Ship wars

[soc_puppet]

Jeez, ship wars sure have escalated since I stared in fandom. It used to be specific ship versus specific ship, but now it's like... entire categories of ships are at war with the concept of shipping itself. Or is it the other way around?

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

It's the WORST. I know toxic fandom has always been a thing, it just seems to have gotten both worse and broader in the last handful of years. The movement toward MORALIZING the ship wars has really been horrible to watch. It's not just "I don't like your ship and think you have bad taste" it's "your ship is immoral in some way and that makes you a bad person and that means I am righteously justified in hurting you in any way I can".
I could go on a REALLY long rant about it, haha.

[vriddy]

It's pretty demoralising. You make a good point about the platforms/technology having an effect on this in the other comment. Back in the day if I didn't want to see Dumbledore/Harry because it squicked me I just never had to see it... but because tumblr and twitter push everyone together to play into the one big single courtyard and then try to do algorithmic recommendations, people end up seeing all sort of things they don't want to see (and might have happily continued living life not knowing it existed!) and there's no way to avoid it. Not that I don't think people also go looking for stuff specifically to hate on it, too, but it's a lot easier to become aware of it in the first place.

I was away from fandom for a decade or so and thought some of the ship wank posts I saw were jokes when I came back. Unfortunately not.