halfapint

This is a genuine question guys. I'd really like to hear your thoughts because this has been bugging the hell out of me for a while. XD

So what does the word 'bashing' mean to you guys? It's been thrown around on my flist a lot the last few days and I just... I find it VERY difficult in fandom to judge what is bashing and what isn't, and I find it difficult to judge not only whether what I say is bashing but what other people say too. I'm aware that "I don't really like -character-" isn't bashing, but at what point do you draw the line? Does repetitive put downs count as bashing ("-person- is so crap, -person is so much better-" posted in the same thread about sixteen times), and does language count (see previous example)? Obviously things such as the Gwen/Ianto or Martha/Rose/Amy things ( Glee spoilers for anyone watching as it airs in the UKCollapse ) make it obvious when bashing happens, but what about subtler instances?

As someone who has difficulty judging nuances like this anyway, it's kind of frustrating to not really know what gets classed as bashing and how to not accidentally offend someone when they might not be bashing but expressing an opinion. I recall one night on a comm I'm on (little fandoms, yay!) when someone threw a thread party celebrating the end of a writer's career and making comments about good riddance to bad rubbish, etc. Now, see, from what I've seen of fandom, that tends to get called bashing and I admit asked the person if they'd be a little more polite about it. Was that the right thing to do? Mind, I apologised immediately afterwards, but the fact is that the comm had been flooded with such needlessly horrible things and while I'm all for expressing yourself, some people liked that writer and was it really necessary to call them crap? It's funny how wording can effect it, too; the party thread didn't bother me in the slightest, but referring to the writer as 'bad rubbish' and 'crap' instantly got my back up (and I didn't even like the writer). Granted I'd had a VERY terrible day with my grandmother at this point, so this may have had something to do with it. My question stands - is that really bashing or just someone expressing an opinion.

I've been lead to believe that, short of a simple "I don't like this -object-" or a discussion about why a character is bad with actual justification, people will jump on someone for bashing. I've probably done it myself, and I'll apologise if I had. But it's really freaking confusing and THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is why I prefer to LURK.

Thanks~. <3