I was responding to the part where you said "it's incredibly common among shippers" which gives the impression you think it's a pervasive thing or that most shippers have this 'incredibly common' mindset. If not, then cool, gotcha.Catallena wrote:Nothing in the part you just quoted was about nail polish, it was about feminization being pushed onto gay ships and why that happens because it was a topic that came up with the nail polish stuff. I just shared what I and many others have observed in various fandoms that also deal with this. Nowhere did I say that all people who want Dan to wear nail polish are feminizing him, some even because they have lowkey homophobic opinions.alittledizzy wrote:What you're describing is definitely problematic behavior, but to me completely different from discussing a man wearing or liking genderless or typically feminine items when the man himself actually has/does. Does Dan wear nailpoilsh? No. Does Dan express disgust or seem put off by the questions fans are asking him? No. Is anyone twisting Dan's arm absolutely making him? Of course not.Catallena wrote:About feminization of a person in gay ships, it's incredibly common among shippers especially ones who grew up in homophobic environments. They like a gay ship and are probably even pro-LGBT (not always tho how fucked up is that), but to make themselves feel less guilty about going aginst what they were taught they begin feminizing one character in their ship. Sometimes is goes into full imagines of the character being a cis girl while the other character remains a cis boy. It's super creepy and problematic but it happens a lot, so it's not surprising that this would happen in the phandom too.
I feel like going from nail polish to 'shipper fangirls making him a girl bc HOMOPHOBIA' is skipping like a whole wide gray area there. There is plenty of potential for people to be falling into both camps (which again, yes, the situation you stated is problematic) but there's also a lot of other viewpoints to consider here, both from Dan himself and from other fans. Phandom is not a hive mind nor does it have hive values or hive mentalities or hive... formative experiences leading to homophobic behavior, lol.
In fact, I carefully stated that it's SOME people and only PART of the phandom who don't get the hint or just blatantly ignore Dan's discomfort and then said that the common reasons for why feminization of one person/character in a gay ship runs rampant in many fandoms can also be found in the phandom. How much clearer do I have to make it that I do not consider the phandom a hivemind?? Certain groups within any fandoms can have a hivemind though (because people with the same opinions will automatically be drawn towards each other) and those often cause problems depending on what those opinions are. Example: Phan. Most Phan shippers are generally pretty chill and keep their theories and fangirling to themselves or their cirlcles. But there's also a group who decides to be problematic and obnoxious about it. It's the same with nail polish for me.
And nobody might be actually twisting Dan's arm, but imo the pressuring still happens just in a more subtle and sneaky way. And that's still wrong.
I guess maybe another difference in us is that I haven't read any discomfort in Dan? In the 2012 response sure but Dan was uncomfortable with a lot of things in 2012 that he's embracing of now. He's not saying he's going to do it but his responses don't seem uncomfortable, they're in the same line as his fans asking him to talk about a band he's not into or watch an anime he doesn't like. Hell, he gives a stronger and more decisive no on those, actually.