the_wanlorn | I can't get over this...

Fandom*? Is batshit crazy. All of it. So. Unbelievably. Batshit. Crazy. I never realized just how batshit crazy until I started frequenting Fandom_Wank and got a JournalFen account.

Bat. Shit. CRAZY.

First of all, there's people like

tomakobriefs, who think that If two people are having sex in any sort of writing, someone should mention protection. And then won't shut up about it. (F_W report 1)

Then there's the House fandom. The show's still but a babe, and there have already been five major flame wars about it. (F_W report 1 2 3 4 5) (i_wank supplement to 3)

There are scary things, stalker things that turn into "WTF??", such as the case of

jetis and

jetiswatcher. The latter is stalking the former, because the former is a BNF that doesn't reply to her comments. It movies into quasi-real-life stalking. Then it moves into people getting incredibly suspicious that they're both the same person; that

jetis is just trying to make herself popular/famous in fandom. This came about because

jetis started a community/user,

jwatcherwatcher to... report on funny stuff about the stalking? SKETCHY! People discuss it. (F_W report 1 2)

And I have no words for CrystalWank. I don't think I can even explain it's... all-encompassing-ness. The LotR fandom is possibly the most batshit crazy of them all (vying with HP). Crystal claims to know Dom Monaghan and Billy Boyd. Or maybe just Dom. And she sells her "artwork", which is just publicity photos cleverly manipped in photoshop to make it look like she drew them. And she has a "picture" of "Dom" on her bed. Except... it's obviously a body with Dom's head c&p'ed on. HIZ HED IZ PASTEDE ON YEY! I... wow. No words. (F_W report 1**)

Admittedly, this has all probably been going on since... forever. But I'm just noticing it, and it's kind of scary... It also begs the question is this purely a journal phenomenon? The high degree of insanity, I mean, not the minor flame wars. I'm sure that forums and message boards and stuff have flame wars, but anything this insane? So is it really a fandom thing or is it a weblog thing?

I guess no one will ever know.

*A glossary of fandom terms, which I'm just marking because I want the link saved somewhere for myself.
**It's possible that more reports exist and the insanity continued, but I'll be damned if I'm going to look for them. It was major enough to get two LiveJournal communities devoted to it:

crystalwank and the suspended

crystalwank2004. It's also listed in the fandom dictionary I linked to above, along with the "PASTEDE ON YEY" catch-phrase, under C and H respectively.