Dan & Phil Part 91: A Decade of Deppy

[Birdie]

I absolutely agree but also: That guy has a point. Fetishisation of gay people is not okay and it's a problem in fandoms. It has happened in the phandom because it happens in every fandom. And I'm honestly not really okay with the "It's just teenage girls having fun" defence because at whose expense are they having "fun"? And why aren't queer people allowed to be uncomfortable with how non-queer people depict them in fiction, especially when it furthers harmful stereotypes?

This is not directed at anyone in particular, I'm just ranting. As dizzy said, the phandom is not just teenage girls with a crush on Dan and Phil and a lot of us are lgbtq ourselves. But at the same time, I'm not here for the old "Do you hate teenage girls, why can't they have this hobby?" defence because we're allowed to criticise "teenage girls" (and everyone else who fetishises queer people, it's not just teen girls...) when their "hobbies" play into the marginalisation of a minority. And to be fair, I'm seeing a lot of Dan and Phil fans in that guy's mentions telling him to "stay mad" and that's ugly because his point is valid.

(This is very salty and messy, I'm sorry, but this is such an issue and I hate how this kind of criticism from queer people gets swept under the rug all the time.)

I can understand the fetishizing argument and it has merit. But I think to me it makes a huge difference when the audience of teenagers is predominantly queer themselves. I think the community aspect around fandoms that come together because they can't find that kind of community in their real lives is a good, needed thing and I think from the outside that intensity can look like fetishizing gay men, particularly to people who don't bother to look beyond the surface of 'loud audience, young people, likes those two gay men.'

Oh yes, of course. I just meant the twitter user's point was valid in general. There's so much at play when looking at this phenomenon and generalising is never a good idea. I'm just a bit fed up with people not taking queer people seriously when they say something makes them uncomfortable and I've seen a lot of that in the mentions under the tweet. I have no idea if the original tweet was to do with Dan and Phil. OP says it wasn't, just a general thing, and as a general statement, I agree with it even though it might not apply to most members of the phandom.

[Secretstanner]

I'm so tired of that conversation. I'm not in the loop about what spurred it on this time, but we see it like once a month. I never see it from people who find it uncomfortable because it's happening to themselves and want to set boundaries for their own fans, it's always someone trying to police someone else's fans.

*Slow claps* You hit the nail on the head. It’s always people telling us what they THINK dnp would find uncomfortable. Why I don’t like what he did was because started it off by quote tweeting someone in the phandoms wedding theories which is annoying and the whole reason I’ve stayed off Twitter for 2 days he quote tweeted it and said I hate dan and Phil fans. Was there really any need getting involved in it? What I hate is that the phandom always gets looked at like we cause fights with other people.
I’m allexx did the same he point blank lied about what dan said in his coming out video because he was pushing his own insecurities with HIS fans and how they act onto us. That’s all I’m gonna say I’m not going to get into what he actually said in the other tweets I’m sure other people who are more articulate can give better options than me.

[wiccamoody]

I absolutely agree but also: That guy has a point. Fetishisation of gay people is not okay and it's a problem in fandoms. It has happened in the phandom because it happens in every fandom. And I'm honestly not really okay with the "It's just teenage girls having fun" defence because at whose expense are they having "fun"? And why aren't queer people allowed to be uncomfortable with how non-queer people depict them in fiction, especially when it furthers harmful stereotypes?

This is not directed at anyone in particular, I'm just ranting. As dizzy said, the phandom is not just teenage girls with a crush on Dan and Phil and a lot of us are lgbtq ourselves. But at the same time, I'm not here for the old "Do you hate teenage girls, why can't they have this hobby?" defence because we're allowed to criticise "teenage girls" (and everyone else who fetishises queer people, it's not just teen girls...) when their "hobbies" play into the marginalisation of a minority. And to be fair, I'm seeing a lot of Dan and Phil fans in that guy's mentions telling him to "stay mad" and that's ugly because his point is valid.

