I HAVE TO SAY…

Below is a slightly edited version of the podcast episode. You can listen to the full episode above, by clicking play, or listening wherever you get your podcasts.

Today, I have to say…fandoms on social media are ruining tv, especially reality tv.

This has been on my mind for a minute, and I have so many thoughts because while I think this it’s a popular opinion, I also think this is a nuanced conversation.

We were supposed to get into this a month or so ago, but the Taylor Frankie Paul video dropped and so naturally, I focused more on the producers’ side and the powers that be in reality tv.

But it’s not just the producers that I have a problem with.

I also have a problem with us, the audience sometimes too. Maybe not all viewers, but there are a subset of people who engage in tv and reality tv who sort of take over the space, becoming the loudest voices and depending on your algorithm will just make the piece of media that originally brought you joy…insufferable?

Let’s talk about. 

Overview of Fandoms

When I say fandom, I’m talking about a collection of people who enjoy a certain piece of media and talk about it and engage with it often.

There’s different levels to people in fandoms:

• There are people who engage with the media and never get tired of talking about it, 
• People who are in online communities dedicated to it, 
• People who create, read, or have read fan fiction based on the media they enjoy, 
• People who do deep dives, analyzing the media, 
• People who come up with theories around the media and the people involved, 
• And people who try to find out everything there is to know about it and the people involved in it.

People’s engagement of the material is fluid. Someone might engage in all these ways or a few of them or one of them.

Fandoms aren’t a new thing and it exists across different forms of media. Some of the most popular fandoms include the Swifties, The Beyhive, and the Barbs.

Fandoms exist in tv shows, movies, and even books too. I would also argue that sports fans are technically in fandoms as quiet as it’s kept. (It’s just that sports are more socially acceptable and stereotypically considered something men like, so being a sports fan isn’t looked down on in the same way that fandoms of tv shows, like reality tv, is, even if their behavior is just as bad).

My brother, who reads over my episodes sometimes, pointed out that sports fans can also have bad behaviors, destroying property after championship games, booing members of their own team, being disrespectful and racist, and more.

Before recently, I would say that only a subset of fandoms have terrible takes or are disrespectful or lack boundaries and that everyone enjoys things, and while technically that is all still true, something has shifted.

With the state of the world being what it is and people’s comfortability with social media and hiding behind anonymity, people are getting bolder.

With social media algorithms feeding the rage machine and the algorithm trying to keep people attentive to social media, using trigger points, which tends to whatever will make people angry and agitated, people are getting meaner.

With bots, conversations become cyclical and people become defensive. 

With Covid, more people shifted into online spaces looking for community or income and ways to talk about their shared love of a thing.

And with the new generation growing up in a time where the world is more divided and radicalized, everything has become moralized and served as an indictment of people’s character.

Virtue Signaling

Fandoms these days have so much virtue signaling in them.

I don’t want to downplay the importance of media existing in its different forms, because the arts are important. And we also do need to be critical of the media and art that we engage with, especially now when literacy rates are declining in the US, education is underfunded, and propaganda is everywhere.

However, it feels like nowadays some people in online fandoms act as if it’s morally wrong or an indictment on your character if you feel a certain way, especially if your opinion or thoughts goes against the grain. 

If you say something different than what the majority of people say, it can’t just be that you disagree. Something has to be wrong with you or you’re not a true “girls’ girl” and you don’t support women or something along those lines.

If what you say goes against what a person deep in a fandom says, or even just goes against what the popular opinions are, people start making character evaluations about you as if they know you based on a random comment they see online.

And this is where the nuance comes in, because historically fandoms have a side of them that makes racist or misogynistic comments and there are people that are racist and misogynistic. But to be clear, that’s not what I’m talking about because those behaviors should be called out for what they are. 

But for example, The Met Gala was on Monday and people were talking about how they want to support the stars of Heated Rivalry who will be in attendance, but they’re also torn about if they should boycott it because of the Bezos’ involvement in it.

