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Transcript

SMNTY Ships It · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Staphone
0:07
Speaker 1: ever told you protection of iHeartRadio? And today we are
0:19
Speaker 1: recording an episode that I'm not sure when it will
0:22
Speaker 1: come out, but I'm very excited about it.
0:24
Speaker 2: We've been talking about this episode for a minute.
0:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have actually I think over a year at least,
0:32
Speaker 1: but it was I really got a catalyst when our
0:37
Speaker 1: friend of the show listener Jamie wrote in and suggested, quote,
0:42
Speaker 1: what about shipping and problematic ships like the non con
0:46
Speaker 1: forcing a sexual aspect into a friendship and shipping wars
0:49
Speaker 1: with the related internet abuse, which for some of you,
0:52
Speaker 1: I bet you're like, what does that mean? We're gonna
0:55
Speaker 1: talk about it, We're gonna break it all down. But yeah,
0:59
Speaker 1: this is This is a big conversation right now, and
1:02
Speaker 1: it's changed so much since I started being Fanish in
1:08
Speaker 1: the fans space, so there's a lot to go over
1:11
Speaker 1: in a lot of history. This might be a two parter.
1:13
Speaker 1: I don't think it will be, but who knows. We'll see,
1:15
Speaker 1: We'll see.
1:16
Speaker 2: You always have like I feel like you and I
1:18
Speaker 2: have both are like, it's not going to be that long,
1:19
Speaker 2: and it ends up being either the full amount and
1:22
Speaker 2: then some and especially for those AH are like maybe well,
1:24
Speaker 2: but then again, we've also had those moments it's like
1:26
Speaker 2: this is gonna be really long and then it ends
1:28
Speaker 2: up being not not yeah.
1:31
Speaker 1: Yes. So it's hard to say because I do have
1:34
Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts about this, and I'm actually going
1:37
Speaker 1: to put my thoughts at the end of this episode
1:41
Speaker 1: slash episodes. But I'm built they'll be throughout. I'm sure.
1:47
Speaker 1: I just have a lot of opinions. Also, very brief
1:50
Speaker 1: spoilers for Good Omens season two, very vague and at
1:55
Speaker 1: the end, and I'll give a heads up, but uh,
1:58
Speaker 1: big part of the conversation right now, shall I say?
2:02
Speaker 2: My TikTok is full of Michael and David like doing
2:05
Speaker 2: their little parody shows is the entire thing. And I
2:09
Speaker 2: guess because Good Omens Too had come out, there's more
2:12
Speaker 2: like ads and I'm like, why I don't even know them.
2:15
Speaker 2: That will help, but they are really funny.
2:18
Speaker 1: It also could be that you sent me one.
2:20
Speaker 2: I did well because I had been getting them in
2:22
Speaker 2: my feet. I was like, why am I getting so
2:24
Speaker 2: much of this content? And then when I asked, dude,
2:27
Speaker 2: you were like, no, I haven't seen because they did
2:29
Speaker 2: the whole Zoom Show web series I believe with the
2:32
Speaker 2: director from Good Omens, and I was like, have you
2:36
Speaker 2: not seen this? Well, you definitely have to because it's
2:38
Speaker 2: right up your rally and I've never seen good Omens either.
2:42
Speaker 1: I do love Good Omens. Oh well, getting into so
2:49
Speaker 1: today we are talking about shipping, but I guess that
2:53
Speaker 1: we should start with a definition for people who might
2:56
Speaker 1: not know what is shipping.
2:58
Speaker 2: Yes, and I love that this is from Urban Dayctionary
3:00
Speaker 2: because we do talk about a lot of like fanfic
3:03
Speaker 2: words from Urban Dictionary, don't we So it is from
3:07
Speaker 2: Urban Dictionary. The act of one wanting supporting two individuals
3:11
Speaker 2: involved in a romantic relationship a verb used to describe
3:15
Speaker 2: the action of wishing for two people to enter a relationship,
3:19
Speaker 2: whether romantic or occasionally platonic, in books, movies, TV shows,
3:24
Speaker 2: or real life. Shipping can often happen involuntarily, and it
3:28
Speaker 2: is the majority of what happens on the website Tumblr,
3:31
Speaker 2: really Tumbler. There are some very popular ships, some unpopular,
3:40
Speaker 2: as well as often lots of controversy between ships from
3:43
Speaker 2: the same fando.
3:45
Speaker 1: I would also say that it can include two or
3:48
Speaker 1: more individuals. It says two people. It can be it
3:52
Speaker 1: can be more poly cool. But yeah, that's that's pretty
3:56
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Uh, that's where the name come s from.
4:00
Speaker 1: Relationshipping shipping.
4:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what with people who are not
4:05
Speaker 2: a part of the fanfic world, because I've noticed this
4:08
Speaker 2: as I'm on like a lot of the K pop
4:10
Speaker 2: yep tiktoks that when they do the shipping, I get
4:13
Speaker 2: very confused thinking it's real because they do this like
4:16
Speaker 2: montage and I'm like, wait, are they is this true?
4:20
Speaker 2: I'm very confused, and I think it take it as
4:21
Speaker 2: a reality because when they do that with real people,
4:25
Speaker 2: very I'm very confused about what just happened.
4:27
Speaker 1: Essentially, Oh yes, oh my gosh, I'm glad you brought
4:31
Speaker 1: that up actually, because I'm not even going to talk
4:33
Speaker 1: about in here, but that is something people do, like
4:36
Speaker 1: we'll make videos, will make this content that you're like,
4:40
Speaker 1: wait what.
4:42
Speaker 2: And then they'll do like rumored things on there that
4:44
Speaker 2: I'm like, what did that happen? Did that really happen?
4:48
Speaker 2: Where they're like the main of course, the ones that
4:51
Speaker 2: I've seen the most of has been like Stray Kids
4:54
Speaker 2: and of course BTS. But the BTS one has kind
4:57
Speaker 2: of wavered down, and the stray Kads have a lot
4:59
Speaker 2: more content because of it, Like they're very affectionate kids
5:03
Speaker 2: with each other. Like I'm not sure if they are.
5:04
Speaker 2: If they are together, wonderful, But I'm like, y'all are
5:07
Speaker 2: confusing me as a person who has no idea what's
5:09
Speaker 2: happening in this shipping fanfic world. And then you put
5:12
Speaker 2: two real people and then put this like glossy montage
5:19
Speaker 2: of them that I'm like, did that really happen? Is
5:21
Speaker 2: that a thing?
5:23
Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, it's a whole it's a whole world.
5:27
Speaker 2: So confused then, And I would assume that because they
5:31
Speaker 2: are idols of swords, that the people the fans would
5:34
Speaker 2: not want them to be together since they're in love
5:37
Speaker 2: with them. I thought or like they had a you know,
5:40
Speaker 2: like a but apparently it really is a thing, a
5:42
Speaker 2: big thing that they want them to be together.
5:45
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts about this, actually, oh,
5:49
Speaker 1: because I think and it's understandable. People get weirded out
5:55
Speaker 1: when people ship real people, and trust me, as we've
5:59
Speaker 1: discussed several times on the show, there are problems with that,
6:02
Speaker 1: especially when you start hating on a real life person right.
6:05
Speaker 1: But I also think that a lot of times when
6:10
Speaker 1: people ship real life people or when they write fanfic
6:13
Speaker 1: about real life people, that's it's not a it's not
6:18
Speaker 1: someone you know, it's not somebody you've ever met. So
6:20
Speaker 1: it is almost like a fictional character in that way,
6:24
Speaker 1: and usually one person and we actually are going to
6:27
Speaker 1: talk about this, but there's like a stand in for
6:29
Speaker 1: the person you think you're like and stand in for
6:32
Speaker 1: the person you want to be with. Right.
6:35
Speaker 2: I feel like you've mentioned that before in our fanfic episodes,
6:39
Speaker 2: But like I found that interesting because it actually has
6:43
Speaker 2: damaged some people's reputations because in things like South Korea
6:47
Speaker 2: Asian countries, which is very like homophobic countries, when they
6:51
Speaker 2: did that, there would be rumors throlling about and then
6:54
Speaker 2: like papers that would be coming out be like no,
6:56
Speaker 2: that's not true, and having to like separate people so
6:58
Speaker 2: even if they're a really good friends and they can't
7:00
Speaker 2: be around each other because of these like made up
7:03
Speaker 2: stories about real people. So I'm like, oh, that's sad,
7:07
Speaker 2: but that's an odd it's such an odd phenomenon when
7:11
Speaker 2: you see fanfic like that go like overlapping real life.
7:20
Speaker 1: It is interesting I. I know I've said it before,
7:22
Speaker 1: but I've I've read some fan fiction about myself and
7:24
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, cool.
7:27
Speaker 2: That's supposed to be that's closing. Wait do you have
7:30
Speaker 2: a ship? Is there a ship for you and Lauren?
7:33
Speaker 1: There's been a ship between me and Lauren, There's been
7:36
Speaker 1: a ship between me and Bridge it. I haven't checked
7:38
Speaker 1: since you came on. I don't know, but.
7:40
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't think.
7:43
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie.
