My fellow fandom grown-ups: what the hell has happened to the kids?

[eye_of_a_cat]

The pictures below are just some of the comments I’ve received on fanfic, all for the same fandom (Rings of Power). Going to warn ahead of time for suicide-baiting language and general… weirdness? I don’t even know how to describe it.

Not that we didn’t have stupid ship wars and ridiculous behaviour back in my day, but I don’t remember THIS kind of nonsense. Some of these were left anonymously, some on what I’m guessing are sockpuppet accounts when I’ve had anon comments switched off. (Reported to AO3 for harassment obviously, but AO3 takes a while.)

While I don’t obviously have 100% proof of who these people are, I’m like 99% sure it’s all from the same crowd of younger Rings of Power fans on Twitter (hence the ‘Tolkientwt’ comment. They are young, but by ‘young’ I mean they’re in their early- to mid-20s - they’re not twelve. I am not sure where they have picked up that this is the way we behave in fandom but dear lord. What happened?

(Not that it matters at ALL in terms of how acceptable this kind of behaviour is, but my fic in that fandom is quite popular on AO3 and is stupidly and ridiculously Tolkien-detailed because I love that stuff, which… I think is part of their issue.)

Comments

[rmc28]

wowwwwww

especially the first one "Imma come be nasty to you about ... mentioning people are nasty to you"

good grief, this is a lot of people who should learn to .... stop reading ships and authors that annoy them

[eye_of_a_cat]

It is so STRANGE.

[selenak]

Good lord. First of all, I'm sorry you get that kind of nonsense inflicted on you. Secondly, I suspect it's the result of the unholy combination of ye olde shipping war instincts (that happened back in "our" day, too) with current day "calling out" behaviour honed by social media in the way it just wasn't back then. Well, that's my theory.

[eye_of_a_cat]

Yes, I think that’s it exactly. A very unpleasant (but clearly very appealing) combination.

[the_siobhan]

What bizarre behaviour.

[eye_of_a_cat]

Isn’t it? And there’s another dozen or so of these comments as well, and others on other people’s work. So much effort that could be put into reading or writing something they actually like!

[spiffikins]

I do not understand? If you don't like a pairing or a particular slant on a fandom...don't read it? NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO READ ANYTHING???

People suck! I haven't been in fandom for a LONNNG time - but back when I was reading fanfic - I don't recall ever seeing these kind of nasty comments? People would give feedback - good and not so good - but I never saw this crap.

mutter mutter IN MY DAY mutter mutter KIDS THESE DAYS mutter mutter OMG I'M SO OLD :)

[eye_of_a_cat]

Yeah, exactly - I remember nastiness but this kind of nastiness definitely feels new.

[matsushima]

There's an academic I follow on Twitter (SamAburime) who's whole thing is documenting what's wrong with kids these days and even published a peer-reviewed academic article about it. It's part of an ongoing fandom purity war, seemingly waged 99% by Gen Z-ers; a disabled professional artist recently lost their job (and with it, their health insurance) over some NSFW Invader Zim fanart and is, from what I can put together (as someone vaguely aware of the situation from the outside), making end-of-life preparations because of it. A lot of this goes back to (of all things) Voltron (2016) fandom and Kylo/Rey 'shipping. It's wild and it's dangerous.

It's really scary that the kids these days are so reactionary and conservative in their worldview and even weirder because they think they're being progressive.

[eye_of_a_cat]

This is both fascinating and deeply depressing.

It's really scary that the kids these days are so reactionary and conservative in their worldview and even weirder because they think they're being progressive.

Yes!

[matsushima]

I'm not really active in fandom but I've seen a couple of my fandom-y friends get dragged into this (like, swarms of teenagers telling them to "d*e" or whatever) and I was just like what the fuck? I mean, yeah, I remember 'ship wars but I don't think that was about who was more "morally pure"? Maybe it was about which 'ship was more likely to become canon but not because the people who 'shipped the other 'ships were "degenerates"*?

*the fact that these ~progressive children use actual Nazi phrasing is, uh… worrying!