People are finally realizing that I am probably not going to watch The Winchesters — the actors seem nice, don’t get me wrong, but John and Mary’s backstory was never something that I was interested in getting to know more about, and I don’t develop brand loyalty to franchises just to say that I’m “a real fan” of something — and I’ve been making jokes on my Twitter timeline about… not wanting to re-watch Supernatural again, even going so far as not to recommend that others do the same with some of these suggestions being tongue-in-cheek and others being more serious depending on the circumstance. At any rate, one that erred on the side of being more serious (I just like the show less now, what can I say?) got me unfollowed by prominent members of the fandom that I’d been friends with on Twitter, although this does not bother me given that we hold different views on the curation of media and the participation in fandom.

I just feel like people want to curate their media experiences depending on what they expect out of other people, and depending on what other people want or would want from them… not what they themselves want to get out of those media experiences, and that seems like it’s a lot of the problem with media experiences that involve groupthink (such as fandom). One of the multiple reasons that I chose to extricate myself from active fandom participation and have been all the happier for it was the fact that I did not feel like I had to conform my thoughts on the curation of that media, or media in general, based on how other people perceived them, even if I would — worst case — be regarded as “having the wrong idea” for having those thoughts. For people that… don’t participate in fandom, and to me now, this may just sound zany, but it’s the best way that I can put it. Even if you surrounded yourself with people who thought similar things as you did, or thought you did (think shipping), this could still happen. You could only “be a real fan” if you liked certain things a certain way, especially in a lot of more prominent, popular fandoms, and that was something else that I was just… over. It got to the point where I curtailed fandom participation to making it next to none, then made it none, and was happy with that level of involvement. I had other hobbies and interests that I wanted to pursue more that made me much happier that didn’t have these arcane rules.