(This is very salty and messy, I'm sorry, but this is such an issue and I hate how this kind of criticism from queer people gets swept under the rug all the time.)

I agree, to a degree. I'm only 20, I've been in that position of being hated on because I'm a teenage girl who loves fandom and shipping for most of my life tbh. But at the same time I've seen people fetishize and generally be horrifically disgusting about their queer ships (an example I can think of is the popular trend that many shippers in fandom only give a fuck about mlm relationships and get squicked by wlw. says something about why they care about the mlm relationship in the first place imo). Clearly the mistake here is that phandom often gets targeted by people with these complaints probably because it's quite big and loud for how long it's been around (I used to ship troyler; same shit happened, but the actual ship/fandom only had its heyday for like a year or two). I do also think we're in a unique position with how deppy themselves regard RPF and being in an RPF fandom, which makes me more frustrated when people shout about how shitty "Dan and Phil shippers" are. And of course, most people I've seen, especially teens, in the phandom are queer so. That's already a completely different topic and something that is a huge misconception by the people who like to call us out. Fetishizing happens in this fandom-not that often, but I still see it-but that's not something some youtube guy can fix or call out on twitter without knowing the contexts. I think it's something we should talk about when it happens (esp bc it happens to Dan a lot), but that's a whole other conversation that I'm not wanting to get into right now.

Something I think about a lot is how a lot of One Direction fans acted. Nothing wrong with shipping the boys, but they often went too far and a lot of problematic shit went down in that fandom. Not to mention we know at least one of the members is queer and the pressure that must have put on him at the time is just awful.

Maybe I'm not really making a new point here, but we're all allowed to have our interests, especially teen girls who get shit on. But similarly to how we critically consume media, we gotta look critically at our own behaviours and the behaviours of others so that toxic cycle doesn't keep repeating itself. (Just generally, phandom is better for fetishizing than a lot of other fandoms).

[flarequake]

There must be a corner of the phandom I haven’t seen or realise what I’m seeing cos if fetishising is ‘to make subject of a sexual fetish’, can anyone give me an example? I see people on twitter defending not being one of the few fetishists out there as if they’re just ‘not us’.

[noodlebum]

Just something that came to me, but there's often stereotype of many straight men finding the idea of lesbians together hot. Makes sense there may be straight women who find gay men together hot. Obviously the phandom is made of all different types of people, ages/sexuality/gender wise so not saying that's what's common, but it's an interesting thought. Would that be fetishising?

[Templeofshame]

I'm also sick of these "arguments"/attacks but really what it seems to come down to is that, if there is fetishizing happening within a fandom, the problem is the fetishizing, not the fandom. And it also kinda sucks that one gay man (or any demographic) decides to speak for the whole community in condemning a community that... includes members of that first community, and that literally made members of that community millionaires (and not at all against their will).

To me, even mentioning "teenage girls" seems like it must be rooted in misogyny, because if you think people are doing something wrong/creepy, why would it be worse if they're teenage girls than anyone else? Even if someone mistakenly thinks that the phandom (or another fandom, if they're really not talking about us specifically) consists only or predominantly of teenage girls, that's not the relevant factor if what you're really objecting to is fetishization.

[knq]

I'm also sick of these "arguments"/attacks but really what it seems to come down to is that, if there is fetishizing happening within a fandom, the problem is the fetishizing, not the fandom. And it also kinda sucks that one gay man (or any demographic) decides to speak for the whole community in condemning a community that... includes members of that first community, and that literally made members of that community millionaires (and not at all against their will).

To me, even mentioning "teenage girls" seems like it must be rooted in misogyny, because if you think people are doing something wrong/creepy, why would it be worse if they're teenage girls than anyone else? Even if someone mistakenly thinks that the phandom (or another fandom, if they're really not talking about us specifically) consists only or predominantly of teenage girls, that's not the relevant factor if what you're really objecting to is fetishization.

Thank you. It's just depressing that language like this is so widespread online and off and often goes unexamined.

