#but about what it says about the so-called parasocial relationship with louis

[zethhazloutay]

CW: Talk about BBgate, Larries, Antis and fandom behaviours, don’t like, don’t read.

Take care everyone, I will block any negative interaction bcs I like my mental health, if you have a different point of view and are able to share with respect I would love to talk about it as long as it’s not an attack on any demographic, read it all so the conversation adds up.

Expecting H and L to come out and be public is as bad as calling them queerbaiters.

Expecting L to confirm bbygate is as distasteful as constantly probing a non-traditional family by claiming their family dynamic is not valid.

Forcing an specific queer label on them is as gross as dying on the hill that they can’t be anything but straight.

Expecting H or L to debunk their romantic relationships stunt is as disrespectful as thinking every woman their work with is their beau/beard. Stunt work is part of their work, both parties of a stunt relationship consent to it and get something out of it, the real relationships behind the screen could be anything from workplace companionship to love.

Claiming and modelling L and H relationship status to your fantasies is as bad as projecting hetero-monogamy in them.

Being a Larry truther is as toxic as being an Anti, since these both groups tend to think their lives and carrers revolve around a fan-theory for good or bad.

Even if all the theories where real or false ( I think the most important part about this is having an open mind to any possibilities) there are tons of behaviours that are disgusting by all parts of the fandom (solos ot5, Antis, Larries, Buzzings) and it’s important to remember that is fun to be part of something but we have to remember we are not entitled to ANYTHING as their fans.

Growing up, being able to have meaningful IRL interactions, grow apart from the fandom and ‘touch some grass’ made me revisit Louis words about Larry and realise what they try to convey a communicate.

“People can believe what they want to believe even if it is bs and they are so connected to their beliefs that they won’t see other realities what I don’t like is when their beliefs transpire in invasive IRL nasty behaviours”

What this tells me is he doesn’t not give a fuck abt Larries since they are not by any means his ‘golden fan base’ or the ‘rotten fan base’ (despite what any Larry or Anti says). He cares however abt the real life consequences that have bleed from crazy ass people, because again, no matter the ‘proverbial truth’ (that he has only given by voice is ‘false but you can believe in it if you want [weird response but ok]’ ) he will never give pats in the back to people that have time and time again be the headquarters of invasive behaviours that he will never want or approve, queer or cishet, with H, E, single or with another person, proudly out or closeted. He does not address toxic behaviours in the fandom because he knows that a handful of people doesn’t represent all there is to the fan base, but we know that if he notices something he doesn’t like he will call it out.

This text it’s not for making anyone feel bad or guilty (Unless you stalk people around them or other parts of the fandom) is for anyone who might suffer of ‘Parasocial Stan Larry/Anti syndrome’ to realize that it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER we don’t need to know every single thing or defend any rich popstar of their own doings. We need to enjoy music, touch grass, hydrate, talk to our loved ones and uplift the joy in our lives and fandoms, unlearn toxic behaviours and be kind. We can all be delusional, wrong, bigots, selfish, hedonist and parasocial, but the important thing is to identify our own bluff and stop it, to understand everyone does/believe things for a reason and it’s not our place for us to berate each other but to give space for possitive things (pride flags, respect for privacy, fan fiction [most say is deranged but ff is what keeps creativity and writing alive and honestly, is not harmful at all if we all follow the etiquette] ,fan projects, friendship bracelets, cute and respectful interactions, taking care of each other, accept we all have a space in the fandom and it’s not a race of ‘the best fan’).

