Have fandoms always been this toxic?
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
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The thing I always remind myself of when it comes to this kind of behavior is that *Arthur Conan Doyle* waaaaay back then was harassed into bringing Holmes back after killing him off.
But you’re right about the fact that harassment is easier now.
Doyle wrote more Holmes stories but insisted that they ere Dr Watson still writing about cases they worked on before Sherlock's death, but he was still dead
@@detectivesquirrel2621 And then he retconned Holmes back to life in "The Adventure Of The Empty House."
@@adamdavis1648 Doyle was offered a ton of money to bring Holmes back to life after the posthumously published _Hound of the Baskervilles_ adventure. It was about a decade after killing Holmes off that he resurrected him, and it wasn't because fans harassed him; it was because the price was right.
Well, he was harassed by the queen herself! :-)
@@isabelrollings2439 I haven't found anything definitive regarding that, but I'm happy to see what you have. His mother was certainly a fan, and she's the one who pushed him into accepting the knighthood and convinced him not to kill Holmes earlier by giving him the plot seed for "The Copper Beeches." The Queen was dead for two years before Doyle brought Holmes back to life (although she did die the year of _Hound's_ serialised publication, so make of that what you will). It's certainly always possible there is more than one reason, but the magazines still made him a (financial) offer he couldn't refuse.
I feel like toxic fans have always existed but now the Internet has brought these people together and echoing voices lead to more & more extremist positions. Not to mention the deliberate, coordinated infiltration of fandoms culture by far right bad actors.
Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I just said. They have an anonymous voice, that can reach worldwide in a split second. Back in the past that wasn't possible, interactions were either only locally in real life or through the very slow snail mail of letters pages.
That, plus the anonymity of the internet allows people to feel more comfortable being rude and behaving badly. Even back when the internet was younger and smaller, you may have been anonymous in that nobody knew your real-life identity, but the communities people interacted with were so small that you got to know people. You were on the forums of some fan website that only had a couple hundred users at most, which is small enough that you could recognize people, which meant people had a reputation, and I think even just that is enough to curb people's worst instincts because you're going to be interacting with the same people tomorrow, next week, and next month, and if you act badly, they're going to remember that. You'd get random idiots that would pop in, but generally they usually either got banned for trolling or didn't last too long because people would start to ignore them.
Now fandoms take place on massive sites, like Reddit and RUclips and X/Twitter, and no matter how badly you act, you're one of a million other people, lost in the crowd. It gives a feeling of a complete lack of accountability - behave as badly as you want, nobody will remember.
@@SuperDrocket I remember the days of the pre-WWW internet where those smaller communities thrived. The old BBS or bulletin boards where you could happily (and slowly) chat away for as long as you liked without any toxic crap invading it. A s you say, if it did pop up it was quickly dealt with. There was a Discworld text adventure game that had some of the most hilarious banning descriptions I've ever read.
Yeah social media just amplifies what was there already (see the Star Wars prequels and Jar Jar Binks)
@SuperDrocket exactly correct. I am still on Jedi Council Forums and people have distinct personalities and ticks that are often well known in the forum and discussion goes beyond "objectively " blahblah blah and just defenses and attacks against positions into in depth discussion way more often (hint nearly every thread where you might see two or three comment chains like that on huge front page reddit discussions. Way better environment. Also banning actually changes things like mentioned in this video.
This is a question often asked in fanfiction spaces, and older fans that have been writing it for decades always say that yes, it always has been like this. Apparently there has always been issues between fans and between fandoms, specially if they’re big ones. So yeah, it’s nothing new.
As one of those older fans with several decades under my belt (and over it 😁), it has always been there. Letters pages used to get very negative letters and as long as they weren't insulting etc, they had a chance of being printed. The thing I would say that's changed in more recent times is the level of what is called toxicity. The internet has bolstered people to speak out in ways they wouldn't in real life, largely because of anonymity and because it's easier for them to find like minded folk.
