Reblog: Am I Hallucinating, or...

[shy_magpie]

muccamukk posted: Am I Hallucinating, or...

Peak livejournal-era fandom was really wanky, right? Were people on different parts of the site? In different fandoms? Does no one remember the spork comms, the ship wars, the dogpiles?...I mean, I agree that Tumblr has different and certainly faster sort of wank going on, but they didn't exactly invent people being assholes to each other on the Internet.

There was drama in the Sherlock Holmes fandom in the 1890s and thats often cited as the first modern fandom so...

"Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire (Official Video)" (Watch on YouTube)

We didn't start the fire! It was always burning since the worlds been turning...

Comments

[003_5]

yh i honestly don't even think it's just a fandoms thing sadly, it's a groups of people thing, there always drama and stuff.

[shy_magpie]

I heard a theory that people have a need to define and condemn an "out group" as cheap way of defining and solidifying bonds with the "in group". If there is a "them" then we can bond over being not them(and by definition better) as much as being as "us"

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

There was a model that any group needed a group they could feel superior to. I think it's now considered an extrapolation from a non representative set.

However, this model does explain a lot about "Mainstream America" in say the way Bob Dole used it. (Yeah, I've got a "the Good Old Bad Days" category. Funny how some people think America was Great then. Only Tony the Tiger is right.)