Tumblr, I am disappoint (aka How Tumblr May Yet Ruin Twin Peaks For Me)

[amatara]

I've been lucky enough never to have been active in a fandom (or at least not been in contact with that particular part of said fandom) where character hatred and My Ship Versus Your Ship were things to worry about. Not that the phenomenon didn't exist at all in 'my' fandoms, but it was rare enough that you could avoid it by just being moderately cautious which fannish circles to frequent. Part of the reason, I think, is that the fandoms dearest to my heart are small and rare and not very recent, which is a pretty good incentive for fans to stick together. At least that's how it was on LJ and DW, which were my main fannish playgrounds so far.

On tumblr, though... Nope.

So I thought it would be a fun idea to track some tags for fandoms that I like. I've been in a haze of Twin Peaks love for some time, ever since rewatching parts of it when writing my last fanfic, so the twin peaks tag was an obvious choice.

Oh. Oh, dear.

Honestly, I never thought I'd see that kind of hatred of characters, ships, cast members, and so on, or that kind of vitriol directed at fans for expressing certain opinions, about A CULT SHOW THAT'S OVER 20 YEARS DEAD.

Did you know there's a tumblr called laraflynnboyle-liferuiner? Which delivers exactly what the name advertises: collected nastiness about Donna Hayward and actress Lara Flynn Boyle (particularly, how she is allegedly solely responsible for ruining Twin Peaks' second season by veto'ing the Dale/Audrey relationship? Ummm... Yeah, right).

And did you know that there's an Audrey/Cooper shipping war raging, and that it's apparently not done to both like Annie as a character and her relationship with Cooper, and like Audrey as a character and her friendship with Cooper? No, because if you like Annie then you're a moron who doesn't know what decent character building is, and if you like Audrey and Cooper together then you're a shallow shipper bitch who doesn't care about anything but shipping... or at least that's what I gleaned from posts like this one, or this or this.

Seriously, it makes me feel dirty just to read the stuff.

I already unfollowed a few so-called 'fannish' blogs because of this shite.
I'm seriously considering never looking at the twin peaks tag ever again, and just stick to following the small handful of fans who seem to think sharing squee about this show beats pouring vitriol onto it, and who don't let their dislike of certain characters (which is perfectly fine to have, btw) ruin their own and other fans' enjoyment of the show. I might have expected that of a new, shiny fandom, but... Really, tumblr? Really?

(That said, there are definitely fandoms on tumblr that don't have this issue, and that are all about sharing the love - the Babylon 5 fandom being a prime example of that. So it's not that I'm disgusted with fandom on tumblr as a whole. Just... certain bits of it. And I'd like to believe that tumblr having a younger audience than LJ explains it, but I don't really think that's true, and even if it is it's not an excuse.)

Gah, how I miss LJ the way it was a few years ago, when everything was still shiny and happy and active and yay!

Come baaaaack, everyone! Can't we just have a great big squeefest here? I WANTS IT, PRECIOUSSSS... *yearn*

Comments

[selenak]

This is why I'm only making brief and selected trips to tumblr-dom and back. Mind you, shipping wars on lj were and are just as vicious, but also easier to avoid once you figure out which lj-ler is likely to go on a rampage.

[amatara]

Gah, yes, at some level I realize a lot of it is probably just my own perception, in that in my few years on LJ I've never strayed too far from the safe path - I've always had a small flist and been pretty cautious in friending new people. So it's quite possible that LJ, while seeming like a friendly and cordial environment to me now, would no longer do so if I branched out a little further. That said, tumblr still strikes me as being excessively vicious at times. *shudder*

But: Qpid icon makes everything better, yay! *g*

[sanguinity]

Perhaps I'm just not all that tumblr-savvy, but I've never once done a tag-search on tumblr and not regretted it. :-/ Basically, I've decided to let the people I'm linked to moderate tumblr for me.


I'm not sure I get shipping wars. I want good things for Annie, and I want good things for Audrey, and the lovely thing about fandom is that even if their both having good things are mutually inconsistent (pfah! as if their worlds must revolve around Cooper!) fandom is one ginormous Choose Your Own Adventure, and Audrey/Cooper in one story in no way prevents Annie/Cooper in another. What is the freaking point? Read what you want, don't read what you don't want, and recognize that irrespective of the 'ship, a huge number of the stories out there were written for someone else's id, not yours.