@@Elwaves2925 I'm a middle aged fan, old enough to remember the 80s era just before it went into the wilderness years. I agree with you and the video, its always been there but the internet and social media has given accessibility beyond anything we have experienced before. Unfortunately instead of it enriching and giving us a platform to discuss the entertainment we love it has emboldened people to be argumentative and brusque. I agree with your sentiment, the anonymity and immediacy creates often toxic conversations no-one would dream of having face to face. Don't get me wrong, I love that the internet gives us access to connect as fans, but the dark side of it, where every comment is viewed with a negative spin, an almost paranoid guard, and no-one seems to be able to just politely chat about their likes and dislikes is really disheartening some times.
@@hotdog1214 Yeah, swings and roundabouts as they say. The good with the bad. One of the reasons I stopped Twitter years ago was because the toxic folks invaded everywhere. As much as I wanted to stay connected to some people (including a couple of well known folks), it wasn't worth the hassle. Blocking them only meant another would pop up. So I quit it and haven't really regretted it, certainly not once the Musk Baby took over.
I'm (hopefully) just coming to the end of a long drawn 'conversation' around the developers of a video game. I made a straightforward comment that the devs lied about the launch, which ended up being disastrous. Which is factually 100% true and the devs themselves admitted it. Everything I said after that was completely positive towards the devs and the work they've done to make up for it. Yet apparently that makes me the 'hater' and the problem, with several even going so far as to repeat the positive stuff I said back at me, as if I'd never said it. It's been unbelievable.
Thankfully, there are still some people and places where you can have a decent conversation. It's getting harder but they still exist. 🙂
Social media changed the game a bit (e.g.you have people like Kelly Marie Tran and Elizabeth Olson deleting their Instagram accounts from "fan" bullying) but the crux of the matter is fandoms have always been like this. People were absolutely infuriated Michael Keaton was cast as Batman for 1989. Poured WB with letters of toxic protest. None of this is novel behavior.
@@dante6985 Maybe there's an element of visibility to it as well then. Fans writing to a studio in the 80s wouldn't have been seen quite so much (if at all, bar some fan mags and early BBS boards) whereas now its all very public and I guess makes it appear more prevalent whereas likely its just more visible?
I used to attend conventions in the late 90s and while there were some vociferous conversations about which was the best or worst Trek episode or whether Babylon 5 was better etc it never came across as venomous or with ill intent. I don't know about cons these days but it holds true to Vera's point about not displaying this behaviour in person, whereas social media positively encourages it. Its a real shame.
Always has been...
The only difference is that now we have social media... where people can hide their identity while being extremely toxic.
As the Toymaker said….
They shout and they type and they cancel.
The first fandoms I was ever in were Undertale and My Little Pony- so it always catches me off guard when people forget about how bad fandom spaces can be. I remember one of my online mutuals and I talking and they were talking about how the Hazbin Hotel fandom was the worst one they’ve ever seen- and when I mentioned that Undertale was a pretty awful fandom space when it was in its peak- they dismissed me and said that it was nothing like the Hazbin Hotel fandom. For context they’ve never been a part of either fandom and only see stuff from the outside.
Yea that explains why they dismissed you then.
Damn how old are you if Undertale was amongst your first fandoms? 15 maybe? Undertale wasn't even the first hyper-toxic female tween fandom.
@@yurisei6732 I'm 22, I was 13 when Undertale came out, which was the year my parents let me get social media.
One of my quickest ways to answer is "JarJar Binks' actor."
Or Young Anakin
William Atherton, too, who played the EPA inspector in Ghostbusters!
Wasn't Wil Wheaton also harassed by TNG fans?
@@MalzraAirwynnYes, that's why he didn't talk about it for years. Which is sad cause as a kid I liked his character
Who blames the media NOT FANS for what happened to him. Thanks for exposing yourself as another fake fan.
In the UK, and Australia, Doctor Who was ubiquitous and referenced publicly in tv shows, media, politicians... In the USA, it's always been niche.
I've given up mostly on online fandom completely. That level of toxicity isn't healthy and I'm far too old to tow the line of "We're all fans".
Same. I tried to join a discord server of an artist whose music means the world to me, only to realize it's ran by 20 year olds who run it only to be noticed by said artist and trump over any and all emotional stories of the artist's music, shared by other fans. And sadly the artist herself is rewarding this behaviour. For example when I shared a clip of last year's show where she called me cute in middle of the show, and she shared it they went insane over it and started sharing the weirdest most forced sob stories in order to get her to share theirs as well (she didn't at first).
