i think one of the biggest issues in modern fandom is that despite the abundance of autistic/adhd/audhd fans, a declaration that cringe culture is dead, and the fact that we're all watching the same show, there is large portion of people who participate in fandom as a popularity contest, where the focus shifts off of the main interest and develops almost a secondary hyperfixation with specific creators, blogs, accounts, in a way that at least borders on parasocial.
this is nothing new, but the attitude that springs from it then dictates a specific Way to interact with that fandom, meaning that those who aren't interested in following select clique leaders are outcast and seen as More Cringe because they don't speak or act within acceptable parameters. when people have a platform, there's a pressure to be funny, be entertaining, to produce more Content that your followers WANT to see, the stuff they followed you for. sometimes this leads to plagiarism, ripping off posts from other platforms or lesser known accounts because you feel a compulsion to post ANYTHING for engagement instead of what you WANT to post. speaking from experience here, i am something of a Former YouTuber with a sizeable following, and i've been through it on other social media with several other fandom sideblogs and shit.
different platforms, different friend groups, different subsections – depending on preferred characters, ships, etc. – are inevitably going to be far more insular, and especially long-time fans who are less interested in the general media and more about a selection of specific interests is going to fall into this trap eventually. however, i think social media influences this more now than it did even a few years back, especially on twitter where it's more difficult to find "content" without a well-known account attached.
a while back someone made an always sunny iceberg that had a bunch of shit i had never seen before, despite having personally trawled the waybackmachine and archived a bunch of semi-lost media, running and overhauling the wiki with its decades of collected trivia, and having been on sunnyblr. a lot of it was from the podcast, but the stuff i had no recollection of was obscure ass sunnytwt drama that only involved like. a very small group of individuals. the thing is that these few accounts are minor celebrities in the fandom, and everyone follows them. i myself followed one or two of them when i first got into the fandom because they were posting clips reblogged by non-sunny mutuals. there are a TON of sunny focused accounts on twirter, but only a few that have multi-thousand followings, primarily for this reason. this is essentially your only gateway into the sunny fandom on twitter. here (on tumblr), you can easily look in the tags and curate your followed blogs (or look at the iasip subreddit) but it's a lot harder to find fandom content without that organized space (most people don't specifically tag tweets), instead you have to rely on the few sunny accounts you followed incidentally to deliver you retweets so you can follow more accounts.
so then what happens? you follow more accounts? see a variety of sunny content? follow a tag to see fandom newcomers' posts, art, fics? no, you follow the same 5 accounts you started with and stay in the echo chamber, caught up in drama and taking sides based on your few mutuals' opinions, maybe things get a little too personal and you stay following someone even though you disagree with their posts because you really don't have much of a choice, they can see if you unfollow, and they put posts on your timeline. you make a private account and start quote retweeting them to get out your irritations, a passive aggressive reminder that they're wrong. your other mutual quote retweets someone calling them stupid, and you also decide to tell them how wrong they are, because it's a popularity contest, not an open discussion. there's a Content Draught during the hiatus and people start getting bored. it becomes less and less about the original show, and more about the cliques, the exciting new drama of the day, the actors.
new fans are lost, long-time fans who don't care about all this extra shit are alienated, and it leads to a very odd type of gatekeeping that has these Elevated fans looking down on people for actually wanting to engage with the source media. yes, this includes the fans on reddit who spout quotes. this includes the people who liveblog their first time watching the show. this includes people who care about the show because it's still fresh and exciting and they haven't yet been made to feel that it's something to hide because it's cringey or dated or stupid to take it Too Seriously theorizing and dissecting the Poop and Fart Show.
