Why Do Creators Hate Shippers?

Honestly I think part of it is just a few bad eggs. Some shippers can go absolutely nuts over their, uh, lemme just check the notes here.... OTP? OTP. Although according to these very official peer reviewed studies the same is true with all fandoms.

Additionally, I believe some creators just aren't okay with fans trying to "change" the already decided pairings or even just focusing too much on the pairings when that really isn't the message.

I think it's just a few bad eggs.

Or maybe the fact that you cannot really deal with shippers in a way that won't make you look bad in the end. You could say something about the rabid ones if they make you angry, but what do you do with the ones who just happen to ship something in your story that just doesn't sit well with you?

this^ I mean just to list a few:
Clance almost got an animation studio fired for Voltron
Fujoshi's paired 2 IRL brothers as lovers and almost ruined their relationship
Shippers of Tokyo ghoul harassed the creator to the point they had to leave twitter and go into hiding
Reylo harrassed the actors of fin and Kylo and in Kylo specifically, they attacked his wife and son.
Magi Shippers attacked the Creator for the Alibaba and Morgiana relationship

and these are only from the top of my head, can you really blame people for not liking shippers when this is what most hear about them?

Love my ass, they do it cause A) it's fun (even I talk to my sister about ships I like and we discuss on why one works and the other doesn't) and B) Most really just want to live vicariously from their ships (I mean if they really come from love then why the fuck would they pair so many toxic abusive and horrible ships, looking at you dekuXtodoroki and the super illegal KeithXShiro <-<)

yeah ships can be fun but don't say it's an act of love at most it's you saying this character should date this other one cause you like them together disregarding if the relationship would actually be good for said character

I for one don't care which of my characters people ship with others and I do enjoy drawing "crack ships" of my own characters but I do worry that people won't be satisfied with how the relationships finally turn out at the end.

I do think it is mostly a problem of bad eggs not respecting the choices of the creator especially when they choose to direct their complaints at the creator.

Either way, creators and readers should respect one another. The whole point of shipping is to play around with different possibilities, not to create like, "a better canon" or something.

You make it seem like shippers are discriminated minority group lol a creator can choose to not like them, they don't get any special privileges from any other fan. I can see why shippers are more annoying than other fans cause other fans headcanon important plot points the author has been teasing and working on while shipping its clear their headcanons are just for their own needs and not the plot. Especially if the story is not a romance story, shippers can be very annoying I imagine.

I feel like it's a pretty small percentage of creators that hate on their shippers. Most of them don't mind or just pretend like they don't see it. If you have creators that do mind, well then--that's a creator who minds. There's no concrete rule that says you must love it when your characters are shipped by rando's on the internet, and for some creators they have a very deep and personal connection with those characters.

Me personally I don't give a damn about any shipping at all, but some creators are sensitive souls and they're allowed to complain.

I can't speak as a creator because my comic is so small, but as a reader:

Aside from the illegal or very disturbing ships (and obviously harassment of IRL people, but I never saw that in works I read), the other kind I really don't like seeing (and find somewhat disrespectful to the creator) is when they are so OOC that they make no sense at all. It makes me think the person did not even read the story, or is superficially reading with one only purpose: finding people to ship with no concern on plausibility.

Otherwise I don't mind non-canon ships. Sometimes, when they are plausible, they can even be the contrary, a nice hommage to the creator ('we like your story enough to build more on it, and know it well enough to build logically).

I'm sort of the opposite personally x'D when there's a fandom I like and people just ship randomly all over the place, it's pretty annoying. But if people started random shipping my characters I'd think it was hilarious. But I do get those who hate it. They're your creations and sometimes it's really uncomfortable to think of them in ways you don't want them to be. It's like losing control of what you're suppose to be in control of.

Its seems to be less shipping but the actual shippers themselves. Like I have rarely really seen people actively hate shipping itself, with exceptions of of a few creator who hate any same-sex ship(thou in danny phantom's case the biggest detractor was a fan who harassed anyone who ship same-sex ship ) or when the ship is adult/child.

Like most shipper are cool people however the small minority tend to lead to the most toxic shit or the ones who make the head lines(eg, tokyo goul, voltron, starwars, ect).

