Now Why Are You Guys Attacking the Very Nice Fabien Frankel on Instagram?
Leave it up to the most toxic side of a fandom to ruin something we love. Fabien Frankel is the very sweet and nice man who brings Criston Cole to life on House of the Dragon. While many of us have been joking around about how Cole acts on the series, fans turned to harassing Frankel about it.
The most recent episode of House of the Dragon saw an uptick in fans talking about Ser Criston Cole. While I thought it was all in good fun at the beginning with fans joking about his actions, it has clearly gotten out of control. Frankel has reportedly limited his comments on his posts after fans flooded them, writing to him as if he is Criston Cole.
What is it with people who cannot separate the actor from the character ruining everything for everyone else? Fabien Frankel is not Criston Cole. Cole is a fictional character in the fictional world of Westeros in the fictional show House of the Dragon. Frankel is a real man.
Knowing that Frankel was being harassed on social media has ushered in support from fans who can recognize a fictional character and the actor playing them are not, in fact, the same person!
It is honestly upsetting that Frankel had to go out of his way to limit the replies on his posts. Social media is a great way for actors to connect with their fans, who can share their love and support for a piece of art, but now because people could not figure out fiction from reality, that is gone for Frankel.
Quite frankly, things like this ruin the fun for fans too! We all were collectively making very light, loving fun of Cole and now if we do, it feels strange since you guys could not separate an actor from his character.
It is sadly something that happens a lot
Right now in pop culture, there is this very weird reaction to things. Hate has been flying around for a week because of the birthday of a character in Star Wars no one cares about. The cast of The Boys have been talking about how people think they are their characters and now this. It feels as if all media literacy and all sense of reality is gone.
Frankel is far from the first actor this has happened to but time and time again, fans think that an actor playing a role deserves to be attacked for their characters. It is exhausting. It happened with many actors from Star Wars and even Jack Gleeson (who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones) got a bit of this treatment as well but there comes a time when we really have to say enough is enough already.
Fabien Frankel truly is one of the nicest people I have met in this job. He was so much fun to be in a room with (and talk about the American Psycho musical with) and it makes me upset to think that so-called fans of this show could not recognize that what they were doing was weird and wrong. All the love to Fabien Frankel, you are brilliant and do not deserve this!
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