What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

fandom purity theory

Theory: fandom drama is inversely proportional to the perceived purity of the original media. Purity in this context is measured by a combination of innocent characters, childlike associations and/or a younger intended audience, and how hashtag Representational - in the sense of being elevated as Perfect And Above Criticism because the creators make a genuine, positive effort towards diversity* - the material is. The more “pure” the source material is seen as being, the uglier the fandom debates surrounding it. 

This seeming paradox, I would speculate, exists because any headcanon, interpretation or fan reaction which deviates from the supposedly “pure” intent of the original media is seen as sullying that purity. Pure things get put on pedestals where the very act of critiquing them, even mildly, is seen as debasement by a vocal percentage of fans. This is why, for example, the Check Please, Voltron: Legendary Defender and Steven Universe fandoms turned toxic so quickly: because the original stories and characters were seen as inherently pure for various reasons (compared to something like, say, Supernatural), the act of critiquing them, engaging in adult fanworks about them or discussing the darker, more complex themes that arguably underlay the source material or which are the native speculative fulcrum of AUs was viewed as a corruption of innocence, even if people didn’t explicitly phrase it in those terms to themselves.

This has lead to a weird type of Madonna/Whore dichotomy in how certain fans perceive other fans or fanworks in these contexts: there can be no complexity or ambiguity, as something is either perfect or poisonous - an issue that turns into a cataclysmic spiral of accusations and backbiting when proponents of a particular Madonna position inevitably realise that actually, they aren’t all in perfect agreement with each other about every minute aspect of the canon. This, in turn, is why watching fandom meltdowns is like watching religious communities fracture in microcosm, and why so many people end up agnostic or apostate in the face of fanaticism.


*Note: well-meaning diversity is a factor, not because it’s inherently controversial or troublesome, but because, at this particular moment in time, it’s still such a new and comparatively unusual thing for popular media to incorporate that reactions to such stories tend to evoke powerful fan reactions. If you belong to a marginalised group and are unused to seeing yourself positively portrayed in stories, you might well be fiercely protective of the one character or story you feel does you justice; while conversely, another person of the same marginalisation who dislikes the same portrayal might be fiercely vehement in their critique of it. The real problem here is that, because some groups are still so desperately underrepresented across the board, the few stories addressing those issues and/or identities take on a disproportionate significance to the audience and, as such, are frequently held to higher creative standards than stories which never tried at all. In this context, the expectation that a single story, or even a small number of stories, should somehow be all things to all fans, is not recognised as a literal impossibility, but is rather held up by frustrated individuals as proof that the story has failed, or isn’t really as positively diverse as claimed, because it lacks X element. 

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