Living it up in fandom’s hotel California: On stepping out and coming back

You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

Up until last year and CQL I’d not been active in fandom circles for over five years, and I did not miss it. First things first, I’ve never seen myself as a fan creator of any kind, which is why I was never at home in lj, but found a lot of joy in the reblog culture of tumblr back in the before before times. I had all the typical fan experiences, met people, made friends, built a community. Hell, my current flatmate is a fandom friend from all the way back to 2008 and BBC Merlin days. So, you know, I get it.

But even though I didn’t exactly feel like an interloper in fandom spaces, I didn’t really feel like I *belonged* either. In the same way that you don’t feel you belong to your high-school class, or your undergrad community. I had friends and personal connections that were meaningful and strong but I had those outside fandom too, and it never became a thing that actively influenced my day to day life (my having conversations while reading stuff on my phone aside, funnily enough something that I was later called out on BY a fandom friend so, you know).

And then tumblr fandom fizzled out, I wasn’t reading the right books or watching the right shows and I just, stopped logging in. And then it was five years later and I’d not even thought about fandom and only rarely read a fic or two from tiny book fandoms as the need struck.

And then then CQL. And fandom twitter. That whole mess.

I’m thinking about this today because I’m thinking about media consumption in and outside of fandom. Because surely, if I’m not ACTIVELY on a fandom, or produce fan content then my consumption is my own responsibility. Surely. Surely? And therein lies the rub.

I don’t think my flatmate, for example, would agree.

Does knowing about fandom and the way it operates, how it reads and misreads texts, how it influences and affects people (especially young people) mean that you are always responsible for the fan community of the things you love? Too often these days it feels like there’s only two options: either you’re ignorant of something’s potentially negative effect, or you denounce it for that negative element.

To this day, I do not discuss the fact that I’ve watched Yuuri on Ice, to such a degree that I can’t even remember what I actually thought about the show itself, because it’s been drilled into my head that the fandom was Not It and therefore I should not admit to watching/enjoying the source material. Because of a fandom that I was neither aware of nor a part of, but for whose attitudes and trends, I was held accountable for by virtue of having once been a fandom person.

Sometimes it’s enough to make you want to tear your hair out and yell about fandom is not actually that important, that all-encompassing, that omnipotent. Or, just because it is for some people, it’s not the case for everyone. I dipped my toe in CQL fandom, I was active, engaging, creating content, and it was easily the worst decision of my pandemic year despite how much I got from it in the way of personal relationships and friendships. (then why are you here marita what is the point of this dreamwidth blog? idk man i just don't feel comfortable dropping ten paragraphs of this in someone's DMs and i'm currently living alone)

I don’t know what the point of this post is other than to vent some Concerns and Thoughts but also I do have a bunch of deadlines so I needed to exercise them from my brain.