I even sold my VIP tickets away and decided I'll be a fan from afar. It's ridiculous.
Agreed. I've been active in online fandom so long that Lord of the Pants was my first fanfic and fandom really hasn't changed. It's access for all parties that has changed. Like, the only difference is that instead of your hate mail ending up in a box never to be seen again, you can post it for all the world to see and there's very little creative can do about that.
I really appreciate your videos overall and the perspective you provide in this one particularly. It's really easy to get bogged down in the loud, screaming voices of the rage farming when just wanting to enjoy the shows, books, movies, etc one is a fan of. It's nice to hear a voice of reason providing a glimmer of everyone in a fandom isn't like this. That it's not all toxic BS. Thank you! I've been having a hard time dealing with toxic fandoms in some of the stuff I consume and do, so this helped kind of bolster me up some to keep enjoying what I enjoy and not let the louder voices drown out the other fans
Also, as much as I avoid toxic nonsense online, it still creeps up here and there every now and then, and even though I don’t watch any of the rage-bait NerdBro videos, the titles and thumbnails still get to me. Lately, I’ve been feeling like watching or reading anything is a waste of time when like hundreds of people will already have 500k-word essays or 3-hour videos about how a piece of media is “garbage” or a “masterpiece” (even the more positive output can be nauseating, because they’re always presented with this air of arrogant, pretentious superiority).
It's OK, you can say Lily Orchard.
I shudder to think what fandom would have been like if social media had existed during the first Star Trek series😬
I mean, their ratings tanked in the South after Kirk had that interracial kiss, so...
The racists, sexists, and bigots were more overt and public about their views, mostly.
@@CritterKeeper01 to be honest, depending on where you end up on the internet, it's still the same.
There is a Saturday Night Live sketch about Shatner going to a Star Trek convention and the fans are so nerdy that Shatner tries to tell it to them straight "Get a life !". Nothing has changed except that the fans today would crucify Shatner on the spot and call him a hater.
If you're not part of the cult, you're the enemy ...
I think about that a lot! So many shows and movies would've been decried as "woke" if they came out today--and in many cases, were still criticized for the same reasons using different terminology back in the day!
I think it's also easier for younger fans to get their thoughts out there. I said something pretty nasty about a voice actor who quit their show when I was in middle school. I was hurt that she left and I was 12 and I didn't understand why an adult might want to quit a job and I hadn't fully developed empathy yet. But I only had access to the one forum that was moderated, I doubt that person ever saw what I said. Young kids can just say these things to a huge audience now.
Speaking as someone on the older side I think one of the major changes is people today think it is the companies responsibility to care what you think, and it's not. Back in the day, yes there would be letter writing campaigns and stuff but I an assure you they went right into the trash. One of the biggest issues, I think, is that rage on all fronts is more prevalent because there are so many "content providers" who are forced to publish daily and having little to say they tend to sit with only their face on the camera and scream into the mic about the injustices of this or that. We need a more accepting world but we also need far less "content" as well. You said most of this in your post but lets add on thing, which is across more than just fandom, everyone things we have to care about what they think these days and that is just wrong.
Another fab example of this outside of fandom is the gaza situation everyone always screams that you have to state your opinion about it or your a zionist. But what if your neutral? What if you genuinely don't want to take either side because you believe both sides having deaths is wrong. That this war in general is wrong. Well your a zionist then (according to them)
Eh, it was never guaranteed they'd go in the trash. The resurrection of Sherlock Holmes is the oldest example. But then, Serenity in the 2000s. The last season of Star Trek in the 60s. The near-removal of Jar Jar in Episode 2 and 3 combined with more recently Ahmed Best dancing around his NDA to confirm Darth Jar Jar plus ancient interviews of George saying that the prequels would have a character like Mule from Foundation (the big bad that pretends to be an idiotic jester). Spider-Man's Black Suit intended to be an actual long-term change and never intended as a symbiote until everyone hated the design. The rapid ending of Wonder Woman's Mod Era. The Death of Danny Chase. There's a lot of examples.