[eddiediazismyhusband]

tw: mentions of suicide

Okay wow i did not expect to be sobbing over an actor at 6 pm on a monday….

i just….

if you are someone who has ever dealt with anxiety and depression, and has attempted suicide in the past you know how much of a bond you feel when you meet someone else who has struggled with what you have.

to get vulnerable for a moment, when i was in 10th grade i was outed to my mom when she took my phone and found messages to a guy i was talking to. i had all of my electronics taken away, and when i used them i had to be in the room with someone else and was told everything i did would be monitored. i was sent to a doctor who my mom asked to try and “fix” me. i was out at school, but even there i had to deal with being called slurs, having suggestive comments made about me, even vile accusations made simply because i was not straight. By the end of my 10th grade year, i was in such a dark place, that i decided the only way out was by taking my own life.

i will not go into the details of how i planned to do so, nor the aftermath, but all of this to say is that i am here today because i was unsuccessful— and i am so happy that i was.

i have since been able to rebuild a relationship with my mother, i have grown more confident in who i am, and learned to let the hate roll off my back.

i have of course had low moments; healing isn’t linear. mental health doesn’t exist on a flat plane. it ebbs and flows.

i have mentioned before that i take medication now. i see a therapist. i am still on my mental health journey— and anyone who struggles will tell you it’s a journey that you take the rest of your life.

This is why whenever i see an actor- especially one i look up to/admire- talking openly about their own history with mental health and suicide, it hits very close to home. it makes me feel a connection to them on a deeper level.

i don’t particularly like parasocial relationships, nor think they are healthy, so that is not what i mean by saying i feel a connection to RG. But knowing that even people you look up to and respect and admire have gone through the same things as you provides a sense of understanding and validation that is unmatched.

i am so glad that Ryan feels comfortable enough to be open about this to the fandom, and that he has felt that he could share this with us.

i am so glad that he is in a better place, and i am so glad he is alive and has made it through.

to wrap this up, if you are reading this, know that you are loved— i may not know you personally, and our only interaction ever may be you reading these words, but no one deserves to feel so much pain and hurt that they think they are better off not existing.

you make the world a better place just by breathing. i promise.

stay strong. ❤️

- louis

[ca-suffit]

Ca I'm fucking tired I swear 😭 These people will pull out 'Claudia is a stand in for Anne's daughter' 'Lestat is Stan' 'Louis is her' I EVEN FUCKING HEARD 'She wrote TOTBT after her dad died and Talbot is an incarnation of her memory for him' (real unflattering for him I guess) or how intrinsically she was connected to Lestat.

BUT GOD FUCKING FORBID, that someone brings out her statement about 14 year olds being adults when talking about the erotic depiction of Armand's sexual assault, and the complete tolerance of it from every other character, and Marius being painted as a saviour, the good master, etc. Or her saying photographs of children in Vogue were erotic.

THEN it's 'seperate the art from the artist' 'depiction isn't endorsement' WELL GUESS WHAT YOU CAN'T PICK AND CHOOSE THIS SHIT. I'm sorry that so many people formed a parasocial relationship with this woman, because her work is actually much more interesting when you're able to critique it and figure all the ways of how or why it's fucked up.

(obligatory thank you for existing Ca and welcome back, your blog is a safe haven for people who have anything to say outside of the echo chamber. 🖤)

tw: csa

the way I see a lot of how she wrote in her books and what she said on these topics in interviews is that she prbly experienced it firsthand and spent a lifetime never confronting it. that's what happens with some trauma victims, they stay locked into that mindset from being a child victim and end up repeating these justifications for shit bcuz they can't ever escape. I dislike the woman greatly and idk if I'd call it "pity" for her, but I feel some kind of something for someone who had the means to get rly extensive therapy and instead used it to lash out at ppl (her own fans a lot of the time) until she died. now her fans are repeating the same behaviors and also having no self-awareness of that, while not even having access to her wealth so even more wtf are u all doing.

it *is* a lot more insightful to question everything in these books and look at her too, which is why I was first surprised af that this didn't routinely happen when I first had awareness of this fandom too. There's plenty of ppl who do it, they just don't last long in the very public area of fandom spaces bcuz the rabid "gothic romance" types chase them all out, bcuz they can't undo their special image of her and/or look at their own trauma they're using this to escape from (or did as kids) and they make that everyone else's problem.

(also ty for the nice comments<3)

[chaos0pikachu]

Hi chaos,

I don't know if you've heard of the Ohm-Nanon fans going to Nanon's concert wearing Ohm masks but it happened? (I don't know how to end that sentence.) (Sorry, English isn't my first language.)

