How do I quit wasting my life on online escapism?
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| Title: | How do I quit wasting my life on online escapism? |
| Creator: | Anonymous |
| Date(s): | February 15, 2011 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | musicnote, Archived version |
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How do I quit wasting my life on online escapism? is a 2011 anonymous post on MetaFilter.
The Post
The not-so-special snowflake profile: I'm in my late-twenties, very shy (few friends, never dated), BA, no money, in a dead-end job. I'm a very first-world kind of unhappy, and taking antidepressants for it. Around 3 years ago, I became interested in a particular bit of media, and through poking around online discovered the world of fanfiction and related communities, and got completely sucked in. I knew from the start that I was using it to escape real-world loneliness and boredom, but couldn't (or didn't want to) think of a good reason to quit. After all, why not take whatever happiness I could find?
Now, however, the approach of the big 3-0 has made me much more conscious of how time has flown, and how I've let my twenties slip away. More than ever, I feel like this online fandom is a waste of time for me-it's ultimately an immature and embarrassing hobby, and I've never made any real contributions or friends (somehow, my shyness extends to even the internet). It's a distraction, creating the illusion of potential friendship and community where there is none and sucking away my time and attention every day.
I can understand how this happened and why; what I need to know now is how to walk away from it all. The hours each day spent at home, online, reading fanfiction, etc. could be going toward developing real relationships, or finding a real career and trying to make something of my life before yet another decade flies by. But I can't quite convince myself to just drop it, delete all my bookmarks and accounts and so on-it's often the only bright spot in otherwise gray days, and a very unique, silly kind of fun. If I keep it up, though, I fear I'll become a very sad cliche, the frumpy middle-aged cat lady who lives entirely through fanfics. I don't even like cats.
Therapy is not an option, I've never met a therapist I liked and can't face the thought of going through another search. I welcome any advice, but I'm especially hoping for personal anecdotes: surely someone out there has gone through the same realization and changed their life for the better?
Throwaway email: [email protected], and thanks for any perspective you can offer.
Excerpts from Comments
[yarley]:Sorry, but you need to try therapy again. You don't need to like your therapist at all - you just need to be willing to lay it all on the line with them and ask for help. You said it yourself - you understand why you are in this rut; you just need someone to help you step out of it. That's what therapists do.
More concretely: get rid of your internet connection at home. That will help a lot. I spend too much time online and the happiest I've ever been is the one year I had no internet at home.
[sokkupapetto]: This is probably going to be contrary to other advice given here, and I don't know if this even makes sense, but, is it possible to meet people who share your same interests? Like at a convention dealing with whatever the topic of your fandom is? Or, even just at a meetup of sorts?. I've met the people I've known online and new people entirely at anime conventions and have made real-world friendships that way. It's just easier talking to people who share a common interest with you...
[hepta]:Oh, man. I am way too into fandom for my schooling's liking. So, there are things I try to remind myself:
1: Even though it is a distraction, and not "useful" in the way doing laundry is useful, everyone is deserving of a distraction. You don't have to cut it out of your life entirely, just make sure it is in balance with everything else in your life*.
2: There is value in my interactions there. Beyond the "internet friends are real friends" paradigm that I'm sure everyone here agrees with, fandom has a lot of good/interesting/provocative discussions around race, class, and gender that inform my real-life vision of the world around me. It makes me question my privilege and identity, using fictional characters as the starting point for those conversations.
* If you have nothing else in your life, use it as a branching out point. Start talking to fandom friends about hiking or biking or poetry readings or becoming a coffee aficionado. Then start exploring those things in your own community. It doesn't have to be huge, just starting to branch out beyond the online cocoon.
If it is the only bright spot in a dreary day, there is no need to get rid of it, there is though a real need to brighten the rest of your day. You can find that fun and community in reality as well. Joining a club or team can result in this, be it a running group or a pub crawl pack
[tau ceti]:If you want to quit and don't want to try cold turkey, your best bet would be to try putting clear limitations on yourself on how much you can read/view a day, and then whittle it down. If you're spending 6+ hours a day on it, then yeah, you should absolutely cut back
That said, I think you may want to reconsider some of your thoughts on the matter. I would agree that fanfic is not necessarily the most socially accepted or mainstream activity, but if it's what you enjoy, you don't have to feel ashamed about it. For example, you could use it as a jumping off point to meeting people in real life. There are plenty of meetups, conventions, etc, where you could meet like-minded people, make friends, and hopefully expand your circle of interests. It won't be easy if you're as shy and anxious as you claim, but TBH, you are unlikely to magically become better at people just by trying to change your interests.
