbeards with porn addictions, or that Pokémon fans are all nostalgia-blind manchildren who argue about everything, and so on and so forth. Even what are intended as light-hearted jabs at these stereotypes enable seemingly obligatory remarks in the comment section of, “god, I HATE people like that! They’re so TOXIC”, which soon expand in a person’s mind until they associate the entire fandom with these negative traits.
(Nothing against MandJTV, by the way, he’s great and you should totally subscribe to him.)
I’m not saying that these stereotypes have absolutely no basis in reality, but these fans are always either individuals or small organized cliques of radicals that don’t represent the whole fandom. Every time such an instance of “bad behavior” surfaces, it’s lamented by the majority of fans.
For a recent example of this, I was browsing YouTube a while ago and stumbled across this video by Pokémon YouTuber Patterrz.
Within the video, there was an instance of a discussion regarding Pokétubers that turned so hostile that the Reddit mods “had to” shut it down. Some people in the comments expressed disappointment, but not surprise.
This is the 90 10 trap in action (shout out to Richard Carlson, author of Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff For Teens), in which people seemingly choose a worldview of misery over a worldview of optimism. People tend to ignore the 90% of discussions, in this case regarding Pokémon, on Reddit, or specifically Pokémon discussions on Reddit, that go smoothly with no serious arguments (often because whether or not Reddit mods know how to properly do their job is a complete toss-up) and hyper-focus, acting like conflict is what defines the community (when actually, most people try to AVOID conflict, on the Internet and otherwise). That’s not really their fault, either. It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon that bad memories stick with people more than good ones.
A common misconception I see is that arguing= toxicity. Arguing is healthy if handled well. If it isn’t handled well and emotions are taken too far, refer back to what I said about how the majority of fandoms view the badly behaved fans within their ranks. Actually, the Internet is great for this. It’s one of the many benefits conferred by anonymity. People can spit harsh words in your face all day, but you’re on enough of a level playing field to spit words back. It’s honestly better to have a fandom that’ s constantly arguing and debating as opposed to a fandom that takes so much pride in how “wholesome” and “agreeable” it is that problems get swept under the rug in critical mass. For example, the fandom of 2018’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power likes to brag about how accepting they are of ALL ships unlike a certain OTHER fandom of a certain animated series that started in 2016 (I’ll let you insert whichever one you want, have fun with that lol). But this self-image of theirs falls apart when you realize that not only is most of the fandom built around one ship, but the fact that this ship makes some people who have been in abusive relationships uncomfortable with what they perceive as a glorification of abuse is completely disregarded and talked over, giving some people the need to make their own space away from the majority opinion. Now, I don’t think most of the She-Ra fandom is knowingly talking over abuse victims. It’s still a small part of a whole (I had to dig fairly deep to find any of this out), regardless of your personal experiences with a fandom.
Every fandom has a vocal minority, even if they don’t make headlines. Every Steven Universe fan knows about the “Zamii incident”, but nobody knows of the similar incident that happened in the Wander Over Yonder fanbase. You’re more likely to hear such stories from bigger communities (how many of you even considered the fact that Wander Over Yonder even HAS a fanbase?), but the ratio of “crazy” to “normal” shakes out to about the same across fandoms. There’s other factors at play as to what fandoms get hate and which ones skirt by unnoticed, but we’ll get to them later.
Now this is the part where you get mad at me for “being too defensive” and thinking that by saying “x fans are trash” you actually mean “ALL x fans are trash”, even though that’s how language works; without a modifier like “some”, people will naturally assume that you mean “all”. The previously mentioned “Worse Fanbase” poll had this message at the end:
If you react with outrage to a joke tournament about bad fans, you are part of the problem.
No, you shouldn’t necessarily be overjoyed to be considered the “worst” anything. But it doesn’t really help your case to get upset about that.
People in fandoms labeled “toxic” are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t, because people who make polls or rants on “toxic fandoms” ironically resist and discourage pushback and criticism. If people in hated fandoms keep their mouths shut and let other people talk trash, said people will continue talking trash with nobody to challenge them. If they defend themselves, they are perceived as adding to the noise and “proving the point”. It’s like when feminists say “men who say “not all men” when we’re discussing problems that affect women show that they’re a part of said problems, because they wouldn’t be getting defensive if it had nothing to do with them”. That’s a nice Kafka Trap you’ve planted, but people *do* have feelings and don’t take kindly to being unfairly maligned.
Also, if you think that nobody was looking at this as an actual, serious opportunity to air their grievances with fandoms, please take a closer look at the actual responses you included in your report.
I get that it’s important to call out people who are being unnecessarily hostile, but would it kill you to focus on the individuals that you hate instead of dragging the whole community into your “criticism”? Why is it so hard for people to say “the people in this conversation who were being total jerks need to get their acts together” instead of “Pokémon fans, am I right?” or “Reddit, am I right?”. Nothing about a fandom or a website is inherently contusive to toxicity.
Now you might be thinking, “wait a minute. If the common narrative is that fandoms are bad, what good does this article do if it’s just saying “nuh-uh!!” to the other side’s “yuh-huh!!”?”. Well, the answer is that I break down common arguments with reasoned analysis, as well as lots of sources. I search for all the information I could ever want to tap into, and store it in a Word document. I am a dragon and my hoard of choice is weblinks.
