#tumblr users (i am not immune) are insane and stupid sometimes. anyway | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thank-your-lucky-stars · 7 years

Text

I’m about to post a mammoth essay about the Roles of Fandom, but just to prove that I’m not a total hypocrite who isn’t immune to the Fandom Game, I’m going to tell you the roles that I myself have played in fandoms over the years - and trust me, some of this is really ugly!!

I can actually say I’ve fit into several of the Roles I list in my post, at one time or another. I have been the Popular Blog (the nicer-version, I hope!), but I’ve also been a bit of a Troublemaker too (not in an extreme way, and only from time to time; I have definitely said slightly provocative things about a certain band or band member who I believed to be problematic in order to stir up a little debate. It was never about hurting or offending people personally, but it was definitely in order to get people talking.) I have been a “I’m Just Here to have a Good Time” blog, but I’ve never really been a Fence Sitter, although I guess there have been times where I may have dabbled in that area. I also tried to be The Peacekeeper, but....that never really worked out for me, that was definitely a forced role and not something I slipped into naturally, even though I am someone who strives for peace, that specifics of that role definitely wasn’t for me.

I have, however, been a Mean Girl. I wasn’t actually mean to anyone, but I was a part of a group that could be rather unpleasant (they weren’t like hardcore Mean Girls, but they had a vibe and could be cold and bitchy, although as far as I’m aware and can remember, they were never openly nasty to anyone (that I know of?), not like the more extreme level of Mean Girls) however, they could behave in ways that weren’t cool and even though I was never really a part of that aspect, being friends with them certainly didn’t make me innocent. Who you associate with speaks volumes, and if people judged me for who I was mates with at that time then I do not blame them for that, because by being friends with these people - being a part of their gang - I was enabling some of the more unpleasant aspects of the group, even if I didn’t agree with them.

They were a clique, they had an edge, and I was kinda fascinated by it, which is why I somehow managed to get involved. It was very much a game to me from the start, it just took me a while to realise it. It was a toxic and manipulative environment, even after we left the forum where we met (this was long before the days of tumblr), and confined ourselves to an AIM chat. We literally named ourselves ‘The World’s Most Hated AIM Group’. It actually got worse then. The in-fighting and the power-playing and manipulation was gross, and I definitely played my part in that.

With a few of the girls in particular, it was sort of a fight to be the alpha-female of the group. It was feisty and filled with drama. I literally barely saw it as something that was real, it all seemed completely fake, like it was just all pretend - a game of make believe, if you will - because it was all so extreme and ridiculous and dramatic. These were mostly American girls, and they knew drama like no other. I wanted these people to be my friends because I kinda found it all entertaining, and incidentally I became closest to the worst one of the lot - she was the Queen Bitch™ for sure, a really nasty, manipulative girl. I didn’t trust my instincts. I went along with it because I was 18 and I was bored and I didn’t have many friends in my real life so I just thought it would be fun to be a part of something, even if it was a part of something with a bunch of people I barely even liked (one or two of them were alright actually).

I was actually already popular within that fandom (the MCR fandom) at that point (2007) and had been for over a year, but things had gotten a little stale and I was getting a little bored, which is why I wanted to sort of mix with these people who were as much fascinating as they were awful. It was only after I got out of it (after being absolutely ripped to shreds - publicly! - by the Queen Bitch - the one I had a rather bizarre relationship with) that I realised just how fucked up it all was, just how fucked up I had been to view something that ended up being so damaging to me as being a game. I mean, it was a game, but it certainly wasn’t a fun one.

I definitely had people distance themselves from me during the time I associated with those girls. My other fandom friends would say “that [Queen Bitch] can be so horrible” and I’d be like “yeah, I know.” Yet I’d still talk to her every single night. That made me fake, I didn’t pay attention to how it made other people feel by mixing with these people, and looking back that was 100% my bad. As a result of this, I am definitely somebody who judges people by the company they keep; be it in fandom, or in the real world. People were right to judge me or turn their backs on me, as I was enabling these people by “hanging out with them”, even though I knew they were shitty. My loyalty lied in the wrong place. I should’ve turned my back but I was ignorant at best and fucking stupid at worst. On some levels you could say I knew what I was doing, but I was a pretty messed up kid at the time and the biggest thing I learnt from that period was that I just desperately wanted difficult people to love me.

