What's happening now is kind of disgusting. Lois' fans call Chloe's fans psychos and we do the same to them in return. But frankly, we are all the same.
Remember when we didn't know if AM will return? Many of us claimed that we have already seen Lois&Clark show. We were angry and very loud about it. Well, now it's turn for team Lois to be angry that AM is back for whole season and they don't know if will ED be there only for 13 episodes or more. It's their turn to claim that they won't watch Chloe&Clark show.
"When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us." Oskar Wilde
For the big ChloexLois debate, it should be more like: When we complain about Chloe/Lois we feel no one else has the right to complain about them too, because that would be bashing.
Chloe's fan is bashing Lois when she/he is complaining about Lois entry to journalism and DP. Lois' fan is free to complain about it as much as he/she wants. And other way around. Lois' fans can't complain about what Chloe did because we would call it bashing.
Chloe/Lois is useless to the story. Both group of fans are saying it. When fan of Lois writes that Chloe is useless, other fans agree and say it's just opinion and truthful one in it, should they be asked about it by some randomly wandering/stalking fan of Chloe. When they see the same written about Lois, it's bashing. The best part is that I've been in fandom long enough to know that Chloe's fans do exactly the same thing.
Fan of Chloe can write that she isn't acting as Chloe anymore or that he/she wishes AM won't be back for next season. Said fan can write it because it's his/her opinion and a way how to vent frustration over the show. In case it's written by fan of Lois, he/she is called hater and frustrated over EDLois and her nonILL behavior.
Fan of Lois can write that Lois wasn't acting as ILL should and show frustration over her inability to publish her work and get information by herself. It's okay because said fan is just frustrated over Smallville. No one else can say it without being called ED hater and Chloiser.
Many of Chloe fans are getting ridiculed by Lois fans when they claim they will stop watching if AM will leave the show.
Lois' fans say that we don't really like Smallville and watch just to see Chloe. Well sweethearts, it's true. Do you want to know why?
Because we have been watching since season 1. We remember when the show had good storylines and characters were actually getting some real development. These times ended with the last episode of season 3.
See, that's the problem because these fans who makes fun of us, wouldn't know it because they didn't actually see first three seasons. They started watching just when they found out that Lois came to Smallville.
See, we would stop watching if AM left but many Lois' fans started watching when Lois came. What exactly is the difference? Who likes the show more?
Chlark is not going to happen because Clark doesn't love Chloe and is destined to be with Lois. Too bad guys, the universe where Clois is destiny, doesn't have Chloe in it.
Clois is not going to happen because Clark doesn't love Lois and Lois and Clark didn't even know each other in that stage of life. Too bad guys, welcome to the 'available for all women Clark Kent' verse.
I could keep doing this for another four hours but I don't want to and I hope, you see what I meant by this post.
Frankly, we are doing exactly the same things as other fans do. When we do it, we call it expressing ourselves. When they do it, we call it bashing.
Can't we just stop that. If you guys can't play nice, stay at your side of sand box. I'm not asking for people to agree with me, I'm asking them for discussing their opinions with me as civilized and educated human should.
So before you go to attack other fans on KSite, LJ or in real life remember these three mottos:
"I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird." Paul MacCartney
"The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own." Eric Hoffer
"The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with." Eleanor Holmes Norton
if it's too much to remember than just think of one short but powerful word: Tolerance
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Plus? I started out hating Chloe, but she grew on me. And while I like Lois, I like the Lois that we see in Chloe. (Does that make sense?)
So sick and tired of watching people online go after each other over fictional characters!
*pulls out hair* Between the Smallville and Supernatural fandoms, I think they're going to be the end of me.
Now, I don't know about any peaceful fandom.
Lately I've been focusing on the fact that Smallville is a fictional TV show and in the long run it really doesn't matter that much. After the whole psycho fan mess I'm content to (hopefully) not get into another mess where fans on each side bash and then get mad when the other side bashes back.
Thinking about tolerance would probably do a lot of us some good. Then fandom could be a happy place.
It's interesting that these bashing battles are usually because female characters. On Smallville is always about LoisxLanaxChloe. For Harry Potter it's about HermionexGinnyxLuna. The same goes for Gilmore Girls etc.
Really, why it's never been about PetexClarkxLex?
I don't personally have anything against anybody in this fandom apart from one crazy nut but I think some biases are too strong to overcome and there's too many people interested in saying their piece to keep the peace.
When you start getting random PMs about how much of a hateful person you are because you don't like lois, get anonymous comments on your icons/fics/vids because they are chlarky or bad mouth you on someone else's journal you are allowed to feel stalked, harassed for a fictional character/actress.
