Brief Thoughts on Fandom

27 Nov, 2025

I've been cursed by 7 of these little beauties: on my message Giving Thanks in the Prismatic Waystation blog:

"ive felt alienated sometimes in other ttrpg communities because of how broad yet sometimes very specific my preferences can be so it was crazy to come here and immediately be like “yeah this is the place i should talk about rpgs now"

I thought I'd expound upon that fact by bitching about Fandom for a little bit. I don't feel the need to explain to an audience that'd be reading this blog what's so good about fandom. They're communities, plain and simple, and we're all in desperate need of those, at least on my side of the world. But there are a few issues I've run into trying to find community in RPG spaces, that also extend to fandom as a whole.

Niche Focus

Starting with the most obvious, spending most of your time in a single fanbase is like choosing to live under a rock. The organizational structure of a fandom inherently orbits one specific series of works. They can be unchallenging spaces, a good place to go for comfort and a common denominator for companionship, but not really to broaden your horizons. In short, it causes Boss Baby Syndrome:

Polarization

I've found fandoms tend to gravitate towards one of these two endpoints. The first is the most obvious positive echo-chamber. This is the most common in spaces where the media seems "under attack" by critics or "rival" fanbases. A good example in film would be the James Cameron Avatar community, god bless their hearts. At best, these can be a bit shallow, a very lovely space but not the best for working any media analysis muscles. At worst, these groups can spend an unhealthy amount of time complaining about the common detractors. I was in a Pathfinder 2nd Edition server, which I will not name, that was fully of absolutely wonderful people. A great place, but at times I felt they were far too affected by the odd place PF2e takes up in the greater RPG space; pinched on all sides by the mainstream D&D, OSR, and PbTa/Storygame community, they became very defensive regarding critiques to their favorite systems. There were many often-circular discussions focused entirely on picking apart some offhanded comment on the r/rpg subreddit, and it became hard to feel comfortable speaking critically about the game. I really do understand where this comes from, but it isn't conducive to thoughtful discussion.

On the opposite end, you have communities that reasonably take it as a given that everyone here loves the media, and very quickly turn to criticism. This is, for transparency, my preference over the former, but it's still not a good place to be. The wonderful No Sad Faces Kingdom Hearts podcast was created in part to rectify these sorts of issue in that fanbase, but if you look closely you can find it everywhere. It's definitely a better place for having thoughtful discussion on media, but excess negativity is never good for your brain, so be careful about lingering near a critique-forward fandom space for too long without coming up for air. One of my favorite places to peoplewatch online is the WDWMagic Forums, where you can watch people get unreasonably upset about new Disney World rides and whatnot.

Personal Identity and the Lifestyle Brand

I think this is the worst problem in fandom, honestly worthy of its own post, a "good" post with "research" and "carefully considered analysis" but I'll try to vomit my thoughts down quickly here. Fandom is great for a lot of people, and if I had to make an uneducated guess I'd say its been a net good for the majority of us. The downside is that fandom is also really really good for major entertainment companies. By linking a core part of your identity to the enjoyment of a piece of art, you are opening yourself up for all sorts of consumer exploitation. Just see how difficult it is for many, many people to ditch that whole Harry Potter franchise. And don't act like you're so much better than some of them¹, we've all had works that were incredibly, seemingly irrational difficult to shed ourselves of when some unfortunate truth came to light. As a less extreme example, just think of the amount of people that still buy the new Pokémon, knowing they're getting a buggy, unoptimized mess².

On a less sinister note, this personal identification can really feed into the aforementioned positive polarization. A criticism of your favorite film is not a criticism of you as a person. Let people not enjoy things. Approach with curiosity and you may learn something about the artform, about culture, or at least just about the human being you're speaking to.

What's the Alternative?

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how a lot of these community issues can be fixed. I'm also not the best at finding communities, so I can't offer too much advice there. What I can say is that I believe you should try to generalize your communities a little bit more. The aforementioned Prismatic Waystation blog is a community for people who appreciate RPGs and the art of RPG blogging in general³. Even if it has a lot of OSR/NSR-leaning folks, bloggers like fluorite guillotine and Patchwork Paladin bring other perspectives, and conversations with them always end up with both parties understanding each others' and oftentimes their own preferences on a deeper level. Even after you gather around your shared love of Lord of the Rings, maybe it's time to found a fantasy book club and see what else is out there! Ask your Sonic the Hedgehog community about their other favorite mascot platformers are and try those out⁴!

In other words, open your heart, it's gonna be alright.