Has the dramione fandom become a bit unhinged or is it just me?

Idk where the gatekeeping is. We just want to protect our writers from illegal binding, goodreads and unfair critical reviews like for published books. Everytime a newcomer makes a post here looking for recs everyone is super welcoming and excited for them to begin their Dramione journey. But knowing the “rules” or fandom etiquette is important to keep this a safe and healthy place for everyone… readers AND writers

So I've been a part of fandom almost twenty years now. Old fandom didn't have the same issues as today. Sure, there might have been trolls (flames lol) or some drama, but goodreads, illegal bindings, and AI are modern problems. It's become highly commodified... which is very serious for the future of fandom as a whole in a legal sense. Fandom etiquette absolutely should be taught.

However, I do agree with you that I don't like it when people are overly rude and jump down people's throats when it's obvious they are new and just need gentle education. Sometimes, people are WAY too aggressive. For example, I've seen people trash someone for asking about goodreads, and it was clear they didn't know the issue in the first place. I always approach people with good faith first, and I think fandom should as well. It's a skill to correct people without making them feel shamed, and if someone feels that they don't have that skill, then they should leave the task up to someone else.

Edit to add: I haven't seen a lot of aggression in this sub. Mostly, like OP, it was in different fandom spaces, which is why I started to curate my fandom experience. I recommend everyone do the same. Drop out of spaces that are hostile. Block the drama, etc.

Unhinged isnt the word I would use.

Unfortunately, fic fandom has gone thru a similar change to other, historically 'niche' or 'fringe' fandoms.

20 years ago, you DID. NOT. ADMIT. That you were an active reader or consumer of fanfic. Everything was anon, and the communities were extremely insular.
I have childhood friends who only now in our thirties are we learning that we were both reading fic back in the late 90s. That secrecy made very welcoming, yet very closed communities that created a system of acceptable norms and culture around consuming and creating fic.

Now that things are more open and no longer anon, these historically fringe or niche spaces have seen massive main stream population booms. Which is amazing in some ways and extremely threatening in others.

Think of these niche communities as a small, quaint village of 100 people... with unique architecture, customs, and absolutely gorgeous natural beauty....and then an influencer happens to stop there and take a reel.

Suddenly the spot is BLOWN THE FUCK UP. At first the village people are excited! They know their home is beautiful and unique and they are so excited to share it. Some of them even directly benefit: that bed and breakfast owner is suddenly making enough money to put her kids thru school or something. It's great and all these strangers are just loving this beautiful little town.... after a while though, all the beautiful natural scenery is trampled and there is trash everywhere, and suddenly developers come in looking to cash in on property, rent skyrockets, people who've lived there their whole lives can't afford to stay. Some of the tourists are legitimately assholes and start interrupting mass, because they want to take a selfie with some statues. Suddenly the villagers are NOT LOVING IT. They become angry that everything good about their little town is becoming destroyed and they push to become insular again. Suddenly they are no longer welcoming. Some of the tourists are good people, and they respect the towns people and the town itself, and work hard to be good guests or members of the community. But the damage is done.

This is what happened to a lot of fandom in the last 10 years. It went from small, niche communities of people who would honestly probably be shamed of bullied for their hobby, looking to find a welcoming environment...to being absolutely inundated with excitement and acceptance, which felt amazing at first, but then quickly turned into their nice little welcoming community getting flooded with assholes who didn't care about the community and others who wanted to monetize it with no regard to what would happen to the community once they got what they needed from it.

It sucks. I don't have an answer for you. But I absolutely cannot blame the cores of these communities from feeling gate keepy after what's been happening.

Honestly, I think you'll find unhinged people in every fandom if you spend enough time in fandom spaces. I love Hello Kitty and Pompompurin (these are literal cartoon characters, for anyone unfamiliar) and I've had more intense arguments with other fans than I ever had in the Dramione fandom 😂

Definitely take another break from the fandom if you feel stressed out! I think it's quite possible to enjoy and support Dramione fics/art without ever stepping foot in fandom spaces.

If someone, anyone was interested in listening to me gush about Dramione I would be ecstatic. Put me to work, doing the lords work. I don’t gate keep. I just keep to my little nerd self, afraid of judgement.

i personally haven't seen that. but i also think its important for everyone and even newcomers to know that they don't have to be "part" of the fandom to still enjoy dramione.

I think overall there will be issues when any large group of people comes together. Every individual Dramione community is moderated differently, so mileage may vary.

I’ve tried a bunch of different communities out and found what works for me, and try to keep to those. It’s a huge ship within a huge fandom, so you’ll find extremes on every side of the issue of the day.

Some communities will lean stronger one way, some another, some more neutral. You can make recommendations to the mods or share your opinion, but in the end if a specific community doesn’t feel like a safe place or doesn’t reflect how you prefer to interact with Dramione, it might not be “your people”.

Compared to some of the other communities, I think this one has been by far the most positive and welcoming I’ve seen.

I don't see it as gatekeeping, I see it like a house with an open door policy--everyone is welcome in, but maybe take a minute to get to know the floorplan before you start rearranging the furniture. And I'm not talking about the people who get excited and jump in without knowing better, but the ones who literally won't accept basic norms around feedback, fic binding, keeping fandom free, etc.