And that I would say is virtue signaling, because as someone on threads pointed out we cannot boycott the Met Gala, because we’re not invited to the Met Gala. And also, if we engage with Amazon in any way, reading from a Kindle, using Kindle Unlimited, buying anything from Amazon, etc. it’s hypocritical and nonsensical to draw the line at supporting two actors who attend the Met Gala which is an event that’s supposed to be for a good cause.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion or be disappointed or feel a way about their or anyone’s attendance; I have my own conflicting feelings about the Met Gala, but I just need us to be serious about what it means for a public figure to be invited to an event like that and to be serious about how are thoughts about it (in this case) won’t change the fact that it is something Anna Wintour will continue to put on until she can’t.

Celebrities are the ones who have to decide to boycott, because they’re the one who are invited. They’re the ones who give it meaning. Whether we talk about the outfits or not doesn’t really matter in hindsight, which makes this whole argument ridiculous.

Ride or Die Behavior Turned Parasocial

The other thing that gets me with fandoms is the ride or die behavior. In certain subsets of every fandom there is this mindset that your faves can do no wrong and the people you hate are ALWAYS in the wrong.

No matter if a person on tv, especially reality tv, is hated or loved, there are people hyper-analyzing their every movement and in a way, I do blame some celebrities who lean into their fandoms’ obsession with trying to connect the dots and uncovering hidden messages, because now people try to do that everywhere with everything.

People read into every little facial expression and every move someone makes and it’s exhausting to see play out from the sidelines. I can’t imagine how the people actually being looked at through a microscope feel because they get it from all sides, both from their diehard supporters and their haters.

Public figure’s diehard supporters hold onto grudges, sometimes more than the person actually being affected, in my opinion, refusing to approach any situation that involves their fave neutrally.

People have lost the ability to understand and accept nuance, stopped being neutral, and stopped being able to hold multiple truths at once, requiring a “side” to be picked.

People refuse to hear out any valid criticisms about their faves, and are quick to jump down the throats of supporters of people they don’t like or who they think their faves don’t like, whether it’s valid or not.

It creates an environment where good faith conversations can’t happen online anymore. And while social media has always lacked nuance and having good faith arguments can be tricky because everyone is automatically on defense when they’re online nowadays, I also think that it wasn’t this bad before. It might’ve been bad, but not this bad.

When talking about tv or movies or music or books or whatever, you could voice your opinion online (whether unpopular or not) without feeling like you’re about to step on a landmine and because everyone is so defensive now, and because there are so many bots, conversations on both sides escalate making it even harder to have a good faith conversation, especially when someone feels the need to victimize their fave, whether it’s justified or not.

And it’s giving parasocial, because at times it really feels like they think they know everything there is to know about their faves, including what they’re thinking at at all times and then they jump to defend them when in reality, until certain things are actually said out of their own mouths, you don’t actually know for sure how they feel about it and it’s just projection.

It’d be less annoying to me if people were speaking from their own perspective about how a situation made them feel, but to act like they know for certainty everything that goes on in this person’s life as if they’re a close personal friend or a family member…it gets strange pretty fast.

Entitlement

And then the parasocial relationship gets turned into entitlement about what fans think they should get from someone, when the truth of the matter is that public figures actually don’t have to talk to us at all. Being a public figure is a job and there are actions that come with being a public figure that should be seen as a bonus instead of a requirement.

They don’t have to talk about their personal lives. They don’t have to take pictures or sign autographs or any of that. Anything that they share should be considered a gift, not an expectation because it really is.

The entitlement doesn’t stop there though.

People begin to feel both entitlement and protectiveness about what happens with their fave and even though I know it’s usually with good intentions, I can’t imagine how overwhelming it is to be the person who can mobilize people so quickly and always having to watch what you do and what you say and what you don’t say.

And people also begin to feel entitled to the IP they’re a fan of, demanding that this scene from the source material be included in this way. Demanding things to change or not change and just have no faith in the people creating the adaptation or expanding the world. And to a point, I do get it. We’ve talked about it a little bit before in the IP and Adaptations episode, but there is a line between loving the source material so much and wanting it to be done well and being overbearing about it.

And this comes in levels too, because there are people who are mildly disappointed that something they have loved and that has changed them in some way or form won’t honor the source material. And then there are people who are being racist, or homophobic, or sexist in some way, refusing to accept the changes to race or gender bending even though it doesn’t fundamentally change the plot at all.

