Let me preface this by saying: this is REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT. This is an aspect of our experiences that is one of the hardest to deal with — and yet, one that I’ve had the most experience with —and I’ve gotta tell you: I’ve started and deleted five different versions of it so far, and I can’t seem to come at it from an angle that I really feel comfortable with. This is something that I feel very strongly about — for reasons that will become pretty obvious — but have always had difficulty writing about coherently in a way that isn’t just ranting.
And being a fictionkin(God, I really hate that word, not just because of the obvious dislike of the “fiction” part but because that “kin” suffix often immediately turns people off before they take the time to hear what I’m actually saying, which gets REALLY lonely after twenty years or so) on Twitter these last few months has become increasingly difficult, entirely because of this problem.
I’ve tried to equate the problem to being a celebrity: having every move you make scrutinized, from your dietary choices to your fashion sense to how you raise your children. Somehow, celebrity culture somehow has become synonymous with an audience that believes that if you’re famous in any way, be it film or music or sports or innovation, you somehow then belong to your fans. That they now have a right, by virtue of your existing in the public eye, to critique things that have nothing to do with the work that made you famous, and to judge your actions as though you were somehow more than human. (There’s a whole psychological aspect to this weird celebrity ownership thing that is fascinating to me, but not at all the point of this post.)
But that’s not quite right for several reasons, the easiest of which to understand is that in a lot of cases, celebrities either worked to get to that point, or were and are aware that they are in the public view. Everybody who auditions for a film hopes that it will be their big break. And getting paid multiple millions of dollars to do the thing you love and — because of this — being someone whose face is recognizable, is not the same thing. Also, celebrity or not, it’s still understood that at their core, these are still “real people”. Even if their public persona is larger than life, or say, flashier than they are at home with their kids and their mom(lookin’ at you, here, RDJ): they’re still, at the end of the day, “people like us”. The idea is pretty close, but not quite right.
So then I tried to use the example of someone going viral online, going from an unknown quantity, someone just going to work or going to school — doing basic everyday things — to being a household name via both traditional and social media. Maybe even someone whose image eventually becomes a meme... which at this point socially, pretty much guarantees a weird type of immortality whether you like it or not. But that’s not quite the same thing, because it’s pretty much understood in a situation like that that this is a real person; there’s no suspension of disbelief necessary to understand that concept either. It’s a little closer, but still not right.
The way I explained it for several decades, then: imagine that you had an event in your life that was HUGE— not just for you, maybe, but for the people around you as well. And then ten, fifteen, twenty years after the fact, some ambitious Hollywood exec stumbled across your story and decided to make that event into a DRAMATIC! SUMMER! MOVIE! But they didn’t just take the basic facts and put together a little documentary, or a “Based On the True Story Of”; they went digging into your life for the gory details. Where was he born? What was she like as a child? What was their biggest fuck-up as a young adult that set them on the path to being Right There when That Thing happened?
But because it’s been twenty years since That Thing happened, and since they decided to embellish, exaggerate, and take “creative license” with your actual life story, it’s not billed as a biopic or a docudrama or anything like that: it’s billed as pure fiction, baby, and presented as such.
And turns out, they did a pretty good job of hitting that mass-appeal button; so a lot — and I mean a lot — of people are suddenly talking about Y Character. About their childhood, about whether or not their parents were neglectful, about how stupid they were to stay in a dead-end job for so long, about how of course they were on that bus that day that took them into the path of That Thing, because if they hadn’t been so goddamn selfish they would have gotten that promotion and been able to afford a car.
Debates break out over whether or not Y is a virgin because they were obviously so uncomfortable with the discussions of sex in the film. Some fans scoff at that because the actor who plays Y is just so good-looking, and Y has obviously been around, so there’s no way. People attack Y’s mother for being ignorant of her child’s having been bullied, and others write entire threads about how it’s actually all Y’s father’s fault because he didn’t teach his kid how to stand up for themselves, and he obviously was a shitty role model otherwise Y would have had more ambition and been less confused about their role in life.
Some fans of the film take note of Y’s best friend and decide that the REAL story there is the unrequited gay romance between the two of them, and write long stories about them having passionate, explicit sex. Other people scream that there’s no WAY Y would EVER be into that person, can’t these idiots see they’re just friends? And WHY can’t anyone ever have a platonic relationship in these things without the ‘shippers making it all about the love?
Some people stay up all night and write “crack!fic” about Y, their best friend, AND the “villain” of the story — the man driving the car that killed Y’s brother, for example — having a drunken three-way. Others write deeply emotional stories about Y on a long journey of forgiveness, eventually finding out that M was only in that car to escape their own abusive household. Many tears and much magical sex ensue.
