Continuation on the previous post

Once again it’s pretty useless for me to write this but I’m going to do it anyway to make myself feel a little better if nothing else.

The thing I hate the most in this fandom is how it’s full of drama, negativity and hate. For me, fandom has always been something to make me happy and cheer me up when life isn’t going that great. But it has turned into something else. I seriously feel there are way too much obnoxious and immature people in this fandom than there are genuinely nice and smart ones.

It’s not even only in Yamada’s case but I’ll just talk about his because that’s what I know the best, but this applies to other people as well.

Like, I know haters will keep hating and all that, he’s the most popular etc so he gets a lot of that. I understand the reason since it’s not like I never felt it’s unfair as a Massu-fan how my favourite is not the one to get most spotlight in the group. But I never hated Yamapi or Ryo for it. Why? Because that’s how it works in this business. Some people are more popular -> Get more spotlight. I’m going to use the infamous “it’s not their fault” line because yeah, it’s not. And it doesn’t make them any worse people, and putting them down doesn’t make my favourite’s situation any better. I understand the reason, but it doesn’t make it any less immature.

Of course, there are other reasons for the haters as well. Of course, not everyone can like everyone, but I think Yamada’s pretty difficult to actually hate, though. He’s talented but he’s also an incredibly sweet person. So people have to try a bit harder to come up with reasons. I’ve heard absolutely ridiculous things. First of all, “He can’t sing/act/dance” is easy to say, but you have to be incredibly ignorant to say he has no talent. For example, you might not like his voice but it doesn’t make him a bad singer. It’s an opinion, while technique and all that, it’s more like a “fact”. Not saying he’s the best singer in the world, but he doesn’t need to be either.

Reason number 2: “He’s stupid, he’s not even on the top 10 students of his school”. Like, I beg your pardon? First of all, do you think there are what, 11 students at his school? Who knows where he’s on that list, and who cares anyway? Book wisdom isn’t everything. He’s got emotional intelligence and common sense and that’s far more important than say, knowing random facts about the history of France. Have you read any of his interviews where he talks about something a bit more deeper than his favourite color? Like, I’m years older than him but he’s probably smarter than I am. He strikes me as an incredibly smart boy who really can use his head, and you can see he thinks a lot. It’s amazing how he always considers other people and can think of the consequences of actions pretty far. And he’s only 18. Remember that. He’s unbelievably mature for his age and I can’t help but feel amazed everytime I read his interviews.

Reason number 3: “He’s so mean like omg he laughed at Keito when he fell at the Lotte CM shooting”. I’ve seriously heard that almost exact sentence. Not even going there. He laughed, Chinen laughed, Yuto laughed, Ryutaro laughed, and KEITO LAUGHED. What goes in the same category is “he’s always stealing the spotlight did you see on Coming soon! when Yabu tried to talk and he started talking over him?!” That’s a good one. But watch it again. He didn’t even notice Yabu was going to talk. Next.

He’s not allowed to make mistakes. People who really want to find faults are good at getting stuck on little details and misunderstanding them. Like that photoset I talked about in my previous post. Sure, it’s easy to take the wrong way if you don’t know the context of his lines or if you know nothing about his and Yuma’s friendship. I hesitated about posting it because of that, but I did anyway because I thought people who know the situation also know to laugh at it. I was pretty amazed about the crap I saw on my dash after that.

Probably the most incredible one I’ve heard is that he’s selfish and full of himself. Okay so, do you know anything about him? Probably not. He’s anything but that. Sure, he’s super confident on stage and knows how to please the audience. I guess confidence is always easy to mix up with arrogance. But that’s his stage personality, it’s one side of him that goes away when the music stops. When he’s off stage, he’s smiling, joking and goofing around. He’s a different person. He always does his best to act friendly to others, to make people around him happy and to please the fans. One of my favourite quotes is: ” If my smile can make someone happy, I think that is enough. It’s not because I’m an idol, I’ve always thought like that. If there is even one person who I can cheer up, I will do my best.” He’s never acted arrogant or selfish, he’s never made a big deal out of himself. Once again I must go back to: Have you read any of his interviews? All he says is that he finds himself just an ordinary guy, he doesn’t find anything special about himself, he doesn’t even find himself good-looking. He says it’s the stylists and the staff that make him shine. He continues to say how he’s just a beginner at singing, acting and dancing and there are so many who are better than him, but he takes it as a challenge to improve. He says he doesn’t think about standing out and it would be cool to be able to shine even on the side. He also keeps saying how everything is thanks to the people supporting him, the fans, and that he wouldn’t be here without them. Where exactly do you see arrogance?

p.s. for starters you could read his quotes.

Next thing someone’s going to say is “omgz you don’t know him in person you don’t know what he’s like”. Well sure, you can be cynical if you want but I have no reason to doubt him. It’s true I don’t know every side of him but doesn’t everyone in real life too have some kind of image and different sides of themselves? It’s not like you know everything about them either. It still doesn’t mean what you know is not true. I’ve followed him for over 4 years, I’ve watched basically every video there is from variety shows to backstage videos, I’ve read his every interview from the past 3 years (and a lot of older ones obviously), I’ve seen him live 5 times. If everything I know and see matches with what he says - and especially - what people around him say about him from band members to co-stars, drama procucers and random people who have met him on the street, I have no reason why I should doubt him. I rather trust all that than some random hater’s intuition.

Congrats if you read all that, but if you made it this far you’re probably his fan anyway and know this already. Talking to haters is like talking to a brick wall. It doesn’t matter what I say or do, or even what the object themselves do, haters will keep on hating, because usually they want to, for one reason or another.