I would pay top dollar for a comprehensive, source-supported explanation of how Superwholock vanished.
Like……..that was the core of tumblr in 2013. Its tainted life-blood. Its fetid royal palace. Destiel this and Johnlock that. Tardis-in-the-impala-at-221B URLS. Bendydoot Cucumberpatch and long analytical debates of which doctor is best doctor
What caused the end? What destroyed it? What series of events sunk this fortress? I’m so. So curious. This was so much of what tumblr was. So unavoidable. It’s cultural history. I want. to know.
So I’m not completely sure but I think you can pinpoint the disappearance to the month following Dashcon. Like, the entire year prior, things were going fucking insane; The DW 50th anniversary, Sherlock returned after a hiatus, Dean became a demon or something I don’t remember. Point is, the fans were worse than ever.
And then Dashcon happened: All those people got together for a nightmarish event in the ball pit (for anyone who doesn’t know what Dashcon was, look it up and read any of the news articles about it. I promise, you will not be disappointed).
Now, I wasn’t too active on tumblr at that point because of school reasons, but I remember finding out that the new season of Supernatural had aired on TV, and I saw NOTHING about it on tumblr. Not a single post on my dash. It was a miracle, but I was so confused. How had the whole fandom just vanished like that? I still don’t know for sure, but it was very shortly after the Dashcon incident.
Then Doctor Who returned. New doctor and a new companion. Same scenario. Nobody said anything online. I was still big into DW so that was kind of a bummer but it was still astounding.
I went back online more readily and started realizing that fandoms, as I had known them, were essentially dead after that summer. It was like everybody simultaneously realized how toxic those communities were after they all got together in person and proved themselves to be a disgusting bunch.
It was the fastest and most unsettling jump in internet culture I’d ever seen. Overnight it became an embarrassment to admit that you were in a popular fandom. All because of fucking
“Superwholock died as a result of Dashcon” is the most fascinating theory I’ve heard in a while amazing
(And you know, seasonal rot and kids getting older and all that but s t i l l)
My personal theory is it was because of hiatuses and competition!
– Hiatuses: Sherlock especially, but the long Doctor Who mid-season
breaks didn’t help. People wandered off. Some of them to very similar
shows, like Elementary, which fought initial fan scepticism to
become THE Sherlock alternative.
– Fans became more critical. All
three shows frequently come under fire for their treatment of women,
LGBTQIA people, etc., and without new content fans had no option but to
rewatch and reexamine the same episodes over and over again. Their flaws
became more obvious on repeat viewings, and the comparison to new arrivals like Elementary didn’t help. I imagine there were other
competitors too, but one would need to do more research to see how
relevant they are here – cartoons like Steven Universe and Gravity
Falls, maybe? WtNV? OUAT and OITNB? All of them are much more obviously
diverse, so Superwholock starts looking bland in comparison. There’s also the quality-comparison argument (Doctor Who is not as good at plotting as a lot of other things), but I reckon that goes without saying.
– Fandom backlash! You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. After events like the Mishapocalypse and the infamous FANDOMS GRAB YOUR WEAPONS post Superwholock became shorthand for the most obnoxious parts of Tumblr and fandom, so more people starting distancing themselves from it (see also: how Bronies killed the MLP fandom). And, yeah, it all came to a head with the Dashcon Clusterfuck 2k14.
– Fandom Backlash II: Your Fave is Problematic. Every popular figure from Joss Whedon to Taylor Swift is eventually the subject of text posts and screencaps dragging their name through the mud. Steven Moffat, Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, and Jensen Ackles (I believe? It might have been Jared Padalecki. I don’t really follow Supernatural) have all had plenty of this.
IN CONCLUSION: there wasn’t enough new stuff being made. People found their own new stuff, which in many cases they found more appealling. People became less forgiving of the old stuff, its creators, and its fans. Eventually enough time passed that they gave up on the old stuff completely, so when it came back they weren’t interested.
(granted this mostly comes under the seasonal rot and kids getting older points but I didn’t notice that until I’d typed this out, and it seems a waste to delete it now 😛 )
It’s like I’m reading the end-result of an assigned essay topic I handed out last night. I’ve forgotten so many things from the 2013 era you get an A+
