Hey everyone, I wanted to talk to you today about something
a bit more serious. In terms of mainstream acceptance and sheer scale of
dissemination through popular culture, it has never been a better time to carry
the title of ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’. If you look at the films with the highest
grossing openings, not only are the top three spots held by geek culture movies
(Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World, and The Avengers) but in
fact the top thirteen places are held by films within the genre, only interrupted
by Furious 7. You can walk into any Target, Spencer’s even Wal-Mart and easily find a plethora of clothing, accessories, and collectibles
to proudly proclaim your love of all things geeky. Conventions are huge and
plentiful, with cons like E3, the New York Toy Fair, and San Diego Comic Con
becoming entities unto themselves as places of premiere news, trailers, and
announcements to both geek and mainstream media. We made it guys, widespread
acceptance!
So why does it feel like we’re
more divided as a community than ever? When we should be united in celebration
of our ascension we instead argue internally, warring like petty generals after
the death of a conqueror. So I want to discuss what seem to be the pertinent
points that cause this divide, and perhaps in recognizing these faults we can
prevent them from tearing us apart from within.
1.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a
powerful tool. It’s also one that carries a double edge. It’s why franchises of
any sort continue, because it provides a connection to the audience over time.
Without that connection, without that fond remembrance of that show, or movie,
or game, or band that you love or have loved, you wouldn’t feel the need to
revisit it. You wouldn’t feel any of the same excitement about a new venture
within that universe without it. And whether wielded deftly to fit organically
into the new entry (The Force
Awakens), or bludgeoning you with
it like a wildly swinging crutch (Jurassic
World), it has an effect.
Unfortunately, the other edge of the blade is having such a nostalgic
attachment to something that any change or new idea is seen as sacrilege and a ‘ruining’
of something beloved. This is not entirely without merit: reboots fail, new
entries or forays into different media flop, and new characters fall short of
the originals. That being said, doing nothing new invites stagnation,
and a slow death to the thing you love and hold so dear to. You see it in all
fandoms and even genres (looking at you, music), the purists, the die-hards. If
you do something different then it’s the end of the world, but if you do the
same thing over and over again then you’ve got nothing interesting to say or do
anymore. But in reality, every franchise, every character, every band has that
one entry or song or story that is a bit different compared to
the rest. But that in itself isn’t a bad thing. Some of us like those weird
one-off stories or albums, even if the rest of the fandom doesn’t. As amazing as nostalgia is as a force, it
can also make for a no-win situation.
2.
Making It Too Personal
We all have things we are passionate about, that goes without saying at
this point. What we do need to remember is that not everyone loves
what you love as much as you do. In fact, many people will love other things
just as much as you love your things. And that is great! Diversity! Until you
get too wrapped up in your own little bubble and forget that. Then unpleasant
things happen, like personal attacks and conspiracy theories. One I heard a lot
over the summer was how Disney/Marvel was paying people to write bad reviews
for Batman vs. Superman (as if that ship wasn’t sinking just fine
on its own), because Heaven forbid you criticize something that someone else
loves. Now I can’t pretend to speak for anyone else, but when I wrote my
review(s) for that film, I was up front about the issues I had with it. Not
because I wanted to give it a bad review, or because I hated
it, or because I was being paid by the competition to do so. I wrote the review
I did because I wanted to illustrate how much better the movie could have been, because I wanted to love it. A good review will provide you
with both the positive and the negative aspects of a film (or game, album,
etc.). A review should be something you can use to determine whether or not a
piece of media is for you, but not your only deciding factor. Because ultimately
a review is only another person’s opinion. Unfortunately some people (for reasons I’ll
elaborate on later) see this as a personal attack, that by criticizing
something they are passionate about, you are criticizing them directly. That brings me to my next point:
3.
She Blinded Me with Fandom!
We’ve all been guilty of it. We defend a subpar product because we
(want to) love it or love its associated franchise. Or conversely, we irrationally
hate another because it is part of a different franchise that we don’t like.
When we blind ourselves with our fandom, we lose our ability to be objective.