7:46
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that makes sense, especially if it's
7:51
Speaker 2: about you. And I'm like, huh, would I be in
7:56
Speaker 2: that one? Would I be the like, the unapproachable one,
7:59
Speaker 2: because this isn't that how I go. It is the
8:00
Speaker 2: hard that's one that gets hard, that's hard, that has
8:02
Speaker 2: to stop it up for one person.
8:04
Speaker 1: Uh kind of, And I swear we actually are going
8:08
Speaker 1: to talk about this. And I didn't know about this,
8:09
Speaker 1: but I was like, oh my god. There's usually I'm
8:12
Speaker 1: usually like the shy, embarrassed yes. And then everyone else
8:19
Speaker 1: that I've been shipped with is like come to this
8:21
Speaker 1: bar with.
8:22
Speaker 2: Me, oh dear, which would be hilarious and very fictional,
8:30
Speaker 2: because I'm the one like I'm not going to a
8:31
Speaker 2: bar my house and hang out.
8:34
Speaker 1: But that's kind of my point is that there's like
8:37
Speaker 1: this understanding of that's funny this flash, these flashes we
8:40
Speaker 1: get of people online, or how we understand them to be.
8:44
Speaker 1: So it does feel kind of fictional. Like when I
8:46
Speaker 1: read something like that, I'm like, oh, no, it's not.
8:48
Speaker 2: It was obviously not me, but but you like.
8:51
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, go to that bar.
8:58
Speaker 2: That bar, touch our hot fingers lightly at each other's.
9:02
Speaker 1: Drinks so furiously, Oh my gosh, and turn around. Maybe
9:11
Speaker 1: this will be a two part and we haven't even
9:13
Speaker 1: gotten a segad definition.
9:14
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's so good to get
9:17
Speaker 2: into before we start. So let's jump into the second
9:19
Speaker 2: part of the definition.
9:20
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so this is from fan lore Wiki. Shipping
9:26
Speaker 1: and fandom is the act of supporting our wishing for
9:28
Speaker 1: a particular romantic relationship that is a het different sex
9:32
Speaker 1: slash male slash male, fem slash female female, or polly
9:37
Speaker 1: through your more characters ship by discussing it, writing meta
9:41
Speaker 1: about it, or creating other types of fan works exploring it.
9:44
Speaker 1: Fans who have and promote favorite ships are called shippers.
9:48
Speaker 1: They might assert that the relationship does exist or will exist.
9:52
Speaker 1: In Cannon that they would like it to exist are
9:55
Speaker 1: simply that they enjoy imagining it. Shippers who support multiple
9:59
Speaker 1: ships within a single canon are often referred to as
10:02
Speaker 1: multi shippers, especially if they support those ships equally. The
10:06
Speaker 1: relationships that fans promote or wish for are not all happy,
10:10
Speaker 1: fluffy bunny ones. Fans also enjoy enemy slash and wrong shipping.
10:15
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that more later, but yeah.
10:19
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm just so old, but wrong ship. It
10:21
Speaker 2: was like, like, as I know, you send it to the
10:22
Speaker 2: wrong address.
10:25
Speaker 1: I've seen reactions like that, so I don't think you're alone.
10:30
Speaker 1: It has got a lot more mainstream though we're going
10:32
Speaker 1: to talk about. Some shippers support relationships that are portrayed
10:35
Speaker 1: or acknowledged as established in canon. Some shippers like relationships
10:39
Speaker 1: that exist only as subtext, whether intentional or accidental itself
10:45
Speaker 1: a topic of debate, and some prefer relationships where the
10:48
Speaker 1: characters have no subtext discernible to non shippers. Some fans
10:52
Speaker 1: ship characters who never even appear in Cannon together later
10:56
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that. It is important to note that
10:59
Speaker 1: some percentage of fans actively do not want their ship
11:03
Speaker 1: to become canon especially wrong shippers and fans who don't
11:07
Speaker 1: trust the shows and writers to do it right. Shippers
11:12
Speaker 1: have been known to regret it when their wish came true.
11:15
Speaker 1: There's a very famous example of that that we'll talk about.
11:18
Speaker 1: And yes, okay, so I didn't know about this, but
11:21
Speaker 1: when I read it, I was like, oh, obviously there's
11:23
Speaker 1: also anti shippers are no romos no romance?
11:28
Speaker 2: Why does that sound like an insult? I don't like.
11:32
Speaker 1: That who actively don't want romance between characters. They can
11:40
Speaker 1: be just as passionate as shippers in their fight against
11:44
Speaker 1: a ship. And some of the earliest online no romos
11:47
Speaker 1: feel that they lost when Moulder and Scully's relationship became canon,
11:53
Speaker 1: because if you haven't seen X files, that's actually where
11:57
Speaker 1: shipping the term first showed up. They did. Moulder and
12:02
Speaker 1: Scully did eventually get together, and.
12:05
Speaker 2: So was that always the plan? Though?
12:08
Speaker 1: Oh I don't think so. But yeah. They often say
12:13
Speaker 1: that they want to believe that relationships can be platonic.
12:17
Speaker 1: Gonna break that down later too. There's a lot to
12:19
Speaker 1: break down in this.
12:21
Speaker 2: I think this is gonna be a two part I.
12:24
Speaker 1: We'll see this is fun, we'll all find out together.
12:28
Speaker 1: It is something fandoms love to fight over, and sometimes
12:32
Speaker 1: in a healthy way and sometimes in a very very
12:34
Speaker 1: very unhealthy way, but it is often something people bond
12:38
Speaker 1: over too.
12:39
Speaker 2: Uh.
12:39
Speaker 1: The ship typically has a name, and sometimes one of
12:43
Speaker 1: the first questions fans will ask each other when that
12:46
Speaker 1: Dido song came out, I will go down with this ship.
12:49
Speaker 1: That became a very popular meme, especially because David Borianus
12:54
Speaker 1: was in that music video and Angel Buffy Spike Shipping.
12:59
Speaker 2: War, which has a hall a lot of shipping, I'm
13:01
Speaker 2: sure because also Willow has her own little m she.
13:05
Speaker 1: Does she does Buffy the Vampire Slayer is big in
13:08
Speaker 1: this conversation, so you can look forward to that too.
13:12
Speaker 2: It's supernatural too. Yes, I think that's the first notification
13:19
Speaker 2: of me knowing about shipping was of course Dusty l
13:24
Speaker 2: But I was.
13:24
Speaker 1: Like, what is that? Oh yeah, yes, yes, yes.
13:28
Speaker 2: I feel like that's my theme phrase. What exactly?
13:32
Speaker 1: Yes, I think so as Dragon Con approaches. I think
13:48
Speaker 1: this will come out after Dragon Con. But one of
13:51
Speaker 1: the first questions I would get sometimes from people when
13:55
Speaker 1: I was dressed is the Winter Soldier would be are
13:58
Speaker 1: you stucky or are you whatever the name is for
14:02
Speaker 1: the Black Widow and Bucky ship which I can't remember
14:06
Speaker 1: and ship yes.
14:09
Speaker 2: Really, oh yes, I would have thought more Falcon and Bucky.
14:12
Speaker 1: Well, I think after the show came out, because I
14:15
Speaker 1: remember watching that being like, you guys are really leaning
14:17
Speaker 1: into this sexual tension here, and a lot of people
14:22
Speaker 1: texted me and were like, is this what you're talking
14:25
Speaker 1: about with fan fiction? I was like, yeah, but I
14:29
Speaker 1: hadn't at that point. I wasn't dressing as the Winner
14:32
Speaker 1: Soldier anymore so much, but yeah, it's just funny to
14:34
Speaker 1: me that people come up and that was what they
14:36
Speaker 1: want to know is who ship?
14:37
Speaker 2: Interesting?
14:40
Speaker 1: And Okay, apparently the ship name for Catnus and Peta
14:44
Speaker 1: from The Hunger Games is Penis.
14:47
Speaker 2: What did you gotta do? Like that?
14:48
Speaker 1: That's so true?
14:51
Speaker 2: Why made up by people who did not want Peta
14:55
Speaker 2: and Catinus to get together? They wanted was his name?
15:00
Speaker 2: That is what I could so good at not knowing
15:02
Speaker 2: any characters. I love that I sell like so old
15:06
Speaker 2: and outdated because I can't remember a damn character.
15:08
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is, you're so much better than
15:10
Speaker 1: me at actors names. Yeah, I get so much better
15:14
Speaker 1: at character. I can't remember the character. I know the act.
15:18
Speaker 1: We were fitting together though.
15:20
Speaker 2: This is this is why we are Okay, this is
15:22
Speaker 2: a ship that I just finished the entire time, or
15:25
Speaker 2: that you finished mine.
15:27
Speaker 1: That's it kind of. I translate for you, you translate
15:30
Speaker 1: for me.
15:30
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
15:32
Speaker 1: I don't know if they pronounce it penis, but it's
15:34
Speaker 1: pronounced Peter and Catness, so I feel like it's penis.
15:37
Speaker 1: Somebody let me in, right and let me.
15:40
Speaker 2: So the Gillness is the one that made this. Yeah,
15:44
Speaker 2: ship name, I think Okay, Penis.