[ErikaB]:Frankly, I don't think the fandom thing is as abnormal or as big a waste as you're seeing it. Most people would have spent all that time watching television. Same diff, really! Like you say, it makes you happy and it's not hurting anyone.
But as always, it's a problem if you think it's a problem. It sounds like you're using fandom as a refuge from the difficult stuff, not that fandom has become an addiction in and of itself. As such the best first approach is to try budgeting your fandom time.
[Countess Elena]:Trade off with yourself. Agree that you'll make an effort to get into a purely social, other-directed activity, in exchange for easing up on the feelings of shame and self-loathing that go with being heavily involved in fandom. (And oh, don't I know those feelings. Every time I am immersed in sports-related chatter and find my mind wandering to fic, I curse myself.)
Myself, I have received remarkable intangible results from being involved in fandom and internet communities, including continuing friendships that no longer have anything to do with the original catalyst, and years later, although I can concede that I might have gone dancing some more, I certainly don't regret the time I spent in old fandoms. I hope that you respect your hobby as well as love it.
When all else fails, at least you can put on "Trekkies" and reassure yourself that you're not the guy who mispronounces "plethora."
[Sara C.]:Can I ask a question?
What if you were a 29 year old guy, and you spent all your free time watching sports, reading sports stats, playing fantasy football, finagling the occasional set of tickets for the local game, etc etc? Would you still be so ashamed of your behavior and down on yourself?
In other words, what exactly is the problem here? Are you not able to live a normal life? Have you lost jobs, betrayed loved ones, pissed in a KFC bucket under your computer desk to avoid going to the bathroom because you can't pull yourself away from the fandom to take basic care of your immediate needs?
Or is it just that you're a shy person with a commonly disparaged hobby and some self esteem issues? Because, personally, I'm more worried about how down you are on yourself than what your hobbies happen to be.
[RampantFerret]:There are other, real, awkward, shy people who are into the same fandom that you are into. I bet you like other things beside that fandom too... and there are other, real, awkward shy people who are into all those other things.
There's nothing wrong with having a nerdy, weird hobby. If you're lonely, go find those other people who are also lonely. Are they at cons? Do they meet at a club night at a local college? do you know where I met my current Long Term Partner... we were members of the same Fencing club. we made friends. He invited me to join him and his friends at table top RPG night. We played D+D and Vampire the Masqurade and I made LOTS of friends who now, years later, I still talk to. and they were all as nerdy, shy, awkward and weird as I was at the time.
When I'm bored, I go to SCA events. TONS of other, weird, nerdy people looking to just have fun with others who "get it".
No one is judging you. You're not fucked up and you're not out of the norm. BUT, you have to make the move to break out of your shell yourself if you're unhappy. You don't need a therapist to do this, but you do have to do it. Start talking to people, you don't have to be bestest friends right away, you can pick and choose who you like and who you want to hang out with, you can start slow with short converesations about stuff you like and know a lot about. And you don't have to drive the conversation, you can ask people about themselves and they'll do most of the talking if you just ask them! People love to talk about themselves, and if you ask them, and allow them to talk, they will think you're a great listener and nice. And you'll know more about them, and they won't seem so intimidating.
And you don't suffer from any inborn lack of apptitude for making friends, being likeable and meeting people, you just haven't practiced.
[thesmallmachine]:I've been in all sorts of places with regard to fandom. Sometimes it's been unquestionably bad for me, mostly when my relationship with negative fan communities turned septic, or I lost interest in the original media, but was too invested in the fandom to recognize that. Other times, it's been lifesaving, an important space in my life for play and creativity without worldly pressure, and a way of making friends with "loves and hates and passions just like mine," as Morrissey said (though he wasn't the first to use the line).
I also write both fanfic and original fiction. Sometimes the fanfic strangles the original work in the cradle; sometimes I find skills and pleasures in writing the fanfic that carry over and enrich the originals.
In keeping with all this, I've held various opinions about fandom over the years, including the one that it's an ultimately immature and embarrassing hobby. I no longer believe this. It doesn't have the social cachet of, say, following a pro sports team or playing amateur soccer or knitting, but you could spin each of these in a similarly negative direction (why devote emotional energy to a corporate entity like a sports team? why do something you'll never be good enough at to do professionally, while also subverting your identity into a group's? why learn to make scarves when you can buy cheaper scarves of better quality?). People still watch and play and knit, and they think of these as passions, not distractions. Nothing is any more real than anything else.