You have written about parasocial relationships so I wanted to ask why are people still involved in Ohm-Nanon? Bad Buddy ended so long ago and they are still doing all this. What makes Ohm-Nanon so special? We haven't see such huge bad behaviour from other pair brands.

Please never ever apologize for how you sound in English which is a dumb broken language anyway lol fr you're English is great

anyways um, what in the fucking purge?? lmao sorry the masks thing is just taking me out I'm imagining it and the image in my head is giving kdrama to the max with the discord music and everything lmaoooo

I had not heard of that b/c I don't follow actors like that at all this is very much Brand New Information.gif for me whew wow

Soft disclaimer here I am not an expert behavioral science or anything related so like, anything I say in regards to this is based only on what I've read, can link to from experts in the field, and speculation.

I don't think OhmNanon are necessarily "special" tbh like this behavior is extreme but I wouldn't call it "new".

In western fandom you had or still have fans behaving like this we just call them "tinhats".

Like, take Larries for instance, Louis just spoke about it in an interview that nothing he can say will deter the conspiracies theorists so he's kinda stuck. This article from VOX is old (2016) but it features a pretty clear cut timeline of the theories, and obsession tinhats have with Larry. Even before Larry there was J2 (Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki from Supernatural):

I want to note that One Direction stopped being an active band in 2016, almost 8 years ago. And neither Harry nor Louis have been spotted like, hanging out~~ in public for almost that entire time. Meanwhile Jared and Jensen have been been married to their wives since 2010, almost 15 years.

To play fair, Caitríona Mary Balfe (best known for Outlander) is also at the root of a tinhat conspiracy with her costar Sam Heughan. Caitriona has been married since 2019.

Western fandom likes to pretend this environment of fan entitlement, and obsessing over costars relationships is an East Asian entertainment only thing. I thoroughly disagree, and I'm sure the people involved in these various tinhat conspiracies, many who have been thoroughly and ruthlessly harassed along with their spouses, family, friends, and anyone else caught in the crossfire would also disagree.

For me the only arguable difference between like MewGulf and Larry is MewGulf played up skinship as a means of capital and for work, while Louis and Harry were just two dudes in a band.

[I even watched the old school MewGulf videos of them during Peak Fanservice Era and I gotta say it's all so obviously hilarious fake and played up I would have never taken them seriously as a true blue couple. They reminded me more of Adam Lambert making out with his bassist during his FYE tour (Tommy, who from what I remember is straight but idk 100%) for the fun and rock n roll of it all.]

I'm getting off track, I don't think OhmNanon are "special" by-the-by because I've seen this entitled and obsessive behavior with other tinhat ships. The length of time doesn't really matter, what matters is sunk cost fallacy:

"the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial."

Fans have invested time, love, and literal money into Ohm and Nanon, therefore giving them up - and thus giving up the "community" they've build with other Ohm and Nanon fans - is unthinkable and painful.

Combine that with general fan entitlement towards public figures, the para-sociality of believe you, individually, know what's "best" for this person - aka this STRANGER - and there's a belief that you can change or force an outcome that suits your needs and wants.

There's a lot of dehumanization involved in fan entitlement, ppl stop viewing public figures - especially actors and musicians - as products rather than people. And with a product if you leave a bad review, and enough bad reviews the company will fix and change the product.

But people aren't products, and you can't force them to do what you want or be who you want them to be just because it upsets YOU individually.

So at the end of the day, what's gonna happen with Ohm and Nanon? Well, they'll probably just keeping doing what they do. Filming their individual shows, maybe one of them will do another BL - I think Ohm already has one in the works? - and try to move on with their lives. They're coworkers and from what I've seen seem fine being coworkers. I'm not interested in speculating what their relationship is, or was, publicly, they've said they're fine with each other so I'm very es lo que es about it.

For fans, well they're probably slowly taper off eventually with only a core group of "true believers" or whatever like some MewGulf, BrightWin and others have. As fans I think the only thing we can do is discourage the behavior, and be empathetic towards the people being harassed.

