global pandemic shutdown may finally see me write that paper about fandoms as religious cults

I still struggle to articulate what it's like to get out of a toxic fandom. Try to talk about it with people who are still in it, and you come off as smug, or like you just don't GET it anymore. Try to tell people who've never been in it, they look at you like you have 3 heads.

It's the closest thing I can imagine to what it's like to leave an actual cult. You look back on the things that seemed normal and everyday when you were in it, and now from the outside, it's so clearly unhealthy and bizarre and unnecessary.

It's like there are two pieces to the experience: the original reason you get into it, the thing you're actually interested in and the sense of community with other people who like it; and then all the other stuff, the factions and gossip and abuse and jealousy and such.

And the longer you're in it, the more those two pieces get tangled together, until you can't separate them anymore, can't even see where one stops and the other starts. And you forget that they were ever separate, that you don't HAVE to have one to have the other.

But maybe you can't separate them once they're tangled together. If you do get out, you almost always end up throwing the whole mess away, don't you? How many people get out of a cult and go back to the belief system the cult sprang from? You sure can't look at it the same way.

I was in the Supernatural fandom for a while. Not the whole time, but long enough in the middle to see the best and worst of it. And even now I can barely stand to even be reminded *the show itself* exists; that's how toxic that fandom became to me.

And every time I want to talk about how fucked up it is, I feel like I'm going to piss off my friends who are still in it. I feel like it's going to come across that I'm disparaging them personally for still being part of it, or that I pity them or something.

That's not how I feel, really, but I still don't know exactly how I DO feel. I remember what it's like to be in that fandom. I remember BELONGING. I can see why you'd still want that. But I have trouble understanding how anyone can want it enough to endure all that bullshit.

Because I *am* out of it now, and the only contact I have with all that shit is through people who are still in it. And I just cannot fathom wanting that stuff in my life. And I don't know how to convey that to other people without pissing them off.

I don't know how, without coming off as smug and pretentious, to explain that none of that shit is normal. Having to know, by name, who spends all their time treating other people like shit over a TV show, is not normal. This is not a thing most people have in their lives.

You find out how not-normal it is when, again, you try to explain it to people who haven't been in a social media-based pop culture fandom that went off the fucking rails. You cannot have this conversation, like, in a restaurant with ordinary people you met elsewhere in life.

I feel absolutely insane talking about it now, knowing there are people probably reading it who have never experienced it. It's embarrassing to have people look you in the eye while you explain shit like hate blogs and convention drama.

And all that is to say: the shit that goes on in these toxic, fucked up fandoms is not normal. It may be, to a degree, stuff that arises in lots of social groups of different kinds; but that doesn't mean it's okay or no big deal. A lot of it is really, deeply unhealthy.

You can like a TV show without all of this other shit. But I know, it's not really about a TV show anymore. It's about social connections. But you can ALSO have those without all the shit.

The tricky thing, though, is can you have the SAME friendships? Can you separate them?

The thing about getting out of a culture that's unhealthy for you is, sometimes you do lose people. Anyone who's been through substance abuse recovery knows it. People who've left religions know it. It fucking sucks.

Sometimes you can't get away from the unhealthy thing and keep a particular friend, because they are too tangled up in the thing. And that's a hard thing to deal with. It's hard enough that it can keep you leaving when you know you need to. I get it.

But you CAN have relationships that aren't inextricable from something unhealthy in your life, just like you can have interests without being part of a toxic culture that's sprung up around them.

I don't really have a good ending to this. I just needed to say it, because every day I see people still being hurt by a thing I got away from, and I want to tell them to get out, and I know it's not my place, but fuck, what do you DO?

All I know to say is, there is life outside all that shit. I no longer know, or care, what the gossip or the discourse is in the fandom I got out of, or who hates whom, or what poisonous shit is going around. And it is so much better, being free of all that.

I still LIKE THINGS. I watch TV shows and movies and feel strongly about them and talk about them with other people. I have friends. I have all the stuff I thought I needed that fandom for. You can have those things, and NOT have the bullshit. But you have to make that choice.