15:48
Speaker 1: I hope that's true. That is very funny. Steve Rogers
15:53
Speaker 1: and Tony Stark is Stony. I found this whole like
15:56
Speaker 1: chart of the names and I was laughing so hard
15:59
Speaker 1: it was great. That's pretty good Stony. I mean, come on.
16:06
Speaker 1: People do get really excited about the smallest things when
16:09
Speaker 1: they ship something or ship someone, and it'll be like, oh,
16:13
Speaker 1: did you see that, Look you've seen me do this. Yes,
16:16
Speaker 1: they're in love your honor. Oh. People will write essays
16:20
Speaker 1: affording their theory. They write fan fiction, they make fan art,
16:24
Speaker 1: they'll make predictions. They get invested. There are websites dedicated
16:29
Speaker 1: to ships. There are websites dedicated to like anti ships.
16:32
Speaker 1: People you don't want to go together. There are tumbler communities,
16:36
Speaker 1: there are discords. That's one of my favorite tags and
16:38
Speaker 1: fan fiction was whatever ship discord made me do it?
16:43
Speaker 1: So yeah, people are into it. And also, yes, the
16:47
Speaker 1: sex and subtext is a big joke, which they hit
16:50
Speaker 1: they had on Supernatural they did. Oh, but that's basically
16:56
Speaker 1: implying like you're kind of reading into the meta of
17:01
Speaker 1: the whole thing. In my experience, in the fictional shipping world,
17:06
Speaker 1: not celebrities, people largely ship two men. They're often two
17:10
Speaker 1: white men, and often interviews the celebrities who play these characters.
17:15
Speaker 1: Those interviews are used for evidence too, and they are
17:20
Speaker 1: often asked who they ship.
17:22
Speaker 2: Uh well, I did find it interesting that when it's
17:25
Speaker 2: just shipping, it means two men automatically instead of just
17:28
Speaker 2: two people, instead of and then having to be like
17:31
Speaker 2: fimship And I was like, oh wait they had to
17:33
Speaker 2: add that. Well that's interesting.
17:36
Speaker 1: Well actually, okay, so I just got welled. Actually yeah
17:41
Speaker 1: you did, Yeah you did. No, No, you're right, you're right.
17:46
Speaker 1: But I didn't realize this. Once you account for non
17:49
Speaker 1: fan fix specific fans bases, there are a lot more
17:52
Speaker 1: hetero ships, so slash is a very fan fiction name.
17:58
Speaker 2: Slash, not ship. Sorry.
17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So Slash is very from fan fiction, and
18:02
Speaker 1: I we've talked about the history of it before and
18:06
Speaker 1: then fem slash comes from that. And I actually read
18:11
Speaker 1: a really fascinating like nineteen ninety three what were those
18:17
Speaker 1: called bulletin board you know, those like online bulletin boards faces. Anyway,
18:22
Speaker 1: it was like a little short thing where someone was
18:24
Speaker 1: saying she was making the point that people who were
18:31
Speaker 1: so supportive of Slash weren't supportive of them Slash, and
18:36
Speaker 1: it was really fascinating because she was like, I can
18:38
Speaker 1: see you only support this one type of thing and
18:40
Speaker 1: not this other thing, like that really upsets you, but
18:43
Speaker 1: this doesn't. It was cool. It was cool.
18:47
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I don't know, Like, again, I'm not in
18:49
Speaker 2: part of this, but I'm very into the K drama world,
18:52
Speaker 2: and in that same scope, they really love the bl
18:55
Speaker 2: which we've talked about in the K drama episodes or
18:57
Speaker 2: any typically any Asian episodes, which is like the title is,
19:01
Speaker 2: it's not what it sounds like because in the US
19:03
Speaker 2: we're like, what does that boy love? But essentially like
19:06
Speaker 2: meant two men together, and that's kind of the entire
19:09
Speaker 2: it's a whole genre, and they there's so much of
19:12
Speaker 2: that way more than there's about two women, which I
19:15
Speaker 2: thought was odd, but again, the people who are eating
19:19
Speaker 2: up this content are typically women.
19:21
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yep, yep. You can see our fan fiction
19:25
Speaker 1: episode for that. I think I also did one on
19:27
Speaker 1: specifically on slash. But there's a lot of theories where
19:30
Speaker 1: that is. There's actually like research papers and books about
19:34
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
19:35
Speaker 2: Is it carries over just like romances especially.
19:41
Speaker 1: I did find many articles that reported how queer fan
19:44
Speaker 1: fiction helps people come out realize they were queer, and
19:47
Speaker 1: so this is a big part of like when you
19:49
Speaker 1: start shipping and you're like, oh, this is queer relationship,
19:52
Speaker 1: I'm shipping this, and then people be like, wait a minute,
19:55
Speaker 1: let me think about this a bit more. Which speaking
19:58
Speaker 1: of yeah, wow, this term is relatively recent. It was
20:02
Speaker 1: first she used in nineteen ninety three in regards to
20:05
Speaker 1: exiles fandom, which was my oh maybe I'm queer moment.
20:10
Speaker 1: People have been doing this forever. I found really fun
20:13
Speaker 1: examples from like Jane Austen, like Sherlock Holmes way back,
20:18
Speaker 1: like it's really fascinating. However, the Internet and social media
20:22
Speaker 1: really allowed for these ship communities to grow, for people
20:25
Speaker 1: to find each other, but it also allowed for bad
20:27
Speaker 1: behavior to be amplified and it has led to a
20:30
Speaker 1: lot of Internet abuse. And interestingly, in the early days,
20:35
Speaker 1: shipping was mocked and looked down upon. Sometimes it was
20:38
Speaker 1: even viewed as you saying, like something that you're all
20:43
Speaker 1: enjoying is not perfect. Heaven forbid, Like you're not a
20:46
Speaker 1: real fan because you're like wanting more. Maybe you're being weird.
20:52
Speaker 1: And people who shipped would get email attacks or harassed.
20:56
Speaker 1: But now it's definitely gone mainstream, and with that we
20:59
Speaker 1: have a lot of issues and it's just funny to
21:01
Speaker 1: me and looking back at this where I'm like, now
21:05
Speaker 1: it's just you don't ship who I want you to ship,
21:10
Speaker 1: gets say, the attacks and the harassment. But back then,
21:13
Speaker 1: apparently people who ship forgetting that strange.
21:18
Speaker 2: You've come a long way, baby.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yes, yes we have. But that brings us to shipping wars,
21:29
Speaker 1: which is one of the biggest issues.
21:33
Speaker 2: That's so literal. I'm like, you a ups shipping wars.
21:37
Speaker 1: We should have had you do like your version of
21:40
Speaker 1: what you thought this was, what this was, and compared it.
21:44
Speaker 1: It would have been great. So from teen Vogue and
21:53
Speaker 1: where they're shipping. There are ship wars aggressive in community
21:56
Speaker 1: beefs between fandom factions that focus on different ships the
22:00
Speaker 1: same piece of media or fandom. Ship wars have a
22:03
Speaker 1: rich history of stirring up heightened emotion. Back when Buffy
22:06
Speaker 1: the Vampire Slayer dominated online fandom, one of the biggest
22:09
Speaker 1: ship wars in fandom history revolved around Buffy's relationships with
22:13
Speaker 1: two of the hottest and most toxic vampires this side
22:17
Speaker 1: of the Vampire Diaries Extended Universe, Spike an Angel. Yes,
22:22
Speaker 1: more on that in a second. Oh my gosh, I
22:25
Speaker 1: did see Final Fantasy seven. I've talked about it on
22:28
Speaker 1: a hear before, But the whole thing in that game
22:32
Speaker 1: was based on decisions you made. You would end up
22:37
Speaker 1: with one of like four people, but really two people,
22:41
Speaker 1: Tifa and Earth, and people would pick sides like, obviously
22:45
Speaker 1: he should have gone with Earth. Obviously he should have
22:47
Speaker 1: gone with Tifa, and that was kind of programmed into
22:50
Speaker 1: the game. That was like, there was this whole thing
22:54
Speaker 1: where Earth died spoilers, but that game's really old, and
22:59
Speaker 1: there was this both if you were nicer to her,
23:01
Speaker 1: if you did all these things, if you were in
23:03
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship she would live, which she wouldn't, but
23:07
Speaker 1: there was a belief so that she would. So people
23:10
Speaker 1: really pick sides. Another big one is Team Edward versus
23:13
Speaker 1: Team Jacob from Why Yes And then I totally forgot
23:17
Speaker 1: about this, but when I read about it, I was like,
23:20
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Yes, the Harmony Wars, the Harmonians. People
23:25
Speaker 1: were so pissed, Samantha, Oh my gosh. There was a
23:29
Speaker 1: whole live journal about killing off Ron Weasley in as
23:32
Speaker 1: many ways as possible, because essentially this was people who
23:35
Speaker 1: thought Harry and Hermione should be together.
23:37
Speaker 2: Right, I mean people really hated on Jenny. You really
23:41
Speaker 2: hated Onny Oh, yes, poor actress.
