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Challenge #12
Make an appreciation post to those who enhance your fandom life. Appreciate them in bullet points, prose, poetry, a moodboard, a song... whatever moves you!
i havent done the past couple challenges bc isimply dont want to 🧡 so welcome back snowflake, hiiii
my appreciation..... is for...... :-) older fandom friends specifically.
it's weird how there's a generational divide, huh?! it's inevitable because that's how age works, but it's interesting.
i've been in fandom spaces since i was a wee baby. i mean, like, 12. before then, i didn't understand how fandom worked lol.
but my old tumblr had me following people a couple years older than me (i was a 12.9 year old, sorry </3) .. which happened to cross that generational divide.
so i "grew up" among the people who said shit like ASDFGHJKL; MY OVARIES ARE EXPLODING IM A HIDDLESTONER XD ............LMAO
me, not being into marvel, or men; Omg me tooo my ovariessss 💁♀️ anyway im going to go be into minecraft and homestuck 🚶
that's just backstory, though. the thing is, it's weird... because of that generational divide, the "fandom olds" and the newgen who grew up on social justice tumblr, who moved to twitter after the porn ban, stuff like that...
i think there are definitely a lot of people my age and younger who react to the older fans with genuine hostility. which, maybe that's just normal, too. maybe it's very "UGH MOM I DON'T CARE" lmaooo.
(of course it's still not nice, or fair. i think a lot of it crosses over into genuine harassment and harm...)
but i could never fully buy into it, because i was used to the culture of "don't like don't read", you know... i learned a lot of stuff from my older friends back then!
in fandom and in real life!! especially real life. older friends taught me a lot about tolerating things.. and also, a lot of sex ed, which is nice LOL
(i'm talking about tumblr posts, no hands on experience LOL i just got a lot of good info from tumblr!)
and when fandom drama got very, very hostile... i largely lost contact with my older friends over the years, but i always had a few stragglers who kept me grounded in the "hey, this discourse is insane and irrational. you're not a bad person for Enjoying Conflict In Stories" 😭...
or whatever weird moral obsession i was struggling with at the time...
when i think about people who have made my fandom spaces better, honestly, it's those in their thirties and forties who are like. Normal. LOL
or normal as compared to whatever scary shit is happening on tiktok, for example
i mean... that's just aging. that's culture, you know? it changes and you mature and realize shit has never been that serious...
but changing and growing is scary when you don't have anyone to have your back...
incidentally i know there's a lot of people who feel some sort of insecurity about their age..
i'm only 26 (isn't it crazy to say that?! "only", i'm an adult!! LOL but compared to the demographic of dreamwidth, it *is* 'only'!) so maybe my words don't have a lot of weight, but like,
i think the whole anxiety about being 30... well, i think your 30s should kick ass. like. that really feels like the Cool Age to me.
i've had friends who felt anxious about being in fandom spaces at all because she feels too old, like it's creepy to be into stuff at that age..
it's simply not fair. you're still a person, you know?! you still have interests!!
i wonder how much of it is the misogynistic sort of "you should be a wife and mother and nothing else" mindset. probably a lot lol
but i don't think there's anything worth being anxious about... i mean, maybe you won't feel as great on twitter but,
fuck twitter ok no one should be on twitter 🫶 LOL
weird weird post musing on age. i hope i made some sort of sense?!
i just appreciate those in their 30s and 40s and upwards who never left fandom spaces...
thank you for being here!! please continue being here!!!
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Also you made a lot of sense! I had the same experience as a kid getting into fandom, being surrounded by people who were older than me and learning stuff from them, and it was great. I get why people are more "minors DNI!!!" and vice versa these days, but it's like...intergenerational friendships are good, actually! Talking to older people is good for you! (If nothing else, they have all the cool life tips, like how to replace your car headlights without having to call your dad or how to set up an RSS feed or how to deal with the canned soup you just burned to a crisp. I mean there's other things too, but also that.)
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thats what im sayingggg like everyone i know in their early 20s is miserable because it's terrifying and everyone i know in their mid/late 20s is miserable because they feel like theyve wasted their entire life and it's all downhill from here. and then when they turn thirty theyre like. Oh wait im fine lol (i mean, im sure it's all still terrifying, but you've been scared for so long that you're used to being scared so you're more stable 😭) but i'm me so im gonna be waiting until im 45 and then ill be like "omg dhurkedatz reference" and then get put down like a dog
i def...like.................... minors dni is very... well i'm sort of minors dni. i don't say it outright anywhere (bc i don't have a lot of followers anywhere lol) but kids are. a lot. they were always a lot but now they're obnoxiously a lot. so i don't begrudge anyone for setting that boundary. but i know from the reverse side there's people who say "if you call yourself a fandom old, you're a threat to children (srs)" and its like. ok. you're insane. 😭 truly i hope it comes back around, in the sense that ppl will start valuing intergenerational friendships again, like the pendulum swings the other way... the amount of times i had to jump into my friends dms like HOW DO I RESUME proves these relationships are invaluable LOL
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Yeah, kids are A Lot. I don't have a minors DNI (actually I don't have a DNI. I figure if people look at my stuff and don't like it that's their problem), I just label my things as 18+ as needed and let people self-filter, but I do get why people set that boundary. But I really do hope it comes back around! Can't have community if you're not willing to talk to anybody who isn't Your Exact Age. (And it goes both ways LOL. I had to get the kids at church to explain 6-7 to me, because I am Very Online but I'm not that kind of Very Online.)
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I love my fandom olds (it has been twenty years here for me, so I think I might be one now?), and I also think you're never too old for fandom. I have no urge to put aside the things I enjoyed in my teens and my twenties because... I'm still me, with a few more aches and a few more wrinkles and a few more years under my belt. But I still like the same kinda stuff as past me did, and past me liked fandom a lot.
Funnily enough, present me feels the same way, and I have high hopes for future me!
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i wonder how much of it is the misogynistic sort of "you should be a wife and mother and nothing else" mindset. probably a lot lol
True! But then I think about how male nerds/geeks were stereotyped for decades (and probably still are) as loser virgins living in Mom's basement... so I kinda feel the sentiment of "you should be doing Culturally Approved Activities" swings both ways and everyone with even a modicum of childlike whimsy and joy gets punished for like... having hobbies and enjoying things. We just see a disproportionate amount of that aimed at women because online fandom spaces are predominately female.
Re: intergenerational friendships, I remember being 12-13 and having older online friends/people I chatted with. Back then I think most people online were at least 18+ 😆 but it's funny how us youngins would pretend to be older or fudge our ages a bit, either because we intrinsically knew it was an adult space, or just to be taken a bit more seriously. Where now it's like... the opposite lmao 😭
Anyway, good post lol