[Reflection] Fiction, Tastes, Identity, and Fandom Culture
Feel free to skip this if it’s not your thing. I wrote this a while ago after reflecting on the negative impact social media had on me, even in entertainment spaces. I wasn’t doing well mentally and had just moved from being mostly offline to suddenly spending a lot of time online.
My English isn't very good, and the tone might come off as a bit dramatic or condescending at times. I already had an interest in psychology, and this made me start overthinking things. Initially I had so much trouble trying to understand what was going on and this messy text reflects it. There are some generalizations, and some of my opinions have changed since then.
This post focuses mostly on manga and games because those were the easiest spaces for me to find online communities, but the same feelings can be applied to other media, politics, and life in general.
During a difficult period in my life, I turned to the internet to enjoy my hobbies, mainly manga and games, as I knew these communities were strong online. But my experience was the opposite of what I expected, I felt very alienated. You could say it was a generational clash, but many of the people were in their 30s, according to their profiles.
From the works themselves to the characters and plot points, I felt like I had nothing in common with the people there. I was in constant fear of being mocked and ridiculed. This felt like an extension of real life, were I have weird choices for my lifestyle. In terms of entertainment, do you know that feeling when someone is too "nerdy" for most people, but too "normal" for nerds?
Google told me this feeling of not fitting anywhere is a pretty common issue. From people saying it's just a teenager thing to some saying it is normal for people who are too sensitive, introverted, or socially isolated. Others said it could be trauma or a trace of neurodivergence, which is something I needed to investigate with a professional it's been a while.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm not too narrow-minded and maybe I'm avoiding too many people with different views and opinions. I doubt every friend out there shares as many values and tastes as I'm expecting... Well, but I do hang out with people that are different from me, so I don't know.
I really struggle with liking too many stories, and random recommendations rarely work. Many "well-written" stories in general remind me of circles. The sensation I get is like asking someone to throw forms and shapes at you, and everyone just keeps throwing circles, people love the shape of circles. I hate circles, specifically circles. If I ask for something different, they give me another circle but just painted....or even worse, a dashed circle, meaning it is just a dishonest circle, they just forced that shape on something that was supposed to have another shape. But oh, it was well-rounded like a circle, so it's good.
A good example is romance, the genre or the plot element. I'm probably wrong, but this might be the most formulaic genre? Many of them feel incredibly dull, boring, "claustrophobic," or even forced somehow. I believe it's because they follow so much the "rules to be good romance" that they ended up looking artificial to me. The more natural a romance is trying to be, the more artificial it looks to me, and it makes no sense, right? For some reason I just find many of them so uninteresting and pointless.
I really can't handle over-polished stories and the same structural formula, that most people ask for, over and over again. They lack spontaneity, and it's boring. I think I just like chaos. I'm kind of crazy? Something that makes me not care or feel devoid of life is much worse than something "deeply flawed" but charming and full of life.
For popular examples, I've tried the visual novel House in Fata Morgana, and it is the embodiment of this issue. I didn't have fun with it at all, seemed like I was reading a perfect structure, but not a lived story. Fire Emblem: Three Houses wasn't very enjoyable because I thought the characters boring. Two Persona games I played are very mixed to me and I don't think I like social links, at least not in the games I've tried. Undertale, lb, and other popular indie games were unfunny or unengaging.
I'm on chapter 10 of Dungeon Meshi and I'm struggling to keep going because it feels too clean, something about that suffocates me, but with this one it's too early, and I think it has potential (I won't give up on you yet!). The Witch Hat Atelier made me uneasy and I didn't try to go further. Tried Fruits Basket manga and had to force myself to finish it. Given, Opium (manhwa) and Bloom Into You were dull, lifeless and too tidy.
I have no clue why I'm like this. Probably my resistance to enjoying many types of stories is that I grew up isolated from media discussions, especially on the internet.
What called my attention is how people online engage with media. Since my school days, I've never heard of tropes. I wonder if this is something only learned in college or maybe a foreign thing? This thing about consuming more of a formula and not the story confuses me.
I once saw a reviewer lower the rating of Insomniacs After School by one or two points because, despite loving everything about it, they disliked the “popular girl × unpopular boy” trope. But the romance barely focused on their popularity, the girl was completely normal with just a regular group of friends (is having like 4 friends popular? I was popular?), and the boy who was really more aloof actually had decent social skills to make friends during the story. If it wasn't for that review and the synopsis, I barely would have noticed that trope.
Why should I care about a beautiful scene if it seems to contradict the overall narrative? Judging romances only based on “A × B” trope feels confusing. What about the writing, compatibility, authenticity, or the bond? Don't they look repetitive or performative? Should I start to give more value to "chemistry"? Why do so many romances with "strong chemistry" still feel lacking in soul or substance to me? Why should I focus on praising the amount of time characters spend together or things like “slow burn” (these terms feel reductive) if the connection was never properly established?
Does every single character really need a character arc or to be talkative and "active"? Are simpler or less dimensional characters really an inherently bad thing? Is every sudden or unexpected plot point bad writing? Does everything really need a foreshadowing, an explanation, or an incredible build-up? Does every villain need a punishment? Why is there such an emphasis on realism? Isn't expecting all media to cater to these, because they create a comfortable experience, kind of consuming solely for self-indulgence?
