Confession: I’m one of those people who can stop liking something because of a fandom.

That’s not to say that I think that the show/game/comic/movie/etc itself is bad— it doesn’t mean I’m trying to discourage other people from checking the thing out, either (I’m not going like, “THE FANDOM RUINED IT FOR ME I HATE IT”); it just means I’m not into it anymore!

People each have their own reasons for no longer liking things or being part of a fandom; they may have found something they like even better, they may have had a really bad experience with regards to some fans (con horrors, hate mail, elitists, etc), they may simply have lost interest, and so on.

What bothers me a little, however, is when people say things like, “Well, if you can get turned off from something that easily, then you probably were never really a fan in the first place.” Or “That’s just immature. Like it because it’s good, and not because you like the fandom or not.”— and yes, the latter is a good point! I recognize that it’s the quality of the original thing that’s important, but at the same time, what I may associate with them (such as good or bad experiences) can really affect my perception of these things.

For example, I’ve personally been turned off by some fandoms due to having encountered some elitists and received some pretty unpleasant comments on some drawings, and I’m very aware that people like these exist in every fandom (and that the larger a fandom is, the more likely I’m to encounter these people). But even though I may have liked what this fandom was about at first, the association sticks in my mind, and I kind of become a little turned off by the experience and so don’t enjoy it nearly as much, and subsequently gradually lose interest. True, I could try to stick with it anyway and maybe pick it up again sometime, but I’m not going to force myself to try to like something just because someone’s going to judge me if I do otherwise.

I mean…it’s someone’s choice as to whether or not they’ll be into something, right? Who actually cares if someone’s been turned off from something because of the fandom? Does it affect you personally? I…feel like the mature thing to do would be to just accept that yeah, fandoms can apparently ruin things for some people— it’s too bad, and it’s probably immature in your eyes (this is a really common comment!), but hey, it’s their loss and not yours! Just keep enjoying the things and fandoms you like! Other fans will come and go and have various reasons for doing so, but I don’t really think that’s an adequate reason to tell people off…?

B-But yeah, haha. This probably sounds a little biased since I’m one of those people, but I’ve been seeing a lot of these posts on my dash lately and just wanted to voice some thoughts. Thanks.