Fandoms And Twitter Hashtag Wars: A Bad Taste Of The Internet

Miley still alive

Do you care for all these hashtags when you open your Twitter page? I usually don’t, but a hashtag before a RIP has to bring up your attention. The thing is that these ones are common but often hoaxes and and there are also social media warriors’ new tools.

The Guardian has an interesting article about the fact that fans often use #RIP to start a war on the Internet. More often, hashtags are used by groups of fans, ‘fandoms’ as they are called, as morbid Twitter memes turned weapons against another star, whose fame or even fans are threatening the popularity of their own idol. For example, a trending #RIPMiley Cyrus occurred recently because a Miley Cyrus fan made a few derogatory comments about K-pop fans, and it ended into this premature death for the famous pop star, announced on Twitter. Of course Miley is fine, but this is so bad taste!

These fandoms work as internet groups and they behave like a fascist army, they defend their group even if you have to kill someone virtually, and when you listen to what these people have to say, this is simply alarming and stupid:

‘The K-pop community is definitely a family,’ said a K-pop fans. ‘We argue here and there about small stuff, but when someone attacks any of us, we gather together and put people in their place. The positive thing about being part of a fan army is that you always have someone watching your back – we have a shoulder to lean on, and someone to cry with who understands where we are coming from. We are supporting our idols, too. When they are having a hard time, we step in and make them feel better, and fight off any negativity.’

This is where this generation of social media warriors completely loses me. First of all, I am not a group follower and never will be, groups and teams scare me for a good reason, then, there is this idea they have accomplished something with a few hashtags on Twitter? They only have scared a few fans for a few minutes, a few hours at best if these fans are really stupid and don’t even have the idea to check the info on another media outlet, but what kind of accomplishment is there? Are they even serious when they use the words fights and war?

And there is even another aspect of this, because Twitter gives them the impression to be close to their favorite star, because they think they can get his or her attention with a simple tweet, fans can also get very possessive and even furious when one of these stars close an account, once exhausted by all this fan interaction. Recently, Justin Biener closed down his Instagram account, fans got angry and nasty, and the hashtag meme #JustinDeactivatedParty was a stream full of anger at Bieber… How dare he slam the door in their face?

‘ I think there are a certain amount of fans who love their favourite artists so much, they are actually mean to them. It’s almost the same as making fun of your sibling, in a way,’ said a fan to the Guardian. ‘You love them, but you’re allowed to pick on them because you really ‘get’ them.’… And ‘When a fandom is hurt, they will literally try anything to get the message across to their idol.’

Fans attacking other fans, fans turning against their idol, the internet has become a raging stream of anger and bad vibes that pop stars can’t control anymore, all they can actually do is quit, leaving even more anger behind them. Everything is about competition and teams, winning and losing, and everything is reinforced by the fake impression to be close, ‘one tweet away’ from the star, and strongly encouraged by a very popular brand of TV shows. This scrutiny has turned the Internet police culture into a completely idiotic phenomenon  and the worst part is that these pop stars volunteer for this kind of treatment by posting every single one of their moves on the forever increasing number of social media like Instagram snapchat and whatever next year app will be. The internet could be a great thing, but I guess it is just a product of humanity like all the rest, so what else can we expect? 90% of it is gonna be disappointing and stupid