Fandom and Viewer Issues: "Fan" Is Short for "Fanatic"

[Camera One]

Adam placating the fandoms today on Twitter after supporting one coupling in a web contest, but he reiterates that he supports all couplings.

[Souris]

26 minutes ago, Camera One said:

Adam placating the fandoms today on Twitter after supporting one coupling in a web contest, but he reiterates that he supports all couplings.

He should never be allowed near Twitter.

[Camera One]

He must be bored today.  He has actually been quite restrained the last two weeks or so.

[Souris]

16 minutes ago, Camera One said:

He must be bored today.  He has actually been quite restrained the last two weeks or so.

He's in Vancouver and said he just left the set. Probably bored and unsupervised in his hotel room.

[sharky]

Not to divert from Adam, but I also went to check on Colin's twitter. Apparently a group of fans got together and bought him a guitar signed by Pearl Jam. Cool I guess. But does stuff like that make you feel awkward as a fan? I just feel like the guy has a well paying job and a personal life. He can buy that himself and you don't know him. So why are 15 of you collecting money to but that for him? Just seems strange and gives me second hand embarrassment. Although I'm also almost 40 so maybe I'm out of touch with the young people?

[Rumsy4]

I guess they really are the obsessed type of fans. However, I didn't find it embarrassing. Fans give their idols stuff all the time. Fans have given Jen and Colin fanart-themed mugs, tea, art prints, etc.. This one happens to be a particularly expensive gift, and something I would never do. But, they didn't stalk him or harass him over it (I recognize some of the urls from tumblr). It's not lewd or embarrassing (like smutfic--cough). They disclosed their "identities" after Colin asked. So, IMO, it falls under things I would never ever do, but overall harmless. 

[pezgirl7]

I just checked Colin's twitter, and it was a group of 26. They named the group, so they must interact with each other quite a bit. I don't see anything strange about it, since fans buy their idols things all the time. It happened 50 years ago with the Beatles, and who knows, maybe Abraham Lincoln used to get fan gifts too! :) I've never sent anyone a gift, but I have participated in charity donations in place of a gift. To me that makes more sense for someone who has enough money to buy whatever they'd like. Although, I'm sure it's fun to receive a physical gift that's a surprise.

[janett snakehole]

I thought it was kind of weird. I understand that there's an impulse to give gifts to your idols, but I always find it a bit icky that fans (many who are younger and maybe don't have a lot of money) are giving gifts to people who make very good money, some of whom are millionaires. It's just this weird power imbalance where those in positions of influences are constantly being given gifts. It's always made me a bit uncomfortable. But that's just my personal opinion and fans should interact with actors how they want as long as it's appropriate and okay with the actors. 

I know the motivation is making those they admire happy, but buying a gift that expensive and personal for someone they don't know is probably always going to strike me as kind of weird. He could have bought that for himself, he makes more than enough money. So idk. Like I said- weird. 

I think it's an interesting thing to discuss though! The gifting and transactional interactions between fans and their idols is something that I don't think has been discussed much here. 

[daxx]

As a parent even if he had enough money for something frivolous like that he probably wouldn't buy it for himself. Although his wife might and now be put out with the fans stealing all her Christmas ideas. lol

[Souris]

I wouldn't buy something that expensive for a celeb because I don't have the money, LOL! Plus generally I figure if they want to buy themselves something, they have the means and will do so. Though I think it's nice if fans send something they made or more a small token of their appreciation rather than a grand, expensive gesture. But it's always fun to receive gifts, and people can certainly spend their money however they want. So as long as it's not something weird or creepy or crosses some boundaries, I don't see any harm in it, especially if it makes the celeb happy.

I was part of the group that sent Jen and Colin the mini surfboards, but that was something they certainly wouldn't buy for themselves and one of our group was able to make them at her work. I wouldn't have pitched in to send them real, expensive surfboards!