[Birdie]

To me, even mentioning "teenage girls" seems like it must be rooted in misogyny, because if you think people are doing something wrong/creepy, why would it be worse if they're teenage girls than anyone else? Even if someone mistakenly thinks that the phandom (or another fandom, if they're really not talking about us specifically) consists only or predominantly of teenage girls, that's not the relevant factor if what you're really objecting to is fetishization.

Absolutely true. I still think OP's point is valid and queer men saying they're uncomfortable with stuff like this should be taken more seriously but I'm not gonna pretend like there isn't also misogyny involved when someone singles out teenage girls. Like, I agree with his general point but I don't agree with the way he said it and if his tweet was about the phandom and not just a general statement like he says, I also don't agree with that. But he's by far not the first queer person who has brought this problem up.

I think there needs to be room in fandom spaces to talk about all of these issues without minimising one to make the other seem more important. There's no need to villainise teenage girls as a whole for the problematic behaviour of some but there's also no need to pretend like the portrayal of queer men in a lot of fanfic isn't harmful or like queer men have no right to be uncomfortable with or upset about the way writers who are not queer men portray them in fiction. (Especially when those portrayals also involve heteronormative bs and harmful stereotypes like they often do.)

[Phantasy]

Happy 10 years to Hello Internet today!

Just imagine the nervous energy Dan must have had from 10 years ago after all those countless hours flirting getting editing tips from Phil on Skype then finally publishing his first video, and with train ticket in hand waiting for a few short days before meeting his fanboy crush.

[Susanisnotafish]

Noah Finnce is a housemate of Evan Edinger btw.

[Sami]

Off topic but can I just say, what has gotten into Phil? An appearance at the dog show, a live show, YouTube story, ig story and a tweet all within the space of four days? And mentions of a new video potentially coming soon.
I feel spoiled with all this content but at the same time don't want him falling back into his workaholic ways.

[Templeofshame]

I think there needs to be room in fandom spaces to talk about all of these issues without minimising one to make the other seem more important. There's no need to villainise teenage girls as a whole for the problematic behaviour of some but there's also no need to pretend like the portrayal of queer men in a lot of fanfic isn't harmful or like queer men have no right to be uncomfortable with or upset about the way writers who are not queer men portray them in fiction. (Especially when those portrayals also involve heteronormative bs and harmful stereotypes like they often do.)

I think this is a totally valid and valuable conversation to have within fandom, but I don't see this at all in the original tweet? What I see in the original tweet is one queer man trying to speak for all queer men (would've felt much better if framed as 'I am uncomfortable with this' rather than 'We don't like this'), and making vast generalizations/assumptions about who is in fandom, why they're in fandom, what they do within that, and what their relationship to queerness is. In order to actually have a valuable conversation about fetishization in fandom, it has to be specific. I've watched a few Noah videos and haven't had anything against him (didn't know about the Evan connection), but just saying that shippers are creepy teenage girls who need to get a hobby reflects a lot of ignorance and misogyny and doesn't offer any actual information or specifics that could actually help anyone identify problematic behavior or make better choices with how they do fandom.

I believe that you are interested in having an important conversation about fetishizing behaviors in the phandom, that I support that, but it doesn't seem that Noah wanted to talk about what specific behavior he's seeing that he's uncomfortable and why, which could be very valuable. As we're seeing even just in this IDB conversation, a lot of people have vague and/or skewed ideas of what fetishizing behavior even is, but presenting it as teenage girls liking gay men and being creepy doesn't clarify anything, but throws a lot of fans who aren't doing anything wrong under the bus.

Of course there's fic out there with problematic portrayals and harmful, heteronormative stereotypes, and that's valuable to look at. I think it's a lot more interesting to look at how a largely queer female fandom can inadvertently fall into problematic things than to apply a lens of heteronormativity to queer fandoms and decide that it's all about teenage (presumed straight for some reason) girls fetishizing guys they think are hot. But within a fandom, we're also in a much better position to look at the small scale and see what issues may emerge from different experiences and in different sections of the phandom, whereas outsiders just look at us and go 'phandom bad.'