23:45
Speaker 1: Yes. So this was before a lot of this was happening,
23:51
Speaker 1: as people were going online more. Harry Potter is still
23:55
Speaker 1: one of the biggest fan communities fan fiction communities that exist.
23:59
Speaker 1: And there was this big break between the Goblet of
24:02
Speaker 1: Fire and Order of Phoenix and before that, like so
24:07
Speaker 1: no one knew who was going to end up with whom,
24:11
Speaker 1: but people had all this time to speculate. So there
24:14
Speaker 1: was the Harmonians. The I think it was called the
24:17
Speaker 1: USS Harmoniums. So it's like a ship anyway. So they
24:21
Speaker 1: were like really adamant that this was how it was
24:24
Speaker 1: going to go, And then JK. Rowling said in an interview, Oh, no,
24:28
Speaker 1: it's definitely not that. And one of the interviewers said
24:32
Speaker 1: harmoniums were delusional and there's kind of laughter and all
24:36
Speaker 1: the stuff. JK. Rolling backtracked about it. She didn't attach
24:41
Speaker 1: herself to the word delusional, but was also kind of like, yeah,
24:47
Speaker 1: but she did say she thought she had dropped these
24:51
Speaker 1: huge hints and that it was obvious who was going
24:54
Speaker 1: to end up with whom from Claire McBride over at
24:57
Speaker 1: sci Fi Wire, but even early the tension between these
25:01
Speaker 1: two factions ran hot. Sugar Quill, one of the first
25:04
Speaker 1: Harry Potter specific FICK archives, refused to accept Harry Hermione
25:09
Speaker 1: fan fiction on the grounds that it was not cannon compliant. Interestingly,
25:13
Speaker 1: they accepted remiss Serious Fick as canon compliant because you
25:17
Speaker 1: know it was, which may have contributed to the opening
25:21
Speaker 1: of Fiction Alley, which pointedly accepted all ships. Ship specific
25:26
Speaker 1: fan sites and communities became the norm, allowing the factions
25:29
Speaker 1: to more or less peaceably coexist, although the occasional battles
25:33
Speaker 1: still happened up until this point. They trusted that they
25:37
Speaker 1: were correctly reading Rolling's larger plan, and that they were
25:41
Speaker 1: the only ones doing so. They were heavily invested in
25:45
Speaker 1: not only the veracity of their ship, but the morality
25:48
Speaker 1: of it, valuing a relationship built on friendship over what
25:51
Speaker 1: they saw as a relationship built on conflicts, among many
25:54
Speaker 1: other values they assigned to their ship. Because they'd invested
25:58
Speaker 1: so heavily in this one ship, to the detriment of
26:02
Speaker 1: making wider connections in fandom and developing a diverse interest
26:05
Speaker 1: in the series, Rolling's revelation threatened to invalidate not only
26:09
Speaker 1: their ship but their fandom, so they turned their ire
26:13
Speaker 1: on her. Harmonians began to openly insult Rolling, calling into
26:17
Speaker 1: question her talent as a writer, denigrating her for being divorced,
26:21
Speaker 1: and even insulting her personal appearance. One post even indulges
26:25
Speaker 1: in some pearl clutching, wondering if the moral of ron
26:29
Speaker 1: slash Hermione is really one she wants to pass down
26:33
Speaker 1: to her daughters. The ship meant more to them than
26:35
Speaker 1: the fandom did. This is the moment that birthed zero
26:39
Speaker 1: sum shipping, a kind of blind game in ship that
26:43
Speaker 1: only values as ship for whether or not it wins,
26:46
Speaker 1: not whether or not it is enjoyable. End of note.
26:50
Speaker 1: This was pre Twitter, so this could have been a
26:53
Speaker 1: lot worse.
26:56
Speaker 2: The battle.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was funny because my mom had opinion
27:00
Speaker 1: on this. She obviously wasn't like Duke Naos, but she
27:04
Speaker 1: thought it should have been her in her whining that.
27:06
Speaker 1: I remember being like, oh, I don't.
27:09
Speaker 2: Know if I ever had an opinion on it, but
27:12
Speaker 2: it was like, yeah, it doesn't make as much sense,
27:14
Speaker 2: but I get it. Like the side characters, he has
27:17
Speaker 2: his own trauma he doesn't really need. I think that
27:19
Speaker 2: was part, like he doesn't need a romance right now,
27:21
Speaker 2: he's cut too much on his plate.
27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And my mom was very it was
27:27
Speaker 1: she was very blessed about it. But it was just
27:28
Speaker 1: funny because like normally she wouldn't even care have a
27:32
Speaker 1: thought about it, but she did say that. I was like,
27:34
Speaker 1: oh yeah, but that kind of that morality that that
27:40
Speaker 1: writer mentioned is a key point of this, because there's
27:43
Speaker 1: this whole idea of like, my ship is better than yours, right, because,
27:48
Speaker 1: as I said, chips are not new. They've been around
27:51
Speaker 1: since we've been telling stories and could have opinions, but
27:55
Speaker 1: they have evolved. It used to be and still is largely,
27:59
Speaker 1: I would say, a fun thing. There are plenty, plenty
28:04
Speaker 1: the majority of people who can ship without being absolutely awful,
28:09
Speaker 1: but it's gotten way more intense as where we are
28:11
Speaker 1: all online and now when someone believes they found the
28:15
Speaker 1: OTP the one true pairing, they think they are right,
28:20
Speaker 1: you are wrong, and it gets heated and outright hateful.
28:24
Speaker 1: Jamie described it as almost a religion. A part of
28:27
Speaker 1: this is that you've interpreted the media in question correctly,
28:32
Speaker 1: that there is just one right way, one correct pairing,
28:37
Speaker 1: and if that's not if they don't agree with someone,
28:41
Speaker 1: then they will shame people, harass people, shun people, docs
28:44
Speaker 1: people to swap people, even threatened creators.
28:47
Speaker 2: How old are the ranges for people who are active
28:53
Speaker 2: on those kind of boards.
28:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it depends on the specific site,
29:01
Speaker 1: because I know we talked about this before. If fan
29:03
Speaker 1: fiction is like my forte, so that's what I know
29:05
Speaker 1: off the HEP my head, but like wpad is for
29:08
Speaker 1: younger folks, there's another one that more younger people use.
29:13
Speaker 1: And then AO three and fanfic dot net are like
29:16
Speaker 1: older folks, And by that I mean I don't know,
29:19
Speaker 1: like my age.
29:21
Speaker 2: Like what's the older mean?
29:23
Speaker 1: I mean it could go it's I think they're much
29:26
Speaker 1: more like I would say twenty five to forty, which
29:31
Speaker 1: is okay. I think there's more outliers on that than
29:34
Speaker 1: there aren't. Wpad I could be wrong, which I feel
29:37
Speaker 1: is much younger. Right.
29:39
Speaker 2: I just wondered, because you know, A that's a lot
29:41
Speaker 2: of time and effort to go after and debate with people.
29:45
Speaker 2: I knows people do that, like does it for any
29:48
Speaker 2: all subjects, But I find that interesting for fictional characters,
29:54
Speaker 2: that level of love and passion, like you have to
29:56
Speaker 2: have some time and dedication for that.
29:58
Speaker 1: That's kind of part of the issue. It doesn't have
30:01
Speaker 1: to be an issue, but part of it is if
30:03
Speaker 1: it becomes like a consumed right all of your time,
30:08
Speaker 1: and someone's telling you in your mind you're wrong, but
30:13
Speaker 1: you've spent all this time on it, You've like looked
30:15
Speaker 1: for all the clues, You've done all this digging and research,
30:19
Speaker 1: and so it's like you don't get it.
30:26
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen you watch Star Wars and you're
30:28
Speaker 2: telling me your theories and me just going really and
30:30
Speaker 2: you go, wait, no, but this evidence.
30:32
Speaker 1: Well, see, the funny thing is I'm a multi shipper,
30:35
Speaker 1: which is yes, I have a lot of ships, and
30:38
Speaker 1: so I can be like I can take evidence and
30:41
Speaker 1: make my case for one couple, and then that same
30:43
Speaker 1: evidence I'll be like, disregard this couple though, which I
30:48
Speaker 1: think is a good way to be.
30:51
Speaker 2: So many times I heard do you see that stay
30:53
Speaker 2: or do you see that look?
30:55
Speaker 1: Don't know?
30:55
Speaker 2: No, you can't tell me.
30:57
Speaker 1: People have written it about that look dat. I won't
30:59
Speaker 1: look at it. I'm not kidding people know.
31:03
Speaker 2: I'm sure I can. I can picture. I picture it
31:06
Speaker 2: the moment you say it. I know what scene I'm
31:08
Speaker 2: talking about, because you've done it every time. Yep, every time.
31:13
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
31:14
Speaker 2: The dedication to that, I'm like, oh yeah, that's a look.
31:18
Speaker 1: It's a lot, but that's what it is. And that's
31:22
Speaker 1: like the fun part of it. Like when you can
31:23
Speaker 1: just be like yeah and then you don't mind if
31:27
Speaker 1: someone does it agree with you.
31:30
Speaker 2: There was no disagreement. I was just the nod. You
31:33
Speaker 2: get the nod from me like oh okay, yeah, yeah.