I remember my brother and several others went from indifferent to actively disliking harry/Heromini in harry potter simply because the shipper were that crazy, with fanfics and rants and all sorts of shit(mrs scribe story is an oldy but most insane of them all) especially after the book ended. To the point people who like that ship but are not crazy actively separate themselves from those people with a diffrent name. (one fanfic I read as a joke had pedo apologia and I was grossed out).

Really I think creators just find it dumb when people act this way towards a relationship compared to reacting this way due to lore. Still dumb but not as dumb.

Me I'm fine with shipping and I do it myself, but I do not care if its one I dislike as long as the creator isn't a dick. But really I have baaaaaaaaad experience with fanatic shippers and fujoshis . Like people in general should just chill on this.

As a creator I don't mind shipping. I like they invest energy into my comic. I also would be happy to make illustration for them on my Patreon about these non canon ships.
This far I only got one comment what bugged me what was like:
"If you don't do the ship I want, I'll call your comic queer-baiting." (It was phrased more passive aggressive but I don't remember exactly)
It made me think WOAH!
It's hard to imagine it came from pure love. :DDD It was more like a blackmail.

Personally, I enjoy people shipping my characters but I could see how if someone was commenting about a clearly non-canon ship every few pages or so that could just get annoying.. unless if it were like funny or something.

On the other hand, there are certainly times when the canon pairings are clearly not working and the work becomes frustrating to read. I'm going to use my favorite example here, which I've brought up before, of Seraph of the End (spoilers for anyone not up to date with recent chapters).

So in this case, I suppose I would be an unhappy shipper. But even so I wouldn't go around and out of my way to bombard the author with "Mika/Yuu!!11" Like, it's their story. If they want to make a totally incomprehensible relationship, then that's their thing, but also don't get upset if people are like "Hey. You've built up this huge Mika/Yuu thing and now you're suddenly pulling Yuu/Shinoa out of your ass."

I don't mean at all that people have to obey or respect shippers, but if you pull crap like that, then you're probably going to get some flak for it.

Basically, there isn't anything wrong with criticizing the bad writing of a ship or the betrayal of a ship. What is bad when it gets to the point as others mentioned where it's constant bombardment or goes into harassment territory.

I don't mind shipper (even crack ones), however I have a low tolerance for when they get aggressive. I have seen hardcore shippers get angry at creators for ignoring their ships. And creators getting annoyed at shippers may stem from people feeling entitled to having their ship in the series.

The weirdest annoyed shippers I've seen was people who shipped the two girls from the When Marnie Was There after seeing only the trailer. Then after watching the film, they learned how wildly inappropriate that was and got angry at the film.

I can say as a creator, it may also come from past experiences. I have no issue with shipping, but rather the actions of the reader about that shipping. Harmless shipping is fine, a few comments here or there about how it's cute or something, but when a creator is constantly bombarded or even attacked for a ship not happening, that's the issue. (Also, creators can't tell when people are being sarcastic through a comment. I've read some comments that seem downright cruel, only for them later to come across as joking. It's difficult to tell what someone REALLY means, but that's a whole other topic.)

As some mentioned, it's a few bad eggs that ruin the experience. Unfortunately, those past experiences can lead to many creators just tensing up at the idea of it. I had that happen to me when someone read my story, back when I didn't have much of a fanbase, and started harassing me to the point that I was crying for days on end. I couldn't get on my Wattpad account without some form of aggression from this person that I ended up muting for my own safety, only for them to make another account to comment on every single chapter again; about 200 comments that you simply can't avoid seeing even when you try. They were so angry about their ship not happening and so hateful of a particular character that I lost all joy of writing. Eventually I reported them and it stopped, but to this day I definitely tense up when I see ships that aren't the main couple in my comments, especially since I do have a much wider audience now. The paranoia is there even when I know most are all in good fun. I'm still working on this, but I won't even read the comments of that particular story anymore.

Again, it's the bad eggs that ruin it for everyone else. I've had some people ship my characters. I try to ignore those comments and let them have their fun, unless it does actually make me uncomfortable lol then I may ask them to take their discussions to private messaging or something.

EDIT: Creators shouldn't be mean to the readers though because they don't like shipping. I think it's fine to discuss, perhaps let the reader know what is making you uncomfortable and hopefully negate it from happening again while also letting them continue to enjoy their ship.

A bit unrelated to the topic, but I'm really sorry that you had to go through that.

It sounds really scary. Hope you're feeling a lot better now though