Well said, well said.
Some crazy fans were so shocked and angry about the engagement... pure crazy.
Congratulation is really every fan should say. Period.

I am so with you on that! That is really well said.

I agree, they're people, just like you and me, they have feelings too and it amazes me how vicious some "fans" can be. There is absolutely NO NEED to be so horrible to anyone let alone someone you supposedly admire. I just don't get it, nor do I want to. I cannot understand how some people can't seperate their tv characters from the actual actors, ........ nope, just don't get it..........*shakes head*

Thank you for this well written article, let's hope it helps calm some of this madness.

CONGRATULATIONS Jensen and Danneel on your engagement!
CONGRATULATIONS Jared and Genevieve on your engagement!

AMEN! I've been preaching this to the multitudes of fandom friends I have!

THANK. YOU. I've been trying to get this idea into the heads of many for the past few weeks. Hopefully this article will help!

Alice, this is so incredibly timely and wonderfully well-worded. It's a reality check a rather sizable chunk of the fandom could really use.

Thank you for this, and bless you. I'm gonna pimp this around.
Cheers ~

Erin

Hear, hear! I've very much wanted to get involved in the Supernatural fandom, since I've loved the show since Day 1, but there's just been too much crazy for me to take. I can't say I'm surprised that this has happened, but I am highly disappointed in my fellow fans who would participate in this sort of behavior.

Thank you for speaking up on the side of sanity!! And on the off-chance that anyone involved sees this, many congratulations to both couples, and best wishes to them all.

Nice to see some common sense on a SPN fansite. I've actually given up on most sites because of the hurtful things I read there. Thank goodness for your site, Alice. You and the people who comment and blog here are a delight to "know" and I try and stop by everyday. Keep up the good work!

Alice,

Thank you for being a voice of reason always.

I think some folks forget those important life lessons we heard as kids. Here's a reminder:

"Do onto others as you would have done to you."

-AND-

"If you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

None of us will ever be friends with Jensen, Jared, Danneel or Genevieve, but we can be friends with each other. And I am SO grateful for the friends I've made through a common love for a TV show. So in addition to saying CONGRATULATIONS to the happy couples, I say THANK YOU for creating so many new friendships!

Sincerely,
Lindsay Warren

I do't understand why there has to be such nastyness, Jensen & Danneel, Jared & Genevieve deserve to have a life of their own. I congratulate them on their respective engaements and I wish them every happiness in life. I love the boys, and want tem to be happy and I'm happy for them as everyone should be!

Thank you so much, Alice. Being a little crazy is part of fandom. It's fun to gossip and speculate and be silly, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Unfortunately, this fandom has buried that line so far in the sand, I doubt they remember it exists. Honestly, I think it's only gonna get worse.

Very well said, Alice, and I completely agree with you. Congratulations to both happy couples.

I do agree, but unfortionately it is not that simple, (price to fame) people do care about them, and if you can't stop the gossip you can help control the slander at least. I do not claim to know anything one way or another, if they marry and it makes them happy I am happy for them, if they were with each other I would be happy for them. I wish they would just get back to the way they were and not be so isolated.

I totally agree with what you said, and wish it could be so, and I wish they could be themselves and be happy, and people could just appreciate them as actors. It is their bond that people are appealed to and why they have so much attention, good and bad. I would make all the slander go away if I could.

I totally agree with you. Congrats to both happy couples!

Thank you for your beautiful voice of reason.

Congratulations to Jared and Genevieve.
Congratulations to Jensen and Danneel.

Well said.

I'm always so disappointed when "the crazies" start giving the rest of fandom a bad name by association.

I really hope something will conk the trolls on the head and they'll realize how ridiculous they are being.

You'd think as a fan, you'd want Jensen and Jared to be happy and in love. If you hold an celebrity in such high-esteem, shouldn't that mean that you trust their judgement when it comes to their own happiness?

Alas, some people are just crazy.

All my love and congratulations to Jared and Genevieve and Jensen and Daneel.

Oh, yeah. Now everybody comes to thank you for what you've written.
I couldn't care less for what they do when someone shouts 'that's a wrap'. Being an actor myself, I'm used to hearing the awful expression 'they should know they'd be on the spotlight when they chose this career', like one thing automatically follows the other.
Well said, but half the people who clap you now will gossip about 'the real couple being Jensen and Jared' tomorrow.

I hope that what people take away from this is that the vast majority of fans ARE happy for Jensen and Jared and are NOT supportive of or impressed by the crazy fans who act this way.

We can't control the bad apples, and I do believe it is the same tiny minority that are going from place to place spreading hatred and lies.

What we CAN do, is support the actors, and the show, and watch the DVD's and discuss the meta of the story and the characters. Maybe that's the best way to be a fan, and leave everything else alone.

This is exactly what needs to be said. Thank you.

Thanks everyone for the comments! I'll admit, I wasn't expecting all this support. I knew a majority of the fandom was level headed, but this was a message for the minority and how they're ruining the fun for the majority.