Now I'm gonna leave you with my favorite debunk of a tinhat post:

[gagfadget]

Y’know what…I’m gonna to play this card…I wonder if Lestat was black would people be so adamant about having others forgive him and empathizing with him? And why are people so adamant about me doing that? I’ve gotten to a point where I’m kinda convinced that people sending me asks like this don’t want me to be more understanding of his situation or his life, they want me to kiss his feet and coddle him because they formed a parasocial relationship with a book character. I know I sound fucking insane saying that but Iam serious like….why are people coming to my black ass asking me to empathize with this character who sometimes relishes in oppressing others and has the power to do so? Why should I forget all of his insane wrongdoings in the book because other people feel like it’s the right thing for me to do? When have I EVER seen this amount of calls for empathy towards a black villain who also has a sad past? I’ve seen some of the same people who defend book!Lestat and understand his character hate on show!Louis because they feel like he’s manipulative and abusive. So,…what’s actually going on here?

[causticsunshine]

Regarding the ‘flower project’ thing, most people are very simple in that they think other people share their interests and what they like. They are also the people who bring you a gift that they would have loved to get themselves instead of considering what you would have actually liked to get or need. I’m sure we all know those ppl and have them around, they don’t do it with malice but it’s pretty short sighted/ self centred..

just having been around here so long i think it’s maybe more so the case that SOME of the people who do this or act similarly in general are often just plaintively unaware of how these best intentions for other peoples’ sake are unintentionally self serving at their core—at least partially—OR based off assumptions of character and likes that aren’t intentional but also, in turn, prove to be at least partially self projected, and considering when things are said or done, may be inappropriate/unnecessary.

so even when it seems the answer to these hopeful/nice somethings done is ‘okay but whyyy did you think this was the time/place for this etc.?’ because it seems so obvious, for whatever the reason, these people may simply need the push, reminder, call-out to recognize a sound counterpoint as to why they should not do/say the thing they were well-intending to do.

and i DO think that’s something a lot of people may do unintentionally, if only from time to time, case specifically. and if it’s a true issue they have that’s additionally pushing boundaries, making others uncomfortable, etc. it’s good to communicate that to the person doing it directly so they’re aware and either an understanding can be made, the behavior can be altered, what have you.

BUT all benefit of the doubt being said, in the direct case of these parasocial relationships of fans and artists, and specifically here in the case of louis and his fans, there have been several instances of the fans just blatantly ignoring things he’s said about himself, or ways he personally portrays himself, to fit their self-satisfied image of him. including doing things he has plainly asked them NOT to do, such as throwing flowers onstage, intentionally throwing things AT him (denver nugget incident last year, anyone?), and to not carry on this pity party Poor Louis :( charade because he doesn’t like to be pitied.

enough of us have spoken on why we think it’s ignorant/tone deaf/whatever you want to call it that some fans insisted on having such a pity project for LOUIS after the red rocks incident when it was the affected FANS who truly deserve any aid others have to spare, so i’m not going to rehash all that here. but given your point, anon, whether the intentions put in place were pure and hence some of these people trying to organize or encourage such a project fall within the group i mentioned earlier, the fact that after what happened, they still put the joy of an artist over the actual wellness of fans directly affected by such a scary and poorly handled (by the majority of the venue staff; so far i’ve heard nothing but good things about louis and his team helping out) incident…. it just boggles my mind.

tldr; this all being said though, anon, i do agree with you! some people just don’t realize how their good intentions can come off when they’re actually misplaced, ranging from being incidentally selfish to fully ignorant, tone deaf, and even harmful (and ofc, this is all circumstantially based on all/both sides). but i do also think that when it comes to specific situations, perhaps even specific people, one needs to be EXTRA aware of what these good intentions actually hold.

if someone has said they don’t like x thing, or don’t want you to do x thing, it’s not up to you, especially when you have a indirect and parasocial relationship with them, to go ‘well i think this time you WILL like it/want me to do this, so i will do it anyway :)’. it’s both a very simplistic and very complex topic, depending on surrounding circumstances and people involved.

and if you so badly want to cheer louis up, if he even NEEDS cheering up—like idk i think the focus should be on helping affected fans regardless here—be a good crowd! learn the lyrics! when he’s speaking, don’t scream at or over him. don’t punt shit at him or on the stage when he’s walking around. be respectful of other fans at your shows and if someone needs help, help them! make it a good experience for everyone!

