fandomania | One last look

I know, by now, everyone must be sick to death of the goings on amongst the Supernatural fan community. And the questions of character bashing, writer bashing and other fan bashing: Of wincest vs. non wincest. Of how and why and what is the right way to withdraw from a community that is no longer meeting your needs. Of whether each of us have the right to feel and express the way we feel, and whether that feeling should be expressed in an open forum or if it is more appropriate to express those feelings in our personal journals. Parts of this post are from a response to a comment on my personal journal, but I honestly felt that the feelings that I am having would be most appropriately expressed in a public forum.

I’m sure not everyone is aware of what happened so I will make an attempt to not mention the names involved, but still get my feelings across and give everyone a basic background of the situation as I see it. This is all personal opinion. A friend of mine withdrew from a community that was not meeting her needs any more and posted that in her personal journal. Shortly after that a post was made in the community that she had left, calling ‘a person who had left the community because of wincest’ a hypocrite. How posting in ones personal journal makes on a hypocrite I don’t know, but that’s not really the point. Madness ensued. Names were called. Things got pretty inappropriate pretty fast. It felt like, to me, hundreds of people trying to shout down anyone who said they were bothered by incestuous relations, with the cry of “I should be allowed to write, read and view what I want”. I never saw anyone say “You shouldn’t write/ read/ view wincest” but honestly I did not read every response, in fact I read very few. What really really got to me is that this person has always defended everyone’s rights to say whatever they want, even if she doesn’t like/ doesn’t agree/ won’t read or view it. People were reacting without taking that into consideration. Everybody knows she's not into Wincest so her leaving that community shouldn't have surprised anyone.

I've never been the moderator of a l/j community but I would hope that I would have been able to handle a conflict in my community better than this one was handled. The post was up and open for a few days, even after people began a concerted attack against another member of the community who was trying to defend the person who had left the community. A moderator has responsibilities to all members of a community, not just the ones they agree with. I had to referee any number of fights when I ran a Harry Potter forum site, and I never let them drag on so long - I know people can get hot about fandom, I get it. We are passionate as a species and in this time in history, where, honestly, we are more isolated then any time before, we look for community in fandom (or sports or whatever). The Supernatural fandom is like a small town (vs. say Harry Potter or Star Trek, both large cities in the fandom world) and I think everything that happens is felt very deeply. Simple disagreements become huge arguments that leave everyone, the whole fandom shaken and hurt.

The past few weeks have left me feeling almost like I am living in Salem Town or Salem Village in colonel times, the witch trials are going on and I'm thinking "Alright, how did 'we should pay our Minster the back pay we owe him' and 'I would like my wife to get my property after I die' turn into this?"

What happened in the community and in peoples personal journals was a bit like Giles Cory being pressed to death for saying the whole witch trial thing was crap.