I was expecting more comments about how they as being actors have asked for this. It's the lifestyle. The announcements may have come from publicists, and lord knows the PR game in Hollywood is done with the blessing of many of those actors, but that doesn't excuse bad fan behavior. I think the PR folks for Jensen, Jared, and Supernatural in general have been very respectful toward the show and the talent involved. Now the PR guys for Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, don't get me started.

Thanks everyone for all your comments. I get warm fuzzies knowing how great this fandom really is.

Beautifully said! They do an amazing job and deserve our respect and for their private lives to remain just that: private.

Congratulations to Jensen and Danneel and Jared and Genevieve.

I agree with you that actors should not have their privacy encroached on in any way, let alone in a vicious manner as was done for Jared & Genevieve's guest book.

However, to say that actors deserve our adoration for choosing a career path that is "more grueling" than ours? Bullshit. They may work long hours and stand around waiting for shots, but many people work 60-80 hours per week earning a fraction of what they earn. They're in the job for the compensation, not because they're self-sacrificing artists.

I've been a lawyer for ten years and I've never worked less than 70 hours per week. Should I receive adoration from others because of my career choice? Of course not. You're putting them on the same misguided pedestal that you're accusing others of using.

Hi Alice. Jensen and Jared are victims of a unique situation that is not typical hollywood gossip ala "Brangelina".You're too polite to say what's on most of our minds. The Jensen/Danneel, Jared/Gen debaucle all comes down to the crazy tin hat slashers. As long as high profile people like Ted Casablancas fuel the fire of their "Secret undying love", the tin hatters will continue to hack into wedding registries, and slam the prospective brides on any site with an open comments section. Its not bad enough they pollute with arguably the most offensive slash on the internet, but since the engagements, they have made me afraid to say Im part of the fandom.

ok serious stuff over. When my sister and I read about Jared's engagement we giggled all day saying "ooooh he's gonna be in so much trouble when Dean finds out"

Alice, I agree with you. Fans do not know Jared and Genevieve, Jensen and Daneel. They have no right to make baseless claims or insulting remarks. As with any couple who announce their engagement, we should offer them congratulations and wish them the bast.

Unfortunately, the Internet gives people the ability to post remarks anonimously. People would never criticize a friend about their engagement, but they think they can criticize actors, just because they watch their show.

Fans do not have some super-special inside knowledge of actors, including Jared and Jensen. I just roll my eyes when I see comments like: "Well I was at a convention, and I could tell that Jared/Jensen . . ." I just want to reach through the computer and slap their hand and tell them, "No, you do not have a tingly spider sense, only Spider-Man does. No, you are not a 'natural sensitive' like Mrs. Armstrong in Wishful Thinking so smugly and wrongly asserted she was. You are just a fangirl who has overstepped boundaries and let your own fantasies and desires cloud your judgment and ignore the facts."

It's so sad that so many fans can't seem to understand what you're saying. If we truly care about and respect Jared and Jensen, then we need to leave their private lives alone and trust them to make their own decisions. That includes who they want to marry. I hope that fandom can take a step back and think a little before we destroy what we have here.

Thank you, Alice. I couldn't agree with you more. All Jared and Jensen owe us is their best work, and boy, do we get that from them in spades.

I want to add my sincere best wishes to Danneel and Jensen and Genevieve and Jared. May they have many, many happy, healthy years together,.

Thanks again, Alice, for this website of calm and sanity and wonderful discussion about an amazing show.

Seriously my friend told me to go on twitter and search Danneel Harris,she said you wouldn't believe what came up - i was horrfied the abuse she has been getting is unreal, people calling her a racist and other just .... i was actually speechless i was so horrified. Imagine if that was yor friend. I think people tend to forget that they're real people and not commodities!

Also almost as disgusting someone found the password to Jared and Genieves wedding list, put it on the internet and people have been going on the site and leaving them nasty comments - i'm sorry it's just not right.

I don't know Jensen or Jared or any of their friends or family but it still makes me angry that people think they have the right to treat anyone this way. Who the hell do theythik they are? They ar not fans whatever they claim! Also on a personal note it makes people wary of their fans - 99.9% of us are normal but there are those few that take it too far. All we want to do is be entertained, talk about our favourite show but we end up getting tarred with the same brush as some hate filled moron. It makes me so angry for them!

I'm just so glad that i can come on here and just talk about the show with normal people.... this is like a haven against the crazy!

This is indeed as fascinating as it is disturbing. Sentences torn out of context, people reading some meaning into Alice’s article according to their own template.
I didn’t mean to get into this any further, but somehow my mind just won’t cease to push me.

Of course, many people who choose to go into acting know for the most part what they are going to expect (and there are those who are pushed into the business by over-ambitious parents and simply go on in the business because they haven’t learned anything else, of course, and those sometimes end up on my couch). It is a conscious choice, yes.
They know that their privacy might be invaded by people not belonging there, that they will have to do publicity work they might despise and answer questions of journalists and fans alike they have answered a thousand times, that there will be comments on their lives that might be hurtful.