[Rumsy4]

Jen loves to get artwork from fans--she really appreciates them a lot! I do think something fanmade would be more meaningful to the recipient than expensive gifts. 

[Serena]

5 hours ago, Rumsy4 said:

Jen loves to get artwork from fans--she really appreciates them a lot! I do think something fanmade would be more meaningful to the recipient than expensive gifts. 

I agree, for someone like Jen who appreciates it (other actors may not) I think fan arts or little gifts are best. If you want to do something more exprensive, a charity donation in their name would be a better use of money, also. But hey, it's their money and is a nice gesture, so to each their own!

[janett snakehole]

I think art or fan made things would be more meaningful to actors (if they even like receiving gifts). I'm someone who doesn't like random odds and ends laying around so I get rid of anything extra I don't need (including gifts) and I'm sure there are celebrities who get gifts and promptly get rid of them. It's a bummer to think about, but I have to imagine most gifts that actors receive get thrown out or donated pretty quickly. I'm sure they really appreciate the gesture, but if you're constantly being given things from fans what else are you going to do with it all?

For expensive gifts, I would agree that a donation to charity would be a better us of money, but like you said, fans can spend their money as they see fit. I generally don't like saying people should spend their money/time/effort on more noble pursuits, spend your money how you want. But in the case of buying expensive gifts for people who are rich, eh, I think in that case it would be better to give to charity which I think would be just as meaningful especially since many actors are affiliated with different causes.  

There's just something a bit transactional about the giving of gifts. Fans do it because they love the actors, but also they must be looking for some sort of recognition or hope of communication. Not that their motives are bad or there is anything wrong with wanting recognition! But it does come off as a way to open communication lines with someone you wouldn't have access to without the gifting. 

[sharky]

Interesting takes on both sides. I don't mind seeing actors get fan art or whatever, but something like that guitar just felt a little too personal to me. It's not something related to his work per se and more something that he's actually a fan of, and that just seems like crossing a line. It would be like if fans sent baby stuff to actors when they have kids.

Of course, I'm also a fanfic writer and have been for a decade now. FF writers have it drilled into our heads that we do not send our fanfics to actors or creators or try to give them in person. That's just a bridge you don't cross. So maybe that's part of why I feel that way. I mean, I took a fanfic offline and I'm almost ready to publish it as an original novel and even the idea that Colin and Jen would ever know that exists feels weird. It just wouldn't be something I would pursue.

[KingOfHearts]

I really dislike the mentality that says if you criticize the show, you're not a true dedicated fan. Just because I'm a fan of something, it doesn't mean I have to blindly praise all of it. We shouldn't have to lose all objectivity to stay fervently loyal. IMO, a show has more depth if there are things to hate as well as things to love. If I liked everything, my range of emotions would much narrower. The experience would be less immersive. It's important to point out flaws, otherwise the writers get big heads and think they're perfect.

Edited March 24, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Ditto.  Though it's a little disturbing to recognize that we on the forum are probably among "Once Upon a Time"s #1 Fans, LOL.

[sharky]

Agreed. I do think there are some fans who are negative just for negative's sake, which irks me a bit. And I know I'm a bit of a Positive Pollyanna, always trying to look at things as glass half full, which may bug some people here. But I think there's a difference between constructive criticism and earned praise vs. rainbows and sunshine!/gloom and destruction. And I think fans who get pissy because someone doesn't agree with their opinion are annoying. It's just your opinion, man.

[Rumsy4]

Tumblr is terrible in policing aberrant opinions! However, with the quality of the Show being really poor this season, a lot of people have stopped being the Positivity Police. It still happens, but not as much. 

[daxx]

Yeah, some of those that used to police me have gone super negative after the mid season finale and the premiere didn't help.

