I Genuinely Feel So Bad For Him - Tumblr Posts
I honestly hate that for him, he seems like a very genuine, good person. I'm positive he's thankful for the fans that love and adore him. But for people to deadass be weird and disrespectful by asking weird questions is disgusting. Justin didn't have to be there, he didn't even have to respond to the question so professionally. These types of 'fans' take things way too far. I genuinely hope he or another voice actor doesn't have to deal with/hear that weird shit again.
cw: talks about (pro)shipping, NSFW content, implications of pedophilia but most of all fucking cringe.
I don’t usually air my opinions out on here but my god I just saw the egregious video of Justin Briner (Deku’s VA) at a convention today at his own panel be asked about his opinion on ships for the millionth fucking time from a chronically online teenager, which has now prompted this response from him:
If you have yet to see the video, here you go but do heed the warnings above:
“It’s none of my business… really, who cares what 30 something year olds do—“
“But don’t you love your ship with Eri?”
heinous vent below:
I’ll start by saying that Justin’s response was, in the simplest terms, very professional even if it seemed innately dismissive.
… It’s clear as day to any rational fucking person he is uncomfortable with this genre of question and probably has heard it plenty times before in his career. He adores his fans and clearly “knows” the fandoms he’s in and the fact that it really isn’t his concern what other people choose to engage in — believe it or not, he does not need to be reminded every time he steps out and graces others with his time at cons or other anime related events.
Children should for one not be allowed to relay their hideous takes when they can hardly conceptualize what the difference between fiction/reality is… but I digress. I get it… I was a kid who ran around cons too, had lots of fun and learned a lot when I was plenty groomed by adults in the con-going community.
However, this is a level of abhorrence from a community of culminative disrespectful individuals who would rather spend time harassing voice actors than simply enjoying fandom or catering their internet experience are simply what we have coined nowadays as Chronically Online. It’s overwhelmingly children, but I’ve certainly met my share of adults who prioritize fandom rights/ships over basic human decency.
I frankly don’t care what you use to label yourself online (proshipper, anti, weeb, gooner, what fucking ever) because it isn’t a fucking protected attribute/class (race, sex, physical/mental disability, gender, etc). Hence we should not treat fiction in alignment with those. They are not the same and should not be held up to the same degree, and this clearly misunderstanding and need to virtue signal over fucking cartoons is frankly one of the goofiest things I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing on the vast interweb.
Put simply? Keep your shitty opinions to yourself. Believe it or not, the internet is a privilege, not a right. You can and should be catering your internet experience to your liking and to what is beneficial to your wellbeing. And if you are hardly of age to be consuming certain content.
That’s a difficult concept for children to grasp however — understandably. So we as adults should be putting clear parameters for our work and fandom space as well. We aren’t parents but we are writers, artists, fandom enjoyers, and just a bunch of “old” fucks who have hobbies and interests. We too have the ability to cater our internet experience, and I highly implore you all to be vigilant about who accesses your content.
Not everything can be in your control unfortunately, but if it can be helped, we can show that we are responsible consumers of media.
I am sorry. The ease in which we allow these children to air their poorly rendered opinions because the adults in their lives do not monitor them means we need to protect our own skin. And again, I am sorry for that, on their behalf’s.
We were all there too, but enough is enough. I doubt that will be the first of the last time a child or socially dense individual will make others miserable with their need for attention or blatant ignorance about consuming media responsibly — and/or treating others who provide that content with dignity and respect.
Go give Justin Briner some love as well over on Twitter/X. I’m sure the backlash to this is overwhelmingly negative or just a means for others to start threads of fandom turf wars (tHiS iS whY tHiS faNdom iS tRaSh, people just talking about how much they hate children, etc). This is a huge step in the establishment of boundaries and I hope we see some changes in large fandoms in general regarding understanding social and internet etiquette so we don’t have to make more people irl uncomfortable with takes about fictional characters.
Be kind to each other, even if you are not inherently into or care for another’s way of engaging in fandom. You have power, believe it or not. Don’t wrack your own brain being pissed over what others are going to do anyway… be in control of you.