So should you quit? If you've come to a point where it seems best, yes -- whether that means swearing it off or just doing it more consciously and moderately. When I've had to step back from fandom, I've often found that the best thing to do is not to cut myself off, but to fill my time with other things as well. I am not you and you are not me, but I often find that making fandom just one factor among several can make it recede into a more controllable and helpful role. So: reading other, non-fic things (set a page goal per day if that'll help; pick things you'll enjoy rather than things you think will improve you). Writing non-fic things (set a word goal per day if that'll help). Working on your career, which I know can be an excruciating process for word-oriented people -- I've tried seeing a career counselor, which wasn't life-changing, but did at least give me some things to consider and a sense of moving forward (and if you don't like therapy, it's a similar outlet with clearer goals and less immediate emotional investment). Whatever else you might like to do or think it's important to do.
And if you stay to some extent, or come back, it might be worth it to comment on some fics, reach out a little (I know this is easier to say than do, and perhaps you have and it hasn't done anything for you, but I'll throw it out there anyway). You seem like a thoughtful, well-spoken person who has things to say, and perhaps the real friendships you want are out there in fandom as well as real life. You know you and these writers have one thing in common, at least. But not knowing your situation, and well aware that you're looking for advice on making fandom less of a presence in your life, I say this part with some hesitation and enclose a grain of salt.
I'm a couple of years younger than you, but I've been either involved in fandom or actively divorced from fandom for most of my life from teenage years on. I don't mean to assume a tone of wisdom-from-on-high, and I'm sorry if I accidentally come off this way. We're both on the road to figuring out all this stuff and our place in it.
This is the main thing from my perspective: don't hate yourself for what you love. This will subtly poison the joy you take in it, and at times like this, when you feel that you'd like to become less dependent on it for your happiness, it will needlessly complicate your separation, -- turning it from a practical matter into a symbolically loaded and tortured one. At which point I would normally quote Giovanni's Room, Maurice, and The Left Hand of Darkness in quick succession, but I think I've talked for long enough.
[sarahsynonymous]:As other people have said, I definitely don't think that fan culture and fan fiction is necessarily a bad activity! You're reading, engaging your imagination, learning how to interact with and question texts, honing your attention to detail... there are many benefits. I wrote my senior paper in college on fan fiction and fan interaction with texts (and creators/writers/actors/etc.) and I still think it's a wild and interesting subject - and to think, Twitter hadn't even been invented when I wrote that paper! (I digress.)
But at the same time, I understand where you're coming from. I still feel quite disappointed in myself for just how much of my leisure time in college was sunk into trawling around Livejournal and reading fanfic until 4 am. And there is a stigma to it; as someone upthread mentioned, no one would bat an eye at someone spending hours perfecting their fantasy football picks, but fandom? Not cool, man.
I don't have any answers because I still struggle mightily with the little glowing box and its constantly updating flow of information, but one thing that helped me: Give yourself permission to be a member of fandom. Try not to denigrate it; yes, there are ways in which you can become too immersed and obsessive, but that is more about individual personalities than fandom itself. It's okay to be passionate about something, to feel inspired to learn more and be creative; it's okay to laugh until your sides hurt at a silly post with made-up conversations between characters. It's fun, it's engaging, it's thought-provoking and it isn't hurting anyone.
[ramenopres]:When I got out of fandom/fanfic, it took time and different strategies. Eventually, I just had to stop and say, "I will not go to any fanfic sites today." And then, eventually, I got used to not having it in my life. It was hard, but I am so glad that I did it. I feel like I have more control over my life.
One thing I tried was making a requirement for going online. My requirement was exercise. For each x minutes of exercise, or y number of crunches, I got to go on the sites for a half hour. Or I had to be actually lifting a weight WHILE reading.
Another was letting fanfic touch the rest of my life. A friend of mine started to get into it, and we talked about stories. Or I mentioned it to friends or family. That helped me see it more in perspective. I realized that it didn't need to have a big part in my life.
I recommend finding the good things in fandom/fanfic, the things you consider to be valuable, and developing those in a way that makes you happy and makes you feel good about yourself. For example, if you want to be a writer, write your own story! If you love the stories (the adventure, romance, whatever), try finding actual books in a similar genre.
Be careful of engaging with the canon, since it could remind you of memories from fandom. Take small steps, but don't let yourself get away with anything. Delete the bookmarks when you feel ready.
[rhizome]:I know this sounds trite, but if you don't want to become a crazy old cat lady then you need to stop doing the things that they do. Fanfic is an endless bottomless pit of novelty going back decades, prolifically. Someone's always coming up with something new, so you can always feel like you're accomplishing something while treading water. Getting a better sense of the canon. "But the waves look different than they did an hour ago." You drown.
I'm not saying that fanfic is bad or it's lame to be really interested in something, but those somethings don't really matter when they only lead into themselves, leading furthermore to crotchety-expert-on-stupid-shit syndrome and multiple cat ownership. More than two and you're single forever, by the way.
