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A short rant on people that take shipping too seriously

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I was originally going to let this while 'shipping debates' deal float by, just giving my opinion on it and then letting it rest, but after what happened yesterday, I feel that I have to make this thread because otherwise this forum might rapidly degenerate into a cesspit of trolling and flamewars.

Let's first establish what a Pokemon ship is, because people seem to misinterpret this all the time.

A ship is a percieved relationship between two characters of the Pokemon anime. By far, the most popular ships are those involving the main cast (Ash & friends, team Rocket, etc). Notice that I said percieved relationship. The relationship does not really exist, something that is refered to as not being canon.

Then, if these relationships do not exist, why do people support them? Well, writers like to 'shiptease' their fans. they add subtle bits of information that infer something might exist between characters, and it might blossom into full blown love between them in the future. These are called shipping hints, and they are generally things like characters holding hands, or blushing at eachother.

There are strong hints, there are weak ones, but what goes for pretty much all hints is that shipping hints are subjective. Most shipping hints can be explained in a way that they don't seem hints at all. Holding hands can be explained as a strong friendship instead, blushing can be explained as embarassment regarding that particular situation. In this light, you might understand how someone that doesn't support a certain ship can get wound up in a massive argument with someone that does support the ship, simply because it all boils down to personal interpretation, and neither person is right or wrong.

Since everything is down to personal interpretation, and there are so many different ships regarding the main cast, this can lead to a lot of friction. Why? People think ships are mutually exclusive. Which is nonsense. Technically, Pokeshipping, Advanceshipping and Pearlshipping can all exist simultaiously, because these ships occur during different points in the Pokemon timeline. Heck, even if they existed together, it could work. People can develop a crush on multiple people at the same time, and since none of these ships have yet developed into full blown love, there is no reason Ash could have feelings for Misty, May, Dawn (Gary, Pikachu, really you can add things onto this till ypu hit a character limit) at the same time. Or when you turn it around, the girls shipped together with Ash and their various Rivalshippings.


This is about the point where I bring up Archaic's Thread, which at one point devolved into a discussion about how people might disagree with a ship, and they would be free to debate about the matter.

BIG MISTAKE.

As we established earlier, shipping hints are subjective. they're entirely based on personal opinion. Debates are not based on personal opinion, they are based on facts. A ship is not a hypothesis or a theory, something that you can disprove. It's a concept. Something based on a series of subjective events. If a ship was a hypothesis, everyone should be forced to support the ship until it was disproven. This is obviously not the case.

You either believe or you don't. That's how easy it is. It's much like religion. Atheists will argue with Theists until the cows come home, and the truth is that neither side will ever convince the other side of being wrong, because they can't prove that the other side is wrong.

That's why you really shouldn't encourage debating a ship, because neither side will ever win the argument. I already said this before, but when you have a debate that neither side can win, it will devolve into a flamewar as both sides will eventually run out of arguments and will resort to personal attacks.

This is exactly what happened yesterday in the Advanceshipping thread. As pokeshippers came in and started debating that advanceshipping didn't exist, the discussion quickly turned sour. The pokeshipping thread is now rife with people gloating about how they managed to rile up the advanceshippers, who had their active thread suddenly interupted by people that demanded them to explain why they supported advanceshipping, and then constantly handwaving their arguments as being not good enough. It doesn't look like it's going to end here either, as people only seem to quit bickering because they had to go to bed.

Thread synopsis, TL;DR for people with less than two brain cells:
- Encouraging people to debate ships is essentially giving people a license to troll.
 
No kidding :/ Shipping is supposed to be fun, not OMG THIS IS TEH POINT OF TEH SERIES kind of stuff.

I notice this kind of stuff seems to happen with the same two ships too :/ *sigh* Militant Pokeshippers and Advanceshippers need to calm the hell down and take a chill pill. I'd hate to see what would happen to them if Ash confessed his feelings for Gary or Brock or Ritchie at the end of the series XD;
 
and this is why I don't argue shipping anymore. I just say, "Pokeshipping is the only shipping with concrete hints and a strong chance of being canon. Shut up."

And then I walk away and never come back.
 
Not to sound like a dick or anything, but I'd probably be offended by that statement if I actually cared much about evidence XD; Just kinda makes it sound like Pokeshipping is the only legit ship. The 'shut up' doesnt help either.

But I ignore any and all Ash ships, so there we go. *shrug* Just saying it kinda comes off as high and mighty.
 
and another missed, another one missed, another one missed the point...

It doesn't matter that I prefer Pokeshipping, it's just I find debating impossible so I just make a final statement and leave. End of debate.
 
Masked Stranger said:
You either believe or you don't. That's how easy it is. It's much like religion. Atheists will argue with Theists until the cows come home, and the truth is that neither side will ever convince the other side of being wrong, because they can't prove that the other side is wrong.
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I've got to strongly disagree with this statement in particular, because there's a big failure of logic here. The issue isn't proving that someone is wrong. It's proving that they're not right.

