I am a child of the internet.
I was engaging in chat rooms way before I was old enough, talking it up with strangers on the internet like it was my job. I remember joining a Michelle Branch forum to talk about how much I loved her and immediately downloading a virus onto my dad’s computer. I remember lying and saying I was thirteen to engage in these online spaces, thinking I was so smart and cool for doing so — in reality, those spaces were probably 10% actual adult and 90% kid lying. But that was how I made friends — I was bullied a lot as a kid. And I mean, a lot, to the point I used to give myself food poisoning so I could get sent home during the day because I couldn’t stand being there (luckily my parents and the nurse got involved and it somewhat got resolved). So being online was my sanctuary; I was surrounded by kids who were bullied for liking the same music and movies I liked, kids who were lonely and just wanted to be around people who wanted to be around them. Some of us became so close we exchanged Aim usernames, or we would make forums together. When tumblr came around, it was like heaven — never before had I been around people who were just like me with their love of TV shows, making up head canons, sharing playlists about OTPs, having discourse about shit they hated in a franchise. I felt like I was at home. I met people on tumblr who are still my friends to this day — I even lived with one of them at one point, and she is one of my nearest and dearest friends.
When I took a break from fandom culture, a natural occurrence when live gets in the way in adulthood, I expected a similar community when I came back after finally gaining some stability. I thought fandom friendships might be even better now — we would all be adults, so no petty drama, talking about shit we liked. That seems so fun and easy and sublime, honestly. As an autistic adult, that is my nirvana. Or it should have been.
What a rude awakening I had instead.
Elitism, bullying, clique-ish behavior — it was rampant. Far gone was any sense of community or kindness, instead just replaced with wannabe influencer behavior and trying to collect followers instead of building community. I tried to befriend a mod of a streamer I liked, who told me they couldn’t trust me because I was friendly. When I responded with confusion, they basically alluded to the fact that everyone was a snake in the grass these days, waiting to cancel someone over something so they could take their place. When I explained I wasn’t like that, I was just trying to make friends with other nerdy adults, the mod told me that wasn’t how fandom worked anymore.
And I had to figure out why. Why was being nice seen as a bad thing suddenly, and where did my communities go? I know people still want them to exist. I meet so many fellow adults who belonged to the same communities I did once, now lonely and trying to reach out only to get shut down. What was once a safe space for the marginalized weirdos was now just a million fragmented hate filled spaces where only the ‘cool’ survive. And even they are barely surviving from their own perspective, but that’s because it’s not about community anymore.
It’s about attention.
Back when fandoms were first really blossoming on the internet, it was all relatively anonymous. You had your username or your nickname, but you didn’t really have it tied to YOU. You were just ‘angelbuffy333’ or whatever, and you were there to talk about things you loved with people you loved. They didn’t need your face or your name, and you didn’t have to always be right — you could be wrong, and then people would educate you, and you all could move on. There was no personal stakes in arguments, most of the time, because it was just dorks on the internet sharing what we loved. Forums, tumblr, and the like created communities built around loving something, not about the individual but about community.
But then fandom started moving to social media, and we start to see the decline.
Suddenly, people who used to run forums or post fanart or write fics are now trying to find a new audience in an ever changing algorithm on an app that will only sell ‘authenticity’ — a horrible sentence, but one that rings true. You have to be yourself, sell yourself, sell your opinions and all the while attach your face to the name, which destroys that anonymous community. It’s not about sharing anymore; you have to get attention if you want to even stand a chance of building community. You have to be the best from the jump and know how to market yourself to even reach people you once could just bump into on the internet. It’s like living in a digital Los Angeles — everyone is networking. No one wants to be friends, everyone just wants attention and to be the best so hopefully one day they can make friends because they’re an “established” fandom presence. For the people like me who never wanted to be a star, this was detrimental to the fandom experience. I reached out to that mod expecting friendship — we were the same age, both neurodivergent — and instead I was just shut down because they thought my kindness was suspect. Like I was allegedly love bombing them in an effort to usurp them or hurt them. And I don’t even blame that mod for thinking that way — most people on the internet are like that these days. Someone started a rumor about my art account because my art was getting attention — I lost hundreds of followers for no reason other than I was getting attention.
And it just is so frustrating because it didn’t used to be this way. Having quick access to the stars and writers of the media we love has also made community even harder to maintain. There are so many cosplayers and fan artists I know who would throw each other under the bus if it meant the actor of the cosplay they were doing followed them on the gram. People aren’t here for friendship and community anymore, they’re here to get likes and be a brand to themselves. Even on my measly little review account, I have to beg for attention and shares because I want to build a community and not have to pay to reach people. I have to start drama and throw people under the bus to get ahead — and it’s disgusting. We all know it’s disgusting too, so many of us just rot away in our little internet corners begging for friends because we can’t think of an ethical way to create community otherwise.
I’m grateful for my upcoming con — that’s been one of the few places I’ve been able to meet people and still make genuine connections. Meeting likeminded people in costumes has been the closest thing to early fandom forums that I’ve seen in awhile. I’ll never regret waiting for Grace van Dien in line and meeting some of the genuinely coolest people I have ever met in my life who made me laugh a lot. It felt like being a part of fandom should feel.
I was initially going to talk about how hard it is to find community in fandom as an adult, but it’s just as hard when you’re a kid — even harder, because kids have to watch out for adults with horrific intentions. Social media is killing community, and I don’t know how to bring it back. It’s almost bittersweet as I wrap this piece up, because my thought is only that I hope it goes viral and we can all make friends. But I also don’t want that, because I don’t want to feed into the algorithm and be an influencer. I never wanted that. I am still just a lonely kid who wants friends.
So I’ll try and compromise: if you read this, send this to someone else you know is struggling with fandom loneliness. Just let them know they aren’t alone, and if you do need more fandom friends, a con is the way to go.