[KAOS Agent]

I just read the review of the latest episode from one of the most positive reviewers out there for Once. She loves all of the Once characters and I often have a hard time getting through the overly positive reviews, but I thought I'd check in at this point and see how the positivity crowd sees this season coming along.  It was spot on in its criticisms about all of the ret-cons, character assassination, drama for drama's sake and the show's spiral into endless darkness with no happy moments to balance it out. When those fans who are almost endlessly pleased with the show and write fawning reviews about almost every episode are displaying the same feelings as the more critical fans, you've got serious problems. I also notice that more and more fans are turning to other fandoms as their interest and excitement about Once wanes. 

Fandom makes up a very small subset of the audience, but they are also the most hardcore. When large portions of them are leaving, it's pretty clear that the show is on its last legs. People with massive investment in a show are more likely to stick around (it's why I'm still here) than the general audience.

[Camera One]

It's unfortunate the Writers won't be able to tell from social media where the comments are still exactly the same as always.

[Souris]

A fan and her fans spammed Colin's mentions for days asking for a follow, and he followed her today and posted "Ok followed! Stop asking!!"

Colin is too nice. I kind of hate that he rewarded that behavior. Badgering a celeb into following you is some seriously bratty behavior. Not cool at all. I wish he had blocked/muted them all.

[CCTC]

It is too bad, but when someone is nice enough to tweet to their fans it can be no good deed goes unpunished.  I have seen some fans, who often do mean well, be clueless in how often they pester a certain actress or actress for another tweet or retweet.   They take the one nice gesture by the celebrity to mean that they have an open line of communication with them.

[oncebluethrone]

3 hours ago, KAOS Agent said:

I just read the review of the latest episode from one of the most positive reviewers out there for Once. She loves all of the Once characters and I often have a hard time getting through the overly positive reviews, but I thought I'd check in at this point and see how the positivity crowd sees this season coming along.  It was spot on in its criticisms about all of the ret-cons, character assassination, drama for drama's sake and the show's spiral into endless darkness with no happy moments to balance it out. When those fans who are almost endlessly pleased with the show and write fawning reviews about almost every episode are displaying the same feelings as the more critical fans, you've got serious problems. I also notice that more and more fans are turning to other fandoms as their interest and excitement about Once wanes. 

Fandom makes up a very small subset of the audience, but they are also the most hardcore. When large portions of them are leaving, it's pretty clear that the show is on its last legs. People with massive investment in a show are more likely to stick around (it's why I'm still here) than the general audience.

This is what I think about this season: I love it, it's my favorite and I don't care what the rest of you say. I don't notice the bad stuff. I never have for any of the seasons. I have never analyzed the show in depth so maybe that's why. Have I enjoyed every minute of the show ever? No, but that doesn't mean I don't love it. Once was the first show that I truly loved and nothing is going to change that.

[sharky]

I love both responses! Some love it all, some hate it all, some are in the middle. I think the issue is with the absolutes that fans throw down. "Real CS fans would be happy about the proposal and not complaining about it," kind of thing, which has started bubbling up in my tumblr dash recently.

9 hours ago, Souris said:

A fan and her fans spammed Colin's mentions for days asking for a follow, and he followed her today and posted "Ok followed! Stop asking!!"

Colin is too nice. I kind of hate that he rewarded that behavior. Badgering a celeb into following you is some seriously bratty behavior. Not cool at all. I wish he had blocked/muted them all.

Although I do have to give him credit for not tagging the actual person's Twitter name in his post. I'm not sure not including it in his response was a kind version of passive aggression or a remarkable example of Catholic guilt. "Fine, you know what? I followed you. It's done. You're followed, OK?" Don't get me started on how many times my mother used that on me to get the dishes done.

[daxx]

But it was easy enough to find the person anyway even without him tagging.

The Once Facebook post of the second sneak peek has some interesting responses. It seems the SQ fandom is just as torn apart about the hug as the CS was about the proposal.

Curious what the general Swen fandom thinks about it and will there be fallout on Jen today at the con?

[Mathius]

8 minutes ago, daxx said:

It seems the SQ fandom is just as torn apart about the hug as the CS was about the proposal.

