Sometimes I look at how seriously people take things and I wonder if I’m defective or if they’re just freakin’ NUTS.
Fandoms are, as a rule, a little weird. They’re nothing new, and have been around since Ogg first learned to play rocks, and garnered a group of fans. Oggies, now known as groupies or fans, have a tendency to let their glee run away with them and ignore better judgment.
Like fans who presume that they, and only they, should be able to contact their idol, and anyone else who does so must be insane. Fans who spend hours at a time protecting their idol from slander. Fans who claim they will have your name, number and photo sent to an idol and tell them you’re a stalker. Yeah, that last one was a threat just this week.
It’s mindboggling that people really think they’re helping the idol, star, whatever, out by doing this. Because clearly a movie star doesn’t have an agent whose job it is to do that. Or actual, you know, friends who might do that for them. Except they don’t. The friends of famous people, for the most part, don’t get involved with the crazy fan who knows, just knows, that she and Jimmy Durante would be best friends if only they met. Why? Because the person is crazy and you can’t reason with crazy. You just can’t.
I can’t tell you how not to be a crazy fan, but I can tell you, after being involved in psycho fandom for my entire life, I know how to not get involved.
My credentials? I’ve been stalked three times online, one person bought a train ticket to Chicago with the intent of finding me, but was stopped by their family. Thank you. I’ve gotten phone calls to my house demanding information about internet games, and also a fansite where I was accused of either lying or not sharing all the information I had and thus was a liar. I’ve survived personal attacks on my self, my family and my beliefs, I’ve been on the net since the days of dial in BBs, and I’m a relatively sane and nice person.
Of course, if you don’t believe that, you’re not reading this site except to attack me, and if you do, I’ll be banning your comments. This is my site, I’m permitted to do that. I don’t name your names, after all, so the only people who will know who I’m talking about … is you!
Now that that’s out of the way….
When you get an email or whatever from a fellow fan, you’re always a little concerned. Are they the nice ones or the crazy ones. You can’t really tell. My first rule is: No personal information. I have net friends who’ve known me for a decade, never knowing my real name. Once we’re at the point where we arrange meeting in person, though, then I will divulge. There are some exceptions, but I can list all five of them on one hand.
Second rule: Never meet a net person in a private place, and preferably NOT alone. Bring your roommate, your best friend, someone with you. Or if not, make sure they know where you are and to check to make sure you come home. I’m not kidding, people. Folks are crazy, and meeting people from the net seems to make them crazier. Mind you, I think ALL people are crazy, net-friends and otherwise.
So now you have some friends and you’re hanging out being friends, and they go home. So you friend them on FaceBook or Twitter or whatever and off you go online being friends. Suddenly your new friend goes a little whack and uses your name in vain. You shoot them a message ‘Hey, friend, I didn’t say that.’ They apologize, everyone moves on. Then it happens again. Or maybe they start bagging on you, even though they were sugar and nice to you in emails and in person. At this point, most of my friends get in a froth here and start firing off angry missives. I point to my Third Rule: Don’t feed the trolls.
When someone starts acting crazy, don’t engage them, just walk away. Tell them ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t appreciate the way you’re treating me online.’ and de-friend them from whatever. You don’t need to listen to it, and honestly, the more you do, the more likely you are to write an angry email at them, and they’ll just post it online and mock you with their ‘friends.’ Just walk away. Don’t talk to them anymore. An angry email is the equivalent of drunk dialing. It never ends well.
The other weird thing that people will suddenly start accusing you of being crazy. A friend told them XYZ. Again, when someone accuses you of being a crazy behavior, walk away. That’s the hardest one for people to pull off. The accusation part is easy, I get at least one a week, and sometimes for things I don’t even fan about.
Here’s some harsh truth about the world: No “friend” asks you to handle a situation for them without good reason. I’ve asked ONE person to do it for me, once, in 15+ years of online fandom, and that was when the situation involved someone who had stalked me. I told my friend I wasn’t comfortable taking to her, and would my friend please do it? My friend looked at the situation, told the ex-stalker ‘No thank you, we’re not interested.’ and we moved on.
But the thing was, we didn’t engage in a fight.
By engaging in a fight, you can ratchet into harassment so fast, it’ll make your head spin. The second someone starts threatening to send your personal information to the police, well, 90% of the time they’re bluffing, and the other 10% they’re going to be laughed at by the police. The moment they start that, you should block them from your contacts. Filter their email to be deleted, unread, delete them from your friend lists, block them from your Twitter, etc etc. Remove them from your life.
If they pick up the phone and call you, tell them “Please don’t contact me on this matter.” and hang up. Call the phone company and tell them that the person from that number is harassing you, and you’d like to block them from calling or texting you. They may charge a small fee, but they’ll do it. For land lines, AT&T put directions online. For AT&T cell phones, dial 611 and ask for Smart Limits. Most of the time, if you say ‘This number is harassing me, they’ve been emailing me crazy crap and now they’ve got my number’, they’ll do it for free. When AT&T was Cingular, they did for me. Twice.
Right now, two people are on my total ban list, and three are on my mild list. The total ban list means if they call, the police are reported (yes, it was that bad), and all email is blackholed. I never see it. The mild list means their email is filtered to a ‘Creep’ box, that I check. Sometimes. Haven’t in a month or so. Don’t really feel the need to.
If people make you uncomfortable, remember, there’s no law that says you MUST interact with them. Sometimes it’s best to walk away.