Re: The Late Unpleasantness

[sabinelagrande]

So the only good thing about the drama is that everybody is popping up on my flist to share big squishy (I just typed squicky, that would be v. different) declarations of love for each other, and that is excellent.

I love my fandoms. I love my commenters. I love my flist. You guys are what brightens my day. I probably check my flist like every fifteen minutes. And, y'know, I try to respond to every comment I get, but, y'know, I'm in grad school, and sometimes it just doesn't happen. Them's the breaks. And I respond to comments in random, non-chronological order or in increasing order of complexity or two weeks later, and it has nothing to do with anything.

(Except those weird comments you just get some times, like that crazy bitch who reviewed every single piece of my Spike/Faye 30kisses fic, and every single comment had the word "SEXY" in all caps, even when it was like angst and chardeath and gen and shit- but those are significantly less common on LJ than they were back when my standards were low enough to post at ff.net. So like, I reply to all the literate people. But that's like almost everybody.)

I do get sad and upset when I post and don't get a lot of comments- but until very recently, a lot of comments has meant, like, ten. I still get a little frisson from each and every comment notification that winds up in my inbox, even if it's just a smiley face (keep your frowny faces to your damn selves). You don't have to comment- I sure as hell don't, not nearly as much as I should, because I am v. awkward, though I tag and favorite things obsessively- but it's nice, because I totally get off on making people happy. Let me make you happy.

And now, I've made everyone slightly uncomfortable and am never going to get another comment again.

Look, the point is, my motto in life is that fandom is fucking funny, and if fandom's not fun for you, the problem's probably with you and not them. Or hell, maybe your fandom really is a bunch of assholes and you'd be like a billion times better off without them, in which case the problem is- yes- still with you, cause you're the dumbass who cares what strangers on the internet who don't like you think.

You should care what the strangers on the internet who do like you think, because, duh, they like you. Let them like you.

But I think if you're just generally chill and in it for the good times, fandom's pretty all right.

Comments

[shalom]

I always laugh when I see the whining: "Fandom's not FUN anymore!" and I always think, "Then STFU and don't let the door hit you on the way out!"

FOUR PAGES of "I'm leaving!", for goshsakes. I think she could have eked it out another page or two, but the hilarity of that last or so post asking if she was going to finish some other fic shut her up.

[sabinetzin]

Man, if only people would learn not to feed the whining, maybe we would have less of it. But it would also kind of be a sad day in fandom if that happened. It's a trade-off, really.