31:37
Speaker 1: Now don't derail me because now I just want to
31:38
Speaker 1: talk to that.
31:40
Speaker 2: I have had look that you're having it like contemplating
31:44
Speaker 2: do I go down this road.
31:45
Speaker 1: I've had more than one friend say I didn't see
31:48
Speaker 1: it before, but now I see it.
31:55
Speaker 2: That's right, okay.
32:02
Speaker 1: But speaking of from that same article from sci Fi,
32:09
Speaker 1: what was once the love of two characters dynamic has
32:12
Speaker 1: become to a small but outspoken subsection of fans a
32:15
Speaker 1: zero sum game. How did we get from God, I
32:18
Speaker 1: love seeing these two together to these two need to
32:21
Speaker 1: be together, So help me God? And this quote is
32:26
Speaker 1: going back to that teen Vogue article, which I really recommend.
32:29
Speaker 1: I've been a part of several ship wars, never an
32:32
Speaker 1: active participant, really, just a member of ships that are
32:34
Speaker 1: fought over, and I think it all comes down to
32:36
Speaker 1: wanting to feel right. Fandom, especially fanfic, is all about
32:40
Speaker 1: participating in and taking ownership of the material. Colleen, a
32:44
Speaker 1: pop culture nerd and scholar who made it through the
32:46
Speaker 1: Vultron fandom, shares with teen Vogue. Ship wars are caused
32:50
Speaker 1: by people wanting their ship to be the number one,
32:53
Speaker 1: correct ship, the only one, and even if it's not canon,
32:57
Speaker 1: it's the one. So you see things like Katong versus Zutara,
33:02
Speaker 1: where on the one hand, you have people arguing their
33:04
Speaker 1: ship is better because it's canon and it's sweet, and
33:07
Speaker 1: on the other hand arguing for tension and character development.
33:11
Speaker 1: In that case, it's a matter of preference and power.
33:14
Speaker 1: Each ship slash fandom wants to be in charge. Yes,
33:19
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting because we are going to
33:23
Speaker 1: discuss this more. But that whole like you go to
33:26
Speaker 1: fan fiction because you can't find the relationship you want
33:29
Speaker 1: in canon or maybe they don't do it, and then
33:32
Speaker 1: what happens when it does become canon. But essentially what
33:35
Speaker 1: most of what I read is it comes down to
33:38
Speaker 1: this is the quote unquote healthier relationship versus the quote
33:43
Speaker 1: unquote unhealthier relationship, which is a for you know, debate.
33:48
Speaker 1: But yes, creators and celebrities get this abuse too, even
33:54
Speaker 1: extending to real life relationships of celebrities. That's something we've
33:57
Speaker 1: talked about before. Some creators have been black mailed in
34:01
Speaker 1: an attempt to force a ship and make it cannon.
34:04
Speaker 1: Some have been forced off social media, and it gets nasty,
34:07
Speaker 1: like people will tear people up who support the opposing ship.
34:13
Speaker 1: Nay will claim that there's is the least problematic ship
34:16
Speaker 1: while pointing out the problematic parts of the opposing ships
34:19
Speaker 1: and people who ship them, Like it becomes like, well,
34:21
Speaker 1: if you like this ship, then that means you're messed
34:23
Speaker 1: up in this way. You're appear to slash goody two
34:28
Speaker 1: shoes or you're actually a criminal. Then there is the
34:33
Speaker 1: hate that is heaped onto the characters, as you mentioned
34:36
Speaker 1: with Jenny Weasley. Perhaps yeah, usually the cannon ship often
34:42
Speaker 1: a woman who ruined your ship, and the person who
34:46
Speaker 1: created them or played them, people who did ship with
34:52
Speaker 1: these toxic fans. So if you're like shipping a ship
34:57
Speaker 1: and then all these toxic fans come in, sometimes you
34:59
Speaker 1: get forced that shit because you're like, well, right, he
35:02
Speaker 1: ruined it. Sometimes the creators make it worse with their
35:09
Speaker 1: comments making fun of a ship or being queer baby.
35:14
Speaker 1: Often they have no idea how much fandom is behind
35:19
Speaker 1: a ship. I would say not always, but I feel
35:22
Speaker 1: like a lot of the examples I wrote, I was like,
35:25
Speaker 1: why did you say that? Which is a points to
35:30
Speaker 1: an interesting disconnect between creators and their fans. MCU story
35:34
Speaker 1: editor Matthew Schancey, who's responsible for the what if Zombie episode,
35:38
Speaker 1: which is that like Marvel, Kay Alternate Realities animated series,
35:45
Speaker 1: reportedly wanted Zombie Captain America to bite off Sharon's lips
35:50
Speaker 1: and spit them out because quote, no one likes her.
35:53
Speaker 1: Actually he belongs to Peggy, which he might have been joking.
35:59
Speaker 1: Maybe not, but it does fuel these fights in his hate.
36:03
Speaker 1: Perhaps he did it intentionally, Perhaps he did it, I
36:06
Speaker 1: don't know.
36:06
Speaker 2: My only problem with that whole storyline was, wait, couldn't
36:09
Speaker 2: he beat her grandfather now, a great uncle now or something?
36:13
Speaker 2: This whole timeline thing, I'm like, this doesn't this doesn't
36:17
Speaker 2: bode well.
36:18
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't think the MCU has done
36:23
Speaker 1: a romance very well. Yes, I know some people disagree
36:28
Speaker 1: with me, but I don't think so.
36:32
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of a good wood.
36:34
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would say like WandaVision,
36:37
Speaker 1: but I actually don't think so.
36:39
Speaker 2: They worked together and then she fell alone with a
36:42
Speaker 2: make belief thing.
36:43
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And that was my biggest hang up with
36:46
Speaker 1: that show was is I was like, I just don't
36:47
Speaker 1: buy your relationship because you just suddenly told me you
36:50
Speaker 1: were dating and then he died.
36:54
Speaker 2: And it's also forced anyway from the Yeah maybe, oh,
36:57
Speaker 2: I'm I gonna get hey for that.
36:58
Speaker 1: It did did, but almost all the relationships in the
37:02
Speaker 1: MCU felt very forced. Yeah, but anywhere anyway, we're gonna
37:07
Speaker 1: get the right. There are even conspiracy theories that for
37:22
Speaker 1: one reason or another something is cannon, but the creators
37:25
Speaker 1: cannot admit it like it is canon. They just can't
37:28
Speaker 1: say it's candon a lot and this used to be
37:31
Speaker 1: a big thing in fan fiction, which is kind of
37:35
Speaker 1: a lot of people brought up. Has kind of gone
37:37
Speaker 1: by the wayside. But it used to be like, oh,
37:42
Speaker 1: there was a certain tag for it, but it was like,
37:46
Speaker 1: you know, uh, we were playing in our sandbox. Whatever
37:50
Speaker 1: they do, that's the thing that we're playing in our sandbox,
37:53
Speaker 1: whereas now it's become it's crossed the line into oh,
37:56
Speaker 1: let's yell at them online. But it used to be
37:58
Speaker 1: much more like, Nope, that's that's the powers that be.
38:03
Speaker 1: That's what it was, the powers that be. You you,
38:06
Speaker 1: that's what they've decided and that's how it is. But
38:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to play in this sandbox. But now it's
38:10
Speaker 1: become like it has to be can and which is
38:16
Speaker 1: part of this issue. Also, yes, we have talked about
38:23
Speaker 1: celebrity shipping, which is essentially yeah, you just two real
38:26
Speaker 1: people are more than to real people. Again, but that
38:31
Speaker 1: usually like the unhealthy side of that is definitely that
38:34
Speaker 1: it has real world impacts. That impacts usually like the
38:38
Speaker 1: celebrities new partner again is often a woman, and this
38:42
Speaker 1: has resulted in people being forced off social media, celebrities
38:47
Speaker 1: having to release statements asking for people to essentially not
38:50
Speaker 1: harass their partner or their ex like post about mental
38:55
Speaker 1: health and all of this. So that's definitely definitely. And then,
39:02
Speaker 1: as Jamie said in the original suggestion for this, there
39:07
Speaker 1: are some ships that are truly problematic. And from what
39:12
Speaker 1: I've reads, as mentioned, a lot of shipboards do boil
39:15
Speaker 1: down to should person a who is torn between two
39:18
Speaker 1: people go with the bad boy type or the good
39:20
Speaker 1: guide type. And this is not It doesn't mean that
39:23
Speaker 1: the good guys without problems. But I found out this
39:27
Speaker 1: is known as Sinemon rule ships versus trash ships.
39:30
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, yes, trash ships.
39:35
Speaker 1: Huh trash ships? So from here's a quote about that
39:39
Speaker 1: from Vox. For instance, a ship like Kylux Kylo Brinn
39:44
Speaker 1: and the minor character Hucks and the Force Awakens might
39:47
Speaker 1: be labeled a trash ship because it's seen as a
39:49
Speaker 1: representation of fandom's heavily white status quo your average ubiquitous
39:54
Speaker 1: white dude slash pairing and a ship like Ika Body
39:58
Speaker 1: That's fun name too, Nikabod Crane slash Abbey Mills on
40:02
Speaker 1: Sleepy Hollow might be seen as a semin roll ship,
40:05
Speaker 1: both because of the puereness of their love and because
40:07
Speaker 1: one of its members is a woman of color. Again,
40:09
Speaker 1: this is this being fandom. These issues are very layered, controversial,
40:13
Speaker 1: and complicated. So essentially, a trash ship is like a
40:17
Speaker 1: ship you ship even though you know it's bad, you
40:21
Speaker 1: know it's problematic, you know it's toxic.