I don't think a correct way to enjoy stories exists, much less am I saying I do it better...It's just that... I don't understand any of that. Whether I just have bad tastes I can't do much with that, this is who I am. To trust my intuition a bit more and be more picky. This is what I need. Overconsumption of media I would never be consuming just because so many told me it was good also caused me burnout.
I’ve realized how easily I’m influenced by others. Now, I need to let go of the rigid ways I saw people engaging with media on the internet, because deep down it doesn’t suit me. A book I need to finish, "How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like", mentions how humans are like this by nature. We always want to belong to a group, we want to be human, to have an identity. I wanted to fit in, so I started to mimic Fandom culture, and it wasn't for me at all. I gave up after five or six months, I think?
The ideas behind these fandoms can be creative, heartwarming, and genuinely fun at times, but in the hands of human beings, it turned into something I don't vibe with, and I'm glad I quit. I’m generalizing based on my own experience, but over time I started noticing patterns that didn’t sit right with me, like echo chambers, circle jerks, excessive sexualization, performative behavior, parasocial relationships, normalization of obsession, fixation with ranking everything, overload of opinions and lack of critical thinking. Big, medium or tiny... I think a lot of fandoms end up dealing with the same problems you see on social media. Well they are on social media.
This might sound harsh, but smaller communities felt just as uncomfortable, if not worse, than the bigger ones. They often felt narrow-minded, with little variety in opinions or interpretations. Many seemed to revolve around a small group of friends who shared the same tastes and avoided conflict by not being fully honest, which created a strange feeling of inauthenticity. Trying to join them while having different opinions was too painful.
I got the impression that fandom spaces, and the internet in general, are full of people who, like me, are struggling with different aspects of life and often turn to social media for validation or escapism. I also noticed that traits associated with neurodivergence, like ADHD, seem quite common. While I don’t think “contagious” is the right word, to me these unhealthy behaviors or coping mechanisms can spread or become normalized within a group.
Looking back, I don’t think it was a good idea for me to engage with people who were overly attached to specific works, characters, or relationships. Parasocial relationships aren’t healthy. The way obsession and “brainrot” were often celebrated made it easier for my own tendencies to intensify. Over time, by mimicking those patterns, I felt like I was getting worse.
I also had the same issues with subreddits for social anxiety or depression worsening my own mental conditions instead of improving them. At first, it felt comforting to be around people who understood me, but over time it started reinforcing those struggles as part of my identity instead of helping me move past them.
If people are having fun in these online places and considering themselves under control, then there is nothing wrong. But to me, I saw myself becoming overly opinionated and wanting to have a take on everything. My tastes started to become too patronized and they started to feel like my entire personality. I became more sensitive, defensive, and prone to comparing things constantly.
When I realized I was regretting comments and posts I made hours or days after I posted them and would immediately delete them, it came to me how the internet encourages and rewards immediate reactions and constant validation. As a result I no longer wanted a webpage made of impulsive posts and thoughts that don't even belong to the current me to represent me.
Whenever I said something bad about something online, I would end up feeling awful for hurting someone and for acting immature. I’ve noticed that many people seem to feel this way too but still engage heavily in ranking everything and making it clear what is better than another, which is the same thing if not worse.
I understand that people should be free to express their opinions but, by doing that, it feels like everything gets reduced to a kind of hierarchy. Polls, that bingo thing, and tier lists turn into a constant bombardment of opinions and hidden competition. It encourages comparison instead of understanding, putting too much value in popularity as a sign of quality. None is being analyzed by its own intricacies or appreciated for its own qualities. The lack of nuance feels so reductive.
Feel like this creates a kind of psychological loop, where people are constantly influenced by each other’s opinions. Over time, it can form an echo chamber, where certain views are repeated and reinforced until they start to feel like objective truth. I don't know where there is genuine appreciation, excessive social influence, or the need to belong anymore. Now apply that to politics and any other matter. This is the bad aspect of social media.
For someone who has little interest in what others consider their favorites, a place like that felt emotionally overwhelming and uncomfortable. Even when I agreed to like something, I couldn't agree with the enthusiasm and overly praise.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm too narcissistic because of my family issues and naturally have a weak mental for any of that. I only know social media made me a worse person, and I don't want to get worse. Of course I got some true value from all of that, like engaging with different cultures, learning new languages, discovering new things, reading interesting viewpoints, and even having some good laughs too. But much of my time scrolling could've been better spent on another thing.
Some manga, anime, and games I enjoyed recently include Kill Me Now (manhwa), The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty (Chinese visual novel), Kaiba, Migi & Dali, Karaoke Iko! and Muchu sa, Kimi ni. Some shoujo like Oniisama e, Rose of Versailles, Mars, Kanpeki na Machi, Star of Cottonland and Please Save My Earth. I lost my patience with a lot of anime tropes, especially quirky characters, so I presume some of these manga will have "bland" characters, which may pull off people.
Some of these have controversial or dated things, but don't worry I don't endorse these things in real life. I don't have vocabulary to describe it, but I think I tend to like works with some sort of atmosphere contradiction. Light-hearted art with dark themes, a dreamy atmosphere with eerie vibes, a more realistic setting, and art with a silly story...and also characters, I like contradictory characters too. Since I like some randomness in my stories, Japanese horror manga can also be enjoyable.