#fandom problem 7759

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #7759:

*Waves cane in the air* Back in my day, we just said we had crushes on characters. We didn't do any of this "self shipping" stuff, which frankly, just invites poseessiveness and competition by virtue of the "ship" word being in there. No thanks.

[damnfandomproblems]

7759

Most self shippers who do the "not comfy sharing sorry i'm silly" thing are just kids who have a visceral panic reaction whenever they see someone who could possibly have better ideas than them, or post more things about the character, or are uncomfortable if they're not the "only one" in their object permanence-y bubble who self-ships with them because maybe their life sucks and they want to be The One at something. They have problems. I give them grace. Most of them will grow out of it. But I still avoid them like the plague.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

This problem had quite a few responses, so I've decided to compile them all onto one post, below the cut.

Anon:

self shipping has always been a thing, the most (in)famous example of it being the snapewives back in 2006 (so, almost 20 years ago.)

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Anon:

Re one of the comments, I've been here since 2014 and literally never heard of self shipping until a couple years ago. As in, I know people have shipped themselves with characters since like, the dawn of fandom, but "self-shipping" as a word and "community", not so much. I guess by extension: Was the concept of people shipping themselves with characters even called "self-shipping" back then? If not, I can see why it fell under the radar, because in that case maybe it just blended into all the "I love this character" posts. I also remember things like the Snapewives (eek), but I never saw the word "self-ship" to describe it.

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Anon:

"Possessiveness with characters has been and always will be around, whether someone says they "selfship" with them or not" True, but have you seen self-shippers? I can't be convinced that they're the same as others, because so many of them lean so hard on the escapism that they derive from their favs, I'm assuming because it's the best and deepest way someone can project and immerse themselves in a fantasy, that they go feral when someone even slightly accidentally oversteps a line. I'm talking, screaming, crying, throwing up, shaking at the keyboard like they've been triggered. I have a younger cousin who I visit sometimes, and she reacts like this every time someone she follows reblogs fanart from a person who also self-ships with the character. It's really fucked up. I was possessive about characters I wrote when I was a teen, but never like this.

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Anon:

The self-shipper possessiveness thing always gets me because, uh, are they okay? Are they really losing their tits just because someone else says they have a crush on a character? Is there something in the social media water that has turned the whole experience into a crabs-in-a-bucket deal? I was crushing over characters hardcore when I was in high school, and quite a few other people had the same idea as me (not going to lie, it's kind of funny when half your class is in love with Edward Cullen lmfao)... But none of us were even close to possessive? We all covertly made fun of each other by taping funny faces Edward made on in the movies on people's binders, and we shared stories we wrote, and one time during a grade sleepover we even watched Twilight and we would not shut up every time he was on-screen. I don't know, it just baffles me that people can be so up their own ass, be it from insecurity or pretentiousness or what say you.