*whimpers*

[inteligrrl]

I hate fandom. I hate fandom. I HATE fandom.

Why is it that online people feel free to say the most cruel awful spiteful things, things that no one should be allowed to say?

Yet again my some of my favorite fandom people are yelling at each other (I'm sure neither of them read my live journal, so most of you can stop worrying) and I just don't like it. They're both lovely talented people, who happen to rub each other the wrong way entirely. I couldn't bring myself to take sides, but I'd love to hug the one and clam down the other as it just hurts to see it.

At times I soooo want to ask "why can't we all just get along?" to the fandom at large.

Especially the talented people. In my (admittedly humble) observation the people with talent, true visible talent have a tendency to be a bit... prima dona-y. I'm not judging them for it, but I do know when and how to work around it, and if they've done a great job on something and want an ego stroke who am I to deny them? Like most people, if you're sweet to them they're sweet to you, which is probably why the people that do know me don't usually have a problem with me. But the true talents seem to feel they've got something to loose if they back down in a debate, so both go head to head and at the end develop bitter enmity, when they would have been fine had they both just agreed to disagree.

In other words, behaved like adults.

Despite, and occasionally because of these childish tendencies I still like and respect them, so it bothers me to see the absolute hatred that often ensues. I just don't like to see people be that mean.

I don't suppose it'd be possible to institute the policy angeleledhwen and I came up with? If you must write something that expresses your dislike of someone/thing, write it as if you were sending it through their mother. Keep it nice enough that she wouldn't feel the need to set up a meeting with your mother to have it worked out. In other words, could we act as if the people we know are real people rather than this faceless embodiment of everything you dislike?

Please, be nice? Or just don't yell so much in public? Fitting as it is for this particular fandom, I'd rather not feel like hiding in a cupboard when I see your posts.

Comments

[khirsah.livejournal.com]

I'm not even going to try to guess who, but I completely understand. Of course, it doesn't help that *I* am a prima donna with a short fuse, so I tend to react when other people are rude.
:( it's such a sucky circle, and I'm so sorry you have to sit through it. You're far too cool to be upset by all of this, whatever it is.

I'll support the filtering of mean comments :)

[jessindistress.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure you're talking about the same two people I read this morning and went WTF! about.

I couldn't bring myself to take sides, but I'd love to hug the one and clam down the other as it just hurts to see it.
That's totally how I felt when I saw it, too, D00d.

This too:
Despite, and occasionally because of these childish tendencies I still like and respect them, so it bothers me to see the absolute hatred that often ensues. I just don't like to see people be that mean.

I don't have any words of wisdom to offer, I just totally, totally know where you're at- and feel the same way.

~Jess

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

you know, choosing to be nice is an actual *choice*. it's not easy to be nice. that's why the fandom is full of mean people. it takes patience and courage and a willingness to be misunderstood, because, haha, people will line up to believe all kinds of things about you--they'll believe anything other than that you sincerely want to be *that* nice. when the truth is that you have just as much potential to be mean as anybody else. it's how you choose to give in to that potential that sets you apart from all the people who routinely flame, mock, and/or belittle others.

and there comes a time when, no matter how nice you are, no matter how much good you try to bring to the fandom, when you have to say what you feel in order to continue having any amount of self-respect. After you've chosen to be nice, and air your issues civilly or not at all, for months and months and months in the face of someone who is continually offensive, and finally seen that they have *no* intention of respecting you when all you want to do is be left alone and ignored the way you have tried to ignore them; when they continue to mock, deride, disrespect and belittle you and your friends, and the things you care about...

well, when you've reached that point, you really don't care about judgments. You have to say what you have to say, and say it for yourself, in hopes that now you've made the offending person realize a few things, and, maybe because you need to show yourself that yes, you can be just as nasty and bitchy and mean as the rest of the people around you who are nasty and bitchy and mean on a regular basis. but you *don't* because you aren't like that. and if one absolutely sincere outburst can cause an end to months of private seething and holding your tongue because you're determined to be one of the people in this fandom who is consistently nice to everybody, then it's worth it.

and now you can return to the business of being sincerely nice to the rest of the fandom, with the knowledge that it's a choice, and that every day you make that choice makes you a better person, especially *after* you've gotten the worst out of your system.