Finally, the two fandoms can have a moment of empathy for one another! :P

[Rumsy4]

Ugh... more developments on the Colin front. I'm guessing people were piling on that person on twitter, because, Colin posted this: Bullying is not cool. Bullying to 'protect' me is not cool! Please don't do it!! (X) Or maybe that person reacted to being found out and is pretending to be bullied. Who even knows.

I hope Colin unfollows and blocks that person, and never gives in to such pressure again. :-(

Edited March 25, 2017 by Rumsy4

[sharky]

Ah yes, the "I can dish it but can't take it." This goes back to my earlier post about why I felt a little weird about the guitar thing. He isn't your friend. He doesn't know you. Just because you see him on TV every week doesn't mean you know him. So stop acting like you're buddies and stop bullying him into following you and stop whining when people bully you because they think they know who you are because they saw you post once on Twitter. This is actually why I prefer tumblr for my fandom. Crazy people are in both places, but actors aren't on Twitter. The second-hand embarrassment I see sometimes see between actors and fans on Twitter is just too cringe worthy.

[Serena]

That's why Jen's current method of only posting a pic once a day and never looking at her mentions is the best one. Keeps her Twitter followers high, because Hollywood producers look at that now, but avoids the headaches.

[Rumsy4]

2 minutes ago, sharky said:

Ah yes, the "I can dish it but can't take it."

Exactly. She DMed Colin claiming she got death threats. This whole thing got quite out of hand fast. Colin generally never engages with fans on Twitter. He must have been in some weird mood to have followed someone who was pestering him. 

[Curio]

1 hour ago, Rumsy4 said:

Colin generally never engages with fans on Twitter. 

I was just going to say that; he's usually pretty good about ignoring all the fans and just doing his own thing on Twitter. I don't know why this one instance was so different. I assume he gets annoying people pestering him all the time, so this one must have been crazy bad for him to do something about it. 

Damn it, fandom. 

[Serena]

Someone should teach celebs about the mute button; they don't have to see the people who are annoying them, but they don't have to deal with people whining "they blocked me!" because when you mute someone they can keep tweeting you, you just don't see it. Don't they have a publicist/marketing person? This is the basics of Twitter.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Serena

[sharky]

I think Colin is just one of those people who is trying to be nice to the fans and this time it backfired on him.

[Curio]

2 hours ago, Serena said:

Someone should teach celebs about the mute button; they don't have to see the people who are annoying them, but they don't have to deal with people whining "they blocked me!" because when you mute someone they can keep tweeting you, you just don't see it. Don't they have a publicist/marketing person? This is the basics of Twitter.

I think you'd be surprised how many people who aren't fandom-savvy have no idea how it works. A former fanatical fan who's been involved with fandom culture should be the one teaching seminars, not PR people who only think they know about fandom just because they happen to know a lot about social media marketing. It sucks, but every professional actor and writer needs to take a course in fandom and social media.

[Camera One]

New side career for Adam... course offerings for fall semester:

How to Stir Up Fandoms 101

Engage and Disengage: How to Tweet and Delete 102

Angry Birds: How To Divide And Conquer on the Twitter Battlefield 103

Contradictions and Ambiguity in 140 Characters: "I Never Said That!" 104

How To Plan A Season Using Competing Fandoms 105

The Art of The Tease:  How To Say Nothing While Tweeting Something 106

Edited March 25, 2017 by Camera One

[sharky]

And the "dance monkey dance" portion of the Vancouver convention has started. Looks like someone asked Colin to show off his juggling skills and Jen sang a bit. Again, I'm sure some people think that's cool or a fun way to see the actors' personalities off the set. I just find it a little squicky.

[woolmintons]

10 minutes ago, sharky said:

And the "dance monkey dance" portion of the Vancouver convention has started. Looks like someone asked Colin to show off his juggling skills and Jen sang a bit. Again, I'm sure some people think that's cool or a fun way to see the actors' personalities off the set. I just find it a little squicky.

