This is rich, isn’t it. Rich?

Read the caps from bottom to top.

In my opinion, it would be really, really helpful, most helpful, in fact, if Richard Armitage’s fans noticed this, but rather as a means to encourage fans NOT to police each other. Fans telling each other how to behave regarding non-criminal behavior is the single most annoying moment of our fandom. It also regularly leads to bullying-like behaviors.

If a fan does something you don’t like, as long as it’s not against the law, ignore it. We can use our “mute” or “block” options. Let everyone look to his/her own conscience — I for one have enough to do if I stick to that. And fandom is more fun that way — for all of us.

Screen shot 2016-01-16 at 4.37.25 PM

~ by Servetus on January 16, 2016.

85 Responses to “This is rich, isn’t it. Rich?”

  1. Oh geez. -.-

    Sure am glad there’s someone out there to shame and police my behavior. I might have forgotten I’m a grown-ass adult woman otherwise.

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    • That’s what came through to me from this message, too. Shame on you. Not just people who do something that’s the equivalent of sending junk mail, a nuisance, but harmless, but shame on Armitage fans in general.

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  2. you can’t have your cake and eat it too. if some fans think she has an “in” with Richard, that’s perfectly understandable considering the way she’s aligned herself with our fandom in the past. but instead of addressing this with kindness and tact, she calls out our fandom for this annoying behavior publicly instead. and our fansites should help her clean up the mess? I think someone needs a lesson is public relations.

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  3. eyeroll

    Really.

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  4. Correct me if I’m wrong, but she hasn’t interviewed him in over a year, right????

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  5. I agree, Serv, and also with your comments, Kelly. I think singling out RA fans in particular rather than a more general statement is pretty tasteless, and makes me think she’s annoyed about more than just this. I already see some fans annoyed about being tarred with this brush, and think this probably won’t serve her well in the long run.

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    • “Sorry can’t help” and a block would do wonders.

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      • Right! How hard would that be?? smh

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        • Not hard, but if you have to do it on a regular basis it would be pretty darn annoying.

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          • She’s a journalist, though, so it’s part of her job. But honestly, how often do you think she’s doing it? Do you think she is even doing it once a day? Once a week?

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            • Yes, she is a journalist, so no doubt she deals with the same stuff that all journalists do in the online space. But apparently in this instance it is outside of the ordinary, beyond the normal stuff she deals with.

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              • I doubt it. She’s been shaming us since December of 2014, and possibly before that — I just wasn’t watching as closely before I became a target.

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                • So you think she is fabricating or grossly exaggerating this?

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                  • Fabricating, no. Anyone who spends a lot of time on Armitage gets a certain amount of odd mesages. All of the fan sites have to stress, repeatedly, that they are not connected with Armitage and cannot / do not pass on messages (although I suppose she would be an exception, since she has a kind of direct connection to him that none of the fan sites have). That she is blowing a nuisance into a big deal in order to get attention? Yeah, I think that’s entirely possible. I think some other people think that, too, it’s just no one’s been so impolite as to say that, yet.

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  6. Oh dear! Who besieged my favorite candidate to the Pulitzer Prize? 😦

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    • LOL — the price of fame.

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      • I think she is up for the “best hair extensions” Pulitzer category. It’s competitive: journalists’ rigorously persue high grooming standards. She is also a strong contender in the false eyelash category.

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  7. Shaming and kind of boastful too in a round about way. I don’t follow her on Twitter…does she play other fandoms the way she played ours?

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    • I dunno, because she blocked me for a while, and I don’t really follow other fandoms. I know she tried and tried and tried to get interviews with the Outlander people — don’t think that every happened? I think Armitage is possible the celeb, and thus the fandom, that she got closest to.

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  8. Just noticed it on Twitter where her tweets have been retweeted. And I feel quite put out by it. Partly because I feel shamed as a fan of RA. But also because it sounds like a call for a witch hunt to me, for which the fandom is being instrumentalised.
    And please – I doubt that this sort of thing only happens in our fandom! All considered, I really think her whining serves less as a real deterrent, but is just another way of getting attention for herself. Not to be dignified with further response.

    Liked by 1 person

    • You and I just differ on this. For me, defending fans is important because we are shamed at every turn. The pattern is interesting — we got it from Sarah Dunn, we got it from some of the Hannibal folks — and if it’s a general phenomenon associated with being a fan, I’m going to write about it — and have written about it before as a general pattern. They want you to “buy in” but if you don’t behave according to their fantasy of how you should behave — shame, shame. Or even if you do, because if you do do what they want, then they shame you for being ridiculous.