40:23
Speaker 2: So would be would this be the Buffy and Yes name?
40:29
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Buffy and Bike. Yes, yes, I'm gonna talk
40:33
Speaker 1: about that more in a second of so excited you
40:34
Speaker 1: bought that?
40:34
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes.
40:36
Speaker 1: I did see some recent articles about multi shippers who
40:39
Speaker 1: ship toxic, problematic ships and healthy, wholesome ones, and they
40:42
Speaker 1: were saying, like, it's not mutually exclusive. Sometimes you're all happen.
40:48
Speaker 1: Sometimes it just happens. It really does. Should people have like,
40:51
Speaker 1: how did this happen? I never would have guessed. But
40:59
Speaker 1: there are are also shippers for abusive relationships, for non
41:04
Speaker 1: consensual slash manipulaty of controlling relationships, underage relationships with massive
41:11
Speaker 1: age differences, incest, which is kind of complicated in terms
41:17
Speaker 1: of fanfic because oh yeah, I don't really I don't
41:21
Speaker 1: read it, but I think a lot of times there's
41:23
Speaker 1: an understanding that we all know they aren't actually related.
41:26
Speaker 1: Plus things like Game of Thrones, like I don't know.
41:31
Speaker 2: Because that's the thing about super naturals, the brothers. What
41:35
Speaker 2: are you doing.
41:36
Speaker 1: Wincest yep, oh, one day, I'll come back to that,
41:42
Speaker 1: And I'll also come back to ABO, which I've talked
41:45
Speaker 1: about before. We talked about it in our dot com
41:48
Speaker 1: episode Best stands for Alpha Beta Omega, and it's kind
41:53
Speaker 1: of like a secondary gender political biological type of writing
42:05
Speaker 1: and relationship, and those are often very toxic, but they
42:08
Speaker 1: also are interesting in how they explore gender politics. I
42:14
Speaker 1: have a lot of thoughts about that as well, but
42:16
Speaker 1: we won't go into them now because that would be
42:19
Speaker 1: a whole episode. But there's a lot of shipping in
42:23
Speaker 1: that realm that's pretty pretty problematic. Yeah, then, as mentioned earlier,
42:34
Speaker 1: wrong shipping.
42:37
Speaker 2: I'm just laughing about so many things right now.
42:40
Speaker 1: Yes, So back to that fan lore wiki article. When
42:44
Speaker 1: a fan ships two characters who really shouldn't be together,
42:46
Speaker 1: they are wrong shipping. Wrong shipping isn't a judgment made
42:49
Speaker 1: about a fan of shipping preferences, but the recognition that
42:53
Speaker 1: the characters in question would be a hot mess together.
42:56
Speaker 1: Wrong shipping can also be used when the fan is
42:59
Speaker 1: in support of a pairing other than the cannon of TP.
43:03
Speaker 1: So this is sort of like, yeah, they won't gotcha.
43:08
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna assume from now on, I'm on, I'm
43:10
Speaker 2: not on this, which I assume from the beginning, which
43:13
Speaker 2: you were like you got some parts, I was like.
43:15
Speaker 1: Why, well, I put a minute in it.
43:18
Speaker 2: I was just like, well, because I like me saying
43:21
Speaker 2: that would be so out of context. I have no
43:22
Speaker 2: idea why I'm saying this. I got it, So I'm
43:27
Speaker 2: just I'm just gonna go with that. So I'm like, yeah,
43:29
Speaker 2: I have no idea what that just happened.
43:32
Speaker 1: That's that's what it's like when you get in the
43:34
Speaker 1: world of shipping, some man, you get lost lost in
43:38
Speaker 1: the shipping, and then related that at the top, I
43:42
Speaker 1: mentioned like antis non romos, no romos. Actually this is
43:51
Speaker 1: sort of different because there's a difference between people who
43:55
Speaker 1: don't want any ship, like maybe they just don't want romance,
43:58
Speaker 1: versus people who actively don't want a certain ship, and
44:04
Speaker 1: they have gotten in on this toxicity too. And I
44:06
Speaker 1: found this quote from geek Dad. The most aggressive of
44:11
Speaker 1: the bunch is a new subset of shippers, collectively known
44:13
Speaker 1: as ANTIS, from the practice of tacking things anti ship
44:17
Speaker 1: name on social media. It's a term these toxic members
44:21
Speaker 1: of fandom. We're proudly despite its association with combative behavior,
44:25
Speaker 1: ANTIS appear to be a response to, among other factors,
44:28
Speaker 1: changes in how fans interact online. As fans move from
44:32
Speaker 1: sites like live journal where content was opt in, to Tumblr,
44:35
Speaker 1: where content is opped out, the method in which fans
44:39
Speaker 1: consumed content changed thanks to ANTIS. The old adage of
44:44
Speaker 1: early fandom don't like, don't read yep or the idea
44:48
Speaker 1: that consumers are responsible for avoiding content they don't like,
44:51
Speaker 1: has been replaced with discourse, death threats, and violence. Discussions
44:57
Speaker 1: shifted from I don't like this too, no one should
45:01
Speaker 1: like this. This often involves moral arguments. It's sort of
45:05
Speaker 1: devolved into I can morally prove you're a terrible person
45:08
Speaker 1: for this ship to destroy it. I thought that was
45:11
Speaker 1: so interesting because we've talked before. I love the history
45:15
Speaker 1: of how those technologies impact right our discourse, and in
45:22
Speaker 1: this case, I didn't know that that's really cool. I
45:25
Speaker 1: mean not cool, but like I'm glad to know it.
45:28
Speaker 1: You can on a three, you can be like I
45:31
Speaker 1: don't want this ship to show up, but it doesn't
45:33
Speaker 1: like populate like how Tumblr it would be like you
45:39
Speaker 1: find all of this stuff that's like I hate this ship.
45:41
Speaker 1: It's more like than that ship just won't show up. Yeah,
45:46
Speaker 1: the quote goes on. Anti arguments may shift over time,
45:50
Speaker 1: but the critical thing to note is one competing popular
45:53
Speaker 1: pairings pairings that share characters with the anti favored pairing
45:57
Speaker 1: are always problematic, and two, the anti preferred pairing is
46:01
Speaker 1: never problematic. If you take nothing else from this article,
46:04
Speaker 1: please take this All. This outrage isn't about protecting children,
46:09
Speaker 1: or about morality or about critiquing media. It's about people
46:13
Speaker 1: wanting their favorite characters to kiss. It's true. It's so true, though,
46:18
Speaker 1: because it is, it gets real nasty the things people
46:21
Speaker 1: will say about like why your ship is awful? But
46:27
Speaker 1: really it does come down to really just one of
46:30
Speaker 1: these these people kiss.
46:32
Speaker 2: It kind of reminds me of the thirty Rock episode
46:34
Speaker 2: in which the daughter of the owner of the company
46:38
Speaker 2: it just really likes soap operas, and she's because the ship.
46:41
Speaker 2: There was a whole ship with Tina's face character and
46:45
Speaker 2: Alec Paula's character. Again, I don't remember the character's names,
46:49
Speaker 2: any of their characters. And then and then so like
46:52
Speaker 2: they played up going kiss kiss kiss, and they're like, Nope,
46:55
Speaker 2: forge't doing this because I chatted it, but like we
46:57
Speaker 2: know there actually was a shipping for doing them to
47:00
Speaker 2: be together for a while, which is a.
47:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's funny. One of the stories I'm reading
47:07
Speaker 1: right now, the author left a you can read the
47:12
Speaker 1: notes at the ends, and they just wrote make it
47:16
Speaker 1: like smashing their faces together like two barbies, And I
47:19
Speaker 1: was like, I mean, essentially, the quot continues. Despite all
47:29
Speaker 1: of this negativity, I believe fandom is an incredibly positive thing.
47:32
Speaker 1: I'm gay and the first time I ever saw a
47:34
Speaker 1: gay character and a story was in fan fiction. Fan
47:37
Speaker 1: Fiction gave me stories about people like me when I
47:39
Speaker 1: couldn't find them anywhere else. That is the power of
47:42
Speaker 1: transformative media like fanfic and fan art in a world
47:45
Speaker 1: where so many people don't get to see themselves on TV.
47:48
Speaker 1: Fandom can offer them a place where they can be
47:50
Speaker 1: the hero of the story they know and love. Fantom
47:52
Speaker 1: enables anyone to create with an established world. It enables
47:56
Speaker 1: writers to create stories that go beyond the canon media
47:59
Speaker 1: and give artists the power to explore new scenes and
48:02
Speaker 1: what ifs. There are thousands of people right now creating
48:05
Speaker 1: this content for free simply because they enjoy it, and
48:11
Speaker 1: I do think that's I always try to make this
48:13
Speaker 1: point because there's critiquing media is healthy. We all like
48:17
Speaker 1: problematic things, but there's a way to do that healthily.