Of the actors I’ve known in my life (mostly theatre strugglers who sometimes don’t know how to pay the rent next month) only one has become a well-known person which enables him to get better roles and actually have a say in what he wants to do instead of having to take on any job for the money alone. ‘I was young, I needed the money’ is unfortunately not a cliché, it’s very true.

But choosing that profession does not mean they have to like every aspect of it. It might just be a cost-benefit calculation over and over again – is the price I have to pay to do this job that I love worth it?

Every one of us sometimes probably complains about the job we chose. With what I’m doing, I’ll never get rich. I work many hours on – compared to some of my colleagues – low pay, because what I’m doing makes sense to me. For me the satisfaction comes with what I see I can do and that some people have a shot at a better life because I might have said a few right sentences. I’ll never be able to buy those gorgeous 300-bucks-shoes because I chose my branch. Had I wanted to make big money as a psychologist, I would have gone into advertising, military or ‘enhanced’ my clientele with celebrity, nobility, entrepreneurs, as some of my colleagues do. But I chose to not wanting to nurse narcissism (which is what most of them do, with exceptions) but try to do something I find meaningful.

There’s no one to blame but me if I don’t find every delight in this job I’d like to find. The verbal attacks I listen to sometimes are not easier to stomach that what seems to be going on within some parts of the fandom. But they-chose-this-job-so-they-have-to-take-what-comes-with-it just doesn’t fit.

Lack of civility on the fans’ part is not mentioned in their job description.

Having your job exposed to criticism comes with the trade, be it acting, advertising, law, journalism, whatever. Some people will not agree with what you do. That’s okay. We all know that.
The line needs to be drawn the moment that criticism begins to turn into a personal attack or hits the personal lives of the people in question. Then it shows far more about the person doing the bashing than about the – in this case – celebrity meant to be bashed. A guidebook example of a manners- and probably brain-free zone within the skull.

Of course, the moment we discuss the subject, we also become a part of this gossip machine, yes, but there is a difference – here I haven’t read one single strike below the belt in regard to the engagements of these actors. There have been – for the most part – comments that meant to show the fandom (and perhaps the actors, too): ‘Hey, look, I’m different! Those bile-mouths are only a small part of this fandom.’

To be completely free of gossip in whatever form we shouldn’t be commenting on the matter at all. Aha, they got engaged, noticed that, move on…
However, even if I don’t really like it, I’m not entirely free of that. I felt my heart leap when I read these news and was happy so see someone finding a shot at bliss. I was also delighted when Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett got their Oscars, because I just love those actresses, even though it is none of my business at all. I was glad to read that our mayor had been rewarded with a prize because I respect what he did to gain that.
None of that is, in truth, any of my business.

The moment we care about someone or something, we become biased. And this is perfectly alright if it is executed in a respectful way and if we are aware of that. Then we chose to be exactly that, in this case in defence of the privacy of two (or rather four) people we don’t know, but care about, albeit from afar. So far the level headed minds here have not said anything that would bring me to the conclusion that they laid claim to being a part of their lives.

The only demand we have is decency. And if Alice feels compelled to write an article and expose her views to criticism to make that point again (even though it has been made various times so far, but sometimes a reminder is needed… have you seen the amount of tweets?), so be it. My support is there. Jas

Just wanted to add my 'Well stated' and that I agree. Sometimes it's not too much effort to be happy for people that are happy. Sharing the link.

The only possible polite response to the announcement of any engagement to be married, whether it is a celebrity couple or one's oldest friend who may be making the worst mistake of their lifetime, is "I hope you'll be very happy".

To say anything else 1)displays a breathtaking sense of entitlement and 2) is extraordinary bad manners.

(In my culture, the old-fashioned approach, if it was a heterosexual engagement, was to congratulate and man and felicitate the woman. But I think that has been overtaken by the more recent developments on equality.)

I want to hear it from Jared Padalecki not read some good intentioned fan-girl drivel.

Jared wouldn't admit to having a girlfriend then he wouldn't admit to having a fiance. Will he admit to having a wife?

If he loves Gen that much then he should be willing stand-up for her and ask fans to back off. What's he so afraid of?

It's time for Jared to act like a man.

Excuse me, I come here for TMZ-style reporting, not discussion about the fruit of their acting labors. Sheesh.

Great article, Alice.

Truthfully, I think it's rather sad that an article like this even has to be written. I hope that most of the fans that act this way are just youngsters who just don't know any better.

Just because they're well paid, doesn't mean that they deserve this disrespect. They definitely have the right to be with whomever it is that they love without any input from the fans, other than to wish them well.

Thank you for writing this, Alice. It should be required reading for everyone in the Supernatural fandom.

Hear! Hear! Very well said.

It still stuns me the lengths to which some fans will obsess over actors and presume that actors should behave according to the storyline scripted in these fans' heads. No doubt these fan types are frightening to these actors, and I applaud the security teams that keep them safe.

I wish Jared and Genevieve, Jensen and Danneel much love and a lifetime of joy and happiness with each other.

I guess everyone has put their scent-marks into the mix by now, so can we move on now and concentrate on what we love about this show?
, Jas

Amen, sista.

Suze, dear, where have you been? Missed your comments... Come back, again, soon... , Jas