Femslash culture and trolling: how to keep the space safe
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| Title: | Femslash culture and trolling: how to keep the space safe |
| Creator: | Chloe Tse |
| Date(s): | November 17, 2015 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Femslash |
| External Links: | Femslash culture and trolling: how to keep the space safe, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Femslash culture and trolling: how to keep the space safe is an artcile by Chloe Tse on trolling within femslash fandom, particularly when it comes to shipping polls.
Excerpts
Swanqueen, Cophine, Shaysima, Bechloe, Rizzles and other popular Internet femslash ships have been made online experiences rich for audiences. But with the good always comes some bad — and these online spaces aren’t always safe.Femslash culture provides a space for representation, unity and deeper understanding within online fandom communities in the entertainment realm — but also opens a door to cyberbullies and Internet trolls.
While running our own shipping polls, we experienced a taste of daily fandom life — which showed folks coming together offering a supportive community that promoted very common interests. But we also saw online bullies come out of the woodwork — with strong opinions of their own and insisted on stepping into these spaces and injecting their negativity making comment sections, online forums and social media pretty uncomfortable.
Swanqueen fans, supporters of the non-canon ship from Once Upon A Time‘s Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) and Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla) have experienced online conflict with Captain Swan shippers (Emma Swan x Hook). This friction is an ongoing battle between fandoms who support different romantic pairings.While it’s completely opinion-based whether or not one ‘ship’ is better than another — in the event there is a femslash poll, it’s important to note that the space is not for those who support a pairing uninvolved and uninvited to the room. It’s bullying. And it’s not cool.
There is a difference between arguing passionately about a point and attacking someone for having a different opinion. The line is fine and sometimes situations are more grey than black and white. In the event a cyberbully enters your safe space, it’s best to avoid engagement. Avoid name calling, personal attacks and explicit meanness. Remain kind.
Comments
[hm.]: We all know that fandoms and especially shipping wars can be vicious, but this article probably unintentionally conflates or glosses over certain things? There’s a big difference in the constant bullying from homophobic bigoted hetero fans that just can’t stand a non-canon femslash ship, and shipping wars between canon f/f ships…We need to acknowledge the difference between bigotry and trolling and bullying, it’s not as simple as “please just play nice”. It sounds hyperbolic but there’s a power imbalance between fans of a canon hetero ship and a non-canon femslash ship, in the case of Once Upon A Time. One is first of all canon, represented EVERYWHERE in the media, and fans are totally accepted, the other one exists in a starved-out media landscape of barely any leading f/f romances, isn’t even canon, arguably a case of queerbaiting, and its fandom is constantly invalidated by other fans and treated like a shameful step child by the show at best (especially at first – now there’s just… lipservice and empty baiting). Straight fans from a canon show going to ~fandom war with lgbt fans of a non-canon ship (in lgbt online spaces, no less!) isn’t a mere case of bullying, it’s fueled by bigotry. People might be mutually vicious towards each other, but the overall context is more than that.
That’s why there’s even an imbalance between fans of a canon f/f ship and fans of a non-canon hetero ship, for example for Clexa vs Bellarke in the 100 – and surprisingly it’s not in favor of the lgbt fans. Not only have lesbian and bi female fans had to fight for respect and validation in fandom spaces for a long time, our representation in media is often “temporary”, almost never “endgame”, it’s constantly in danger of being badly treated and likely ending in tragedy. This naturally puts female lgbt fans on edge and in permanent defensive and protective mode, because we’ve all been through years of invalidation & demonization. Fandom spaces and polls and shipping wouldn’t mean so much to lesbian and bi fans if we weren’t so starved out, if there were more canon pairings that were endgame, not tragic, well written, and not treated like a 5-ep special guest pairing (without the series-wide build up that straight pairings get). That’s why femslash fandom spaces are so passionate and defensive – because there is not much else to fall back on, and that to defend your ship is almost defending your right to exist, a fight for respect and romance in general – after all we barely see it represented, and we face constant backslash when we do, canon or fanon. Straight fans don’t come from the same background. And straight fans of a non-canon hetero ship throwing a temper tantrum and doing everything to demonize a rare f/f ship and pester the cast and crew of a show to make their ship happen, it’s not just a shipping war, simply because obviously, the playing fields of these fans and their representation aren’t equal.
Moving on towards the end of your article, and this is why I object, I don’t see how a shipping war between two canon f/f pairings is even comparable to the first example? In the case of Orphan Black, the playing fields WERE equal. Obviously, everything about vicious fandom atmosphere and bullying is still applicable, that much is true. But in those other cases, as I pointed out above, the playing field ISN’T equal, and there’s MORE to it than online bullying, there’s a layer of bigotry involved.
All this being said, of course vicious behavior isn’t alright, of course it’s depressing to see fandom spaces meant for community and creativity and passion being turned into warzones, but talking about femslash culture just demands more context than that, in my opinion.