Goodbye greyandtarafan
Hello everyone.
For the past couple of months, I have been itching to completely remove “and Tara”. My original plan was to turn this into a Grey DeLisle fan account. Because of some recent events that have transpired, particularly on Twitter, I’m going to archive this account instead. I don’t feel comfortable continuing to run a fan account. I would’ve left sooner had it not been for my secret project. There’s been a change of plans involving that project. Viacom’s lawyers got involved after some intellectual property concerns. I cannot speak much as to what happened, but it’s been a blessing in disguise. I’m finally free to leave this account for good.
Shutting down this account will allow me the opportunity to heal. The Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr accounts are only staying up because I’ve got some important messages I can’t delete. However, I’d still be leaving for the most part.
I’m leaving because I encouraged a culture of blind idol worship towards Grey and Tara. This was made apparent by the response to the Ship-it Show situation, both by Tara and the fans. Once upon a time, this account was a fun place to talk about my favorite voice actors. It was a fun little hobby of mine. Now, it’s draining everyone (it’s even drained my therapist, who literally quit after hearing me complain about the Twitter account so much). Looking back, I realize the damage I caused. I encouraged blind idol worship on this account. There’s a difference between admiring someone while recognizing their flaws/willingly calling them out when they’re doing something wrong and blind idol worship. While I always strived for the former, many of my tweets (and this account’s existence) encouraged the latter. This was the breeding ground that allowed the Ship-it Show incident to occur.
At the end of the day, there’s a lot of blame to be passed around. I can pin things that myself, Tara Strong, Greg Cipes, and Rooster Teeth did that caused this to happen. Ship-it Show’s disorganization, my impulsivity, Greg’s impulsivity, Tara and Rooster Teeth’s failure to reel Greg in, Ship-it Show’s ignorance, my poor decision-making, Tara’s stubbornness, Rooster Teeth’s accountability issues, my anger management issues, Tara’s insecurity channeled through her inability to take any criticism, my poor communication skills, acephobia, violation of boundaries, and our collective encouragement of blind idol worship spiraled an easily resolvable situation out of control.
I was shocked and disappointed when I got a lot of “I’m sorry you felt that ways” after sharing what transpired. I shouldn’t have been so surprised over the response; I have to acknowledge the role I played in encouraging the idolization of Grey and Tara. There’s a difference between admiration and idolization. Admiration is the ability acknowledge that you love Grey and Tara’s work, or even positive qualities they have, but are willing to hold them accountable for any poor behavior. It’s the ability to separate art from the artist. Idolization is the belief that Grey or Tara can do no wrong. When there’s criticism of your idol’s behavior, even constructive, it feels like an attack launched against you. Admiration is beautiful; Idolization is scary. While I aspired to encourage a community of admiration, I encouraged idolization instead. The existence of a fan account by nature contributes to the idolization of the celebrity in question.
Because I encouraged idolization, I essentially got a lot of “I’m sorry you felt that ways” when I shared what transpired. It’s a prime example of the idolization of these two individuals. Unlike stan twitter, which is full of teenagers, the people most entrenched in the idolization of Grey and Tara are grown-ass adults (there were some sketchy people following me too, some I just found TODAY, but that’s beside the point). The idolization of Tara Strong in particular led to a lack of accountability for her actions and a lack of preventative measures taken on the fandom end to ensure something like this never happened again.
It's like if we were working at a restaurant and I slipped and fell next to the soda machine. I look at the soda machine and see a leaking pipe. I attempt to clean it, but I can't do much without management. I report the incident to management and management gives me attitude when I ask if there's any way I could help them fix this. Management won't fix the leak, so I tell you guys, my coworkers, about the leak. Someone else is going to slip, fall, and get hurt. A lot of you say "I'm sorry you got hurt", then walk away without doing anything. The leak is still there. It hasn't been fixed. Someone else is going to get hurt.
Because of the idolization of Tara Strong, there was little accountability held towards Tara and such little preventative action taken. This is a really bad sign. I foresee a future incident. Something like this will happen again. It might happen years from now, but Tara’s going to once again demonstrate those behaviors she showed me. Someone else might get hurt, and I won’t be there to see it go down.
As I finish up my tenure as the head of a Grey DeLisle fan account, I’m just in awe. I left quite the legacy on the Grey DeLisle fandom. I never imagined some dumb Twitter account I drunkenly made would become this. I mean... I’ve long dreamed of running a major Grey DeLisle fan account... but wow. I’ve met so many interesting people, a couple who became close friends. I think I even found the Grey to my Tara through this account (in a professional sense). It’s just time to close this chapter in my life. Move on and take some time to heal from the past few months.
Thank you to everyone who’s followed over the years. I loved running this account during its prime. It’s time for things to end. If you want anymore Grey and Tara content, follow my friend Stefanie (@TaraGreyEdits) on Twitter.
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