Heck, we're on a Doctor Who channel ultimately. Don't ever forget, Doctor In Distress worked.
i very much appreciate discourse like yours that doesn't just look for hate views and constant negativity and vitriol. whether its fandom like this, or ethical discourse, or arts and crafts, or history, or whatever - i strongly dislike the way that the the algorhythm tries to just constantly enrage us all. i'd rather engage out of wonder and fun and curiosity and interest. so thank you for that.
Just imagine if Kathy Bates's character from Misery, had access to the internet.
She does.
“Hey all my dirty birds, it’s your girl Annie Wilkes and I have GOT to go off on the latest hot goss about the next Misery Chastain book!”
That'd be a nightmare!
I'm a Brit and have watched Doctor Who since 1963. (I'm 68.) I think I can consider myself a "true fan". In pre-internet days, we had a TV programme called Points of View. People would have their letters read out, both praising and complaining. They're have always been those who didn't like a new Doctor, or thought the latest monsters were too scary for children. Nobody can like everything!
There have been times when I've not watched as avidly. Sometimes the then current Doctor or storylines wasn't quite to my liking. Then, the storyline would change, or a new Doctor came along, so I'd watch more episodes Isn't life like that?
Regarding the so-called "Woke" agenda, surely, that's just a reflection on how life is today. Companions are no longer there to scream and look pretty! Fiction has always reflected the "norms" of the day. Nowadays, cast members are written to reflect society the way it is, surely.
Omg I hate the way RUclips recommends the absolute worst bullshit! I have actively had to block channels by name to avoid getting recommendations for that garbage! Like you I purposely don’t use channel names or retweet any of the garbage when referencing that nonsense.
I’ve been a Good Omens fan since I read the book in the 90’ but I’ve only been involved with the fandom since season 2 came out and it’s been a very pleasant experience so far. Very welcoming and friendly so far. I would love to see you do a review or any kind of reaction to the show!
I knew the answer was yes, but it’s still nice to have someone who’s been around longer validate my feelings on the subject!
I say this as an aging ex-roadie with a Mandalorian mythosaur tattoo from before the show "The Mandalorian" was a twinkle in a screenwriter's eye: I cannot stand the toxicity of the "Star Wars" fandom, it's almost completely ruined my enjoyment of the franchise, and it's pretty much always been a huge problem in that fandom specifically. My so-called "friend" in 7th grade bullied me for being bad at Knights of the Old Republic (one of my favorite games to this day) which is a legitimately challenging game in places, plus I could barely get the game to run at all on the old family desktop. These anti-woke RUclipsrs are just embarrassing, and unfortunately the algorithm thinks I want to see that bullshit too.
I have way better things to do and way more pressing things to worry about than whether or not the new "Star Wars" TV show is "woke" or not. Which in and of itself is a moot point, because "Star Wars" has been textually left-wing since the start. I mean, Han Solo and Chewbacca are basically "Space Jesse Pinkman and Space Badger if he were a space Bigfoot" and the Rebel Alliance is textually anti-imperialism. "Andor," the newest of the shows that I've watched, was really solid and also very politically themed... just like all the other "good" Star Wars movies/shows!
I legitimately feel that if Star Wars had a good fandom, it was literally in between the release of Episode 4 and 5. And that was literally because there was nothing else, and the story was classic, and the effects were amazing at the time. Knowing that even Episode 5 was a bit controversial for providing that twist, only Episode 4 is universally respected, and that’s just as much as Episode 4 being a good film as much as it is the first Star Wars medium.
Yes, especially the Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer, Steven Universe, MLP, and a few others. I stay away from most fandoms, because people are quick to attack your opinion.
The internet and social media has definitely allowed people to share opinions to a massive audience in a way they just couldn't before. It has enabled and amplified voices with little to no restrictions, which obviously has pros and cons to it.
I personally think the worst is the commercialization of hate in online fan communities. I mean, there are content creators whose entire "careers" are dedicated solely to hating something (not critiquing, just hating it), and due to the way social media, content creation, and online economies work, they are economically incentivized to push clickbaity, inflammatory, and flat out untrue garbage to their audiences, and help reinforce a toxic fan culture of "us vs. them" with no nuance and perspective to it.
