jennypen:

professor-homosexual:

jennypen:

“Ew you’re an adult why are you in fandom”
Kid, if being mocked for fandom shit wasn’t enough to stop me when I was an actual 15 year old, hearing it from a 15 year old when I’m 30 is genuinely hilarious

mmm this post makes me. Uncomfy. people are allowed to like things with no age limit, but its important to not overstep boundaries and stay in your lane.

and chances are if a teenager is shaming you for being in a fandom, its their way of saying “i dont want you to interact with me. go away.” and thats that. dont try to start an argument or fight because there is a Very obvious power imbalance. just leave them be.

you, and all the other people in the notes saying similar things. you are adults. you hold higher societal power than teenagers and children. teenagers and children sometimes see adults in areas they consider “for their age group only” and their “stranger danger” instincts kick in and they immediately feel like that person is a predator.

its perfectly reasonable for those people to want to avoid ppl that are way older than them bc its uncomfortable, and bc theres an obvious power imblance.

like i said before, you are adults. you should know this. dont go off on me saying “what are you gonna? call your momma?” or some shit. dont do that petty shit.

i understand your frustration. but that doesnt mean you dont have to respect other peoples boundaries.

teenagers have time to learn. they have time to grow, and they have time to mature. you did too. show it by not being petty to someone under half your age.

Actually this post started well over a year ago because a fan of my fanfic sent me a glowing message about how good it is (and I write mature content) but then when they went through my blog and discovered that I was 32 and had a kid myself they sent me a rude message telling me that it’s disgusting that I’m still in fandom because fandom is for children and no-one else. This after reading my adult content.

This person literally read my 18+ fanfic on ao3. They came to an adult fanfic space, and then told me I shouldn’t be in fandom because I’m 18+. The point you are making is very valid, but I’ll tell you something in my experience – adults tend to keep to themselves and avoid children in fandom where they are. My main fandom I’ve written, every single friend I’ve made in the fandom is 24+, and the ones who are my fanfic friends in particular are all 30+. Just naturally gravitated towards each other because of mutual interest.

There is a huge wave of puritanical harassment in fandom at the moment (which rose to prominence after I made this post as it happens) where minors go into adult spaces in fandom (on ao3 it warns you and they go past that anyway) and then callout those adults. If you want to talk about ‘staying in your lane’, please take note of this huge anti movement against adult content and tell me who is the one doing so.

This entire thread is full of adults all the way into their 70s who have had young, newer entrants into fandom mock them purely for their age. Ageism in fandom is unbelievably prevalent – younger fans misperceive a lot about their fellow fandom members. Someone commented on this thread yesterday and called tumblr (and by extension, fandom) ‘a place for children’ (largest demographic on tumblr is 18-29 y/o, second is 30-35 so not sure where that perception comes from – my own tumblr blog is over 9 years old and when I first joined it was all early-adopting adults posting images mostly, fandom hadn’t actually made the move over from live journal just yet, though it was beginning) and how this is purely adults ‘circlejerking’ who need to ‘get a real hobby’ and ‘go look after their children or cats or something’. THAT attitude is why I posted it in the first place – the VERY persistent attitude from newer fans that adults don’t belong, aren’t allowed, are creepy and weird merely for enjoying media the same way they do.

We do respect boundaries. We enjoy, we post, we have fun. We tag mature content, because we make it for ourselves and we remember a time where that wasn’t possible and we casually came across adult content and knew it was wrong (the first piece of porn fanfic I came across I was 12 and I backed out of it and didn’t come back for a few years but it was just on a list with other fic, no content rating, nothing). We do not think that younger people don’t deserve to be in fandom – we embrace people joining and loving the things we do. However, when so many, many people on this post share the same experience of having been on the end of the same attitude and behaviour, you need to listen and see that there is a problem. Ageism is rife in fandom, because of the perception that enjoying media enough to want to connect with others about it is ‘just for kids’ the way cartoons are ‘just for kids’ and anime is ‘just for kids’. It’s not. It’s for everyone.

When I was younger, the idea of being in fandom (and especially a woman in fandom – there was mainstream male nerdism and then female nerdism and especially queer nerdism was quite underground, still, in 1997) and writing fic and (lesserly) fanart was seen as strange – my peers made fun endlessly and I had no real life peers who had any interest in fandom the way I did. However, I kept going. Now fandom is mainstream accepted, to the point that voice actors in some fandoms casually name ships for the fandom to use! But now, as an older fan, the mocking comes from younger fans who see adults in fandom as weird, perhaps because they feel that the fandom belongs to them? I don’t know. I’ve never understood the malice that goes into when younger fans make fun of older fans, given that we are present and a normal part of fandom, that we create zines and run cons and organise so much of fandom.

What you read in the notes of this post is a large group of people who identify with having been on the end of abuse of some kind. That is something we do not have to put up with, do not have to ‘have patience for’. Coming as a parent, I would never let my kid treat someone like the way many people here have treated other fans – I would reprimand, educate. I’m not perfect though, and sometimes an off the cuff reaction to being made fun of is natural, especially to repeated offences. Expecting adults to put up with this kind of rude behaviour and just sit back and go ‘oh, they’ll learn eventually’ is cruel – you’re asking people who are being purposely marginalised to just shut up and accept it because ‘well, let kids be kids’. We’re not talking about 4 year olds. We’re talking about teenagers, who should know the basics of ‘don’t make fun of someone for simply enjoying something’.

This tiny little post of ‘I’ve put up with being made fun of for being in fandom a lot, if I didn’t give it up then I’m not going anywhere now’ somehow managed to identify with a lot of people, showing that this kind of ageism is widespread and hurtful, but it’s also against a group of people who have put up with it enough in their lives to be resilient and not let it force them out.