I also think dramione has become so popular it's drawing people in who otherwise would have no interest in fandom or fan fiction. And maybe I'm an asshole, but I could honestly do without the ones who blow in, binge through the top ten most popular fics (usually without leaving comments or kudos...the hits to kudos ratio in dramione is WILD), then complain there's nothing else to read 🤣

As someone who's new to the fandom (I've been reading Dramione for less than a year), I've only somewhat felt comfortable/ welcome here as opposed to other fandom spaces. I've tried creating a social media account to discuss fics I've read, support authors/ artists, and just have overall discussions about things, but I can't help the feeling that I'm not welcome cuz most of the people in the fandom have known each other for a lot longer and new people are not as welcome, which has only increased my anxiety when commenting cuz I get ignored most of the time (which to be fair, no one owes me a reply). I just wanted to have people to discuss Dramione with cuz it's not something that I share with my real life friends.. I also feel like trying to have respectful discussions and having different opinions about things only makes people steer away from you even more cuz you don't agree with them.

I've been in the fandom since around 2009-ish and I see the good and bad of how big the fandom has gotten.

Good is that we have great writers being attracted to writing these stories.

However, there are definitely major downsides to how popular it's gotten. 1) people who don't understand the purpose and basic etiquette of fanfics misbehave, whether it be through really nasty comments about how fans are "sick" or "crazy", bookbinding to make money, AI art, or harassing writers who are doing this as a hobby 2) people read 1-2 popular fics and then literally shove those down everyone's throat, attracting unnecessary criticism and judgement from people that this fandom is not for in the first place. I wouldn't say dramione was gatekept earlier, but I LOVED that it was this super niche group of us nerds who knew people outside judged us for reading made up books about characters from a made up book. We had 1-2 Facebook groups, some tumblr pages, and ff.net grangerenchanted and H&V to fulfill our wants with some great stories and some crazy works. It felt less controversial and more drama-free within the community.

With so many new people in, again, there have been some major growing pains. The number of illegal binders has grown because of collector readers who are unaware / don't care about author wishes. Same with good reads. Same with making 1000 tiktoks about the same 2 books that have become a gateway to people shitting on the fandom as a whole.

For some of us, it's not a temporary phase but a community we've built over the years. I wish more new joiners joined wanting to be part of the community, rather than as receivers, if that makes sense?

That said, I do agree that some people go way harder and act as self appointed guards of the fandom. More people is not a bad thing on its own.

new people entering the fandom and not knowing the rules’.

Wait what rules lol. I've been reading dramione for probably a decade but have not interacted with the community online at all until very recently. I didn't know there's proper fanfiction reading etiquette!

I’ve been reading dramione for 15+ years and when I started it felt “taboo” to read it. Even now no one in my real life knows that I read it almost exclusively, which is sad but just what I’ve always done. For that reason I guess I never truly interacted with the dramione community and just read it cause it’s what I like. Sometimes I feel like I missed out by not being a more active participant and from what I’ve seen 95% of the fandom don’t do the things we shouldn’t. Sadly it’s the 5% that can ruin it for others and drive ppl out in drones. When I see that I try to remember why I read it in the first place. Mainly cause I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers and we have hundreds of amazingly talented authors in the fandom.

I'm a bit torn on this.

I recently entered the Dramione fandom. I've been shipping them since I first came in contact with the books/movies and had a crush on Draco for many years of my childhood. But although I've been in other fandoms, I never looked at Dramione fics until it was recommended to me, so I guess I am new to Dramione but not to the concept of fanfiction and ships.

The whole 'gatekeeping' is more targeted towards people who don't understand fanfiction and its (un)spoken rules, I think. Or at least that's what I observed. People who buy bound fanfiction, who don't understand the legal issues that come with it, people who begin to criticise and rate fanfics like they're fully edited and published books.

Those kind of 'newcomers' mostly do so without malicious intent and simply don't know better, but they do a lot of damage to a fandom. There's a reason why so many authors have now taken down their works in order to protect themselves. And no matter how many times it's said on here or on TikTok or by the writers themselves, people still spend 200-300 or more on a bound fic. It endangers the entire concept of fanfiction and risks the concept as a whole.

So I think it's less about gatekeeping and more about protecting something we cherish from harmful influences and extortion.

And while I know that my subjective experience is merely that: subjective, I have to say: the community has been incredibly welcoming and kind. And I've gotten a lot of comments from readers who have been in this fandom for 10+ years and longer, complimenting my fics, which is such an honour because they have read it all and to write something that even they consider unique or new is mindblowing and motivating.

That all being said: toxic behaviour doesn't help anyone and the people who join and buy bound fanfics etc. often don't know better. I'm convinced none of you need to hear this but on the off chance someone does: Don't be hateful. Kindly educate them and tell them what the consequences are for authors and the community as a whole.

I’m in the ACOTAR subreddit as well and I feel like people mention the same trends there. I’m not on TikTok that much but from what I can tell, the unpleasantness of the fandom seems to be centralized there, and it makes me wonder if it’s a case of “TikTok creators intentionally stirring the pot to get more views”?

