Side effects of the sex-negative moral hysteria

[Officerkrupke]

Proship/Darkshippers on TikTok have made similar observations on the increasing intolerance in fan communities, especially around non-standard sexual themes.

Fandom spaces have become so disgustingly puritan that they're unrecognizable

I know this point has been brought up time and time again, but as of late I've noticed that I can't be part of almost any fandom anymore because they refuse to let anyone with a different opinion share their space.

Oddly enough, the movie Kpop demon hunters (amazing movie btw) has attracted a really homophobic fanbase that thinks that you're not allowed to ship anything but the assigned "canon". There is only one semi confirmed ship in the movie, while the rest are just hinted at, and yet people still throw a hissy fit about it.

There are three main characters who are all female, and if you try to ship any of them together, the fandom gets mad and I've seen them even use homophobic and abelist slurs.

What happened to the don't like don't read or the scroll away mentality? Not only are you not allowed to have your own opinion, but other people also don't understand that they can mind their own business.

There's a weird pressure for conformity in fandom spaces now, where you're not allowed to stray at all from the canon, or ship queer things, or do anything unique. It's suffocating and frankly disheartening as someone who has been participating in fandom culture for at least a decade now.

I was around back when people were shipping Elsa and Jack Frost, and now you're not allowed to ship two characters who exist within the same universe, are canonically best friends, and have a ton of chemistry?

What happened to headcanons? To having opinions? Why are we not allowed to interpret the media we consume in the way we feel most comfortable interpreting it?

I know this rant is long and I'm sorry, I'm just really frustrated by the current state of things.

People who think it started in 2020 have had their head in the sand. You stepped away at basically the exact year (2011) the neo-puritanism really started to make itself known.

I left the space around 2016 till 2025 and I also have been left in shock how puritan things are now. There were dumb fights even back in 2016 but this level of puritism I wasn't ready for. The state of tumblr having so many 4chan like far right blogs has been shocking too- I almost miss the every blog is a porn bot era on there compared to now.

A few years ago I got called out in a comment for being an older adult and writing a fic about “kids” (Wednesday fandom). I had the bad judgment to link it on tumblr where they saw my age (not that I am ashamed of it or hide it.) The fic was rated T, mostly for mention of violence. I really wanted to ask them if they thought the show was written by “kids.” But instead I just deleted the comment. I’d love to say “and I moved on with my life” but actually I didn’t post any writing again for over a year.

The amount of times I’ve been called a fascist for reading dark AU’s (I’m a registered communist which makes it hilarious to me) I’m actually worried about these people’s ability to discern fact from fiction. It’s like they really don’t know it’s all fake and make-believe. It’s giving Brooke Shields in Friends

https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/s/Tc1MQRIcTv

[PorcelainLark]

People who think it started in 2020 have had their head in the sand.

This. Fandoms have had loud puritanical morons for as long as I can remember. Remember that controversy about about someone who drew a character from Steven Universe thin? People are unhinged.

[FlowerLurker]

I noticed that too. I'm playing some Hoyoverse games and I had to isolate myself from the fandom for it is incredibly aggresive, puritanic and just insufferably sexist (misandry, misogyny and intersexism alike)/homophobic/xenophobic.
I know puritanism didn't start in 2020, but it definitely got a lot much worse then, mostly because normies teens joined the fandoms, while other spaces were infiltrated by normies adults, who brought puritanism back into mainstream, as well as censorship and privacy violations alongside with it. at least, if I were to generalize everything horribly.
censorship and proship idea alike both require to understand nuance and ability to see the world in a grey scale, while normies, who usually don't engage with such things, either don't care at all and ignore, or don't ignore but never try to understand the topic fully. I'd even say the Dunning-Kruger effect in some cases.
Sad, very sad. We need to keep fighting against it, and, after a generation or two, we'll return into sex liberation - and then everything will repeat again and again and again because people are... well we live too short and don't learn from past generations' mistakes.

[Not Forever]

I noticed that too. I'm playing some Hoyoverse games and I had to isolate myself from the fandom for it is incredibly aggresive, puritanic and just insufferably sexist (misandry, misogyny and intersexism alike)/homophobic/xenophobic.
I know puritanism didn't start in 2020, but it definitely got a lot much worse then, mostly because normies teens joined the fandoms, while other spaces were infiltrated by normies adults, who brought puritanism back into mainstream, as well as censorship and privacy violations alongside with it. at least, if I were to generalize everything horribly.
censorship and proship idea alike both require to understand nuance and ability to see the world in a grey scale, while normies, who usually don't engage with such things, either don't care at all and ignore, or don't ignore but never try to understand the topic fully. I'd even say the Dunning-Kruger effect in some cases.
Sad, very sad. We need to keep fighting against it, and, after a generation or two, we'll return into sex liberation - and then everything will repeat again and again and again because people are... well we live too short and don't learn from past generations' mistakes.

I’ve always been a supporter of gatekeeping in certain matters: before entering somewhere, you need to learn its customs and traditions; once accepted, you enter and adapt.
More than once I’ve seen products become mainstream, and because of this mass adoption there wasn’t a period of adaptation, which forced the product itself to warp and change its target in order to chase the new audience.

I’ve heard that fanfiction spaces have similar problems too. I had read posts on Reddit from people on Archive of Our Own complaining about how the new, younger user base was rather intolerant of things they didn’t like. Instead of adapting, they complained to those who had been there before, demanding censorship. Kids (of all ages) throwing tantrums. (No offense to actual kids.)

[Curson]

Yeah I never understood the point of all of these arguments and negativity on social media. People seem fit to control the behavior of other people that don't confirm to social norms and they get angry.