Enough with the BULLSHIT in SOA fandom

I intially intended to blog about the ghastly tornado hit in OK, due to stayin' awake earlier this AM when a nasty storm swept through Indiana.  Should also be workin' on my badly overdue fanfic chapter. 

Instead, I feel the need to hiss off about some bullshit goin' on in my beloved Sons of Anarchy fanverse. 

It seems that people go completely nertz about the upcomin' new season every year, scourin' the interwebz for pics and tidbits of news and then postin' them all over the place as gospel.  They get other easily led people all upset for no reason other than to cause attention for themselves.

This year it seems worse than ever.  People are finding the sets where shooting is going on and takin' unauthorized pictures with telephoto lenses, then postin' the pics on the social nets just because they can.  Additionally, they are spoutin' off about crap they know absolutely zero about.

Facebook itself is gettin' really outta hand with this shit, and I've had ENOUGH! 

Look, people, this situation has really gotten out of hand.  I don't know who is postin' the illegal pics and spoilers, and don't wanna know.  If you're toutin' yourself as a fan and doin' this BS, then you're not a fan at all.  You're a fuckin' opportunistic leech that needs to be squished.

Promos are just that.  They are items designed to interest people in the upcoming season.  They do NOT necessarily relate to what will take place in the story!  We saw this in Season 2 when one of the promos ended with Clay and Jax seemingly ridin' their bikes in anger towards each other, intend on havin' an explosive head on collision.  The world wide webs went ape shit over that.  IT NEVER HAPPENED!  It was a damn metaphor for what really happened in that dynamic. 

Same thing with the promos for last Season, where people were in an uproar over Jax swerving to avoid hittin' Gemma on a bridge, and crashes over the side.  IT NEVER HAPPENED, yet it was a metaphor for what happened story wise in the family dynamic.  I found it very well done, and certainly set the stage for the season.  Yet, people were so sure it meant that the Jax character was going to be killed. 

Now it's happenin' again.  Dom Pagone, The VP of Media Relations at FX, has been gracious enough to share legitimate promotional pictures of the cast during filming and prior to filming of S6's first episode.   People are repostin' those pics on Facebook WITHOUT adding his commentary that accompanied the picture.  People are lettin' their imaginations run wild and goin' absolutely nuts about the significance of this one picture.   Mr. Pagone has even tweeted to people that promos are not to be taken literally, but the word isn't gettin' out.

Well, now it's gettin' out, and a link to this little blog is goin' out on Twitters, and every damn SOA related FB page I belong to.  Maybe it'll make a difference, then again, maybe it won't.  But if it makes even ONE fan pay attention and pull a Susan Powter (bing or google her name if you don't know to whom I am referrin' to) and scream STOP THE INSANITY, then it'll be worth takin' the time away from other matters.

C'mon people, think a moment.  We love the show.  That's a given.  The cast, crew, writers, producers, directors, and the creator, Mr. Sutter, appreciate our love.  There is a limit to the amount of bullshit they are willing to put up with.  SOA fans have enjoyed throughout the last five seasons an unprecedented amount of inside access about the show through Mr. Sutter's YouTube updates, his Q/A nites, his tweets.  What other show has ever come close to givin' the fanbase the intel we have been given?  It would be very easy for Mr. Sutter and the other powers that be to shut us completely out, just as fans of shows like Classic Star Trek and the like were relegated. 

Maybe a lot of you are too young to remember those days when there were no interactions with the fans by the cast and crew.  You wrote a fan letter and if you were lucky, you received a response and/or an autographed 'thank you' letter.  You had to rely on the media magazines (in my day it was Tiger Beat, 16, and the Hollywood gossip mags) for any kind of publicity, and then it was fluff. 

Frankly, I don't want to go back to that.  It's great that the cast members of other shows besides SOA and producers, writers, directors are willing to interact on line with the fans.  THEY DON'T HAVE TO.  They do becuase they want us to care.  They want to share, but they also want to be respected.

Takin' tales about fans misrepresentin' SOA and/or their association to the show to Mr. Sutter is likely to piss him off and make him react harshly to the accused.  He is protective of his creation, and I don't blame him. The people who try to leech onto his success by sellin' bootleg videos, clothing, and other rip offs deserve his ire and justifibly so.  It hurts to have somethin' you've put your blood, sweat, and soul profitin' someone else who doesn't deserve it.  

But good, innocent people are gettin' hurt for no good reason, and that's the thing that really has me hissed off.  Whatever the reason, it needs to stop.  If you're jealous because some fans seem to have more access to SOA than you, maybe it's because they've done all they can to be supportive instead of destructive.  These people deserve your respect, not your condemnation.  They don't deserve to be lied about.  And Mr. Sutter doesn't deserve the additional stress of havin' to deal with this kind of bullshit while he's tryin' to put out a quality product.  

So the bottom line, and the whole point of this epistle is this.  If all y'all wanna have the access we've enjoyed shut down, keep on doin' the shit you're doin' and you can rest assured that Mr. Sutter will shut down all access to protect his 'baby'.  There won't be any more WTF videos, there won't be Q/A nights.  There won't be tweets and there won't be any more fan appreciation.  There'll be nothin' but a big ass void of nothin' until the show comes out in September. 

It's up to all y'all.