We're enjoying a lazy weekend at home. I've been eating Tyson buffalo wings. They're no replacement for the real thing, but they'll satisfy the hankering without the need for pants, so...
Maybe I'm just a bitter old fogey fan, but fannish entitlement is out of control. When I first got into fandom fifteen years ago, it wasn't about seeing your shipping fantasies realized onscreen or bending the show to your whims. We absolutely rooted for our pet pairings and plot developments, and the more vociferous among us occasionally scrummed amongst ourselves with pitch and pitchforks and bilious vituperation, but we were, by and large content, to wish and dream and play in our sandbox.
But now, good Lord. Thanks to Twitter, fans can mount ridiculous, quixotic campaigns for their pet theory and harangue showrunners and actors about developments they dislike. They can publicly show their unbecoming asses when their demands for A and B to boff aren't met or send death threats to actress "in the way" of their hottie OTP and accusations of queer-baiting and homophobia to every showrunner whose cast isn't 100% enthusiastically gay and repulsed by the treacherous, disgusting threat of snatch. Fans think that because their wishes can now be heard by TPTB, they are entitled to see them fulfilled. It's human nature, but it's also unsettling when it reaches SPN and Sherlock proportions of desire and delusion. Sending death threats to partners and wives? Hurling abuse at cast members because they're purportedly cockblocking the OTP that exists solely in your head? Telling fans who disagree with you that they're worthless, homophobic pieces of shit who should kill themselves? There is wistful fantasy to share with like-minded people, and then there's dangerous mob mentality, and fandom has clearly veered toward the latter, gleefully and unapologetically.
I know what it's like to want to see someone who looks like you in mainstream media. The only faces that look like mine are dying in hospital beds with tragic nobility or used as props to teach the people who matter uplifting life lessons. We aren't seen having a one-night stand with the hunky protagonist or working as successful lawyers, tech specialists, or businesspeople. Sometimes, we get to play the asshole, but we're always defeated by the able protagonist and his mighty normal bod, and our motives are almost always linked to our gimpy bitterness.
So, yeah, I've had to engage in a lot of fantasy in my time. I knew TPTB on CSI:NY were never going to pair Flack with anyone who didn't look like a cover girl, so I didn't bother bleating at them about it in fits of righteous and utterly futile indignation. Instead, I sighed and set up my own sandbox and played the way I wanted to in relative anonymity. By the same token, I know that Almost Human isn't going to pair Kennex with a limpy lady(in fact, they're painfully transparent about pushing him into bed with Det. Stahl, who is pretty but otherwise inconsequential to the plot), so I'm not going to make an ass of myself hectoring J.J. Abrams or Karl Urban about it on Twitter. It's rude and ineffectual, and I'm sure neither one of them gives a damn what I want. It's their sandbox and their vision, derivative as it is, and no one is making me watch.
If I want to see Kennex tapping that gimpy ass, then I'm going to have to write it myself. It's a bummer, but it's not the end of the world or a hill I'm willing to die on.
Fandom has been the land of Everything Else since it started, and that's what it should be, not the land of My Way or Else. The fourth wall can't be rebuilt, but the people behind it can damn well conduct themselves with a little dignity.
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