the ethics of fandom gossip

[openthetime]

just me discussing things i've found across my time in fandom specific gossip spaces and also, where do we draw the line? once again, no conclusion, just vibes.

i am a pro lurker which is very much evidenced by some of my posts here, let's be real. i will lurk on any website in which people are chatting on, idgaf. so of course i'm going to lurk in spaces in which people from the fandoms i'm in are having in depth conversations about things that otherwise may be considered taboo within either the fandom or just the world in general.

however, when is it too much? when is someone being mean instead of critical? when is someone going too far with the alleged information they find or share? i feel like it's hard to work out sometimes. i also find lots of the stuff i find in these spaces (particularly gossip/snark discord servers - won't be saying their names as they're kinda private but if you're aware of them, then you know) can verge into just being horrible, picking apart peoples looks or things that really don't need to be fussed over. at the same time, i'm grateful for one that comes to mind especially as it has a kpop section and the discussions are much more varied and in depth than what happens on stan twitter. you can say you dislike a song! you can say "maybe this idol's action that the fandom is ignoring actually isn't that good"! you can acknowledge that plastic surgery exists! etc etc..

i think these gossip spaces can also be good in order to discuss possible problematic acts a celebrity has been accused of but hasn't been made public yet. however, it's gossip, so how can you know it's true or not? loaded language is often used as well and it often lacks nuance and doesn't take into regard potential victims of gross acts seeing these allegations. like, for example, people will carelessly discuss how a male idol could be violently misogynistic like it's just some casual thing. yes, many men are misogynistic, but that's very hard for a woman who's likely a victim of such behaviour and also admires the man this is just being said about to take in. be more gracious with your wording, be less absolutist, realise that the things being discussed shouldn't be treated as fact.

when i was a much bigger dan and phil fan, the general gossip space topics used to be about discussing in depth as to whether they were really in a romantic relationship. it was very weird as lots of it was basically an invasion of privacy or discussing very controversial things which dan and phil never acknowledged again (talking about dan's naked dailybooths, the leaked valentine's day video, working out that when dan and phil were talking to each other via formspring about the 'flavours' they like in a very vague way that was actually them talking about what lube they wanted to use when they next see each other - and you may think this sounds like a reach but no it was something like people identified the bottles of lube in the back of a video and this was also 2009 internet that was being examined here, internet users did not know what the hell a digital footprint was) but at the same time lots of it just couldn't be ignored as that's who dan and phil are? does this make sense? now the gossip spaces are about how much everyone thinks dan can be a genuinely horrible person at times (a few months ago he made a video in which he looked like he was having a mental breakdown or about to have one and was asking for videos to make him happy, then he put those videos at the end of his comedy show without anyone's permission) but then sometimes it verges on speculations about whether he's genuinely abusive towards phil due to the fact that he's rarely ever actually nice to him in public anymore which i think is going too far as that is quite loaded language and a crazy accusation to make about someone who you don't see the private life of. like with what i stated in the previous paragraph: it can all be a bit much at times.

lurking doesn't mean you approve of all that's being discussed, it just means you're nosy and have time on your hands.

here's a list of where i go regularly to find these discussions:
- discord servers as stated above
- various kpop curiouscat accounts (not sharing any usernames as i feel like they're more likely to be on dreamwidth and that's awkward, not gonna lie)
- various dan and phil critical tumblr blogs (diaryofanexphan, bitchphannie, worldmapbap, dramaphan, demonetisation, weirdthingsphanniessay)
- indepthbants, a dan and phil forum
- onehallyu, a kpop forum
- more broad, but the r/deuxmoi subreddit for general celebrity gossip
- i used to lurk on the l chat but they banned my ip address for no reason at all and my god they're so transphobic

and here's a list of random things i've found out against my will through this gossip and have just stayed stored in my brain. these all eat me up inside whenever i think about them and i feel guilty so i'm putting it all here:
- a certain 4th gen female idol's spotify account. confirmed as it is followed by her sister and she also made playlists for songs that would be performed at schedules weeks and months prior to said schedules. there is a playlist on there that has a cover that looks like fanart of her with this male idol but when you reverse image search it nothing comes up....? girl if this leaks people will find out you're in a relationship (and tbh the account is easy for anyone to find as it's just one of her nicknames, someone's gonna find it eventually).
edit on 11th january 2023: this was about yunjin's spotify that has just become a big issue, i knew this would happen eventually but i didn't think it'd be this huge. agh
- a certain male idol's finsta. confirmed as it was followed by stylists and follows lots of the artists he has praised before. it's also basically confirmed because someone said he was dating a woman due to lovestagrams posted on it but then someone else made a twitter thread said they knew the finsta and could prove he wasn't doing any of that through screenshots and that the other person just made up lies????? people are crazy. allegedly, someone said it followed an lgbt magazine so ummm. that's outing and i feel awful for knowing that (and i know you may be thinking "how is that outing, what if he's just an ally?" he's like one of the most heavily speculated to be gay idols of all time this cannot be a coincidence).
- someone on lipstick alley saying a member of one of my fav groups is homophobic towards some other members who are gay but i'm taking that with a massive grain of salt because how would they know that? and also it scares me. i found it when i'd heard about the website and wanted to know more about it so i did some lurking and it's the most toxic place ever. never going on that site again.