User blog:TickleMeTeal/The problem with fan shaming

Hello, it's Teal again and welcome to another blog.

I'm going to talk about a serious issue that's effecting everyone, fan shaming!

But what is fan shaming? Well fan shaming is something mistreatment and bullying just for enjoying something. Fan shaming is normally accepted as bullying, but in a lot of book and anti bullying websites, enjoying something is not included in the defence of race, religion, sexuality, weight, height, face sculpture, gender and ethnicity. Maybe we should add opinion to the list.

Fan shaming can come from both haters or other fans. Some haters may bully people for being a fan of a franchise they don't like. Here's a scenario to explain what I mean. Rosie the Cat really likes Anime. Her favourite anime is Lucky Star, she would cosplay as her favourite characters. But at her school she was bullied by anime haters and called her a Weeaboo. Rosie didn't like being called a weeaboo because she knows enjoying anime doesn't make people a weeaboo. She told her mother about the bullying and the bullying stopped. Now Rosie is friends with an anime hater.

See? Rosie from Animal Crossing didn't see what's wrong with liking anime. An yes I'm going to use Animal Crossing villagers are characters in my scenarios. These scenarios are not canon.

Some fan shaming can come from other fans who believe they own the franchise and they would exclude people from the fandom because they are apart of another fandom or because of something they can't change. Here's another scenario, Bob the cat really enjoys Steven Universe, he was considering joining Steven's fandom, but was bullied by other fans because he's a male and Steven Universe is for 'women only'. He stop up for himself but the bullying got worse. The bullies painted themselves as the victims and got Bob into trouble for false sexual harassment claims. But Bob didn't give up on Steven Universe. He started a group for people on the internet for people who wanted to join the Steven Universe fanbase but isn't allowed. He had over 100000 fans on the website. He met one girl called Gabby, who isn't allowed to join the Steven Universe fanbase because she drew Garnet as white. Bob the cat and Gabby the rabbit became very close friends.

See? Bob didn't understand why men can't enjoy Steven Universe.

There's multiple reasons why people fan shame like for attention, bullying, boredom, trolling, insecurity and other reasons. Fan shaming is bad, even if it's trolling. Internet Trolls have been fan shaming for a long time. Back when I was an teenager, I was trolled by many people and they are all fan shamers. Not all trolls fan shame people but I was trolled for liking Adventure Time and defending Bronies and Teen Titans Go, saying that the 90s kids asked for Teen Titan to come back to Cartoon Network but wasn't happy when Cartoon Network brought back the show as Teen Titans Go. The Teen Titans Go haters thought I liked to show so they say stuff like Teens Titans Go sucks. But the truth is I don't like Teen Titans go, I just don't criticize it all the time. A lot of Teen Titans Go haters are very infamous for fan shaming calling people who disagrees with them a fan or a mindless little kid.

Fan shaming is very common in the cartoon community, which is why the popular Cartoon reviewers pander to them and have fake opinions of cartoons. Like an Adventure Time hater pretending to be a fan or a Power Puff Girls 2016 fan pretending to be a hater.

If people can't enjoy something because the franchise is to feminine, masculine, childish, mature, inappropriate, Misogynistic, racist or violent than somethings wrong with you and you need help. It's okay to enjoy things, there's nothing wrong with it.

Sometimes haters take things too far. Bronies can relate to this. Michael Morones was bullied because he's a Brony, he attempted suicide and the MLP hater were being mean to him. A lot of people believe the he's an anti Brony because they want to paint themselves as the victim of Bronies bullying them. But no, Michael's not an anti Brony, he's a Brony. Poor Michael broke his body and is now in a wheel chair. It's a good thing he survived.

This story will make people think that it's not okay to fan shame people.

Another story I can tell you is about a girl called Paige Paz who is a Steven Universe who loved to draw pictures but the other Steven Universe fans didn't like it. So she was cyberbullied. She attempted suicide. Thankfully she's okay but the Steven Universe fanbase wasn't impressed. They thought she was putting on an act. The worst about these fan shamers are (I said earlier that fans can be fans shamers too) is they were feminists and anti racists. But sadly they were hypocrites. The media needs to stop putting them on a high pedestal because that gives then an excuse to be mean to people. Being nice is not overated.

Any who. Fan shaming has to stop because we a losing too many people due to bullying for enjoying something. Everyone should be enjoying what ever they want and no one should stop them. No franchise is too feminine, masculine, childish, mature, violent, misogynistic, racist, scary or inappropriate. No one is gay for liking My Little Pony or Mean for liking Animal Crossing, just leave the fans alone.

It's okay to hate something, just don't use you hatred against a franchise to disrespect others.

Thanks much for reading, share this with friends and peace!