I am guilty of all of this too, i think for quite a while i've been feeling like i need to defend myself by lashing out at other people because i am extremely sensitive to being made fun of for actually caring about my special interest. but i think that analysis and criticism (within reason) are extremely important facets of fandom and we as a fandom should be trying to encourage that rather than make fun of other fans. i think this is probably the reason for a lot of the issues with fan superiority, gatekeeping, the general awful atmosphere in the fandom. it's easy to complain and make counter content to someone else's post, it's a lot harder to grow the balls to have a proper in-depth lore discussion with them, or better yet, make your own stuff. ive been joking about a fandom-wide rewatch, but i genuinely think we should organize something like that. and i think everyone should set aside the judgement and just enjoy themselves. i'm sick and tired of feeling unwelcome in a fandom that i dedicate a lot of time to because i'm unashamed about enjoying the source media and i suspect a lot of you probably feel the same. you don't need to push everything through an irony filter and self depreciate, you can just like sunny and want to participate in fandom.
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I'm so interested in your Anastasia au! will you tell us more?
yes of course i will! @revalito and i are genuinely so elated that so many people like the au HEHJKSDHJKS i will always want to talk about it trust
i don't know if there was something specific you wanted me to talk about, so i'll just talk about their time in the cloud recesses when they were younger =]
as i said before in my tags, wwx found lwj sitting outside the gentian cottage waiting for his mom and that's how they first met--he brought him a blanket and something warm to drink and offered to sit next to him. after that wwx would find lwj every now and then and hang around a bit but not for long. that does.. imply that his parents died sooner but well. HEJDSJKSD we figured one of the servants was his dad's close friend that agreed to babysit wwx for a while before they died, so now at least wwx has someone that was considered family (and that can tell him about his parents)
wwx didn't actually start working as a servant until he got older and that's when he was really allowed to interact with lwj. silly little comments turned into prompts to speak more and eventually, they'd have "conversations" (lwj would listen, wwx would talk) as wwx did what he had to. one day lwj asked wwx if he would be allowed to be a personal assistant on a quick task he had to do outside of the cloud recesses, and of course that's allowed. and that's the loophole they found to spend more time together =]
lxc knows about lwj's crush. he could read it on him easily HEJKSDJK i'd like to think one time wwx was called in to serve something to them, and as he did he made some comment to lwj. lwj acknowledged him with a small uptick of his lips and lxc was just ⁉️⁉️⁉️ HEHKJDHJKDHDJK he starts making excuses for wwx to go see lwj. the first time he asks a servant to call for wwx bc he needed something delivered to his brother it started a rumor within the servants immediately. this is where the teasing among them began HEHJKSDJKSDK lxc is the main reason why eventually wwx is the main servant/one of the only servants for lwj
wwx starts learning about cultivation in his free time--and we'd like to think the gusulan sect would set aside a teacher for willing servants on their breaks--but he never attends any actual classes. it isn't until they accept guest disciples when they're around 15/16 that he even entertains the idea. he probably makes a side comment to lwj, like "ah, guest disciples… it would have been nice to attend a class or two.." and lwj is immediately like i'm on it. he talks to lqr to attend the classes and ofc here lan qiren doesn't Need lwj to be a good example to wwx like he does in the novel, but we think lqr would still want to show him off HEHJKSJKSD also, lxc is probably like "it would be nice if wangji had more friends =] perhaps if we have wwx in there (someone he is already comfortable with) he would be more willing?" and that seals the deal HEJKSDHJKSD wwx is invited to his classes to be a "personal servant" to keep up appearances, but he is there to learn.
of course some other people there aren't to keen on the idea of having a servant in the class with them, so this time when lqr calls on wwx, it's not to test him, it's to prove his worth. he knows wwx and lwj are friends so in his head, his justification is that disciples are offending wwx -> they're offending lwj -> lwj is his nephew -> they are offending lqr too. ofc. HEHJKDSJKSDK lwj defends wwx in his own ways.
nie huaisang is the first to go up to wwx to chat and they become good friends, and since wwx is friends with lwj, nhs becomes friends with him too. it's a funny dynamic but lwj inwardly thinks it's nice.
thank you sm for asking! <3
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