[wiccamoody]

Just something that came to me, but there's often stereotype of many straight men finding the idea of lesbians together hot. Makes sense there may be straight women who find gay men together hot. Obviously the phandom is made of all different types of people, ages/sexuality/gender wise so not saying that's what's common, but it's an interesting thought. Would that be fetishising?

Finding a queer couple together "hot" absolutely is fetishizing. I don't think there are many (or any, hopefully) people in the phandom who are here just because they find the idea of deppy together hot, and if they do well...yikes.

I find the fetishizing that happens in this fandom largely has to do with fetishizing their identities as queer/gay men, not their relationship. The odd kind of possessiveness people seem to express-more commonly with Dan-over their appearances as gay men and how people want them to look, which is often more feminized in a stereotypical way (I don't mean people saying "oh it would be cute if Dan wore eyeshadow" or people making art or fic about these ideas, just the people who take it too far, and there's been some over the years). Of course that's just one example I've seen.

Noah Finnce is a housemate of Evan Edinger btw.

Ah. Lovelyyyyy

[Birdie]

I think this is a totally valid and valuable conversation to have within fandom, but I don't see this at all in the original tweet?

I had no idea who Noah is (The Evan connection is dodgy) and I didn't see any of his previous tweets so that probably made me read the tweet in question differently. I work with writers and these kinds of discussions crop up a lot lately (Basically what good representation even is, who can write it, how to write it etc.) and I also see a lot of complaints from queer people about these things lately so I think I just took Noah's tweet as another one of those. But within context I totally see what you mean and I agree with you 100% about the casual sexism directed towards teen girls in fandom (and in general). I guess I'd say there was some truth in Noah's tweet that I can agree with but he might have just used a real problem for a cheap attack on the phandom and of course the sexism needs to be called out.

[autumnhearth]

I’ve gotta run out the door but I’m just gonna drop this right here. Gotta love their “peers”. Not that it at all invalidates the fetishization complaint. Also saw where he admitted he was a Panic at the Disco shipper when he was 14

[Templeofshame]

Oh wow, very Evan. I do sometimes wonder how much YouTubers attacking the phandom has roots in resentment of D&P's success. (Obviously, this is not to dismiss real concerns about fetishization, and just like the misogyny, there can and probably are lots of roots to these things.) It seems like it might be "easier" for people who resent D&P's success to dismiss it or make it seem less desirable by making assumptions about their fans (e.g., that we're all teenage girls, that we're fans for problematic reasons, that we're creepy and/or stupid). I don't have the receipts on how often there's overlap like this, but it feels like we're gotten it with people like Evan and Emma Blackery at least.

[icedcoffeestan]

I'm sorry but where are people getting the indication that tweet is directed toward the phandom? Noah's boyfriend Corry complained yesterday morning about receiving creepy sexual DMs that made them feel unsafe. I don't really get the hop skip and a jump everyone took to assume this tweet was about us and not about the same upsetting and possibly scary situation for them as a couple that his boyfriend was talking about hours before? Am I missing something?

I follow both boys on instagram but I'll admit that I rarely watch their videos. But in the few that I have seen, they've spoken about the violating and yes, fetishizing, comments they have directed toward them as a couple. Comments that often specifically target and sexualize Noah's identity as a trans man who has elected to not get bottom surgery and Corry's identity as a bisexual black man. Comments that I've seen frequently in the comment section of those videos as well from noticeably white girls who often accompany their comment with a joke about how they're a straight cis girl so "why do I care so much about the sex lives of two gay guys? lol" I can't imagine how much worse those comments probably get in the semi-privacy of a DM. I know I couldn't take it - especially when a huge part of the reason I never returned to their videos after initially discovering and binging them months ago is because I found the fetishizing of Corry in particular pretty personally triggering.

I do agree with a lot of what Katka said earlier about the fact that the fetishization and stigmatization of gay men both in general fandom culture and in a very vocal minority of the phandom specifically is a legitimate issue that gets swept under the rug very often. But I also just don't think this tweet was about us at all?