48:19
Speaker 1: There's a way to do that without threatening people or
48:22
Speaker 1: yelling at people for asking people. And it's funny to
48:28
Speaker 1: me the ways technology like this all started as sort
48:34
Speaker 1: of an attempt to better control content searches on Tumblr.
48:39
Speaker 1: So when they were like you can put in this
48:41
Speaker 1: anti whatever tag, it was they were trying to clamp
48:46
Speaker 1: down on like bad behavior, honestly, but then it led
48:50
Speaker 1: to this. So that's just interesting to me. And also
48:57
Speaker 1: back to what you were saying, when it becomes a
48:59
Speaker 1: part of your identity and then that it becomes so
49:06
Speaker 1: personal and it just you can't see anything else like
49:12
Speaker 1: this is it has to be this way because it's
49:15
Speaker 1: so important to me. Another thing that Jamie brought up
49:21
Speaker 1: was this sort of forcing of romance, or this prioritizing
49:26
Speaker 1: of romance. And I talked about this recently because yes,
49:31
Speaker 1: I have been posting fan fiction, and but there is
49:43
Speaker 1: this I found myself writing romance, and I actually it's
49:49
Speaker 1: like really sweet romance, which I think makes sense. It's
49:51
Speaker 1: much more like holding hands type of romance and anything else.
49:54
Speaker 1: But but I did get in my head about like
49:59
Speaker 1: it just feels so much of what I read that romance,
50:04
Speaker 1: romantic love is seen as more powerful love, like the
50:08
Speaker 1: most powerful love as compared to friendship. And so it
50:13
Speaker 1: can be strange when you're reading all this stuff like that,
50:17
Speaker 1: you're writing stuff like that and you're asexual, you know,
50:23
Speaker 1: Like I have found, especially within the past couple of years,
50:29
Speaker 1: a lot more depictions of asexual characters and even asexual
50:33
Speaker 1: romances where you know, they have the talk and they're like, yeah,
50:38
Speaker 1: just like kissing but nothing more, and they're like, okay, cool.
50:41
Speaker 1: And I have seen more non sexual relationships, but a
50:47
Speaker 1: lot of times that's what it is, like a good
50:49
Speaker 1: amount of times, like maybe not the whole thing but
50:52
Speaker 1: it's in there somewhere. And as we've discussed before, there's
50:56
Speaker 1: also that strange tight rope of for so long women
51:01
Speaker 1: have been shamed for wanting sex, and so I'm like, embraces,
51:04
Speaker 1: embrace it, but also at the same time, it doesn't
51:07
Speaker 1: have to be that for everybody, So it's sort of
51:10
Speaker 1: strange there. And I've also been thinking about this too,
51:16
Speaker 1: of this understanding that everyone sees romance the same way
51:21
Speaker 1: or they must all want it, which isn't true. And
51:23
Speaker 1: I think that comes up a lot of times in
51:25
Speaker 1: shipping wars, because if you're finding like your evidence, not
51:29
Speaker 1: everybody sees that evidence the same way, you know what
51:31
Speaker 1: I mean, Like even if like you don't agree, right,
51:34
Speaker 1: but like some people might see something as romantic and
51:37
Speaker 1: other people might see it's like not romantic at all. Yeah,
51:40
Speaker 1: So there's that difference too. And I do think this
51:44
Speaker 1: is tricky because I've heard before this argument why can't
51:48
Speaker 1: they just be friends, especially between two men who have
51:51
Speaker 1: just a close relationship, Why does it have to be romantic?
51:53
Speaker 1: And I think that it speaks to a couple of things.
51:56
Speaker 1: The fact that we put men in a box where
51:59
Speaker 1: they can't be emotionally vulnerable with other men are physically affectionate,
52:03
Speaker 1: so that's like, look at how they're being so emotionally vulnerable,
52:06
Speaker 1: they must be in love. And the fact that women
52:08
Speaker 1: are always through romantic interest in so much of media,
52:13
Speaker 1: and the fact that we don't have enough queer storylines
52:16
Speaker 1: in mainstream media, especially front center. So it's sort of like,
52:21
Speaker 1: as we say so often, we just need more representative,
52:26
Speaker 1: diverse stories, so we're not always like, it's so desperate
52:29
Speaker 1: for this queer story though, can't it be them? But
52:32
Speaker 1: also have platonic relationships. And then there's been arguments about
52:40
Speaker 1: fetishizing homosexuality in that way too, which is certainly certainly
52:46
Speaker 1: a part of it. And then this is sort of
52:51
Speaker 1: a separate issue, but I want to mention it when
52:53
Speaker 1: the media reports on this, especially fan fiction, they find
52:57
Speaker 1: the most bizarre fan fiction. I I'm almost always like,
53:01
Speaker 1: I think you might actually read fan fiction because you
53:04
Speaker 1: have plumbed the depths, you found something, You've found something,
53:08
Speaker 1: And I read a lot and I have never seen
53:12
Speaker 1: this and either make fun of it for celebrities to
53:17
Speaker 1: read it, or frame it as this depravity of young
53:20
Speaker 1: girls and make an argument about why we need to
53:23
Speaker 1: censor things, so that a lot of times with shipping
53:27
Speaker 1: wars and gets in the news and they're reading fan
53:29
Speaker 1: fiction and it's like the wildest thing I've ever heard,
53:34
Speaker 1: and I've read some stuff. Oh and this was about
53:49
Speaker 1: a specific incident where it was at a convention and
53:53
Speaker 1: a fan at is a supernatural convention. I think the
53:56
Speaker 1: fan got up to ask about I don't know, but
54:01
Speaker 1: everyone thought they were going to ask about shipping. No,
54:05
Speaker 1: it wasn't that. They later found this fan and it
54:07
Speaker 1: wasn't that, but that's what everyone thought, and they got
54:12
Speaker 1: removed by security.
54:14
Speaker 2: Even before they could ask the question. M wow.
54:17
Speaker 1: Yes, And so here's a quote from hyperbole about that
54:20
Speaker 1: what is so horrible about slash shipping and asking the
54:23
Speaker 1: actors about it? Why should asking Aqules about whether Dean
54:26
Speaker 1: might possibly have feelings for Castiel be more taboo than
54:29
Speaker 1: asking him about Dean slash Lisa, whether he thinks Dean
54:32
Speaker 1: should die at the end of the series, or what
54:33
Speaker 1: his favorite moment filming season eight was. For those who
54:36
Speaker 1: claim that they've been asked about slash shiping a million
54:39
Speaker 1: times and that it just makes everyone uncomfortable, this might
54:42
Speaker 1: be the case, sure, but these guys do like twenty
54:45
Speaker 1: conventions a year. Do you really think that there's one
54:48
Speaker 1: single question which you could possibly ask them which they
54:51
Speaker 1: haven't had to answer at least a dozen times before.
54:54
Speaker 1: The difference seems to be that some fans believe it
54:57
Speaker 1: is harassment to force the actors to confront the possibility
54:59
Speaker 1: that their characters might be homosexual, So singling out slash
55:03
Speaker 1: shipping or shipping in general, when there is so much
55:06
Speaker 1: more that might be awkward for the actors to be
55:08
Speaker 1: confronted with. That is problematic whether you're an actor, a creator,
55:11
Speaker 1: or a fan. I have to question the logic that
55:13
Speaker 1: slash shipping is cool as long as we don't talk
55:16
Speaker 1: about it, don't ask, don't tell really Fantom, which was
55:20
Speaker 1: a good point. I do hate going to these like
55:25
Speaker 1: Q and A things because it's always like, what are
55:27
Speaker 1: they going to ask? But it's true they've heard these
55:29
Speaker 1: questions like a million times. It's not like an original question.
55:34
Speaker 1: I went and saw one actor once and he just
55:36
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not going to do the Q and
55:38
Speaker 1: A because I hear the same questions all the time,
55:40
Speaker 1: and he just went down a list of questions and answer.
55:46
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, probably you would know Yeah.
55:50
Speaker 1: And then from Vox here's a quote conflating ships that
55:54
Speaker 1: involve underrepresentative identities with the desire for inclusion gets especially
55:58
Speaker 1: dicey when it leads fans to priority ties support for
56:00
Speaker 1: their ship over other intersectional concerns. For example, and teen
56:05
Speaker 1: Will fandom fans of the Steric ship Derek slash Styles
56:09
Speaker 1: have frequently accused the show of queer baiting or exploiting
56:12
Speaker 1: their specific queer male pairing without any intention of following
56:15
Speaker 1: through on it, even though the show's creator, Jeff Davis,
56:18
Speaker 1: is a gay man who has already inserted several queer
56:20
Speaker 1: relationships in the show storylines, and even though Steric as
56:24
Speaker 1: it currently exists in canon is a physically abusive relationship.
