Ironic Distance

Synonyms:
See also:	Puppies In A Box, Lord King Bad
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Ironic distance describes a way of communicating in which someone demonstrates a degree of detachment from a sincerely felt subject through the use of sarcasm, comedy and absurdity.

Fandom often uses ironic distance both in general chatter and in fanworks. Fans experience a degree of negative stereotyping based on the idea that they are dangerous, delusional or mindless, and ironic distance allows fans to show each other that they are self-aware of how ridiculous their obsessions may seem, and therefore to express socially stigmatised or inappropriate feelings in a way that is more "safe" to a community.

There is little ironic distance in fandom communication from the 80s, which now comes off as painfully earnest compared to the ubiquitous sarcasm of internet fandom. It may be argued that ironic distance in stories is a symptom of postmodernism, and cannot be found in stories which predate the post-modern movement in fic fandom. However, the word "fan" itself is a form of ironic hyperbole, as it is a shortening of the word "fanatic", a term that refers to a religious believer who is devout to the point of insanity. Other ancient fandom terms also carry an ironic religious tone, such as "canon", a term originating in theology to describe the fundamental texts of a religion -- clearly, there is humor in applying this word to the kind of low-prestige entertainment that tends to attract fandoms.

In 2007, cimorene wrote:

I think what a lot of them boil down to [...] what you could call postmodernism. that is to say: an ironic or meta attitude to what we do is what is now in vogue in the main body of media fandom. to borrow a metaphor from wax, the harlequin genre and old fandoms would be tackiness, whereas modern fandom is not tackiness, but kitsch: what happens when tackiness, thoroughly in love with itself, grows hip and gains an elaborate theoretical education and joyously rediscovers, refurbishes, and restores its roots. (this isn't to say that old fandoms weren't witty, intelligent, or highly educated; it speaks, rather, to a general paradigm shift, and obviously to the fashion and not to the whole population.)

Examples of ironic distance in fandom

One example of fannish ironic distance is the self-mockery that was particularly prevalent among popslash fans, and demonstrated in website names like Temporary Insanity and I will not be afraid of boybands. Another is Lord King Bad.

Around the late 2000s, the term "stan" became ubiquitous in fandom as an insult for unwell, erotomanic fans, referring to the violent and misogynistic protagonist of the Eminem song of the same name. Due to the ironic adoption of the term by ordinary fans to make fun of their embarrassing but reasonable obsessiveness, the meaning of the word "stan" soon shifted to a general term for a fan active on social media with no particular implication of toxicity.

Self-referential use of the term tinhat is a common example of ironic distance in some RPS fandoms. It is often used by fans who want to celebrate interviews or photographs featuring their OTP as "evidence" that the pair is in love or in a relationship, while simultaneously acknowledging that such an interpretation is implausible and an indulgence in wishful thinking. Fans calling themselves tinhats is usually a marker that they are not real tinhats, as they do not take their shipping that seriously. A similar phenomenon is the way that Taylor Swift fans who enjoy shipping her with women refer to the practice of contriving sapphic readings of her songs as "clownery" -- differentiating themselves from sincere believers in Gaylor theory, who tend to describe the same activity with more objective-sounding terms like "discovering Easter eggs".

Irony is often lost between different cultures. In the 2000s, slash fangirls in Japan began to self-describe as "fujoshi" ("spoiled girl") as an ironic response to misogynistic stereotyping from male otaku in doujinshi spaces, who considered them to be perverts ruined for marriage (and therefore "spoiled"). In the 2010s, this caused controversy on Tumblr when some Western fans of Japanese fandoms failed to spot the irony, instead assuming the label was an unironic declaration of arrogance and evil.

Irony can also be lost between different cultures within the same fandom. In the 2010s, it became common for female and queer stans on social media sites to make aggressive, absurd sexualised comments about the male objects of their affections (e.g. "i want to suck out his eyeballs and eat them like grapes") -- a form of ironic shock comedy that allows the fan to express their love in a way that makes them look like the fool. Fans unfamilar with this fandom culture frequently criticise users for making these comments, considering them sexually abusive harassment and extremely disrespectful.