Nerdrotic used to do pretty staid doctor who reviews. You can generally see from his channel that he HAS to do negative doctor who content to get any attention at all. His positive reviews for season 10 had only have a few hundred views. He only really took off with the Chipnall era.
At that time he was simply a completely different person in terms of argumentation
yea i think the sad thing is you can look at old videos and see a lot of these channels werent doing nearly as well doing normal content but they saw how much better the rage videos did so they had to double down on those videos and also dial it up to 11 because if they are trying to do this as a living and that is where the money is.... i kinda view it like howard stern.... he was a misogynist and a jerk on air.... but behind the scenes he seemed like an actual decent guy and he even admitted on air hes playing a part. rage merchants are just the shock jocks of the internet. they are dialing it up in the same way reactors over react to shows because they cant sit there and silently watch a show like most of us would. we are their to see their over the top reactions.
like im sure i know the channel that shall not be named mentioned in the intro to this video... and yea i used to follow that channel until the shift to this crapping all over things because it made their channel blow up. like you can just listen to the way they deliver the lines they are doing it just to rile people up like nerdrotic the sad thing is even when they make an actual good argument toward their point they negate any validity their argument would have by being condescending like mocking someones name like a high schooler or whenever talking about Jodi..... Its not Jodi or whitaker or the doctor.... its ""he First Female Doctor played by Jodie Whittaker" every damn time...
Holy shit, casual glance at his thumbnails: he hates Black women a lot 😅
As a 50+ person, I lean into my first experiences with the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Anime fandoms, When I was a teen, these groups were the ones that welcomed me, accepted me, and valued me. Cons were the place to be and I think the face-to-face interaction kept folks being "nicer" than now. And, I agree that there has always been an attitude of "you need to know" this, "need to watch" that, "need to like" it in this particular form.
You made a lot of good points. I'm a old (British) fan too; I was born in the 1960s and Tom Baker was "my" Doctor. I've watched a few of these rage-bait videos, naming no names, and I'ver had a consistent feeling of "Wait, you're complaining about what Doctor Who has always been about!" I know it's an engagement tactic, and I'm half-annoyed with myself for falling for it, but it feels like an unwarranted intrusion. I knew Ncuti Gatwa would piss off a lot of people I don't like but this is absurd.
Clever Dick Films’ excellent documentary series here on RUclips actually covers this with regards to Tom Baker. Even then, he received a lot of hate on his first episode, as would other popular Doctors like David Tennant. I think even Patrick Troughton saw a drop in popularity on his first appearance.
Yes! I always wonder what these people have been watching, if they didn't realize Doctor Who was like that.
@@samuelbarber6177 I'm so happy you shouted out that channel, those documentaries are amazing!! They're so well researched, I always look forward to the next. That guy really takes his time to make them awesome, it's so nice to find other people that like them too :)
I'm finally making my way through Classic Who slowly, and while I knew from the few serials I'd seen that the show has always been like that...I'm finally seeing the degree to which the people complaining about the show being "political" are just SO so wrong. For crying out loud, Genesis of the Daleks is one of the most famous serials too!!
Exactly. I'm a Second Doctor child myself, but the point stands.
i seriously got so tired of seeing woke in titles for games/shows n stuff that i started telling youtube to never reccomend the channel to me ever again, i have had to unfollow so many gaming news/topic channels because of this weird fascination with hate content is insane. man i just wanna watch people talk about games not political bullshit
I went to a museum in Fredericksburg that was mostly devoted to commemoration of Stonewall Jackson. It was a weird and problematic experience when the host asked everyone where they were from and acted like he was unironically being tolerant by not kicking us Yankees out.
Anyhow, the thing I learned about fandom was that fans of Jackson (women in particular) demanded that he cut buttons off his uniform or locks of his hair for them to keep as mementoes. He knew he couldn’t keep up, and when the women weren’t satisfied with just loose buttons he started getting cards printed with his name, and eventually with his picture.
I seem to remember musicians like Paganini experiencing similar problems.