[halosluvchild]

parasocial relationships are weird because for me Louis and Harry are like parents/older siblings/supportive friends because that's exactly what I'm lacking in everyday life which is psychologically what a parasocial relationship is for a person. so I have my cute little nicknames I call them that really aren't original like Harry is bun, bunny or just H and Louis is Sun or Lou and I have a habit of cringing at any sexual tags that I see being used about them ( yet I'm fine with smut and nsfw manips which is weird) but I wouldn't tell anybody to stop using them or try to police what they say just because I feel a certain way about it. I just find it weird how all our brains are wired differently and how we can have the same parasocial relationships but for different reasons.

[1dhq]

x

[caralara]

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/skepticalarrie/691435557687050240?source=share

this one <3

Ahhhh yeah that PR anon is causing a lot of discussion on that blog! It’s super interesting.

Read a few now. I mean, I’m sure this anon does have experience in PR, but reading through it it doesn’t really change my view…? They’re not discussing at all if this could be to do the babygate push the way I see it (establish devoted daddy!Louis in the fandom for all those that are unsure, twarries and antis) so that they’ll swallow the “oh I really thought he was my son” lie more easily later. They seem to be somewhat knowledgeable about what’s going on in the fandom, but not super deep in it. The timing of the dm (November apparantly) would fit with the fandom push because right now we’ve already moved to the next phase of this image being pushed in the public (interviews etc). His focus was clearly on establishing this within the fandom though (starting last year November, so a whole 9 months of heavy babygate pushing 9 months lol) compared to most likely 6 weeks of public pushing. I can also see him provoking the boy’s mother to publish it now in some way, maybe mentioning it or sending smth else, reminding her, talking to her about it (in a sly way lol he does know a lot about psychology!) when they saw each other for the show - could be bc there was another Freddie push that was supposed to make the rounds in the fandom a few weeks back but it never made it out of the dms, so maybe he went back to this trying to get that out.

What I do agree on with the PR anon is the setting boundaries. Louis did have a few m&g over the tour, which is an opportunity for fans to ask actual questions, that are not necessarily screened before hand, and I think in order for this whole thing to work, he has to make sure that in person interactions are controlled (by fear of upsetting him? So they don’t ask about Larry/Babygate?) so he doesn’t have to deal with something like this in person. You saw how he stumbled over talking about freddie in one of the recent I interviews lol. He’s a good liar but everything he says about Larry and bbg gets dissected.

They’ve done this before, remember the horrible phone call? The one threatening F? They highly publicised it, and it was super effective in fans policing other fans to stop talking and theorising about babygate, the same with the UA call quite some time back. It makes people stop digging, in fear of angering Louis and sabotaging their very personal (parasocial) relationship to him. And they need people to not make such a big wave and create doubts in people, so that they don’t come out looking like liars. They need us to be secure in our believes: either you believe him and believe he’s a dad and that’s it, or you’re buzzing and you’ll support him through this stunt. Everything in between is at danger of being lost, fans quitting cos they’re doubting.

So that’s what I think about it. They bring up good points, but I do believe it’s all part of the plan. I do believe Louis does a lot of the social media himself, because he’s taken the reins back and is executing his own plan of getting out of this stunt.

[likebranchesonatree]

Like honestly, when he posted that photo in memory of that late author, he got so much shit for that. That it wasn’t genuine, that he’s exploiting her death, why did he post it the next day and not on the day she passed. People were all “that’s suspicious” and “something bad is gonna happen” and so on.