The default position in any shipping discussion should be the assumption that no shipping is "true". Statements regarding hints and evidence are statements made in support of an idea that this default state is not true.

As for the idea that you can never convince the other side.... demonstrably false with shipping. You may have a hard time comprehending the idea that people could change which ships they support based on evidence and discussion for which ship may "come true", given that you come from a background of supporting a ship simply because it's cute, but it's happened countless times in the history of a fandom. I myself am a prime example. I used to be a GymShipper, of all things, changing my tune mid-Kanto after being thoroughly whipped in a shipping debate back in 1999.

Masked Stranger said:
There are strong hints, there are weak ones, but what goes for pretty much all hints is that shipping hints are subjective. Most shipping hints can be explained in a way that they don't seem hints at all. Holding hands can be explained as a strong friendship instead, blushing can be explained as embarassment regarding that particular situation. In this light, you might understand how someone that doesn't support a certain ship can get wound up in a massive argument with someone that does support the ship, simply because it all boils down to personal interpretation, and neither person is right or wrong.
Click to expand...

A brain bug here for people outside the debating sphere is the idea that every possible subjective opinion of a scene must be equally valid. That's not true. We can make judgements on how valid an idea is, through observation and discussion.

When you ship because you believe that ship is "true", then you're making a subjective statement that what you believe is the one correct interpretation.

While these statements made by each shipper are subjective, there is however an objective interpretation of events for this, or indeed for any fictional series. It's called writers intentions. What a shipping debate therefore is, is the seeking out of the writers intentions through discussion of the validity of multiple subjective viewpoints. You yourself recognize that there are such things as strong hints or weak hints. How do we know what's strong and what's weak? Because the hints have been examined and judged. The assumption approaching any scene must always be that a shipping hint is not a hint at all. It only becomes a hint when it can be shown to be significant in some way, that defies explanation in non-shipping terms. In other words....if it can be easily explained as only showing friendship, then it must be assumed to be showing only friendship and nothing more. Or in more simple blunt terms...a shipping hint is only really a strong hint if it's ridiculously blunt..

Really, what this all boils down to though, is that if you're not interested in Shipping debate, you should not start making claims about the validity or lack thereof of evidence for any ship. In return, shipping debators should in general try to keep their debates out of the way of those who would be troubled by them. That means making new threads (or social groups) specifically for them, and not invading the "sacred" general discussion threads for each ship with arguements.
 
I still don't agree with you, and I believe you're not entirely grasping the concept of subjectivity. No matter how well you judge the quality of these things, there will always be groups of people that disagree with your statements, because they view things differently. So far, these groups of people have been avoiding each other, and people simply believe whatever they want to believe, without other people telling them they're wrong. After all, there's no reason to tell them they're wrong.

If you're going to encourage debate, only bad things will come of it. You can't debate things that rely so heavily on interpretation and personal views. You really need to let this whole thing rest, or it will blow up in your face like a multi megaton nuclear warhead.
 
When I used to do the debating thing years ago, I did it because it was fun. I never took shipping seriously, but it was still fun debating with everyone (Palletshippers back then) and it was interesting seeing where the other side was coming from. Brought back memories of when I used to be in my high school's Debate/Forensics team.

As long as those involved don't get all...overly serious, it should be fine. One can debate something without taking it in an overly serious manner.

I'm not doing the debate thing this time around, but it'll probably be interesting to read every once in a while.
 
If you don't want to get involved in debates, that's fine. Enjoy your preferred ships because you think they're cute. But you're not in a position to tell people who enjoy debating ships in a civil manner to stop doing it because "you can't convince the other side".
 
Masked Stranger said:
I still don't agree with you, and I believe you're not entirely grasping the concept of subjectivity. No matter how well you judge the quality of these things, there will always be groups of people that disagree with your statements, because they view things differently. So far, these groups of people have been avoiding each other, and people simply believe whatever they want to believe, without other people telling them they're wrong. After all, there's no reason to tell them they're wrong.
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You've missed my point. The fact that there still will be disagreements in the end due to different perspectives is entirely irrelevant. Of course, the mythical end goal would be for everyone's opinions to converge down to a point, but that's never going to happen. But the fact that you will never 100% convince someone else to your viewpoint is totally beside the point. You can still have discussions over things, and you can still modify each others viewpoints over time as each side starts to incorporate new ideas into their arguments, due to being shown other perspectives on events.

And I believe I've quite clearly pointed out why there are reasons to tell people they're wrong. Better standards with regards to evidence betters us as shippers overall.

Masked Stranger said:
If you're going to encourage debate, only bad things will come of it. You can't debate things that rely so heavily on interpretation and personal views. You really need to let this whole thing rest, or it will blow up in your face like a multi megaton nuclear warhead.
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I disagree. No matter how much they may rely on interpretation and personal views (though as I've already stated, we know there is an objective truth out there for this, that being writers intent), debates can still be fun. Sure, there may be one or two bad apples, but that's for people like me and the mods to worry about, not the average user. ^^;
 
Kasumi said:
If you don't want to get involved in debates, that's fine. Enjoy your preferred ships because you think they're cute. But you're not in a position to tell people who enjoy debating ships in a civil manner to stop doing it because "you can't convince the other side".
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This.

