I had originally planned to make my first blog an introductory one, but my attention was brought to a subject recently which I have a strong opinion on, so that is what I shall write about first. I will make sure to do a questions blog at some point but I felt it was important to get my feelings out about this.
The topic, as you may have gathered, is "shipping".
I will admit that, although I have been involved with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for quite some time, I was only introduced to the concept of "shipping" towards the end of last year (thanks danisnotonfire haha). In case you were wondering, shipping is the idea of putting two people together either as a friendSHIP or a relationSHIP.
Now before someone says it, it is perfectly harmless to like the idea of two people either being friends or in a relationship with each other. What is wrong is when people take the "shipping" way too far and end up not physically, but emotionally hurting either the two people in question or their close friends.
Since I discovered shipping I have always had the view that if people want to broadcast their relationship, or indeed want to make the move to be in a relationship with someone else, then they will. Others should not force them to do anything they are not comfortable with, end of.
I am writing this not only because I have read about the after-effects of "hardcore shipping" on not one, but two of my favourite YouTubers and their friends, but because in a strange way I know what it feels like because it has happened to me (although admittedly it wasn't over the internet).
I have a male friend (who shall remain anonymous) who I have grown quite close to in the last few years. We make our friends laugh when we argue "like an old married couple", because admittedly that's how we act around each other. But I always have and only ever will think of him as a very close, if not best, male friend. However, others don't seem to have grasped this concept.
Last summer was our Year 11 prom, and this friend asked me if I wanted to go with him just as friends. I knew that he had no intentions of pretending we were together, but I said no to him (and incidentally another guy friend who had asked me to prom) for mainly one reason.
There were some girls in my year who had boyfriends at the time who did not attend our school and so were not allowed to come to our prom. These girls had then asked one of their male friends to be their prom 'date' (I'm from the UK but proms have got really popular over here recently). I personally didn't have a problem with them doing that, and everybody knew that they were just going as friends so nobody questioned them about it. But because the majority of people there knew that I didn't have a boyfriend, I knew that if I went with either of the boys who asked me, we would spend most, if not all, of the night denying that we were a couple. This wasn't just for me, I did it for the boys as well, because although they may not show it, they have feelings too and I wouldn't want them to feel bad. Plus it would be the last time I saw most of the people I knew and I wanted to spend it having fun, not constantly denying rumours. I'm sure you understand that?
Anyway, the motivation for this came from a blogpost I read recently concerning one of the biggest ships on the internet, and I won't go into the details of the post (some of you may know who I'm on about anyway), but one part really stood out to me. It concerned another friend, who had to take one of his vlogs down the other day after "hardcore shippers" took their love for this OTP (or "one true pair/pairing" - again, thanks danisnotonfire!) way too far. I felt so bad that he felt he had to do that, because he shouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing happening whenever he posts something that features the two people in question.
Insult me if you must, but liking the idea of two people together and saying so on the internet shouldn't mean that the people in question, or their close friends, end up being hurt by it.
I know what it's like to have people speculating your friendship/relationship with another person, and I just hope that any comments I may have posted on videos haven't made them feel like I am among those who don't seem to care about their privacy or the value of their friendship/relationship.
Phew, rant over!
Hope you don't think I'm crazy for going all out on this, but I thought it was time I got this off my chest once and for all!
Lots of love,
Fliss xx
