Anime Manga & Stuff

junemermaid

“Stop reading fanfic, you’re [any age over 25]!”

Uh. No. Just stop right there.

The adults over 25 built the fandom into which you wandered, once upon a time, enchanted by a story, blinking at the glare of possibilities beyond it.

One day you too may be 25—or 33, or 45, or 56, or 74—and realise you still want to be here.

One day you’ll get the first teenager yelling at you to stop doing fandom and leave it to the children.

If you can’t picture this, just give it a few years. Life may take you out of fandom or it may not, but the fact is, there’s no upper age limit.

You will pick up a job, a partner, a car loan. You’ll have children. You’ll take pets. You’ll lose that job, break up with that partner, go back to school, fall in love with someone new. Build a house. Break a leg. Bury someone you love. Life will happen.

But the things and stories you used to love will still be there. They’ll take on new forms. Trends and tropes and controversies will come and go.

On a purely personal observation—what else is this post?—fandom has been one of the constants in my life. I’ve drifted away and come back again, but the singular feeling of sharing a thing you love with other people has never gone away entirely. It’s a weird, messy, fractious entity, fandom is, but it’s always been a society that transcends generations.

You come into fandom thinking you and your peers invented it.

No, it’s always been here, and it will remain after you. In some form, held up by the people who came before and will come after you. That deserves a little respect.

(Now go read some Ursula K. Le Guin. She’s good for the soul, and better for perspective.)

irisbleufic

If not for the founders and participants in fandom who were 25+ at the time I wandered in and started writing as a teenager in the ’90s, I wouldn’t have known how to do fandom, period. It would never have occurred to me to tell them to leave, and it would never have occurred to me that, now, in my mid-30s, there would be fans younger than I am who’d believe I should leave.

Communities can’t survive without institutional memory, and where do you think that comes from? The idea of believing that fans older than I am, i.e. 35+, should leave fandom, is horrifying to me. They made my participation here possible, and I owe it to them to pay the knowledge forward.

Young fans, one day you will be the keepers of that memory. Don’t slight the people who kept it alive so that it was here for you to discover.

prismatic-bell

Fandom isn’t Children of the Motherfucking Corn. Stop being horrible to fans who are older than you.

seedydemigod

HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE TAGS

giuliaciulia89

I see an 85 years old me still drawing about my OTP and fangirling with my wife

thefloatingstone

The sad fact is, younger fans, in the end all you can do is become us.

joliemariella

I agree with everything above, but also: why the hell would you want to arbitrarily kick out some of the most consistent and quality content creators for your fandom(s)??? Especially fanfiction? I’m not saying the youngsters ™ aren’t talented in the writing department, but I can guarantee you that a lot of the writers of the very best fanfics in your fandom are written by people over the age of 21.

There is, when it comes right down to it, a difference between fan-artists and fan-writers. You can be very young and create some of the very best fanart because for the most part, being great at art comes down to practice you put in and a lot of kids have that dedication.

When it comes to writing, however, yes, you can have young writers that are very good with their grammar and other technicalities that put out perfectly wonderful stories, but they lack the kind of life experience that gives the very best writing its depth. Those stories that sucker punch you right in the feels and leave you feeling wrecked when you finish the final chapter? Chances are that was written by an adult that has some mileage on their boots and the maturity to look at their experiences from the outside and take those lessons they’ve learned and put them into story form. That’s something that only time can truly grant you. There’s no ‘practice’ that will give you that ability.

Again, I’m not trying to shit on young creators here; you are also a critical part of the fandom. I’m also not saying that you can’t have young people that have been through some shit and applied that to their writing, but on average, most of those ‘true greats‘ were written by those over 25s some younger fans seem to want to exile from the fandom space.

One day, whether or not you like it, you will be us and I can guarantee you you’re not going to like having a bunch of teens and preteens trying to shout you out of the space that you helped build, a space that makes you happy. So, please be kind to your fellow fans, whatever their age; we’re all in this madhouse together.

spartytoon

Plus, who the hell do you think even FUNDS fandom? Not all the teenagers with no jobs begging their parents for a little extra cash to buy merch, or go to cons, or commission artists.

It’s the older fans. The fans with jobs and money. The fans with jobs and money who know if they don’t financially support something, it’s gonna get cancelled. The fans with jobs and money who organize events, and hire artists, and you know, keep fandom rolling.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

My 2017 cassettes