People who like or liked Supernatural, who are or would be considered Hellers (a nickname for those who ship Dean/Cas, or Destiel), essentially continue to be considered anathema within a lot of the fandom for not completely trusting Jensen Ackles’ explanation of how all of the retcons will make sense with what we already know of the show’s lore and not tuning in each week — or catching up, which is essentially the equivalent of — to “help boost ratings” and “make sure it doesn’t get canceled”. It’s actually those last two bits I hear more about than anything else… how I “must not be a real fan of Supernatural” and “(clearly) don’t like it enough” because me not tuning in for the reasons that I’ve been candid about since the start somehow equates to my lack of viewership jeopardizing its renewal. Somehow I am to blame for this. People who think the same way I do… are to blame for this. This isn’t to say that we don’t already know how we’re a minority within the fandom — at least for those who participate in that sort of thing and consider themselves members, or would consider themselves members — but it’s worth pointing out the train of thought behind.

Truth be told, even if The Winchesters completely fits within Supernatural lore, John and Mary’s story has never interested me beyond what we already find out about them over the course of Supernatural. There are multiple reasons that I have chosen to hold off on watching it, should I ever even watch it at all. If this means that I am “not a real fan”, or “less of a fan”, well, classify me however you like if that helps you sleep at night.

I’ll keep curating my own media experience tuning in to what I want to tune into, when and for how long.

I’m continuing not to watch The Winchesters, in large part because I want to know how it is intended to fit into Supernatural lore and am presently unwilling to “wait until the season finale where everything will be explained”. The amount of people who are supposed to be “in my lane” or “on my side” — I could make a list of fandom terms that annoy me at this point, and I might actually do that for the sake of a blog post one day — who “ship the same thing that I do” (Destiel, or Dean/Cas, whatever you want to call it), who have sought me out to block me for curating my own media experiences has been a bit surprising if not wild. Every few weeks when there’s fandom-related discussion on Twitter that I manage to see on my feed, I find out that more Destiel shippers have blocked me for not tuning into The Winchesters sight unseen on the plot, who have criticized me for not even “hate watching” claiming that I am not a real fan of the series, not enough of a fan of it… you get my drift. They continue to make the case for why I do not actively participate in fandom-related things… that, and the fact that so many of them, which I have seen on my feed as I continue to curate it to see less and less of this, think that the show Is Seriously Speaking to Them is concerning. This is a manifestation of potential psychosis on the parts of some of the people who do this, who wholeheartedly believe what they themselves say — or type out — when they think that a scripted show… is somehow personally speaking through their screens To Them. This is a thing that actually seriously concerns me now.

“Why won’t you attend fandom conventions?”

“Why won’t you meet up in person with people who are fandom members? Members of fandom?”

At this point I’m going to let the cases continue to make themselves and gesture to the worst Tweets.

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.