People draw fanart of Y in a million different styles; anime style, photographic realism, comics. They draw porn. Some of it is silly, some of it is cute, some of it is so heartbreakingly beautiful that the artists immediately get hundreds of fans and followers — rightly so.
There are dozens of YouTube videos discussing the nature of Y’s character: do they deserve a chance to be happy, after the part they played in That Thing? Are they just weak and pathetic, are they setting a horrible example for people who watched the film; What About the Kids™️? People dissect Y’s life, their motivations, why they’re inherently just an awful person that shouldn’t have survived the film. Or they talk about how Y is a symbol of resisting temptation, about how the lesson learned there is just so important. They associate Y with the actor that played them, to the point where they use the actor’s likeness to represent Y in everything... and I do mean everything. You can buy Y body pillows and Y sippy cups and Y bedsheets and hoodies and umbrellas and toilet paper.
Only Y... is you.
This is the life you remember that people are pulling apart to look for the holes. These are your parents the Character Y fandom is debating. This is your best friend that a half million people think you should be having sex with. This is your dead brother they’re discussing your level of blame in losing. You have clear, valid memories of every single aspect of that life, and it’s like hearing your friends at school gossip about you when they think you can’t hear them, only a million times worse.
And because every single person discussing these things thinks that they’re only discussing a fictional story, they have no idea that it might be painful — to make a supreme understatement — to watch all this unfold. But you can’t tell them that it isn’t, because they’d never believe you. At best, they’d suddenly decide to stop interacting with you, because you might smear your weirdness all over their fandom — ironically, a fandom you’d have specific unique insight into — and at worst, they’ll come after you en masse as a batshit crazy person. So because you can’t tell them “Hey, I’m a real person!” they’ll never know; but because they’ll never know, you can’t say a word about it.
This can get very, very lonely.
Sometimes, what I wish more than anything in the “whole, wide world”, is for just ONE of the rabid fans of one of my people to hear me, stop, and go “Wow... hey... I’d really like to hear about this from you. What were you thinking in that moment? How do you really feel about this person?” Not publicly, mind you, not to attract vast attention, just ONE PERSON who, when they repeat multiple times how much they’d give to say XYZ to Y “character” would actually mean that enough to talk to them.
By which I mean: it would be nice to have a friend.
Not “my” friend, as the person/body/collective who’s typing this, not as the person who can — in fact — enjoy the fandoms from the outside. Who can partake in these discussions, as long as they don’t hone in too sharply on one particular person’s private pain. But a friend who simply believes that Y exists, accepts that as much as they’re comfortable with, and interacts with Y as a human being. Without the barrier of “this person believes they’re Y”. There’s a difference. If you don’t grasp it, ask. Or keep reading. Or anything. Because my intention in writing this is to document, to explain. Not to alienate.
And I know that some people reading this are going to roll their eyes and cackle in that cruel way people seem to reserve for the “nutbags” of society; I’ve been dealing with this for just about as long as I can remember. “OH MY GOD I’M REALLY THE REAL MICKEY MOUSE!” they’ll post somewhere. “DON’T YOU DARE INSULT MINNIE, YOU’LL BREAK MY HEART!”
Except:
- I don’t expect anybody who doesn’t know us personally to either understand or care. Why would they? We’re taught from a young age that fiction is fiction and reality is reality, and despite the dissertation I could probably write on the subject, most people aren’t aware of the grey areas. I write this blog with two aims: an educational one, and a personal one. To document our lives, to offer a view into something most people don’t understand; and, maybe, to help those I’d like to be friends with get a much deeper grasp of what our lives are actually like.
- I know the difference between this reality and people’s places of origin. I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably keep saying it until I’m blue in the face: I don’t think I’m actually standing in some alternate reality. I don’t have special powers, I don’t expect special treatment, and I’m not even particularly good-looking. I’m average in a great many ways. It’s that:
- What makes these people real is the same thing that gives YOU, the reader, YOUR identity: your memories. Your childhood, your parents, your friends, your triumphs. The things that matter to you. Whether you like to fall asleep in the winter wrapped in a blanket with a book. If you’re quick to anger or calm and quiet. Your fears when you’re alone at night. All of those things make up a person, regardless of their body. And even though I know my physical body has never been through some of the experiences that my mind has detailed memories of, I can still recall those bodily sensations. The mind is a strange, curious, terrifying thing; this is why I try to stay up-to-date with neuroscience and where it intersects theoretical physics. Every year, there is at least one study that comes just a little closer to scientifically validating my experience. And I’ve waited for that day for a very long time.
Whew. Why is it always when I don’t intend to write an epic that I do? My apologies. But I’ve never been able to really articulate this all that well, and once I got on a roll with what I wanted to say it seemed sort of foolish to interrupt. So there it is.
Any questions?
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