And then they hide behind the descriptions in the book when it’s perfectly okay for adaptations to be loose interpretations. It doesn’t always have to be a carbon copy. Like some things, you just have to just get over. Looking at you Michaela haters. 

But…people’s enjoyment and love of a thing or a person somehow makes them believe they have an actual say in situations when they objectively don’t, and they end up going too far and crossing over boundaries.

Bullying

That’s when the bullying starts. If people don’t like the adaptation or the actor’s interpretation, they can’t just say that they hated it or didn’t like it. They have to send a ridiculous amount of hate in multiple comment sections and make things personal. They have to criticize people who did enjoy it and insult people’s intelligence.

It doesn’t even have to be a project based on IP. People bully actors for the actions of their characters as if they are the ones responsible and as if they are actually their characters. 

I just saw an interview recently of Anna Cathcart who plays Kitty in XO Kitty and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before talking about how people talk to her sometimes as if she is her character and she gets to make decisions around her character when Kitty isn’t even hers and it’s actually out of her control. And that she gets it because she’s been Kitty for so long and people associate her with the character, but it can be frustrating because that she doesn’t have the control of her character that people think that she does.

I don’t know of any bullying necessarily Anna has faced, but it made me think about the way that people interact with actors and reality tv stars. And I know that her character, Kitty, gets criticism sometimes because she just…she just be doing whatever…like Kitty is pretty impulsive…

But ScreenRant has an article, I can…I’ll link it here, but it’s about actors who have been bullied for their character’s actions on tv, like Jack Gleeson who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones.

And, if you’ve seen that show you know how awful Joeffery is. Like one of the worst and most unlikeable villains of all time in my opinion, but it shouldn’t get to a point where Jack is bullied for doing his job and giving us such a convincing performance.

And that’s also the case for reality tv stars. Because while newer reality tv stars don’t know what their role is going to be and have adjustments to make, seasoned reality tv stars try to do their job and make reality tv moments while giving the audience what they want. 

Sometimes the things they do are terrible or in poor taste, and sometimes they don’t land well, but either way, of course depending on the situation, I don’t think character assassinations need to happen, whether you hate them or are neutral about them.

And the bullying doesn’t even stop there! People bully anyone whose opinion doesn’t align with theirs or goes against their fave or the grain no matter how big or small the situation is.

You can say you don’t like someone and superfans in the fandom take it as a personal offense. You can say you didn’t like what someone did and superfans will think you’re saying you hate them. Or you can say something different than what the majority of the fandom thinks, and people assume things about you as if one comment shows people who you are.

Example: Heated Rivalry

So…for the most part, I’ve been speaking in generalizations, but I want to give an example of three fandoms that sparked why this even became something that’s been on my mind.

The first one is Heated Rivalry’s fandom. 

A few weeks ago at a book event, people were put off by some things the author of the book, Rachel Reid, and the writer and the producer of the show, Jacob Tierney, said about Hudson, implying the two have racial biases, and since then, those deeper in the fandom have been all over my feed talking about a variety of different things involving the four of them, some of which I understand, some I agree with, and some I think are just going a bit too far.

And look, I enjoy seeing Hudson and Connor thrive in their careers, and I do think that Jacob and Rachel are at the very least tone deaf and ignorant, but I also don’t think it has to be turned into a huge controversy where people demand others to boycott the new season that will be coming out or cancel their preorders or whatever.

I don’t think people should be talking about Hudson as if they know how he feels about the situation, because objectively it’s projection that he even feels offended. There is a world where he doesn’t. 

And that’s not to say that Rachel and Jacob don’t have a pattern of racial insensitivity and unconscious biases or that the situation can’t be triggering for any minority to witness or that it can’t feel like a betrayal coming from people who created something that brings joy and comfort, because I think all of that is valid and true.

But it’s different when a person is explaining how a situation makes them feel versus assuming how it makes Hudson (a stranger to like 99% of us) feel.