56:29
Speaker 1: The prioritization of a ship at the expense of another
56:31
Speaker 1: intersectionality concerns is also present on The one hundred, which
56:35
Speaker 1: earlier this year featured a queer canonical relationship between main
56:39
Speaker 1: character Clark and the warrior queen Lexa aka Klexa. Klexa
56:43
Speaker 1: fans have been so focused on advocating for Klexa even
56:47
Speaker 1: after the ship effectively ended with Lexa's untimely death, that
56:50
Speaker 1: they've come under fire for ignoring the many elements of
56:53
Speaker 1: the show that some feels are racist and problematic. Yeah,
56:59
Speaker 1: I think that's a it's a really good point as well,
57:00
Speaker 1: because when you when you're just attacking people who don't
57:05
Speaker 1: like your ship and you're not thinking of anything else,
57:11
Speaker 1: it's not a good look. It's not a good look.
57:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
57:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, As sort of wrap up here, I did mention
57:18
Speaker 1: I was gonna say my thoughts. So I I do ship,
57:22
Speaker 1: even though I am an ace ace person, but a
57:27
Speaker 1: lot of times I ship. I found a really fun
57:30
Speaker 1: article about the fun of shipping No One someone who's
57:33
Speaker 1: never gonna end up together. It's kind of nice. You're
57:36
Speaker 1: kind of like you find your little niche fandom of
57:40
Speaker 1: all of your your like online friends we will never
57:42
Speaker 1: meet or talk to, but you're kind of like we're
57:45
Speaker 1: the ones that, like the ship that we know is
57:47
Speaker 1: never going to be cannon. We never once thought it
57:49
Speaker 1: would be like, it's just no chance of it. And
57:54
Speaker 1: I think there has been a couple of things I've
57:59
Speaker 1: shipped where people people have gotten upset. They're like, I
58:01
Speaker 1: can't believe I thought they would end up together. And
58:04
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm honestly so surprised. I'm like, you really, I
58:08
Speaker 1: never actually thought this was gonna happen, but you did, eh,
58:12
Speaker 1: And I get I feel bad. It does suck when
58:15
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that didn't go how I wanted it
58:17
Speaker 1: to go. But also, as we've been talking about, sometimes
58:21
Speaker 1: fans do regret when their ship happens, like with Buffy
58:25
Speaker 1: and Spike and you know, like a tempted rape that
58:28
Speaker 1: happened in their relationship, and sometimes the ship happens and
58:32
Speaker 1: they break up or they're killed off, Like it's not
58:36
Speaker 1: like if your ship does become cannon, everything's going to
58:41
Speaker 1: be the best thing and the happiest thing. And I think,
58:44
Speaker 1: like going back to like not trusting the creators, I
58:48
Speaker 1: just have been hurt so hard. It's not that I
58:50
Speaker 1: don't trust them, but I'm like, yeoh, I'm gonna be
58:51
Speaker 1: much happier if i just do this in my own
58:53
Speaker 1: world and it doesn't become right. I don't need your
58:59
Speaker 1: drum and your studios and fluencing, miss, I just will
59:03
Speaker 1: go over here and be let be. And sometimes it's
59:13
Speaker 1: not about that either. It's about what fans believe they
59:16
Speaker 1: should have gotten. Canon romances are often looked down upon,
59:22
Speaker 1: and there are people who feel like me and maybe
59:26
Speaker 1: want a ship to happen, but ultimately don't want that
59:28
Speaker 1: entertainment in question to really change. So like you don't
59:31
Speaker 1: want it to become a rom com suddenly, but you
59:35
Speaker 1: kind of don't want the relationship to happen, but you
59:38
Speaker 1: have fun imagining it and sharing it with others. And yes,
59:42
Speaker 1: it can be lonely to ship someone barely anyone else does,
59:45
Speaker 1: but it can be very fun. Can be very fun.
59:49
Speaker 1: Here's another quote from teen Vogue. Shipping oriented fandom is
59:52
Speaker 1: all about transformation for many shippers. The pairings we put
59:55
Speaker 1: together in fandom are that come together in a series
59:58
Speaker 1: or on a gossip site, are the first time many
1:00:01
Speaker 1: of us get to see ourselves and relationships that echo
1:00:03
Speaker 1: the ones we have, whether it's a queer ships as
1:00:06
Speaker 1: a gateway to understanding your own identity, or fans of
1:00:09
Speaker 1: color or highlighting ships that center characters of color. The
1:00:12
Speaker 1: goal of shipping has been to fill gaps and provide
1:00:14
Speaker 1: room for fans to play with emotional connections from box.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: For fans feeling fatigue over an imbattle, struggle to make
1:00:22
Speaker 1: a ship cannon, and the crushing disappointment of setbacks or failure,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: it might help to remember that ships don't have to
1:00:28
Speaker 1: be cannon in order to be transformative and meaningful on
1:00:30
Speaker 1: both a personal and cultural level. Look at Star Trek's
1:00:34
Speaker 1: Kirk slash Spock Sperk. That ship never became cannon, but
1:00:38
Speaker 1: it remains one of the most compelling ships ever created,
1:00:41
Speaker 1: and within cannon, it gave us one of pop culture's
1:00:44
Speaker 1: most enduring symbols of love. There are hands touching through
1:00:47
Speaker 1: the glass. Henry Jenkins famously said that queer fan fiction
1:00:52
Speaker 1: is what happens when you take away the glass. And sure,
1:00:55
Speaker 1: it's increasingly possible that savvy creators might go ahead and
1:00:58
Speaker 1: take away the glass for us, but that doesn't negate
1:01:01
Speaker 1: the power of fans being able to do it on
1:01:03
Speaker 1: their own without anyone's help. I love that. It's so funny,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: it's so true. That's it. Do you look for the
1:01:10
Speaker 1: clues their hands touching to the glass, and then you
1:01:13
Speaker 1: take away the glass?
1:01:15
Speaker 2: Oh, I feel like you having a moment here?
1:01:20
Speaker 1: I am, I am. And then to close out, I
1:01:25
Speaker 1: have this thing I found from more Stand on Tumblr.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: And this is a while back. I found like all
1:01:32
Speaker 1: of this old archive like Fanish stuff like nineteen ninety
1:01:36
Speaker 1: three that I was researching this very cool. I don't
1:01:39
Speaker 1: know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, shipping
1:01:42
Speaker 1: got a new meaning for younger folk that seems to
1:01:44
Speaker 1: translate to I want these people together for real asap.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: I think the media had something to do with it.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: But guys, guys, shipping absolutely does not mean demanding anything
1:01:54
Speaker 1: from people slash creators. Shipping isn't about expecting and waiting
1:01:57
Speaker 1: for the day it will certainly happen. It is not
1:01:59
Speaker 1: a direct translation to happen or die. Shipping means you
1:02:03
Speaker 1: like the idea of two or more people together. You
1:02:06
Speaker 1: like the concepts, you find it fun to imagine, the dynamics,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: you even create fan and content of it, thick art edits.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: It's all on your head and it's fine that way.
1:02:15
Speaker 1: Is it nice to have a ship? Bekund Cannon, Oh
1:02:17
Speaker 1: my god, Yes, but that's not what shipping is about.
1:02:20
Speaker 1: And y'all need to take a step back and breathe,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: because being a jerk to people ain't gonna change their
1:02:24
Speaker 1: mind about ships. Yep. Yeah, but yeah, I just want
1:02:33
Speaker 1: to say, two people, and you know who you are, uh,
1:02:37
Speaker 1: who've watched good omens and you're happy. I'm happy for you.
1:02:43
Speaker 2: Vague.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: I told you I didn't want to spoilet, but okay, yes,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: I mean, like all things we talk about, uh, there's
1:02:55
Speaker 1: obviously really bad behavior, but there's really good behavior too,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is that, uh, and it
1:03:03
Speaker 1: can be so fun and so beautiful and I love
1:03:05
Speaker 1: that too. Of like the idea, just because it doesn't
1:03:09
Speaker 1: become canon doesn't mean it can't be transformative. So yes,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: our shipping episode.
1:03:18
Speaker 2: Like towards and you just went going faster and faster
1:03:20
Speaker 2: trying to make it.
1:03:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I also will say I wrote an essay
1:03:25
Speaker 1: about this for Jamie that you can find about my
1:03:30
Speaker 1: thoughts about shipping. But that's what I have to say
1:03:33
Speaker 1: for now. So thank you Jamie for this suggestion. And yeah,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: if you would like to contact us if you have
1:03:42
Speaker 1: any thoughts about this, I'm sure that you do. You
1:03:45
Speaker 1: can email us stephanieum om Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
1:03:48
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at Momstuff podcast, or
1:03:50
Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at stuff. One ever told you
1:03:53
Speaker 1: we have a tea public store. We also have a
1:03:56
Speaker 1: book that you can order. It is available let stuff
1:04:00
Speaker 1: You should read books dot com. Thanks as always to
1:04:02
Speaker 1: your super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our
1:04:05
Speaker 1: contributor Joey.
1:04:06
Speaker 2: I was gonna say talking about ship, but it wasn't
1:04:08
Speaker 2: gonna be right, So thank you.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening. Stefan never told me
1:04:13
Speaker 1: his production of My Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
1:04:15
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, you can check out the Art Radio app,
1:04:17
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Regulus to your favorite shows