[Birdie]

The context is important and I'm really not sure what the context is anymore because he did also tweet that stuff about Dan and Phil recently. But if the tweet was about those DMs, I do get the aggressive tone. What a horrible situation. I do wish Evan and his friends would stop mentioning D&P at all though. It was never cute and I don't get why they keep doing it. But anyways, I'm sorry this is happening to him and his boyfriend, no matter what. People need to learn to respect queer peoples' privacy, that's a big issue as well.

[noodlebum]

Yay!

[knq]

I'm shocked he actually embedded Hello Internet in his tweet.

[Templeofshame]

I'm sorry but where are people getting the indication that tweet is directed toward the phandom? Noah's boyfriend Corry complained yesterday morning about receiving creepy sexual DMs that made them feel unsafe. I don't really get the hop skip and a jump everyone took to assume this tweet was about us and not about the same upsetting and possibly scary situation for them as a couple that his boyfriend was talking about hours before? Am I missing something?

This is definitely useful context and it may be that the Melanie Murphy tweet was applying Noah's tweet well beyond Noah's intent. Personally, because I read the two tweets (Noah's and Melanie's) in the context of each other, that would be where I got the impression that they were both saying that shippers (or teenage girls who write fanfic?) are creepy and shouldn't exist online/should "get a hobby." But it seems like maybe Noah was talking about a more specific group of people who did upsetting/scary things and in retrospect, it was only the Melanie Murphy tweet that pointed to shippers/fanfic. (I don't know if these were rhetorical questions and you read the Melanie Murphy tweet and don't think it's applicable to the phandom, so sorry if I'm being dense trying to answer the question of how the conversation got here.)

[anna_begins]

I'm sorry but where are people getting the indication that tweet is directed toward the phandom? Noah's boyfriend Corry complained yesterday morning about receiving creepy sexual DMs that made them feel unsafe. I don't really get the hop skip and a jump everyone took to assume this tweet was about us and not about the same upsetting and possibly scary situation for them as a couple that his boyfriend was talking about hours before? Am I missing something?

People were asking him if it was about the phandom and he responded with this (now deleted) tweet.



so not initially about the phandom but we got lumped into it.

[wiccamoody]

Huh. Context really gets lost in the masses doesn't it. Anyway. Still a topic to be discussed, but nice to know that what happend last night wasnt exactly directed at the phandom at first. Shit that it relates to him and his boyfriend tho :/

In other news, Hector is back with another funny.

[ommster]

I'm sorry but where are people getting the indication that tweet is directed toward the phandom? Noah's boyfriend Corry complained yesterday morning about receiving creepy sexual DMs that made them feel unsafe. I don't really get the hop skip and a jump everyone took to assume this tweet was about us and not about the same upsetting and possibly scary situation for them as a couple that his boyfriend was talking about hours before? Am I missing something?

The original few tweets were deleted, but a few minutes before making said tweet above, in now deleted tweets, Noah has specifically quoted a person from phannie twitter making wedding theories saying how creepy said theories were and later said that he dislikes (or hates? i can't quite remember but i doubt he would say that) dan and phil fans/stans, so the corelation between the two is likely.
I don't know much about him so i can't really add much to the conversation, and it is entirly possible that the tweet has nothing to do with the phandom, but seeing as the tweets were made one after the other especially after the original were found by a lot of twitter stans and gained some minor traction I personally believe it was about the phandom.

[firsttimeposter]

Hmm dan realizing that today marks the ten year anniversary of hello internet definitely means he’s aware of what’s to come on the 19th. gives me a little bit of hope for a notice of the day, both as a nice celebration of ten years, but also to satisfy all the people who’d get sad without the recognition of the 19th haha. kinda can’t wait to see what happens.

In both 2015 and 2017, dan was told about the 19th in a liveshow and said something along the lines of “oh really, oh I didn’t realize but hey yay!”, but this tweet came (fairly) unprompted, so it differs.