I’ve only watched the Harry Potter movies. Never got into the books or any other products in the franchise. I was introduced to Dramione through TikTok, and I thought it was the strangest pair ever. I just kept thinking “why is this ship so popular?” Then I gave the fanfictions a chance and wow. I’ve read a lot of fanfics and the Dramione fandom are true novelists. Every fanfic I read is written better than 90% of books published today. However, I didn’t know the fandom was trying to gatekeep or anything. That’s unfortunate, but I’m sure there are people in the fandom who love newcomers like me 😊 (thank you to the ones who are welcoming 💗)

I’m fairly new to the Dramione fandom. Maybe a year I’ve been reading. Sorry if this is dumb but… What is kudos?

I haven’t really seen any gatekeeping! I think the older members of the fandom are just bringing up valid concerns they have regarding the new attitudes and viewpoints brought in from fanfic newbies that go against fandom etiquette. Fanfics shouldn’t be treated the same way as published books. The community aspect feels like it’s slipping away to some people in the fandom when seeing the increase of people binding fanfics and selling them as books, critically reviewing fanfics on goodreads, only reading full-length completed fics and ignoring WIPs, insisting that fanfics should be canon, and other things like that.

And the increasing commercialization of fanfiction is really going to endanger fanfiction as a whole. People who’ve been part of fandom for a long time are understandably very concerned

The people I've seen mention gatekeeping are mostly joking around; generally the fandom is pretty friendly :) Sometimes people are a little overzealous. As Hermione fans we love a good soapbox, & people like to pile on.

Edit - Sounds like I was wrong about this & some folks are serious. Maybe stick to fandom spaces outside reddit?

I’m new to The fandom and every time I interact with people here or others platforms (Ao3/ instagram/ twitter) there wasn’t a single rude response ever! Everyone was super welcoming and respectful I even asked around about Reddit language and the people who responded to me was always always kind.

Also is the gatekeeping in the room whit us? Teaching etiquette to keep the fandom a safe space not only for readers - new or not - but also writers is not gatekeeping. I thought the unhingedness in response to the people trying to cannibalise this fan space was pretty justified and understandable seeing that non fandom people were stealing others works and illegally selling it and being all plastered over tiktok showing illegal binds bought on Etsy/ other places didn’t help… so again justified.

I’ve been reading Dramione fics for well over a decade now and the sudden influx of newbies makes me feel a little alienated. I can’t pinpoint why that is but I’m not comfortable with new kind of dark romance aspect of the fandom.

So, as a relative “newby” to r/Dramione but not to the fandom, my trepidation centers more about the rules on Reddit. My last post asking for recs of what to read after BM/BS was flagged for Rule #4 - title needs to be descriptive etc. I’ve had 3 posts flagged, one gently where the moderator added the NSFW tag for me. The other one I’ll grant the moderator it wasn’t specific enough in the title (but is it really that hard to read further?? 🤔 - I feel like I’ve got my 8th grade English teacher grading me every time I write a post) but I don’t know how to be more specific of what to read after BM/BS because I’m open to a lot of recs. (Heck, my response here may be flagged as some rule # ‘can’t reference previously flagged posts that were taken down’ - it would not surprise me).

Another perception I have is that it is not okay to ask about authors works that are no longer on AO3 and specifically not okay to ask if anyone has them. There is a discord server that has a lot of works not available on AO3 (saying this here? a concern worse than flagging - that I’ll be kicked out - but, moderators take note: I am not offering an invite to that server, just mentioning it [others: please don’t DM me about it]). I would never give it in a post because my perception is that you cannot read authors works that were taken down (even if they’re available on another platform). Maybe my perception is wrong. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m coming from another fandom not nearly as deep or well developed as Dramione (hence much less drama - there is so much drama in this fandom 🤦🏻‍♀️) but we have incredible “librarians” that have nearly every story someone requests. Also, admittedly, we don’t have a lot of “the author requests we not share that”. I have seen them respond with the author requests we not share their works but it’s rare due to the size of the fandom.

OP - I’m sorry about high-jacking your post with this. I have hoped I could list my concerns in a response somewhere re: fandom (any faction) being unhinged. I was fairly certain any original post I initiated about them would be flagged. 😂

I appreciate this post, I was late to the fandom because my whole world became university and then family, and I came to Dramione by accident in 2023. I wish I had encountered it earlier. Most people are lonely and helpful. A few are very protective I find… haven’t encountered them on Reddit but I have on TikTok

I'm here just for the past 6 months. No one has shamed me or been in any way unwelcoming to me.

I’ve been reading dramione since college - somewhere around 20 years (!). I get a gatekeepy vibe from a lot of the acronyms that people use. After getting on Reddit recently, I felt really confused about a lot of things people were referring to casually as an acronym or by a code name - like “Batmobile” and “dead doves.”

Jargon is a bit gatekeepy by nature. I still don’t know what a lot of these things are and it sometimes makes me feel like there’s a club that I haven’t been inducted into where one learns all these things. Then I get frustrated and log off Reddit.

Can I ask what is the issue with Goodreads?