It is absolutely possible to love something while still recognizing its flaws,
and there’s nothing wrong with that. All art is subjective, after all, and
there’s nothing wrong with enjoying something even if it isn’t ‘perfect’. Many people
vehemently love and defend the film Avatar, regardless of the fact that under the
video-game flash of effects, it’s a bland story better done in Fern Gully or The Last Samurai. But
neither side is truly right or wrong, and we have to learn to agree to
disagree. The other side to that is to hate something because you’ve already
made up your mind to hate it. A reaction like this, when disseminated onto the
Internet, can quickly become a conflagration. A prime example of this came just
this summer with the new Ghostbusters film. A
reboot with a gender-switched cast? Apparently that is a blow to the nostalgias
and egos of fans so severe that it warranted a veritable tsunami of crap that
lasted for months. So many refused to not only give the film
a chance, but went out of their way to do what they could to sabotage it, from
attacking the cast and director online, to downvoting the trailer and outright
flagging comments that were even the tiniest bit positive. It was a truly
disgusting display for a film that turned out to be (as far as reboots go)
actually not too bad, dare I even say enjoyable in its own way. Does it come
close to the original? No, but no film will. Even Ghostbuster’s own sequel,
with all the original players, couldn’t. But neither does it tarnish the
integrity of the originals. Unless it could somehow retroactively change them
to make them bad (looking at you, Star Wars special editions), but can that
truly destroy what you love? If I can deal with the jarring CG buildings added
to Cloud City, you can deal with this. Just as an aside, who decided that Ghostbusters
was a sacred property that could not be touched? I have never seen a reaction
like this from a fandom. Just because the story didn’t go along with what you
wanted it to be, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I’m not super happy about how Han and
Leia were apart by Force Awakens and that things with Luke had gone the
way they did, but it’s not my story to tell. Now I’m waiting to see what comes
next. Headcanons are a whole other topic, so I’m just going to leave that with
a line from a certain song: ‘you can’t always get what you want’.
4.
No Casuals Allowed!
This is a term I hear mainly in the gaming
community, but it has further application than that. The idea that someone is
somehow ‘less’ of a fan because they don’t eat, breathe, sleep, and have
tattooed themselves with some aspect of the franchise. Forgetting of course
that the ultimate goal of a franchise or property is (along with telling a
story) to attract fans and thus make money. There is no hierarchy of fans, that
someone started listening to Dragonforce because of Guitar Hero is less of a fan than someone who
bought their first disc on release day. How you find a fandom doesn’t determine
how ‘good’ or ‘true’ of a fan you are. There are no ‘fake’ fans: not for how
you found it, not for how deeply you are into it, and certainly not because of
your gender. It’s an argument that seems to indicate that somehow new fans will
somehow sully the franchise. That there is only one true or pure way to be a
fan of something. And I don’t think I need to tell anyone with common sense how
ridiculous that is. If something doesn’t have the widespread exposure, it’s
difficult to find new fans. But give it that exposure, and you’ll see a huge
change. Jumping on a bandwagon doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for a fad, it can
be a great stepping-stone to discovering something you really like. How popular
was Iron Man before the MCU films? Certainly not at the level of Spider-Man or
the X-Men. And his popularity has exploded, and without needing to sift through
multiple decades of material first. This also leads me back to the criticism of
a loved franchise. When a movie or a game doesn’t do well, and when people
criticize it, the default is to say ‘they just didn’t get it’. You thought that
movie plot was over complicated and nonsensical? You just didn’t get it. And
that’s ridiculous and insulting. That assumes that other people are somehow stupid
or oblivious because they didn’t like or have issues with your thing. Instead
of attacking, we should be discussing. Is there something that was missed? Are
we getting too attached to see the flaws? Will fighting over it really help? Why
are we trying to alienate potential new fans of something we love and want to
see continue?
So what can we conclude from this?
Is it really so simple as we all need to take a step back, calm down, and just
stop being jerks to one another? Maybe. Have we drawn such deep dividing lines
that it’s hard to extend that olive branch? Often, yes. As I said in my opening, it’s never
been a better time to be a geek. We need to not fall into the stereotypes, we
need to embrace the people that are finding or finding their way back to us
from all walks of life. We need to stop painting ourselves in such an ugly
light and celebrate that, while we have our differences, we are united in our
love for our nerdness.
What do you guys think? Is there a
solution, or have we gone too far? There’s a lot thrown out here, a lot of
thoughts and musings about the state of the community, so I want to hear what
you think. Am I seeing things are worse than they are? As always, let me know
in the comments!
