dangerous liaisons

WHILE THE ARCHETYPE OF THE CLASSIC 'HEARTTHROB' HAS BEEN AROUND FOR DECADES, A DANGEROUSLY COMPELLING KIND HAS EMERGED IN RECENT YEARS...

THE ART OF SHIPPING 'Shipping' (derived from the word 'relationship') is the desire by followers of a fandom for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters (in film, literature, television series, etc), to be in a romantic or sexual relationship.

Fans of TV shows like Supernatural or popular films like Twilight were constantly at odds with each other, claiming that certain couplings were obviously meant to be or would work so well together if only the show's writers would give them the chance! And whether or not that actually ended up happening in the story is almost irrelevant, so commonplace was this kind of discourse on platforms like Tumblr and the like. You may have even been sucked into it yourself, without even knowing that is, if you ever considered whether you were Team Edward or Team Jacob.

CAREFUL NOW

Which brings us to the point of this article: Why didn't it matter whether these media fulfilled the wishes of their fandom, never giving the people what they wanted? Well, we'd argue that it's because they already had it. See, while shipping may seem - at face value - to be about the characters on screen, it never truly is. In fact, it's about the fandom. More than just functioning as a mechanism of social cohesion, it's a way for those on the same side to insert themselves into the narrative; to say: "That's the kind of relationship I want!" Now, for some, that may already have set off alarm bells.