Okay, for background I was never really comfortable with the devotion some fans have for BNFs. I know a lot of BNFs thrive on a cult of personality and I really, genuinely loved my fans because they were usually really nice people and a lot of them were young and sweet but I hated being put on a pedestal.
I have to keep this slightly vague but the straw that broke the camel's back was one of the other BNFs I knew (let's call her Britney) was writing this original novel. It was actually pretty terrible and generic but she was super into it and seemed to think it was great. She released the first few chapters to other BNFs in her clique and then to some of her fans, which crossed over into my fanbase because we were...affiliated. (It's hard to explain without getting specific, but you know how some fandoms have subfandoms of interrelated fics or website groups or forum sites). I didn't say anything about how terrible it was because I knew better, but she asked for honest critique and this one girl (who I will call Susie), chimed up and gave some pretty good crit. She was complimentary over the good parts, but really dug into the flaws and was honest that they were generic. It was worded very politely though.
Well, Britney fucking flipped. She lost her goddamn mind. She sent the crit and this giant rant to the other BNFs totally ripping into Susie, which in turn made them all treat her like crap and get snipey. They all dropped her from their LJ friendlists and blocked her on AIM and tried to get their friends to do the same while vaguing up what Susie did to make her look bad. One of them tried to have her banned from the forum we were all at but when I found out they were trying, I quietly shared the actual crit so the mod knew Britney was full of it so they weren't having it. (Britney and co. never knew that I sabotaged that because I asked the mod not to tell). Britney also tried to do something with Susie's school, like tried to get her in trouble there but I wasn't privy to all of that because I think she realized she couldn't trust me to be 100% on her side after I told her I didn't really see what the problem with the crit was.
The way Susie reacted to it was really sad because she took it all to heart and thought she was in the wrong and was way overly apologetic when Britney was the one that was being a tool. I took her to the side privately and told her the crit was fine and that it was perfectly polite. That seemed to help a little but Susie gradually faded out of the spaces we were hanging in, so it was clear it got to her and that she felt pressured out of things.
That was the point that I realized it just wasn't for me. I didn't like the people I was hanging around, I didn't like the pressure of not pissing them off and being the next person they treated like shit, I didn't like watching them treat people badly and either having to keep my mouth shut to stay out of their crosshairs or having the times I politely pointed out that hey maybe this wasn't a big deal completely ignored. I didn't like how they turned everything negative and bitched about people doing harmless shit, while acting nice to their faces. I didn't like how sycophantish the fans were, not because they were bad people for it, but because I knew I didn't deserve it over stupid fic and was scared I'd someday let it get to my head and wind up doing something that hurt somebody. I didn't like worrying that I might accidentally say something that someone might take ten times harder than I meant it and have their feelings really hurt.
So I stopped writing the fic that people followed me over, went quiet for a while until people started to forget about me, changed handles and only had the friends and fans I was closest to know about the change, and gradually just faded out. My fic turned into one of those ones that people occasionally chimed up with "Why didn't the author ever finish this?" and most people didn't know what I'd gotten up to. Then I changed fandoms a few times just naturally. I gradually lost touch with all my fandom acquaintances from back then so nobody can connect who I am now with who I was then. I still dabble in fic here and there but I realized I was just really uncomfortable being in the spotlight so I've tried to stay out of it. I've been a fandom and rp nobody ever since. Never namedropped and while some people like my fics and fanart, I've never really been popular in fandoms since then.
Wow, sorry that got long, but it was pretty nuts. I'm amazed it never hit fandom_wank because this was during fandom_wank's heyday, but it was mostly kept among a small group so I guess nobody wanted to out themselves by accident.
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I have to keep this slightly vague but the straw that broke the camel's back was one of the other BNFs I knew (let's call her Britney) was writing this original novel. It was actually pretty terrible and generic but she was super into it and seemed to think it was great. She released the first few chapters to other BNFs in her clique and then to some of her fans, which crossed over into my fanbase because we were...affiliated. (It's hard to explain without getting specific, but you know how some fandoms have subfandoms of interrelated fics or website groups or forum sites). I didn't say anything about how terrible it was because I knew better, but she asked for honest critique and this one girl (who I will call Susie), chimed up and gave some pretty good crit. She was complimentary over the good parts, but really dug into the flaws and was honest that they were generic. It was worded very politely though.
Well, Britney fucking flipped. She lost her goddamn mind. She sent the crit and this giant rant to the other BNFs totally ripping into Susie, which in turn made them all treat her like crap and get snipey. They all dropped her from their LJ friendlists and blocked her on AIM and tried to get their friends to do the same while vaguing up what Susie did to make her look bad. One of them tried to have her banned from the forum we were all at but when I found out they were trying, I quietly shared the actual crit so the mod knew Britney was full of it so they weren't having it. (Britney and co. never knew that I sabotaged that because I asked the mod not to tell). Britney also tried to do something with Susie's school, like tried to get her in trouble there but I wasn't privy to all of that because I think she realized she couldn't trust me to be 100% on her side after I told her I didn't really see what the problem with the crit was.
The way Susie reacted to it was really sad because she took it all to heart and thought she was in the wrong and was way overly apologetic when Britney was the one that was being a tool. I took her to the side privately and told her the crit was fine and that it was perfectly polite. That seemed to help a little but Susie gradually faded out of the spaces we were hanging in, so it was clear it got to her and that she felt pressured out of things.
That was the point that I realized it just wasn't for me. I didn't like the people I was hanging around, I didn't like the pressure of not pissing them off and being the next person they treated like shit, I didn't like watching them treat people badly and either having to keep my mouth shut to stay out of their crosshairs or having the times I politely pointed out that hey maybe this wasn't a big deal completely ignored. I didn't like how they turned everything negative and bitched about people doing harmless shit, while acting nice to their faces. I didn't like how sycophantish the fans were, not because they were bad people for it, but because I knew I didn't deserve it over stupid fic and was scared I'd someday let it get to my head and wind up doing something that hurt somebody. I didn't like worrying that I might accidentally say something that someone might take ten times harder than I meant it and have their feelings really hurt.
So I stopped writing the fic that people followed me over, went quiet for a while until people started to forget about me, changed handles and only had the friends and fans I was closest to know about the change, and gradually just faded out. My fic turned into one of those ones that people occasionally chimed up with "Why didn't the author ever finish this?" and most people didn't know what I'd gotten up to. Then I changed fandoms a few times just naturally. I gradually lost touch with all my fandom acquaintances from back then so nobody can connect who I am now with who I was then. I still dabble in fic here and there but I realized I was just really uncomfortable being in the spotlight so I've tried to stay out of it. I've been a fandom and rp nobody ever since. Never namedropped and while some people like my fics and fanart, I've never really been popular in fandoms since then.
Wow, sorry that got long, but it was pretty nuts. I'm amazed it never hit fandom_wank because this was during fandom_wank's heyday, but it was mostly kept among a small group so I guess nobody wanted to out themselves by accident.