Drinking from a firehose

That made sense to me and I took it as a warning not to learn too much about the real people behind the characters I love.

This is so true. Back when I was writing Star Trek Voyager fanfic (nearly 15 years ago, which is like, 150 internet years), a lot of information was disseminated within the fandom about what a jackass in RL the actor is who played Chakotay, and it really colored my view on the character.

I've done my best since then to avoid learning too much about actors. There's only a rare few I care to follow on Facebook and they seldom talk about their personal lives.