I used to really enjoy social media, back when I was a teenager because it was fun. But now when I’m older it’s just such a toxic place and except for maybe Tumblr and Instagram I don’t use them. I just scroll and check on my friends but don’t post much myself. He made it clear why he doesn’t use social media and why it affects him. It’s so bizarre that people preach about boundaries but as soon as you don’t like a certain boundary, you will try to force someone to change or try to make them feel bad for establishing it in the first place.

I think this is in relation to a post I reblogged about six days ago, sorry I didn't respond to this sooner! Tbh, I didn't see anything about him being bashed for posting that picture of the late author, but I agree that Harry's made it clear that social media isn't for him anymore. Also, I wouldn't necessarily call it a boundary, but I get what you mean. The relationship we have with celebrities nowadays is very parasocial and weird and overall unhealthy in the long run for a lot of people. I rewrote this like 5 times but basically what I want to say is that it's valid to feel sad about H's lack of social media presence, but you have to accept that it's not something he wants to engage in as a public person. It's easy to feel like celebrities owe you something, after all you helped them become celebs in the first place, and to a certain degree they do (but that's a conversation for another time), but they don't owe you anything beyond what they're comfortable sharing from their private life, especially when that has nothing to do with their career. As I said in my tags, his privacy gets exploited at every turn anyways, so if I were him I'd also have zero desire to share even more of me if I don't have to. And with this 'untouchable superstar' image they created for him, it would also be quite weird if he suddenly started quoting Louis on his twitter again (although I would sell a kidney for that :D).

[dontmesswithnoheroin]

i hope that everyone is aware that all the yelling on tumblr, all the long posts about how problematic people are, etc, etc, are in the end a result and reflection of our own life frustrations

there’s a lot of people on here that are very sensitive to the world and use this site to express these things. it all becomes a big mess when shit gets taken personally, but ultimately all we say is a reflection of our own internal world.

i don’t normally send hate to people, but yesterday i mocked some larries (such a fucking low hanging fruit tbh, a bit pathetic from my side) and it reminded me of the whole kevin spacey scandal and how there were still fans on this site that supported him after all this shit about him came out. and i would go on these blogs and wait for them to turn against him like my life depended on it. and there’s still a post somewhere out there of me being like, i cant believe these fucking morons are still fans of him, or w/e.

but of course parasocial relationships are a very real thing that honestly should be talked about more. people needed some time to get over that their best friend was actually a horrible person. it’s not their fault that their idol, someone they maybe relied on to get by on their darkest days, turned out to have done some despicable things. and likewise, all of the other thousands of idols out there, might turn out to be the same (like we’ve been experiencing during the #metoo era). and larries have this very strong parasocial relationship with louis and harry, and their relationship, to the point they will drone on and on about this kid and this family that really doesn’t have anything to do with them. 

people on tumblr are another breed and you can’t tell me otherwise. there’s a reason each one of us is still on this site, sis. fandoms, stanning, calling out, discussing morality, idpol, all of this. people on this site get so fixated on things, myself included. it’s one of the most anonymous social media sites out there, and people use this anonymity to get on high horses and feel morally superior to others. but this shit doesn’t come from a happy place though. happy people don’t go on the internet pointing out each and every small problematic thing about a celebrity, or go rallying against ideologies in long posts that make no sense (lol). it’s a big world out there, and scary world at times. an infuriating amount of injustice and evil is going on, and i think that most of us feel helpless in the face of all this.

anyways, i just wanna say that i dont hate nobody for liking sia, or kevin spacey, or anybody for that matter. i talk a lot of shit on here and it’s a way of dealing  with my own life. i try to never address anyone directly, although i’ve been doing more of that recently, and that’s probably wrong. so if anyone ever feels called out my posts, you’re not. that’s not my intention. my intention is to point out what frustrates me about humanity, certain traits, certain behaviors, but not entire people. i will never know sia or kevin spacey personally, nor be them, and i will never understand their choices on that level. i can look at them and judge them, and condemn them, but it’s just a perspective. in the words of a modern philosopher tia kofi, im looking from the outside in. and for those that feel like im problematic, i am sis. i am. deeply, and will be so for the rest of my life. working on it tho.

have a good day everyone <3