The funny thing about people who rant about how “toxic” fandom culture is is that they are most likely part of a fandom themselves. If you like something, you are, by definition, in said fandom.
“Well, ACTUALLY, Left-Hook, the word ‘fandom’ is short for ‘fanatic domain’, and I am no FANATIC. I’m NORMAL.”
Oh boy, I love our bastardized language!
Yeah, here’s the thing: denotation does not equal connotation. I am fully aware of what comes to people’s minds when they hear the word “fanatic”, but it’s just the long word for “fan”. Fan is short for fanatic, like how rap is an acronym for “rhythm and poetry” but has become its own word. Also, a domain (at least in its scientific capacity) is just a group in the broadest possible sense, accurately capturing how large and diverse fandoms are. Therefore, a fandom is just all the fans of a specific thing.
Your role or level of engagement in a fandom doesn’t determine how much of a fan you are. YouTubers who create videos on shows or games they love probably couldn’t or wouldn’t do so without the help of their fans. People who create fanart want you to share it on social media (just make sure you link to the original artist, of course. It’s the courteous thing to do). The masses are just as important as the creators.
By hating fandoms, you’re also hating on people who have genuinely been helped by finding a sense of community by connecting with like-minded people. The vast majority of people in any given fandom are just having a great time interacting with people over a shared interest. Anybody who says that a fandom “ruined” something for them, from my perspective, made an active decision. It’s a them problem. Fandoms don’t ruin things for you if you find the right people in said fandom to interact with. With bigger fandoms especially, it’s not hard. I get that negativity is stronger than positivity, especially if you let it sit with you for a while. That said, it’s arguably more mature and civilized to recognize that you just got unlucky with the specific crowd of fans you walked into than to generalize the whole fandom as being like those people you had a bad experience with.
On the subject of people who hate fandoms despite being in them (ex. “I like x but I hate the x fandom), does it ever sink in to those people that this can be potentially unhealthy? I know it’s a popular thing on the internet, but homicidal self-deprecation is unhealthy. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to say “I’m one of the good fans”, people calling your fandom toxic will still not accept you. Men who share #menaretrash are made fun of for a reason.
Back to the issue of arguing, another thing used as shorthand for “this fandom sucks” is the presence of shipping. People who hate the practice of shipping characters usually do so either because they view it as a distraction from the series’s actual content, or actions taken in the name of said ships. On its own, though, shipping is morally neutral. If shipping takes up a significant portion of discourse (ex. Voltron, My Hero Academia), it’s a sign that people are drawn to the series in question for its characters and their interactions. Likewise, if a fandom is defined by and known for fan theories and speculation (ex. Steven Universe, Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil), the biggest draw of the series is most likely the story and the lore. If a fandom is known for lengthy video essays and analysis (ex. Bojack Horseman), the biggest draw of the series is likely its themes and commentary. If a fandom is largely known for its OCs and fanfiction (ex. Miraculous Ladybug, Harry Potter), the fans probably love the concepts of the fictional world the series takes place in. I get what people mean by “don’t judge something by its fandom”, but if you pay attention then you actually CAN tell something about a product by where people’s attention turns to.
Literally the only person whose opinion I’ve seen shift on the subject of the existence of toxic fandoms is animation YouTuber Veridis Joe. He had an old video called “Don’t let terrible fandoms ruin shows for you” or something like that ( I can’t find it, it’s possible he took it down). But then, a year or so later, he dares to break the mold:
But since he’s not as popular as The Sin Squad or Nux Taxu his opinion doesn’t count I guess /s.
If nothing I’ve said so far has convinced you that fandoms aren’t toxic, and that referring to them as such can have a negative affect on people who have done nothing wrong, then consider the following: if you’ve been to a public elementary school, you’ve probably experienced a situation where the teacher yells at and punishes the whole class (by, say, deducting recess time) because a couple kids in the back of the room were acting up. If you’ve ever been in this situation, remember how you felt. It was probably frustrating and upsetting, because you weren’t the one acting up and yet you were seen as being just as guilty. The expectation was probably that if you really wanted to avoid punishment then you would convince your classmates to behave themselves, but the teacher overestimated how much control you had over your peers. Don’t do that to somebody else, especially in the context of the Internet where anonymity is the default setting.
But what about those who use their anonymity to harass people off the Internet over different opinions? What about the aforementioned Steven Universe fan who was driven to suicide over a drawing? What about the information in that document that turned the Smash Bros community upside down that fateful July? Am I really going to ignore all those tragedies and pretend that nothing seriously wrong ever happens in fandoms, that everything is always fine?
Yeah, you wish. Again, the Kafka Trap people have turned “Not All x” into has some superficial appeal, but you’ll find that I am four parallel universes ahead of you, as it were.
That’s right, I’m not ignoring those stories, or the people within them.
I’m saving all that… for part two! Stay tuned!
*If you could, please share this article in particular with as many “pop culture” oriented YouTubers and content creators as possible, especially if I mentioned them in this article. I’d love to hear them respond, and see if they can’t change my mind.
Also, subscribe to Veridis Joe on YouTube. I’d especially love if you guys shared this with him, since he played a large part in inspiring me to write this. Can you imagine if he made a video that was him reading this article? That would be amazing.*
