The 'ship-measuing contest'?

[misscam]

How much do contest play into shipping, I wonder?

Now, I have my ships too, and I'm certainly not saying that's what it's basically about, but... Take that ever lovely CSI fandom. Ever since Grissom and Sara shagged it up (implied) in the season six finale, fandom wanked its little socks off. And among the other fun stuff, I did notice trends of what I call 'ship-measuring contest'. Frequent arguments* included:

- Our ship has more chemistry
- Our ship is less forced
- Our ship is more Canon
- Our ship is more liked by the actors
- Our ship has better writers
- Our ship has more mature shippers
- Our ship has better fics

* Some of these claims might be true, given the value of true.

The point of all these arguments seem to be to elevate that particular ship to above the others, to be the better one. And it's not just that fandom, either. I've seen arguments on which is "the higher sort of love" in Harry Potter. I've seen Doctor/Rose shippers and Other Shippers both feel hated on in Doctor Who fandom. (Both might be true, depending on your perspective. Also, I divide it into that simple because of numbers. There are heaps of little inter-plays at work, between Nine/Rose and Ten/Rose too.) And that's not taking into account all the stuff going on within a ship - hierarchy and BNFs and what-not.

Course, people are generally into ships because they like them and most shippers are sane and lovely and I give them chocolate, but I wonder how much this behaviour just feels a bit natural after a while. After all, opposing shippers often diss your ship, so you try to lift your up. No one likes something they like being attacked. It's natural to want to defend or to feel better about your particular like, maybe even feel it is special. But it does feel like it sometimes goes a bit far. That humans have a certain need to feel superior to other humans at times and this comes to play in fandom in not always attractive ways.

Maybe I'm totally off. Tell me? Have you noticed anything like it?

Meanwhile, here are two cats who clearly disagree on ship.

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I think the Trueness is a bit of why shipwars end up happening? Because it can get to critical mass of shippers believing theirs to be So Very True and the Only Possible In-Character Ship and oh dear wank happens.

[evilstorm.livejournal.com]

Like as not, yeah. Which is really stupid, because you can't ever be certain of that. The proper attitude to take is that of mad doubt and constantly attempting to see out of other people's frame of reference. But that's too difficult for most people to do, so they settle for blind certainty. Kinda like religion, actually.