[amatara]

I don't get it either. I mean, having a preference for certain characters, sure. Being totally in love with a certain pairing, sure. Not giving a damn thing about a character or pairing - yeah, of course that's okay. I'd be a hypocrite to claim not to have at least some characters I'm not interested in getting more backstory about, either because I dislike them or their story just doesn't resonate with me, or whatever. But I can't for the life of me understand what can be the fun in begrudging others their personal preferences, to the point of calling them idiots for not liking the same things as you. And it's not even that, I mean - I've seen some Dale/Audrey 'shippers (it's the pairing I keep coming back to as an example, just because it gets the most extreme reactions) basically calling anyone who doesn't hate Annie a moron or a traitor, even if those people don't just like Annie but they like Audrey or even Dale/Audrey too. Like you said: what's wrong with liking both? What does one have to do with the other? Admittedly, there are some positive voices as well, and some fans really do try hard to connect the different viewpoints and counter the negativity, but even they get blamed for speaking out sometimes - as in, "Why don't you shut your mouth and let us hate on Annie/Audrey/Donna/Josie in peace" (and of course it's always the ladies, too, with the single exception of James perhaps).

Basically, I've decided to let the people I'm linked to moderate tumblr for me.

That sounds like a very wise principle to stick to! It's mainly how I started out as well, but then I thought: there's a whole world of tagged entries there for me to dive into, what the hell is stopping me!? Well, now I know. I started out just feeling angry about it, but now the whole thing is just depressing the hell out of me.

And now I wish I had an Annie icon. How sad is it that no one has an Annie icon?

(Did you ever get to finish parts of that Annie story you had going, by the way? If so, now would be a perfect time to dust them off and bring them out into the world. ;) )

[sanguinity]

There needs to be an Annie icon. :-)

...well, it took me this long to get over my "Oh, god, it's going to SUCK, I know it sucks," to pull out the draft and read it again.

And now that I have, um, I don't know. I just spent a couple hours cleaning things up -- because it was that rough, that I couldn't just passively re-read it -- and deleting excruciatingly scaffoldy bits. It's only half drafted (depending on what I currently believe about where/how/why the ending should be), and parts of the draft are really, painfully bad. But I still like other bits. Gah. Ultimately, I think I need someone to look at it and speak truth to me.

[amatara]

Not sure if that would work for you, but I could take a look at the draft if you'd like? I'm really curious to see what you've done with it, and I've been looking for ways to tempt myself back into fandom as well - I've been less than productive for some time now, so this would be the perfect incentive for me to get back into Twin Peaks. (As always, no obligation, of course.)

Not an Annie icon, unfortunately, but a jolly Cooper is always fun too, right? :)

[sanguinity]

I'd like that, yes, presuming it works for you: crossover with BTVS, major character death, graphic violence. And I'd like a little time to restructure it, first, if that's all right with you?

[amatara]

Well, it all depends on the kind of feedback you're looking for - for instance, I know little about BTVS except for what I've picked up through fannish osmosis, so I can't be of much help on that count. But if that's okay with you, it's fine for me too; and I don't think I'll have issues with a major character death. As for the graphic violence - well, there are many gradations of 'graphic' and I can't promise all of it would work for me, but I'm generally not too squeamish about violence in fiction (on screen is a different story :) ) so yeah, I'm still game. As for the timing, whenever you send it over is fine for me. Provided, that is, that you don't mind it might take me some time to work though the story and assemble useful and coherent feedback.

I forgot - do you have my email address? If not, I'll PM it to you and you can send the story there whenever works for you.

[heartequals]

Oh god, why did you link to the Twin Peaks Secrets tumblr. I want to fight everyone on that tumblr :|

It's weird to me that Twin Peaks has enough of a fanbase to have ship wars. I guess I just associate the show with the 20+ crowd and associate ship wars with the under-age-16 bracket, but I guess I'm wrong. What ridiculousness. Unimpressed, tumblr fans, unimpressed.

[amatara]

Agh, I'm sorry - I was just so disappointed and pissed off about my favored fandom being so full of fail on tumblr that I just had to share it with someone. And I get what you're saying about how weird it is that Twin Peaks, of all shows, would inspire that kind of nastiness. I wasn't prepared for it at all! But at least there's still good old LJ and DW, right? :) Where TP fans are cool and friendly and don't feel the need to bash each other's heads out.. *sigh*

(Also, speaking of DW, I've been wondering if there's still a chance of continuing the re-watch thingy on the twinpeaks comm? I know I've done a poor job of participating so far, but I really liked the discussion that was going on. And I was all set on watching the next episode too!)

[heartequals]

Late comment, gah. Yes! I followed it for about two days and then had to stop. Some of their opinions aren't even based on the canon! Pay attention people!

I love LJ/DW Peaks fandom. So much happy, so much tolerance.

And, yes, we should! I couldn't keep up or help foster discussion last time around which I felt terribly about -- I was so overwhelmed with school. But now that I'm out, I could at least watch episodes again. We should try! Are Thursdays(ish) still good for you?