Being in a tiny fandom is always being stuck between “I wish more people knew about this thing” and “I know exactly what problematic elements of the story and annoying discourse topics are going to consume the fandom if more people find out about this thing”
before this blows up or anything I’d like to clarify: This is not me expressing “Oh no if more people join this fandom I’ll have to think critically about this story and acknowledge that it has flaws.”
This is me expressing, “Oh no, if more people join this fandom there will be enough people for the fandom to develop weird subgroups of people who can’t acknowledge the story’s flaws at all, people who ship gross stuff, people who hate the people who ship gross stuff, people who just hate the story for having flaws, and also any major blogger who belongs to a minority group will be attacked by type #1 until they develop acute emotional fatigue from being in the fandom at all,”
and also “The 3 and a half people who are on tumblr who seem to know about this thing have discussed the flaws and problems this story has at length with me and each other, but we also want to enjoy the story and don’t particularly want to have to recirculate The Discourse on our blogs to prove to a bunch of strangers that we’re enjoying the story critically.”
Published
ifesbob 