META: In Defense of Feels

[mithen]

I've seen, in a variety of places, decrying of what's sometimes called "Tumblr-speak," especially targeted toward the term "feels." "You should just say you feel something, not this ridiculous 'I have feels' thing," the argument goes. But today I wish to step up to the plate and give a light-hearted defense of "feels" for a moment--bear with me!





My main argument is that "feels" are actually qualitatively different from "feelings," and "having feels" is different from "having feelings" or "feeling something." "Feels" is actually a perfectly cromulent very useful word that describes a quite different emotional experience than "feeling" something. Specifically, feels are on the whole reserved for feelings related to the experience of fannish pleasure--in my experience, with an overtone of "a subset of extremely intense feelings that we all understand are linked to a fictional artifact." I've never heard anyone say something like "I had a lot of feels at my grandfather's funeral"--"feels" are reserved for Phil Coulson or the Doctor. I do see it used sometimes for a similar thing--emotions that are understood as fleeting but still crushingly intense while experienced--but on the whole it's used most often to discuss reactions to people and things not part of our day-to-day lives (Katara, Robert Downey Jr.).



"Feels" is a handy shorthand that serves to delineate a specific kind of emotional experience: one marked by intensity and purity that transcends "day to day" emotions of happiness and sorrow (with their often-muddied, contradictory undertones).



It's also a tongue-in-cheek way to downplay those emotions, to ironically distance yourself from them a little bit and make clear you don't take them that seriously. They're not feelings, they're feels. It's actually an incredibly useful and complex term, one that serves to mark a very specific kind of experience and to simultaneously elevate and disparage it. Feels are overwhelming, they blot out everything in a rush of emotion, either good or bad.



Feels are something to be savored and--at a certain level--enjoyed, even when they're negative. Sad feelings are awful; but watching something that gives you sad feels has a certain hyper-real pleasure to it (obviously, or certain creators wouldn't have such huge followings!)



The term is, far from being a corruption of the language, an elegantly precise word that serves a very useful function. So next time you feel reluctant to say something "hit you right in the feels" or to cry out "ow, my feels!" embrace your inner fan, let go of your inner grammarian, and go for it!

And with that, I humbly take my leave of you. Thank you for your consideration! Perhaps next year I shall try to parse and defend "I have lost my ability to can."

Comments

Re: here via month_of_meta

[mithen]

Now I'm cracking up at the idea of people saying "I have a lot of emotions about this!" :)

I'd say though that 'feels' are pure in their intensity, but also much more muddled than 'feelings'? For me, 'feels' often indicates having a bunch of emotions at once, particularly in that way that fiction can provide where, say, you're simultaneously excited because there's a new episode of your tv show, fascinated by its plot twist, and very upset because the plot twist makes a character you like sad, even if you think it's good for the story as a whole.

Ahhhhh, yes, yes! It's not just "A cute picture of Robert Downey Jr.," it's a gifset where an interviewer asks him "Now that you've turned 48, what are your long-term goals?" and he says "Honestly, to make it to 49" and there's this crazy mishmash of sympathy and sadness and respect all at once. Or to go fictional, yes, "Wow, Sherlock's death was very well-executed, and now I FEEL SO BAD FOR EVERYONE but it was really oddly satisfying BUT AUGH." So yeah, "pure" still feels right for that knife-blade intensity, but at the same time it's like...a whole lot of different pure knife-blades.

Wow, fandom sounds like SO MUCH FUN when described this way, doesn't it?

Re: here via month_of_meta

[opusculasedfera]

Perhaps the purity of it is more that it's just an emotion without necessary action attached? Obviously fandom does do tons of things in response to feels, but you don't HAVE to. If you want to flail about Sherlock's death and only flail, that's ok, in a way that it's not really ok if you're dealing with a rl death, or even a less serious rl event.


I don't know about fun, but it's certainly interesting? I like the idea that our mostly-female group is laying claim to having emotions and anguish and feeling really deeply about technical irrelevancies. Especially when you get (mostly) men going off the deep end about the incredible anguish of sports and how there are no words to describe the intensity and how enjoyable it is to raise hopes, and even have them dashed, and it's the best, truest thing in the world, etc., etc. and you just want to say, "yeah, buddy, you're just having feels, it's ok." Not that there's anything wrong with sports feels, but they're certainly not more meaningful than fandom feels, and I like how we've simply come to terms with them, instead of writing new articles monthly about how, gosh, has anyone noticed that sports inspire strong emotions, and sometimes, those emotions are not wholly joyous, but they are still nice to have????? How can this beeeeee????

Re: here via month_of_meta

[mekare]

LOL, your sports analogy is so true!

Re: here via month_of_meta

[mithen]

Perhaps the purity of it is more that it's just an emotion without necessary action attached?

Ah, I like this! It's a sort of...responsibility-free emotion, you can just enjoy it without having to think about practical, grinding mundane things.

Especially when you get (mostly) men going off the deep end about the incredible anguish of sports and how there are no words to describe the intensity and how enjoyable it is to raise hopes, and even have them dashed, and it's the best, truest thing in the world, etc., etc. and you just want to say, "yeah, buddy, you're just having feels, it's ok."

YES, dudes, you have feels too! I've noticed some slight acceptance of fannish emotions in men as well--there's a guy who does interviews who calls it "nerd tears," when you cry out of just sheer intense emotion. I like Feels better, though.

Re: here via month_of_meta

[opusculasedfera]

Interesting! I've never heard anyone use "nerd tears" before. In my experience, male-dominated fandom is still somewhat preoccupied with defending their interest in the fannish object at all, let alone their feels. Which, I suppose, is probably why it's sports that seems closest to admitting to feels, because they don't have to justify liking their thing to people, only the intensity of their emotions.