Carrie Fisher called the conventions "lap dances," didn't she? I feel like it's 100% accurate.

[daxx]

Well, to be fair they are performers and paid well to perform at these conventions. I'm sure if they agree to them they know exactly what they are getting into.

Edited March 25, 2017 by daxx
Autocorrect nonsense

[Camera One]

I guess some fans of shows are more into the actors portraying the characters, and others are more into the characters themselves.  

I'd rather jump into a portal and meet all the original characters in Animated Disney Characters Land.  It might be scary as hell though if you actually bump into The Evil Queen, Maleficent or Jafar.  

Edited March 25, 2017 by Camera One

[Souris]

4 hours ago, Curio said:

I was just going to say that; he's usually pretty good about ignoring all the fans and just doing his own thing on Twitter. I don't know why this one instance was so different. I assume he gets annoying people pestering him all the time, so this one must have been crazy bad for him to do something about it. 

It was like hundreds of tweets days in a row. That is when you mute them all IMO!

Edited March 25, 2017 by Souris

[OnceUponAJen]

7 hours ago, sharky said:

I think Colin is just one of those people who is trying to be nice to the fans and this time it backfired on him.

I also noted further down in that thread, that people thought he was giving out follows for some reason and it snowballed for a bit!

[Rumsy4]

4 hours ago, Souris said:

It was like hundreds of tweets days in a row. That is when you mute them all IMO!

That's...insane.

[daxx]

Tumblr pisses me off sometimes, I'm getting comments and vague posting because I think Killian even considering leaving town when Emma is in mortal danger is OOC and done for purposes of plot or "the twist".

Sigh, whatever I suppose. The positivity police are still at it and all the characters are written beautifully in character doncha know.

[Curio]

Tumblr isn't set up in a way that's good for having back and forth conversations that are lengthier. But people should be more open to differing opinions, like I never even made the connection that Killian was about to leave town while Gideon was still at large until you mentioned it. Now I have to rethink his actions more and analyze it in his thread. That's what message boards are great for.

[sharky]

Yeah, gone are the days when you could have a ongoing conversation in a thread like you did on LiveJournal. I do enjoy the gifs and posts and the fanfic stuff that's on tumblr, but it's just doesn't create the same community that older fandom sites did. Of course, I'm on PTV after being on TV Without Pity (which is getting a reboot btw) so I obviously like the idea of boards and discussions and debates, but that's just me.

[Shanna Marie]

4 hours ago, sharky said:

Yeah, gone are the days when you could have a ongoing conversation in a thread like you did on LiveJournal. I do enjoy the gifs and posts and the fanfic stuff that's on tumblr, but it's just doesn't create the same community that older fandom sites did. Of course, I'm on PTV after being on TV Without Pity (which is getting a reboot btw) so I obviously like the idea of boards and discussions and debates, but that's just me.

I'm even older school than that. I really miss Usenet and the various alt.tv forums. There, you could have real threads of posts and replies within an overall forum. We had some in alt.tv.x-files that went on for years while also spawning e-mail discussions and real-life friendships.

[sharky]

Ohh! I never got on alt.tv.x-files because I was posting on the AOL X-Files boards. Holy crap. Let's just pretend that was five years ago, OK?

[Shanna Marie]

1 minute ago, sharky said:

I never got on alt.tv.x-files because I was posting on the AOL X-Files boards.

I may have dipped in there a time or two. I was more likely to get on the AOL boards for DS9 because Ron Moore participated there.

[Stuffy]

Jennifer said she's willing to come back, but if I were her I'd get out of Dodge. She can't even post a picture of herself eating lunch with Ginny and Colin without people overreacting. Seriously people she's a Charming. 

 She's been dealing with this kind of stuff the entire run of the series. The only reason to stick around at this point is to collect a pay check because the show sure isn't high quality.