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You might think this post is about people in the fandom. Or about a certain person in particular. But it’s not. It’s actually about opinions, about freedom of thought and speech, and about how we as human beings deal with each other.

Even though I just said this is not about a particular person, I’ll have to tell you about the history I’ve had with a certain person in order to get my point across. The reason why I’m not telling you who it is is because it’s not the person that I hate (I don’t even know her, how can you hate someone you don’t even know?), but the way she treated me (and other people) in the past, and in particular the way she treats opinions that differ from her own. So I’m not going to tell you her name (or nickname), because this is not a witch-hunt. As I said, it’s not about a person, it’s about a state of mind and about the way not only that person but unfortunately many peolpe deal with opposing views. But I don’t want to refer to her as “she” all the time, so for the sake of convenience I’ll call her Nimbus.

My first clash with Nimbus happend quite some time (2 years or so) ago in a forum. I posted 4 screencaps of a Shonen Club episode where, as I believed, Yamapi could be seen touching Hikaru‘s butt for a loooong time, and in my post I was raising the question whether or not Yamapi might be gay. Okay, I’ll admit that this wasn’t the best post I ever made on a forum, but hey, it was a slow newsday and I thought this was interesting, so I posted it. Nimbus was a moderator on that forum back then (maybe she still is, I don’t know), and her reply to my post was: this topic is stupid. Don’t need to have 30 pages about Yamapi and his “gay”-titude. Topic Locked.

So, just because she didn’t like the topic, because in her opinion it was stupid, she locked it and deprived everyone else who might have an opinion on this of the chance to express that opinion and have an honest discussion. To me, that is fascism. And my mom and dad grew up in Nazi Germany, so trust me, I know what fascism is. But burning books won’t help you maintain your power. It will only show how weak you are.

The next thing I remember about Nimbus is that in another forum she scolded a fan for making a post that basically went like “OMG he’s so cute!“. To make this very clear: Nimbus didn’t scold that other fan for her opinion. She scolded her for expressing that opinion because she thought it was pointless. And that really bothered me. Let’s face it, we’re in a fandom that idolizes boys that are (in some cases) not even in their teens yet, so chances are that a lot of the members of that fandom are also very young. Like 13 or so. And when you’re a 13-year-old fan sometimes you just have to say something like “OMG he’s so cute!“. Saying it might not be the smartest thing you’ll ever do in your life, and it might not bring about world peace, but please, if you’re 13 and this is how you feel then please, by all means, say it. And don’t let people who are in their 20s or 30s, who seem to already have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager, shut you up because they are so much smarter or more mature than you. In fact, people who act like that prove that they are not. Or as I put it back then:

There’s a very subtle difference between criticising somebody’s opinion and criticising the mere fact that they voiced their opinion.

If A says “I like Yabu” and B says “I like Hikaru better”, that’s a discussion.
If A says “I like Shoon” and B says “Who cares?”, that’s just rude.

My next encounter with Nimbus was of a very different kind. I got an email from a friend in the fandom who told me about a friend of hers who was about to go to Japan in January 2007 and she didn’t know how to get tickets for the Johnny’s Jr. concert, so my friend asked me if I could help. Sure, I said, give that other fan my email address and I will. 10 minutes later I got an email from… Nimbus! Now, I’m a good person, and if a friend asks me to help another friend I will do it, even if i hate that other person. So I wrote her a long email with my experiences of getting tickets and everything, and she replied telling me that she doesn’t understand a lot of Japanese and she asked where exactly she had to look on Johnny’s Net for ticket information. So I wrote back to her, I even made a screenshot and explained in detail where she had to click and where to find the information she was looking for. Do you think I ever heard from her again? Maybe a little “thank you” or something? Think again. But at least she got to see that concert, as I found out later. Good for her.

My next clash with Nimbus is going on as I’m typing this. She left a comment to a blog entry of a friend today. That comment was about how Hoshino got kicked out of Ya-Ya-yah, and I just had to reply to it because what she said seemed so stupid. Turns out it was all just some sort of misunderstanding brought about by the fact that English is neither her nor my first language. Things would have been fine at that point, but then she suddenly came up with a comment that had nothing to do with Hoshino and how he was kicked out of Ya-Ya-yah, nothing whatsoever, and that was: “And plus, you, ya3 fans, shouted everywhere that they would debut in March. I’m still waiting.”

This is just great. This is like having a discussion about what is better, The Simpsons or South Park, and suddenly the South Park fan runs out of arguments and says “Yeah, but your father fucks sheep!”.

What particularly bothered me about that comment was the “you, ya3 fans” part. It sounded as if fans of different Johnny’s groups are (or should be) enemies. I know that some are, without even knowing each other, based merely on their individual preferences of one group or another. But that kind of attitude is just childishly immature and ridiculous. And it’s stupid, because we’re all Johnny’s fans.

And I’m not having it any longer! I am not willing to tolerate stupidity anymore!

I’m willing to accept childish behaviour in kids. It’s perfectly normal and supposed to be that way. But for gods’ sake, once you’re 20+ stop behaving like you’re 12. It’s not cute. It’s stupid. Take it from someone who’s been suffering from Peter Pan Syndrome for half his life. Don’t grow up too fast. But please, grow up!

It’s childish stupidity like the one described above that kills the fun in the lives of all of us. Have you ever been on a playground or in a schoolyard and were pushed around and being bullied by someone, and you didn’t know what to do, so you just went home thinking “what a stupid person, but there’s nothing I can do, so I’ll just ignore it”? I know I have, and I’m sure many of you have too. It’s the bullies, it’s the stupid people who are in charge of our worl
d, and believe me, ignoring them won’t make them go away. Ignoring them will only encourage them, it will make them think they can get away with it. Don’t let that happen.

So the point of this whole post is: don’t ignore.

Stand up!

Stand up to stupidity. Stand up to the bullies. Stand up to single-mindedness. Stand up for your right to be who you are and to express what you think is right.

The one thing that makes life worth living is freedom. But ironically, you won’t get freedom for free. You’ll have to fight for it. So please do.

It’s said that you learn best from making mistakes. But it’s not making mistakes that you learn from. It’s realizing that you made a mistake. But most people won’t realize that on their own. They have to be told. So don’t hate your enemies, and don’t ignore them. Just tell them that they suck. And while you’re at it, tell the rest of the world too.

Ignoring or even tolerating stupid people’s stupid mistakes won’t make the world a better place.

Only standing up and speaking out will.

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