I think interesting stuff should be a point of departure, should lead to more connections with other stuff, not just Re5 Far-X's allegory on Duane Mr. Duane's Catwoman/Hello Kitty period piece, but what? The degree to which fanfic (just as a point of rhetoric, I'm not harping) leads to other things, say like Akira Kurosawa or some shit, some shit that other people not reading fanfic care about (while still keeping you interested in fanfic, natch), the more you will be able to avoid getting real good at removing poo-dreads.
[jenfullmooon]:If fanfic is the ONLY good thing in your life, the only interesting thing when the rest of your day is dull as shit... well, uh, no wonder!
But if you want off the fanfic, you're going to have to find something ELSE more interesting to do. Look for a less boring job (though easier said than done), sign yourself up for a class that gets you out of the house once a week, go to the gym, find some other life activity to do.
[porpoise]:You sound like you need to make your own fiction. Or fact-ion.
Live life. Go on an adventure. Sure; adventures in (fan)fiction usually turns out allright, and actual real-life adventures... might not. Real-life adventures are what makes it "real life."
Going out and doing stuff helps you discriminate "good" fanfic from "bad" fanfic. Putting yourself in an interesting situation and seeing the consequences will wean you off crappy fanfic.
[PhoBWanKenobi]:Hi, my name is Phoebe, and I was once a twelve year old Mulder/Krycek shipper. Like I had braces and no social skills and went to Renaissance Festivals and had a pile of Mercedes Lackey books as tall as me and refused to hang out with my friends Saturday nights because I had to roleplay Pern.
I went through a stage of time where I was terribly embarrassed by this. When I tried really hard to be cool.
Then I went to graduate school and had a very nice mentor in the English department whose dissertation was on fan communities. Harry Potter fan communities, particularly, and the prevalence of slash fiction therein. Around the same time, I started taking classes in kids' fantasy and realized that, while I hadn't been doing any of this stuff, I sure as hell still loved it.
I write original fiction now, but it's as geeky as it gets and who I am as a writer is a direct result of who I was at twelve. I wouldn't be here without her. Most of the people I knew from fandom at twelve are pretty amazing people now--quite a few of them are writers, or professional musicians or actually make a living from crafting. And they still meet-up at Dragon*Con to drink klah together!
This is rambling, but I guess my point is that I question your assumption that people who are active in fandoms can't be amazing people, and, more, that this amazingness has nothing to do with who they are online. I think therapy might be good for your anxiety issues--it might help you be a bit more proactive in life generally, but I think you might be using fandom as a convenient excuse.
[Jacqueline]: Try replacing online fandom with IRL fandom. Conventions are fun.
[parmanparman]: It seems to me your problem is existential. You don't need less community that entices you, you need to open up your door to other fans and writers. Why not hold a meet-up in your area. You know each other, so meeting up will only be awkward because you have to look each other in the eye. You know, people on Metafilter have gotten married through meet-ups. It could happen to you :D
[libertypie]:... I suspect for you, fandom was a substitute for social interactions, not another type of social interaction, as it would be for a "casual" fandom participant. I had a real social life, but I was so hyper-sensitive and riddled with insecurities that I preferred to retreat into my safe, controllable world of someone else's characters with predictable behavior. RP'ing was the worst of all: it was a place where everyone was happy and interesting and liked or loved one another or at least interestingly hated one another. It was an idealized real world, one that can easily come to replace the real one, and that former world prevents you from having realistic expectations about the latter. I partially withdrew from the real world because when I ventured out into it things were scary and unpredictable and had real consequences: the internet satisfied my need for social interaction with none of the risks. I could be the kind of person I wanted to be with a few articulate keystrokes, instantly, with none of that messy trying and failing and trying again business.
And I understand where people are coming from when they say that that's not so bad. But really, it is. The internet can never know or reflect you, regardless of how active you are in a fandom, and even feedback on your creativity working with other people's characters (which, as a non-writer if I read you right, you're not even getting) doesn't really have anything to do with you as a person. Real social interaction provides reflexive relationships, not just bonding with others but knowing yourself in the social world, which you'll really never get in fandom.
It's going to be tough, but it's endlessly rewarding to have someone know you and not a handle or username or favorite fic of yours, and the only way you're ever going to have that happen if you get out of the damn internet for good. I don't mean off it, but out of it: stop treating it like it's a real community, because it's a "kind" of community and a great supplement to real communities, but it isn't a community that suffices for life. Get out of other people's fantasy worlds—no matter how attractive and comforting they are—and explore the one that's all around you. I promise you that you won't regret it either.