I don't like edLois and I could care less for Erica Durance, but for some reason ppl feel the need to harass me because I don't care for either.
I wasn't a negative person. All my icons were pro-chloe/chlois and when someone said those were anti-clois icons...I gave them something to talk about and started making anti icons.
Tolerance is something earned, they have not earned it.
And then we have KSite. EDLois fans are FLOODING KSite with nasty, unpleasant, close-to-abusive posts. One anti-Chloiser posted over fifty posts to the KSite Chlois debate thread in the space of forty-eight hours. ANY pro-Chlois comment there is met with several aggressively unpleasant posts. They are deliberately shouting down Chloe fans on that thread.
I don't hang around the rest of KSite much, but I gather it's much the same-- say anything positive about Chloe, and a whole bunch of posters will jump on you. KSite used to be an okay place to hang out, but now it's a genuinely hostile environment.
Like MsS, I'm just not feeling an inclination to be tolerant toward people who behave like that.
Edited at 2008-05-30 10:39 pm (UTC)
That's nine kinds of wrong. What is WRONG with people? Where do they get off flaunting that in other peoples' faces? Whatever happened to the idea that it's okay to agree to disagree with people?
KSite used to be an okay place to hang out, but now it's a genuinely hostile environment.
And no one's doing anything to stop them, which is why I stopped posting there a good year ago. Sad to see it's gotten worse. :(
I have seen anti-Chlois and anti-Chloe icons around. I didn't start harassing these people and I don't think you would harass them either. That's tolerance.
I think PMs and anonymous comments are way too extreeme. When I wrote this and I didn't think about people like that but about more stable and open for discussion people.
I know :)
And I would completely agree with you if quite a few of my friends hadn't been harassed by email, PM, nasty comments on blogs/LJ, etc.
It's really been quite awful over the last few weeks, much worse then I would have ever expected.
I don't mean that if someone came to you and stab you in the eye you shouldn't take action against the person but if it's just different opinion, it really doesn't matter.
Frankly, I didn't even thought about it while writing my post because harassment is not your standard behavior and society should not tolerate it or turn a blind eye on it.
Like, hello? This is fandom? You know, fun stuff about a fictional TV show. I'll be the first to say I love Chloe and I hope they do the Chlois theory.
I'll also step up and say the world won't end if they don't. Yeah, I would've stopped watching if AM had been axed for next season. That's my personal decision, no one else's. Everyone's entitled to their opinions. It'd be nice if all of us could just enjoy the aspect of the shows we like and not take it personally if someone has a different opinion than we do.
But some people DO take it to an extreme and openly attack people for having differing opinions--I've seen this for every fandom I've ever been part of. And frankly I used to get really upset over it. Now I just don't really care unless someone's attacking a friend of mine.
I think fandom, as a whole, could do a hell of a lot of good if/when we put our minds to it--and actually do things to make the world better. Frankly right now that's what I'm trying to focus on. I love fandom. It's my escape. But I'm not devoting nearly as much attention to it as I used to. *shrugs*
/hope that made sense, lol...
It just bothers me that you can't discuss things. Even these people who aren't crazy stalkers aren't open for good old-fashioned debate about Smallville. Lately, fans got, lets say, paranoid and look for bashing in every little thing you write.
As I said previously, I don't take stalkers and other extremities into account when thinking about people. I'm trained from school. My brain works only with stable people. I study pol sci and not psychology.
I love your icon. So cute.
The Chlois theory does pit the two characters against each other and I just don't see that there is going to ever be a point on which these two groups of people are likely to agree; furthermore, the writers have encouraged the Chlois theory at times, by their own admission; they contrast the two girls deliberately and I resent being told by "Lois" fans that I am imagining it all or making it up, etc.
Of course few people descend to the level of whacko that MLV has but there is still plenty of nastiness coming from that side of the fence. It appears to me that a majority of Anti-Chloisers or ED fans on K-Site go out of their way to intentionally insult us and I'm just not going to see eye to eye with that kind of behavior. They swarm on any Chloe or Chlois fan like a pack of sharks, posting repeatedly, one after the other, egging each other on to be be even more rude. If I post one comment on the Chlois thread, I can just sit and count up the email repsonses that pop up almost immediately, and it is always the same people saying how stupid we are for thinking/saying whatever it was. Unfortunately, I don't think there can be the kind of tolerance you're hoping for when one group tends to behave like that.
About MLV no comment. Even Cloisers are ashamed that she belongs to them.
I'd write more but it's way too hot to think.
Btw, I love your icon. Is it your cat?
I have two others, brothers, we think, because they each have an extra whisker and they both have corns on their foot pads, something I have never seen on cats before. Pye doesn't like her brothers and is definitely the top cat of our house!