I’ve been thinking. After reading about people’s reactions to Jared and the discussions about CE needing to enforce their own rules, and rude fans, something really stands out for me.
Jared truly gets the most extreme reactions from the SPN fandom, both positive and negative, and the “reasons” are just as extreme.
You have the people who “hate” him, or say they do. Some even go out of their way to be rude to his face. But, their reasons for hating him are actually insane. They hate him because he’s the lead (instead of Jensen), because he was “in the way” of destiel, (blocking Jensen and Misha’s characters from baging 🙄), or because they attribute beliefs or actions to him that are contradictory to how he actually behaves. And they take everything he says in bad faith, attributing the worst intentions possible to the things he says. In short, most people’s reasons for “hating” Jared are either jealousy-based or fabricated. It’s pathetic really, especially how vehement some are about hating him when it’s not even the real him, or it’s for something that isn’t his fault (he didn’t force the writers to have Dean impaled on rebar). Finally, people who claim to hate him for his actions (pranks, the arrest, “mean” jokes) excuse the same or similar actions in Jensen snd Misha.
People who have more “legitimate” reasons for disliking him (maybe his personality irritates them, or they don’t like his acting style or shows/movies), are generally not insane about it. They are more apathetic about him. This is fair enough because not everyone vibes with everyone. But it’s funny that for people who maybe just aren’t fans for non/fandom wank reasons probably don’t actually hate him. They’re just ignore him.
Then you have the people who love him. They love him for his mental health campaigns. They love him for how sweet he is to fans: listening intently, hugging tight, going that one extra step to make them feel special. Many of these people go up to him with stories of how he has done something to actively make their lives better or help give them strength, etc. The thing is, the love is based on his actual actions. We obviously don’t really know him (he could be a huge asshole behind the scenes, though I doubt it), but the things people like him for are actual things he has done, or it’s because of who he appears to be.
It’s just so crazy to me that he gets the most vitriolic hate (out of the SPN crew), when it’s mostly for things that aren’t even in his control. It’s wild.
Anyway, I have “met” Jared a few times at cons. I’ve never told him I love him, and I probably never will, because that’s not a term I can throw around lightly. And I don’t actually know him on any personal level. But what I can say is that my “worst” interactions with him were him seeming tired and subdued, while my best have been … so good that they still brought me little moments of happy for weeks after they happened.
I guess my point to almost this ramble was, I hate that he gets people treating him crappy on occasion, but I’m thankful that Jared also get huge amounts of very genuine appreciation from fans, too. And I’m sure for him, the good far outweighs the bad.
I’m sorry this got so long.
What was your impression of Jared at Fan X? Did anything stand out for you?
Thank you for sharing! I think it's crazy how people hate him for the dumbest things that he's not at all responsible for (like the writing on SPN), or really weren't that big a deal (like his bar fight).
I actually see the apathetic fans much like I do Jared fans, i.e., people who consider Jared as a human being and then determine whether the like him or not.
As for my experience, I'm not really an emotional person, so I tend to look at things from a more analytical point of view. I found Jared to be extremely smart in the way he approaches people. He gets down on their level, he looks them in the eye and speaks to each person directly, and I suspect (based on his comments on my jacket in both ops), that he finds something unique about each person that he can focus on to help him remember them (at least, for a little while).
He's also really great at adapting to different people; whether they need humor or empathy, he can pull those reactions out of his hat on a dime. All if this, of course, personalizes and elevates each person's experience with him.
My photo op experience was pretty much as I expected, he was very friendly and very welcoming (with his huge smile), said that my jacket was his favorite, and thanked me for coming.
(I'll be keeping my jacket forever and if Jared ever comes back to Salt Lake, it's going right back on!)
As for my auto experience, I was so focused on telling him how much I appreciated and loved both yeehaw shows this last year (particularly Windy) that I didn't really give him a chance to get a word in. LOL! He did promise to pass along my love, though!
Gen's line was much shorter so I had a chance to ask about the different kinds of animals they now have at home and at the ranch. (It was actually smaller than I thought with goats, donkeys, chickens, and dogs, but they are getting a few Highland cows soon.)
What's funny, is that when thinking of what I could talk to Jared about, it wasn't a very long list (all of the question I disregarded would have required a M&G). But I had many more questions I could have asked Gen if we had the time! She was absolutely delightful and very approachable.
I think the highlight of my day was the panel. Jared and Gen were so comfortable on stage, joking with each other, joking with the audience, keeping the conversation moving... I know Jared's been doing this for a while, but Gen was right there with him. She was much more animated than what I'd previously seen of her at JIB. I really hope they continue to do panels together.
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So, it was a short first day at FanX for me. I mostly went to get registered so I could skip that line tomorrow. I did get a chance to meet Jake, so that was pretty awesome! I told him that I loved his character on Walker and I was sad we didn't get to learn more. He laughed and agreed! He said that was always the case. He gets on a show and they kill his character off, lol!
Lessons learned from the first day of my first ever convention:
Take an umbrella.
It's better to walk five blocks than spend 20 minutes looking for parking (even in the rain).
It takes 10 minutes to get from the Entrance to Celebrity Row. (That place is huge!)
Get in line early for autos, even if the guest isn't there yet.
Be patient.
Forget about the crowd and just have fun!
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what's fun about shipping Tim with Dick, Jason, or Damian is he has, at some point, hallucinated all of them to comfort himself. even when he doesn't like them or particularly get along with them, he has to imagine/hallucinate them just so he has the power to go on. Tim's concepts of the Robin mantle and what it should be is so fun, because he respects the others through the Robin mantle. Tim worships Dick because he was the first Robin. he wouldn't be Robin if Jason hadn't died in the mantle. and a lot of his frustration with Damian is he feels Damian isn't honoring the mantle correctly. when you ship Tim with the other Robins you can't divorce their identities as Robin from it because Tim will always see them as a Robin first and that's so fun and fucked up. like.
batman (1940) #456
Tim perceiving Dick as *Robin* cheering him on, not Nightwing, which is the version of Dick that Tim actually knows? that's just. wild of him. he will always view Dick as Robin first, his personal hero but also the original of the legacy. his love for Dick is shaped by that.
and then of course, even when he's hallucinating/imagining Jason cheering him on, it's *still* through the lense of being reminded how Jason failed? subconsciously believing that Jason got himself killed because of his actions, and that being a lesson for Tim to learn from? Jason isn't a person to Tim, he's a moral lesson about how to be Robin. any potential idolization he could have of Jason isn't because he loves Jason, it's because of the lessons Jason's death taught him.
and then, even though him hallucinating TIm is from the New-52, which makes characterization all kinds of questionable, i do think it makes sense for TIm to hallucinate/imagine Damian after Damian's death in an attempt to cope with it.
teen titans (2011) #18
to an extend, he sees Damian's death as in part his own fault. and even hating Damian, Tim needs the comfort from this to cope with Damian being gone. he's angry that Damian even was Robin, and has to learn something from Damian's death and how it impacts the Robin mantle, and teenage heroes as a whole. like, Tim can pretend he hates Damian all he wants, even getting taunted by the image of Damian, but there's still an underlying love to their relationship.
i think that's just the fun of shipping Tim with any of them. you will never divorce Tim's views of them from the Robin mantle and how fucking Unwell he is about anyone else who's been Robin before or after him, to the point he has to hallucinate them comforting him when he's at his lowest. it's always going to be a little unhealthy, a little toxic, and driven by Tim's relationship with being Robin as well. i need more Tim being weird about Robin in these ships.
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