And unfortunately, because of how extreme fandoms are becoming, the distinction of centering yourself in some of these conversations versus whoever you feel is being wronged matters.

And this conversation of racism and unconscious bias in fandoms and in tv and in other media projects is bigger than Hudson Williams, so I think centering him is…a mistake because it’s so much bigger than him and it’s not something he exclusively is experiencing (and that’s even if he feels offended).

Example: Marvel 

Another example of extreme fandoms is Marvel, and Marvel fandoms really do cross the line of being racist and sexist, like there are people who are racist and sexist. They don’t like it when a Black person becomes a lead. They don’t like it when a show centers women and will do what they can to tank the project and rank it low before it even has a chance to shine.

And some of that is on the studio itself, for not protecting its actors or standing tall in its choices. And also for sabotaging these shows either with the content they put in the movie or tv shows, the quality of the movie or show, or with the lack of promotion that they give it.

Ironheart kept getting cancelled and uncancelled and cancelled and pushed back. When it was finally due to come out, there was no advertising about it. I knew about it because people online were promoting it, but Disney I don’t think even put out a trailer for it. WonderMan was in a similar boat, with Black people online doing most of the promotion that I’d seen at least.

Captain America Brave New World, was supposed to be ushering Sam Wilson in as Captain America and the movie was called to be boycotted by some because of its inclusion of an Israeli soldier and it got to the point that it ended up having to be rewritten and reshot which made the movie felt rushed and incomplete because they didn’t do enough rewriting and structuring of the plot and for whatever reason wanted to include the character.

But also the movie was spoiled in the trailers and quickly became a Hulk movie instead of a Captain America one. We didn’t get to see much of Sam Wilson. And now, with Avengers Doomsday coming out, Steve Rogers is coming back, and although to what capacity is unclear, it’s still a slap in the face to Sam Wilson and Anthony Mackie because they didn’t really give us a chance to explore who Captain America is and could be as a Black man living in that world. 

The world building and the material is there and it’s something I would still be interested in exploring. But of course, there are people out there who want to keep Marvel white.

Well, keep Marvel white and male dominated. People reacted similarly to SheHulk, Miss Marvel, and The Marvels, shitting on the shows and the movie before they even saw it. All three of them didn’t deserve the vitriol they got, especially in comparison to other Marvel projects that exist and are objectively and famously bad. 

But because those three were women led and a certain part of the fandom couldn’t have that, and because Disney didn’t do enough to shut those people down, here we are…with three projects that don’t get the recognition they deserve.

Example: Love Island USA / Beyond The Villa

But the show where people’s fandoms have really gotten on my nerves lately is Love Island USA and by proxy the spinoff Beyond the Villa.

Beyond The Villa is airing now, ahead of the Love Island USA release date happening in June I think. Love Island USA became such a big show a few years ago when Serena and Kordell invented cinema with the dock scene.

So last year, Love Island brought in more eyes than it normally does, which meant more people commenting and talking about it online, which meant more people were establishing who their favorites were and establishing people they hated.

And it just made the viewing experience so unbearable and annoying to watch….

Because the Love Island USA fandom likes to virtue signal a lot and people like to immoralize every action, instead of just view this as entertainment. And again, it’s okay to be critical about things and people, but there is a line between being critical and being a bully. 

Sometimes, people’s opinions are right and they do get it right, like with Huda, but I still don’t think the way people behaved and talked about the people on the show was warranted. And some of it again is because of racism. 

And It also feels like people forget that reality tv is dramatized and edited. We see whatever narratives producers and showrunners want to push, and though I’m sure a lot of it is accurate in some way, there are times when context is missing and they can’t talk about it because of their NDAs.

Reality tv is tv at the end of the day, and there are arcs and characterizations and storylines that those behind the scenes are trying to tell and they may have to subtly influence others to fall in line to tell it.

Now people are acting shocked about how some of the people on Beyond the Villa are acting, when I’m 100% certain they’ve always been like that, and we just didn’t see it on the edit or were distracted by what the edit showed.

