#(which by itself is perfectly harmless. you do you boo. but like. it's also lowkey concerning when it becomes all-consuming.)

[sailorstarr-chan4]

Fandom needs to relearn that you can criticize the things you love without automatically "canceling" it or making it "cringe" for continuing to like it or pulling a Cinema Sins by nitpicking arbitrary bullshit. I truly think the reason why fans are so infamously bad at criticism (both giving and receiving) is because we as a society have lost the art of nuance and critical thinking as a whole. People claim they're "criticizing" a character's poor choices, when in actuality, it's thinly veiled demonized bashing. People bend over backwards to defend a character they love who's heavily criticized for poor representation/harmful stereotypes/bad writing choices, while also being just as guilty towards characters they don't like.

That and the whole "projecting oneself onto a character/story for so long, it becomes an integral part of your personality, therefore a criticism of said thing is a direct attack of YOU." Which is false, obviously, but fandom has yet to understand that.

And frankly, there are times and places where criticism is NOT necessary as a whole. It's one thing to unpack why a story is riddled with problematic tropes, toxic behaviors that are romanticized, shitty plot devices, etc. It's another to disproportionately bicker and argue and pick apart an older story/characters, whose ultimate sin is simply being dated and not holding up with today's standards.