My heart bleeded, girl

Oh, Supernatural fandom. How interesting you turned out to be.

Maybe it's because I spent the past seven years in a real person fandom.

Maybe it's because I spent the past seven years in a real person fandom in which Justin Timberlake is a major player.

But I say being in a real person fandom requires thought, and practice, and thoughtfulness, a sense of boundaries, and did I mention, common sense?

They're real people. This means two things. One, they're not perfect, and two, they have feelings just like the rest of us.

Mocking has often been a sign of affection in the pop fandom. How could it not be, what with naked lady pants and wardrobe malfunctions and pineapple hair? Dog psychics and Space Cowboy and Manband? HOUSE OF CARTERS?!

What was the name of that one site, Shazzay Cafe?

So, yes, real people with real feelings. You all know how I feel about Britney and what she's been through. And one of the things I read yesterday that really upset me was the whole "celebs are all douchebags" - although I now prefer the word douchecanoe - and they deserve whatever happens to them. They certainly don't deserve respect or consideration or privacy. And celebs who happen to be young and attractive and male, which makes them by definition hormone-addled, who are constantly getting their asses kissed, don't deserve any respect at all. Because they're all douchecanoes.

That pisses me off so much I don't even have words.

But I also sure as hell don't expect real people to be perfect. And once you've been through rehab and space and strippers and break-ups both personal and professional and cheating and unwed fatherhood and coming out of the closet and domestic violence and lawsuits and drugs and alcohol and reality television and did I mention wardrobe malfunctions, it's just plain stupid to hold the objects of your fannish affection to a higher standard than the rest of the human race.

Did anyone really think that because NSYNC made an anti-drug PSA they weren't smoking up at every opportunity? Sigh, yes, some people did think that. Those are the same kind of people who said, when Katie Cassidy did something stupid when she was caught drinking underage, that Jared and Jensen would never do anything like that! Please. Of course, the response from the other end of the spectrum was, well, they were in a bar fight, so they're douchecanoes.

Haha, I remember people being shocked! that the person who wrote Digital Getdown would put out a CD with songs like Come to Me and 100 Ways. Twelve year old girls were going to listen to that!!! No, they weren't, not in 2004, sorry. And were you even paying attention all these years?

Okay, sorry, tangent. I could go on a lot of them.

So celebrities make stupid decisions and do stupid things and sometimes they're not very nice. It's not because they're celebrities, it's because they're human.

And by the same token, just because they're celebrities doesn't mean that they're perfect and everything they do is okay.

If I wasn't a celebrity, would you be so nice to me? If I didn't have cheese, like, everyday - okay, that's enough, but you get the gist. It's a legitimate question, apart from the cheese.

So you have to maintain a sense of reality about the whole thing. Boundaries. Opinions, but maybe not so much emotional investment. I was very sad for Lance when the space thing fell through. I was upset at the mocking. I still am. I was proud enough of him when he came out that I sent him pink roses. But I had a friend in the Sentinel fandom (who followed me reluctantly to popslash) and was so devastated by the potential damage to Justin's career caused by the Superbowl - this was before we knew he was made of pure teflon - that she pretty much had to drop out of fandom for the sake of her own sanity. (She may have been spending way too much time at the JJB, which would explain a lot.)

So there's a line it's best not to cross when it comes to emotional investment in a person you don't really know, you know?

I remember when it first hit me that I was reading/writing about real people. It was a story dealing with Chris finding hot sex comfort with Lance after breaking up with Dani. And I thought, that really happened to Chris, and now it's entertainment for me. And that's when I created the necessary distance in my head. Like I said, RPF takes years of practice.

And the thing about the SPN fandom is that it's this weird combination of FPF and RPF. J2 is as big as Sam/Dean or Sam and Dean. And you've got the people who hate incest and the people who hate RPS and the people who like RPS but aren't used to it, are new to it and haven't figured out how to deal with it yet, how to feel about it. How to process it. All of this gives rise to a million and one AUs, where the Js are writers and lawyers or hired killers, or Sam and Dean aren't really brothers.

And you have the fans who are bothered by the racial and gender problems they see in the show and in the characters versus the people who say it's only a TV show and you should all just lighten up.

You have the fans who hate any female character that shows up, no matter what, versus the people who maybe want to see a girl once in a while, one who's kickass instead of one who ends up on the ceiling in flames in a white nightgown.

You have the fans who get all worked up at whatever crumb Kripke lets fall versus those who are willing to wait and give him a chance and see what happens.

You have the fans who think it's okay to take pictures at a live theater performance or leap off a staircase onto Jensen's head or continuously ask them about fanfiction versus people who know where the fucking appropriate boundaries are for these particular objects of fannish affection. Jensen Ackles is not Pete Wentz, okay?

Okay, where was I going with this...

Right, Recent Events.

Whatever. I'm more interested in fandom reaction than in whatever really happened or didn't happen.

Hey, after you've spent a couple of years watching Justin's fans and JC's fans tear each other apart, come back and talk to me about fandom drama.

Les plus memes changes....


ETA: I don't mean to imply that Pete Wentz in any way, shape or form deserves any of the ridiculous crap that celebrities have to put up with. I just meant that bandom's boundaries are different than Supernatural's. *pets Pete*