The Real Problem with Tinhatting

olderthannetfic:

I remember when the Domlijah tinhat websites full of “evidence” first appeared. I wasn’t very familiar with RPF fandoms or with tinhatting, and I thought: “Wow, that evidence does look kind of suspicious.” It was only years later, when I saw the exact same “evidence” in every other tinhat fandom and realized that it will always look the same. Yes, Larry too. Yes, Johnlock too. Yes, J2… err… too.

But you know what? If you’re having fun, who cares?

The actual problem with tinhatting isn’t that you’re wrong or that it’s silly to think that actors are sending secret messages with their shirt colors. The actual problem is that tinhats end up disappointed, frustrated, furious, crushed.

Some groups, like TJLC, are known for treating other fans horribly or for harassing the people who make the media they like. That’s awful. Stop that.

But even when tinhats are perfectly nice, they’re still setting themselves up for heartbreak when the canon or the celebrities’ real lives fail to live up to the fantasy. Eventually, no matter how awesome your canon and the people who make it are, they will let you down.

Don’t invest so much of your soul in being proven right that you can’t handle being proven wrong.