At least fans today don’t demand that their heroes cut off parts to share with them.
I left all social media in 2021 because of toxicity all over.
I kept RUclips BUT I block hate channels. I just have no interest in getting involved in toxicity. I have made mistakes and because of that I generally don't comment on larger channels as that's where I have been attacked before for daring to like something they didn't.
Sadly the internet has allowed the pre-existing toxic people to be far far more vocal about it 😢
Yes. Have avoided most negativity by carefully watching only the channels I like, avoid negative ish like the plague.
As a member of this council, I really appreciated this meeting. I will attend future meetings and contribute positive engagement where appropriate. Thank you. Liked and subscribed!
Welcome to the council dear friend
I think I fundamentally disagree with the question itself because it implies that fans/nerds are some special case. It's just human behaviour. People bully other people over everything. Even if you never ever engage in any fandoms at all, you still are at risk to be bullied for the colour of your jumper. Fandom is nothing more than just a microcosm of a society (I say "a" because it's true for all societies, with different levels of censorship). I agree with all your points, I just want to highlight that we shouldn't single out fandom culture. It's no more dangerous than any other way of communicating with fellow human beings. I always think of my grandma and her friends who would spend their days sitting on a bench outside their house in their 60s and just talking shit about everyone they saw. They succeeded even though they never had access to the Internet or would even understand what a fandom is. And social media has just driven this to insane levels. Unfortunately this is just one of the realities of being a human. Can we do anything about it?.. well... all of our ancestors failed:))
It's been like this for a long time and even writers from centuries ago had Been harrassed by their fans like why they aren't releasing them quickly enough. It just feels like something that hasn't changed but the ways it's done has
@Venemofthe888 100%. Poor Doyle killed of Sherlock Holmes because he was sick of him only to then be literally bullied by the public into resurrecting him. And all the dude wanted was to be prominent as a serious novelist and not a pulp fiction writer (as he perceived those things, of course).
@nelguinevere4036 the main thing that's changed is that it's easier than ever before to make demands of creatives and reasonably expect that not only will they see it, but might actually try to listen. We live in a time where a rabid fanbase for one guy's bad movies managed to bully an entire 4 hour film into existence.
No matter what, no major property can please everyone, but now when any group of people aren't pleased they can just go out and demand that it changes specifically to their tastes.
@cfsfilms5091 yep, absolutely. Oh that 4 hour movie...
We are at a point where the fanbases tear themselves apart from within. There are products on which everybody pretty much agrees. But quite often you hear opposite feedback from different groups of fans, both hysterical and very loud, and at that point as a creative you are basically doomed. This is not to say that the creatives have not screwed stuff up - oh yes they have and continue to do so. But sometimes I feel like there is no right they even can do. But again, this is the same in politics, sports, even science. Social media has given everyone a voice.
Pardonsorrywhat?
A great expansion to the original conversation on Twitter.
p.s. Thank you for being the 'adult in the room' and not going down the route of being toxic for the engagement.
For me, true fandom is forgiving a bad episode (or movie) while still loving the franchise. These hate channels would not care if Dr Who was cancelled, or even celebrate that event. True fans would be devastated.
That's a very good point
I do agree with what you say. Although I would say that due to the things you mention about social media pushing discourse is that it does tend to pull more people in and polarize them. Like it is forcing most people to "pick a side" when those people would have been oblivious to the argument in the past. So I think we do get more people into the argument than before.
Given Dr who was much much bigger in the UK during the 2005-09 period I can attest to the fact the phobic contingent of Doctor Who fandom has always been with us and there was always some crossover between outrage media and fans as there is now, just substitute RUclips for UK tabloids. Doctor Who was a massive show so they had to comment on it and had naturally reactionary views about it. I delivered newspapers around 2005/6 when series 1 and 2 came out. I read them. There was outrage by right wing tabloids over jack kissing the doctor in the series 1 finale. Just you might not see as much evidence of this backlash to the early series of the reboot online because online journalism was still in its infancy at the time but the papers were all over that: a family show with a male on male kiss in it? Of course the phobes were gonna throw a hissyfit.