And maybe I’m just a little salty, because I’ve been saying that Jeremiah who’s been on the recent season was just playing into what he felt like his supporters wanted, and I was reminding people it’s dangerous to make big character evaluations and diagnoses for people based on an edited tv show in a heightened environment that airs for one season. It is a little different when it’s been like two or three or more seasons of the same behavior because that demonstrates a pattern over time…

But because I said that I was accused of being a Huda defender because my opinions went against what was popular at the time, when in different posts or sometimes in the same breath I would emphasize I did not care for her as a person either and that clearly wasn’t a good environment for her to be in. I just wasn’t tearing her down in the same way that other people were and pointing out how I thought Jeremiah was shady.

And the crazy thing is that now people are starting to say the same thing about Jeremiah that I was.

And even now, people are going in on Hannah and Iris and while I don’t even like them and admittedly never did when their season aired, and I think they are dragging this situation, when in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t matter to us, as viewers. It shouldn’t matter this much as it is who’s right and who’s wrong. I don’t know why it’s become such this big thing when, on reality tv, people are always arguing about “he said, she said” even when sometimes one person is clearly more right than the other …

So, I just don’t know why it’s become such a big deal from an audience perspective. I think our reaction as an audience is dragging the situation and making it a bigger deal than it has to be and we’re also just…like…feeding into the situation. Like people are saying they’re tired of hearing about it, but won’t stop talking about it and I’m just like, “Stop talking about it then. Stop engaging with it. Let it be irrelevant…”

And on top of that, every show needs a villain. I’m sorry, villains and unlikeable people have famously made reality tv what it is. Everyone says they want to watch people get along, but that’s not true. People don’t want to watch reality tv where people are getting along and going on trips. That’s a lie, because if you did see that, I guarantee you would call it boring.

So, while it is annoying and it would’ve been nice for production to focus on other storylines, because that storyline is the most uninteresting one they have right now, people are so wrapped up in their hate for that specific storyline and doing a bit too much when talking about the cast that they refuse to be entertained by the show.

And I personally, I am very entertained by it.

Why this matters

So, I just think this is an important conversation to have because the way that people talk about these shows and the people involved in them is actually doing more harm than good in my opinion and in some ways, it’s ruining the experience, at least for me.

But how it makes me feel aside, I also think if we continue going on like this and this continues to escalate as time goes on, it will deter people from being on tv or wanting to interact with their supporters. I mean, Beyonce stopped talking to us for a reason. The Met Gala was an exception.

I think I’ve said it, but the earlier seasons of Vanderpump Rules, which was peak reality tv, like on the Mount Rushmore of reality tv shows, those seasons couldn’t exist now and I think it’s part of why in some ways it feels like reality tv has changed or just isn’t the same.

Part of it is because of societal changes since what’s socially acceptable has shifted, but I also think if those seasons aired now for the first time, it would’ve been less well received compared to when it first came out. 

Shit, the early seasons of Jersey Shore wouldn’t be received the same way if it aired now.

And I’m saying that because we’ve become so much more judgmental as an audience. We don’t let people crash out on tv in the same way anymore. We don’t let people show a range of emotions. We want people to be vulnerable but then bash them for their vulnerability. And we’re harder on people on our tv screens than we are on the people in our daily lives.

As I keep saying, it’s nuanced. There are times when people on reality tv take it too far. That should be called out, especially when it becomes a dangerous situation. But I also think it can be difficult to know for sure what you’re watching, until it becomes a pattern of behavior because again, majority of us are not qualified to diagnose people and those who are ethically probably shouldn’t be.

But even more than that, how we act matters because fandoms and die hard supporters are putting these people on pedestals and making it hard for them to be human and make mistakes or misstep or speak their mind. 

We value authenticity, but will never be able to get true authenticity from people because one slip up can get audiences talking, whether they hate them or love them, for better or worse.

And on the flip side, fandoms envision people to be one way and are disappointed or surprised when they find out the person they’ve idolized aren’t who they thought they were at all, which would’ve been a nonissue if they didn’t act like they knew them well in the first place.

And I also think that the way people act online in fandoms just can’t be good for our nervous systems. Everyday people are waiting to be in battle, and that feeling just doesn’t go away the minute you close an app or put down your phone. And this is from the perspective of someone who actually isn’t involved in a project and isn’t a public figure. 