I love debating. It's fun for me. If you don't like debating, more power to you but like Kasumi said, you can't tell people who like debating ships that it's pointless.

BTW I just agree with the title, not your reason though.
 
Masked Stranger said:
This is exactly what happened yesterday in the Advanceshipping thread. As pokeshippers came in and started debating that advanceshipping didn't exist, the discussion quickly turned sour. The pokeshipping thread is now rife with people gloating about how they managed to rile up the advanceshippers, who had their active thread suddenly interupted by people that demanded them to explain why they supported advanceshipping, and then constantly handwaving their arguments as being not good enough. It doesn't look like it's going to end here either, as people only seem to quit bickering because they had to go to bed.

Thread synopsis, TL;DR for people with less than two brain cells:
- Encouraging people to debate ships is essentially giving people a license to troll.
Click to expand...

Well, Archaic commented on everything else, very accurately. So I'll comment on this.
What Pokeshippers were saying Advanceshipping didn't exist? I don't remember reading that anywhere, and I was the 'Pokeshipper' who was debating. I wasn't debating as a Pokeshipper, I was debating to help Advanceshipping, but believe whatever you want. Also, the Pokeshippers weren't 'gloating' about you guys over reacting, we were merely stating what they saw from it all, and it gave them a few laughs.

Your thread was interrupted(if you can call it that) by me. Not people(plural). I didn't demand they say why they support Advanceshipping, I'm not sure where you got that from.

Handwaving their arguments? Really? I don't believe(could have forgotten) a single point of mine was legitimately rebuked.

Yeah, that is why it ended, because I was tired. However, I didn't feel like starting up the 'debate'(if you can call it that) again today. I just corrected one major point, and that was it.

For the last part, I agree with Kasumi. If you want to debate then debate, if you choose not to then no one is forcing you.
 
They don't NEED to rebuke your arguments. That's the point. They can ship it for whatever reason they want to. They don't have to answer to anyone but themselves. Hell, they could ship it because they both have headwear, but it's still their business. Hell, I wouldn't want someone messaging me or something being all 'EXPLAIN WHY YOU LIKE THORTON X EUSINE' because I wouldn't really have an answer for them other than 'because I like it'.

The whole thing is two-sided of course. The other side is no more innocent. In order for the drama to stop, both sides need to chill out. :/
 
I believe I said that? If they don't want to debate, then they don't need to. However, DD decided to debate, and did not rebuke my points with proper evidence.

You can believe whatever you want, but if you choose to debate, then I will debate as well.
 
*shrug* Shipping 'evidence' is all in the eye of the beholder. It might not have been 'proper' evidence to you, but it might have made perfect sense to him/her D:
 
AshFanGirl(: said:
I believe I said that? If they don't want to debate, then they don't need to. However, DD decided to debate, and did not rebuke my points with proper evidence.

You can believe whatever you want, but if you choose to debate, then I will debate as well.
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How the heck do you rebuke a personal opinion based on subjective events? "That doesn't seem very shippy to me" is not an argument. It's an opinion. If you expect someone to rebuke that, you're dense.

http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/showpost.php?p=1277162&postcount=5783

Handwaving.

You: May left to be with Drew.
Me: No, May left to find her own style.
You: THAT'S RIDICULOUS.
 
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And your point there Itsuki?

Most people here aren't used to debate, they're only in the early stages. Agreement is only a mythical end goal, it's not the actual working objective, which is the exploration of ideas and opinions from other perspectives, to better know the minds of the creators.
 
Archaic said:
And your point there Itsuki?

Most people here aren't used to debate, they're only in the early stages. Agreement is only a mythical end goal, it's not the actual working objective, which is the exploration of ideas and opinions from other perspectives, to better know the minds of the creators.
Click to expand...

But ofcourse you realize that that is only going to end up in people trying to force their perspective on others, people becoming horribly offended, resulting in a complete shitstorm and lots of people wishing things could just go back to the way they were, right?
 
Itsuki said:
*shrug* Shipping 'evidence' is all in the eye of the beholder. It might not have been 'proper' evidence to you, but it might have made perfect sense to him/her D:
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*tug* You don't use evidence for your pairs, Oos. You got use-of-coincidence. Which I use, too.
 
As a man who has read a fair bit on shipping, I can kind of see where Archaic is coming from. My first impressions were that many shipping hints/evidence were based on a faulty understanding of the context in which the characters move in, and in some ways a faulty estimation of human nature. The debate is generated by deciding to what extent a hint can be considered fitting of human nature or not. And indeed a debate is about dialectics until thereotically both parties come to a common conclusion.

However, the subjectivity is not generated by the eye of the beholder so much as doubt over what the writer's intent was. If we must accept anything as inevitable, it should be that we all have different experiences and expectations of romance and frienship and THAT is what will most colour or interpretations of a given ship

Tullio
 
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