“adults shouldn’t be in fandom” discourse is the funniest shit to me especially coming from 16-18 yr olds. you really think ur gonna stop liking things in the next 2 or 3 years? get real.
“adults in fandom have a responsibility towards younger fans to not be creepy and keep a respectful distance especially when the fandom in question is for a piece of media meant for a younger audience”
“there’s something inherently predatory about adults being in fandoms that also have minors and adults thus shouldn’t be allowed to participate in fandom in order to keep minors safe”
I mean, yeah, but I wish tumblr would stop acting like this is a Real Problem, and in the process ignoring the fact that teenagers don’t have any real social or structural power to keep adults out of their spaces or hobbies, while adults on the other hand have immense power to exclude young people and do so on a regular basis. go outside of places like tumblr (where demographics skew younger) for five minutes and this *should* become obvious. like do you know how often I’ve heard adults complain about the fact that there were kids at midnight premieres of the Harry Potter movies? and guess what, no theater would ever have an “under-18s-only” screening but there are PLENTY that have daily adults-only screenings of movies whose ratings in no way require it, solely because adults get pissy and entitled when asked to share space with youth. so yeah, teens who try to push adults out of fandoms are doing a shitty thing but like, context.
I think the harm in it doesn’t come from what the teenagers are actually doing because, yes, adults have always been in fandom and teenagers don’t have the structural power to keep them out but instead the messages that teenagers (and adults in their early 20s) are internalizing about what women should do when they are past 30. People who are constantly hearing “women who have non-domestic hobbies when they’re of parenting age are childish and cringeworthy” are going to have a harder time transitioning into that age in a way that doesn’t involve internalizing sexism and beating themselves up over it.
The messages can be annoying for fans over 30 but they could be more than that for girls and younger women especially when combined with the “forever young” messaging they’re also getting from the rest of society outside of fandom.
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