Imagine how it must feel for the person who is actually the public figure watching or knowing at least how their fandom reacts to things. I’m sure some people love it, but I’m also sure people hate it as well, because now they have to tiptoe around everything.

Solutions

I don’t know if my frontal lobe has just developed or if it’s because I’m in more online spaces now dedicated to media and topics that I enjoy discussing, but fandoms on social media feel worse than they did previously and it’s been exhausting…like I’m both excited and dreading the new season of Love Island USA because the way people are acting with this spinoff show…and we have already been introduced to these people??? Obviously, we don’t know them, because it’s an edited tv show, but we’ve seen their behaviors before…

I just…I don’t know…I know people are gonna be ridiculous when we get a new cast…they’re gonna be acting like sharks smelling blood…

The thing is…I do want to be able to talk about my thoughts on the things I like and engage with other people who enjoy it as much as I do online because the people in my life offline don’t have the same interests and niches as me.

And I also talk about some of these things on my blog and on this podcast. It’s becoming a hobby and with all my surgeries, I need a hobby.

So it’s not as easy as just not engaging and I don’t think that should be the solution.

But I do think that we need to stop bullying people whether it’s other people online talking about the show or if it’s people directly involved or starring in the shows and things we are talking about. Sending death threats is never okay. Being in people’s comments that you don’t like, I will never understand it.

There’s a big difference between critiquing something or someone, being critical of it, and being outright disrespectful and rude. 

I know that people say that actors and reality tv stars should know what they sign up for and I get it, but also it’s really not true because the reality of something is different than the idealized version of it, especially because a lot of reality tv stars and actors don’t really talk about what they’re going through in that way. And when they do, we’re not really hearing them.

Like, Beyond The Villa, people have talked about how their mental health has been terrible since they’ve gotten out of the villa and how much hate they’ve all received since being out of the villa. And that’s been the least talked about thing online because people aren’t focused on that. They want to talk about Hannah, and Pepe, and Iris.

People knowing what they sign up isn’t true and it’s also uncompassionate to say. And it’s actually lowkey victim blaming.

Instead of choosing to be a little bit nicer or considerate or acknowledging that you only have parts of a story, which will almost always be the case in an edit, almost always, because there are times when we do get the full story, but you never know and it’s better to proceed with caution. 

But you could even just add a tag, “based on the edit…” blah blah blah. Instead of doing that, people continue to berate people and that’s’ just not okay.

How you talk about people matters, whether you like it or them or not, and that’s a reminder to myself too.

I also think we should stop watching shows and reality tv coming in with the mindset that we hate it. 

And as a hate watcher, I’m not saying not to hate watch exactly…but I mean we should stop watching things with this idea in our heads that it’s going to suck and that it’s not going to live up to what it once was.

At some point, we have to either come into the new season or adaptation or whatever with an open mind or move on from it.

For example, Real Housewives of Atlanta conversations have restarted again because the new season is airing and people are complaining about how Atlanta just isn’t the same as it once was and it’s not good and I’m getting over it ‘cause, let’s be honest.

It’s been like 15 or something years, sorry if that’s off but it’s been a long ass time since Real Housewives of Atlanta first came out. 

Even if it was the same exact cast now as it was back then, it’s never going to be what it once was so you either have to get over it or move on.

Even now, people aren’t happy with this season, but me? I’m enjoying it.

Conclusion

So…yeah…fandoms on social media are ruining tv. There’s so much virtue signaling, so much complaining over nonissues, so much racism and sexism. And still somehow people’s ridiculousness forces valid critiques to get pushed aside. 

Fandoms are bullying people and making the space uncomfortable and embarrassing to be a part of lowkey. 

And it’s sad because fandoms aren’t inherently a bad and there’s no problem with talking positively or negatively about media online, but the problem is when fandoms and their actions and comments escalate and it feels like people are escalating more often than they normally did…

Like…can we just be normal about our love (or hate) of things? Is that too much to ask?

That’s all I got for you today. Thank you for reading!

Next week I’ll be ranking some Anne Hathaway’s hits but of course, stay tuned for any changes.

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