I only realised this a couple of years ago actually. I used to see someone edgy, popular, cool, stand-offish, and I’d make it my mission to “break” them, to make them care about me, when it seemed like they literally didn’t really care about anyone else. That’s what I did with the Queen Bitch. I wanted to be close to her because she appeared untouchable, because she wasn’t generally nice to people, and I wanted to be the exception. I suppose I wanted to make her not as much of a bitch anymore, I wanted to “fix” (ugh) her and make her nicer. And I said all the right things, things I didn’t mean, until I got her calling me her “best friend”. And when that wasn’t enough, I went even further. There’s stuff I won’t talk about, that I’ve never really spoken about, but it was so so messed up and while it taught me so much about myself and about other people and about fandom, it’s also something I’m pretty ashamed of to be honest.

But this was something that sort of went outside of fandom. Like I said, we eventually were banned left the forum where we met/were based, the most popular forum in the MCR fandom from 2005-2007, so it sort of went beyond fandom politics by the end. But that’s how we got there in the first place. There were power games at play right from the start.

I completely changed after that. I literally changed my hair and my wardrobe and made a new start for myself. That’s how much it affected me. I mean, I grew up, really, and that was the final kick up the bum that made me take steps to being more of the person I wanted to be. I’ve never mixed with shitty people since then. This was 10 whole years ago, so naturally people start to grow in their late teens/early 20s anyway, but I definitely count that period - about 6 months or so, I reckon - as a significant one in my young life.

And fandom led me to that??? The MCR fandom was absolutely wild from 2005-2007. The Black Parade era was insane. We just got so, so huge. Our forum had like 200,000 members or something. There were official monthly awards where everyone would vote in multiple categories; best writer, most helpful user, funniest member etc etc. - I won Best Writer about 4 months in a row, as I wrote a really successful fic. After that I used to win Most Helpful User, as I was a total nerd and knew everything there was to know, to the point where people called me Yoda. I lost that title once I joined the Mean Girls. These 200,000 members didn’t vote for me as much anymore.

So I’ve honestly had a taste of it all? I was at the top and I sort of sacrificed it because I got bored and wanted to spice things up by hanging with total bitches.

And it was years before I joined a fandom again, the Mnkees fandom in 2012, an already well established fandom with 2 or 3 very significant/popular blogs. I was there for the longest of any of my fandoms to be honest, before it sort of went to shit last year due to trolling.

And my most recent fandom, the ED fandom, I wasn’t really a full-on, active member for long enough to really find myself in an established role.

But like....I have definitely seen things from a lot of different perspectives, and I’m able to finish writing my essay about all the general roles within fandom a year after I initially started it, because I’m not currently in a fandom so I can sort of look at things from a neutral point of view and not be influenced by any current goings-on.

But yeah, I just wanted to make it clear that I’m definitely unbiased when it comes to certain fandom behaviour as I myself have done some questionable shit in the past. I was young when I fucked up the most, and was able to grow, but while I know sometimes some people are sort of beyond getting past certain shit, it is also my belief that everyone has the ability to change and better themselves if their heart is in it.

Anyway I’m going to shut up as I’ve been writing for like two days straight LOL

#mine #personal #this is some messed up shit lmao but there's no point me not being honest #i dont want it to seem like i'm judging everyone else and not judging myself #because trust me i judge myself harder than anyone #it's the only way i was able to write my upcoming post in the first place #by looking at myself and my own thoughts/mentality about certain fandom situations #and then recognising those traits in others #and just chatting to people #getting to know people #seeing the way it all works and the way the cogs turn #i find it so so interesting #watching human nature at play #i love this stuff

5 notes · View notes