      But I certainly understand the arguments for your reaction.

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  9. Does she not know how to set up email filters and use twitter blocking?

    Although I am kind of cruelly amused by this – she seemed to want fans to think she had a special relationship/connection with him, wanted to be a mouthpiece to the fandom, and now that some people take that seriously she finds it inconvenient . . .

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  10. aha, okay. I apologize. Thanks for clearing it up!

    There’s just so much shame in fandom already, we don’t need people magnifying it or encouraging it as a general cultural practice.

    I can get that from the dentist, lol.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Why would I, as an “RA fan group” (I presume I am in that group as I blog and have some followers) even want to get involved in this? I could imagine that “it’s the only fan group this happens with” because RA is the only star TAC has ever been able to interview at length, but maybe I’m wrong and maybe many other reasons play into this. Fact remains, I don’t know why this happens, I don’t know who does it, I wouldn’t know who to address! Why should I scold my readers for something that I think they don’t even do? This is something between TAC and these date-seekers. Just block the wackos, tell them off in private if needs be, and be done with it!

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    • Yeah, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that “don’t put beans up your nose” folktale, but this feels like that for me. Even if we could identify people who were likely to be doing this, it would be pointless to tell them not to (they are not listening to us anyhow).

      It’s a bit like how out of joint people used to get about that story that someone sent him a bikini picture of herself with the phone on it. Okay, whatever. Cost of doing business. I wonder if it helps people’s feelings of self-righteousness, though?

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      • I don’t get the bikini picture reference but the beans up your nose thing – yes! I was thinking that too! I can so imagine that now she’ll be getting more people than ever seeking dates with RA… ah, the joy of attention…

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        • He revealed in a newspaper interview around 2009 that someone had sent him picture of herself in a bikini, with her cell phone number written across it. He was embarrassed (mentioned that his mum sees this stuff) and it was a sort of stone of contention back in the day — is it okay to send Armitage questionable stuff?

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      • What a literary eye-opening I get from this community! I just looked up the beans-up-your-nose story.

        I agree with everyone who says these tweets were attention seeking.

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  12. Oh she’s just tooting her own horn. There’s a whiff of desperation there IMHO. I tend to agree with the ‘ignore her’ camp because although I agree that fan shaming is a low act, any attention just extends her 15 minutes of fame, and we can all do without that.

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    • Unfortunately she’s been on my mind a lot lately because I’ve been trying to come to terms with 2014/15. But yeah, her professional future is her own thing.

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  13. i don’t blame you for that. I’d like to say karma will catch up with her but unfortunately it sometimes seems to take its sweet time.

    ((((((((Hugs))))))))))

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    • Thanks 🙂

      Her fate is her own, I think — the thing that I’m trying to figure out is how the encounter with her affected my fandom, and oddly that’s not really all about her … stay tuned.

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  14. I replied to her. Now I want some cheese.

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  15. […] Hmmm. Be careful what you wish for Marlise.  I think some Richard Armitage fans will definitely be reporting on this. See here, This is rich, isn’t it Rich? […]

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  16. Pepperjack!!

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  17. A comment from an Outlander fan:
    The Rank and File ‏@RRankinFans 5h5 hours ago
    @AnglophileTV haha I’m sorry for laughing but that’s hilarious! Like don’t you have any real work to do?? 😂😂 #KeepThemToYourself

    IMO we’re the only fan group she’s had any measurable contact with. She also added:… It’s aggravating! I’ve become the Anglophile Dating Service! #Grrgh If you only KNEW what I’ve had to put up w/this group.

    Exactly how does she decide who is in the “group?” I would think she would have enough knowledge of the internet to know there is a wide variety of people represented fandom or no.

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    • What group?

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    • I think it’s odd to assume that organized groups of fans would likely have any influence at all over what the odd fan does or doesn’t do. I mean, I can prevent you from speaking on my blog, but I can’t prevent you from tweeting anyone else for any reason. Without more information — I mean, who knows, it could be someone from China who misunderstands what is going on due to translation or cultural differences, or it could be a teenager doing it on a dare, or it could be … I mean, I could go on and on. Worst case, it’s someone disturbed — in which case fans will have zero affect on what that person does …

      Liked by 1 person

    • Marlise answered “Exactly” to the comment from TheRank and File so perhaps I misread it. I thought they were asking Marlise if she had any real work to do. Anybody else read it the way I did?

