Am I imagining things, or has the Internet been excessively vitriolic lately?
I’m no stranger to fandoms bickering among themselves and critics trying to stir up trouble by claiming their opinions are the right opinions, but it’s reached epidemic proportions during the last few weeks. And it’s getting exhausting.
I’ve always believed that the beauty of fiction is that it’s open to interpretation. We all view fiction through the prisms of our own experiences. As such, our interpretations say a lot about who we are. We often reveal more about ourselves in talking about fiction than we do when we try to talk about our own life experiences.
There’s an inherent vulnerability in talking about the fictional works, characters, and relationships that mean the most to us. That’s why respect is so important when it comes to discussing fiction. If someone has a different opinion, that doesn’t make them “idiotic,” “crazy,” or “delusional” (all words I’ve seen casually thrown around in the last few days). It simply means they see the world—and, as a consequence, a piece of a fandom—differently than you do.
In my experience, I’m at my most vulnerable as a writer when I talk about the characters, relationships, and works of fiction that I love the most. In the increasingly negative culture of Internet-driven fandom, it takes real bravery to admit to loving, being inspired by, or feeling an emotional attachment to something. Sadly, it’s those sincere admissions of emotional attachment that I’m seeing torn down and ridiculed the most. I’m never going to argue that the media doesn’t need people to look at it critically, but there’s a clear line between criticism and condescension, between discourse and degradation—and that line is one I keep seeing people cross without even a second thought.
Nerdy Girl Notes 