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      • I think it was unclear — I also assumed that “you” was MB. But maybe “you” was “fans who PM Marlise asking for dates.”

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  18. Better and better: https://twitter.com/AnglophileTV/status/688542709619896321

    She didn’t like a tweet she got at her personal account so she uses her media account to shame the fandom. #honestlymarlisewhohasboundaryproblems

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    • That seems pretty disproportionate & sweeping to me. I guess the intent is for us all to be embarrassed, ashamed & turn on each other, rather than simply unfollow TAC en masse if we really make her life so difficult. Understand, I’m not proposing that, but if she wants to treat us as a monolithic herd, that could cut both ways. I understand the annoyance factor, but there are more professional & less insulting ways she could have addressed this.

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      • It’s like I said, you can’t capitalize the fandom while suppressing it. I didn’t want to be rude to her, but you can’t have it both ways. She didn’t reply to my latest comment so I dunno.

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      • yeah. This is an issue I have myself — students who find out my private address and write me at it. It would be like after getting an unwanted mail at that address, I yelled at all my classes. Tja.

        I think if someone proposed that she be unfollowed it could be characterized as bullying (also I already don’t follow her, I think). But this is definitely a turn-off.

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        • Correct, but I think getting DM’s at a personal twitter acct is different (& more easily handled) scenario than students emailing your personal address.
          And of course, she talks about the whole Anglophile world, not just Richard, which some fans maybe got confused about in the past. Once again, we’re grownups and can make up our own minds about the value of the site to each of us personally, depending on our interests 🙂

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    • LOL! Sorry for laughing so hard. This whole situation is hilarious.

      Like her, instead of shaming the RA fandom, I took it upon myself to shame my Lucy for destroying something very expensive I bought. I was really angry and pissed, so I posted pictures of my Lucy with the item she destroyed.

      As soon as I read this Anglophile dating service thing with RA situation, I thought wow. I was doing exactly what she was doing, but to my poor Lucy. Realizing this, I deleted my tweets.

      MB may or may not be receiving these PMs for hook-ups with RA. Unfortunately, by expressing displeasure at the RA fandom it only made her look bad to many people. IMO, I think people should give her the benefit of the doubt. She is only human like the rest of the people commenting on this. Except me, I’m a dog if you haven’t noticed.🐶😄😜

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  19. Thank you, I wasn’t trying to toot my own horn there. Or was I?.???? Sorry, I am a bit sleepy and hyper. I agree, I once went through the same thing Servetus, so I get where she’s coming from. But hashtagging Richard was not going to help her cause but draw more attention to her.

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    • I just finally saw the theory expressed that this is all clickbait — so it’s more than attention that she wants #baitingthearmitagefansforprofit

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  20. I remembered this gif and thought it appropriate 😀

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  21. I don’t get this. I may be naive (the story is repeating itself (shrugs)). I just don’t get it. When Marlise Boland receives these requests on her private twitter count to set up dates with RA, (and how many requests is she talking about?), why does she then reply en-masse on her public, business twitter account? Communicatively, it’s all wrong, and it doesn’t make sense. What’s the purpose of it? I don’t get this. Other than this comment, I choose to ignore…

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    • it occurred to me after looking at the Armitage stream on Twitter this morning that she wanted to get some attention during the excitement about the awards show this evening. Good time to stir up a storm.

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  22. I’m thinking, “It’s January. Things are slow. MB is bored so she thinks it’s time to revisit her old hobby of creating a shit-storm in the RA fandom.”

    I haven’t thought about her in probably over a year now. It was nice. Now I am going to go back to pretending she doesn’t exist, because she is doing nothing useful and everything that’s negative and attention-seeking. If Richard Armitage is smart, he’ll stay clear of participating in any more interviews with her. She is pretty unprofessional.

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  23. It seems pretty obvious if you answer on a public forum what could have been answered in a private way what the purpose was. Public notice for her show. RA is probably one of the most drawing of guests she has interviewed on her show and she needs more publicity if even in connection to his name. To totally pinpoint a whole fandom shows such a lack of common sense and lack of professionalism it amazes me that she would even go there. She does herself and her twitter channel more harm than anything else.

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  24. […] “This is rich, isn’t it. Rich?” January 16, 2016. Marlise Boland complains about Richard Armitage’s […]

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