Similarly there were fan communities in forums talking about Russell's "gay agenda". This stuff has always been there. And it had a lot of sway on kids at the time cause 2000s secondary schools were incredibly homophobic places - section 28 (the law that banned the mention of any non-hetero relationships from schools for decades) got repealed in 2003, but the schools didn't catch up for years so not being straight was still seen by kids as different and therefore in some way wrong - a lot of that fuelled the kneejerk reaction fans always have to hate the showrunner.
I actually think things are better now. As loud as the phobic voices are, at least the rest of us get to shout back now.
13:00 “The backlash to the backlash to the thing that’s just begun.”
I've seen this said on the Five Nights at Freddy's reddit recently: it's easy to be an asshole on the internet because of anonymity.
I recall in Junior high school dealing with the 'battle"(arguments, generally in person) between fans of Lost In Space and Star Trek (I'm REALLY old!); but none of that resulted in death threats and open, vicious harassment. Decades later, Phil Jiminez got death threats for Wonder Woman dating Trevor Barnes(a Black man), or the creators at Archie Comics getting similar harassment for having Archie date Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats (which was faarrr more intense than their responses to the introduction of Kevin Keller, Riverdale's first openly gay character). It's ben my observation that the toxicity of Fandom seems in direct proportions to how much it might (consciously or not)threaten the aesthetics of the Right; the most poisonous missive that I read in pre-internet days in a comic book letter page was virulently anti-feminist rhetoric responding to the Cat (a super-hero who would one day become the Avenger known as Tigra), openly accusing the creators of being Communist sympathizers and declaring that he was dropping Marvel Comics (their response, basically, was "see ya, pal.", although they were nicer about it).
I agree that the proliferation of Toxic Fan actions has become easier more recently with technological advancement, but that it has always existed, but I posit that its strength as a toxic element of an extreme nature has always been tied to" isms".
I can safely say it’s been about the same for as long as I’ve been in fandom. It just used to be more obscure.
The difference is the ability of people to network together, as people are constantly hinging on fan theories rather than just watching the shows and coming to their own conclusions. And writers straight-up can’t handle that, because they have no idea what people are going to expect.
Thank you for sharing your insights as someone who has seen both the primarily offline fandom and the primarily online fandom.
I do get a kick out of the people that say “You’re not a real fan if…” because it's always just things that apply to them. Who gets to decide wmthe requirement for a “real fan”?
I'm old enough to be your mom, and you are correct. This division has always existed. Only difference is the level of exposure. I can blame us for being fallible, but we are fallible. Some could blame the newest generation for being inexperienced, but they are inexperienced, so you can't blame them. Bottom line, we can place no blame, we can only try to be better from this moment.
Fans have always been critical of shows.
Fans, by their very nature, have always been very passionate about the things they love.
People used to create fanzines and write articles before the internet. Dr Who fans slated John Nathan Turner in the 80s saying that the series had become too silly in Sylvester McCoy's first series, for example.
The Internet has just made it far more intense.
Yes. Always. There are no good fandoms, only good niche groups. If you're smart, you'll never join a fandom and will stay at the edges - be your own kind of geek and don't even delve into fandom anything. I have no good stories about fandoms. None. Not one in the 20 years I was heavily involved. I have plenty of great stories about small niche communities though.
I finally left all fandoms eleven years ago after being doxxed, harassed, impersonated, and stalked over not wanting to roleplay a yaoi pairing and being honest about my mental health struggles with people I thought were friends or at least acquaintances. That was the last straw, I'd had enough. All the involved were college age, I often wonder what they're doing now that 40 is looming closer. I wonder if they had kids and if they'll teach them better, I wonder if they even care how much damage they did over something as silly as a video game character. There was a point a good 15 years ago where myself and others did try to plead to stop the bad behavior but we got told "It's the internet LOL" and so it is, fandom created a monster.
Fandom saved Star Trek from being cancelled way back in 1969. While creators really don't owe fans anything they SHOULD consider thier feelings as fans often have more of an emotional tie to the work than the subsequent creator does. Intelligent franchises have their finger on the pulseof their fandom. The last does not really happen today. Fan clubs are dead. Rewards for being a fan like give aways and sneak previews or a unique fan magazine simply don't happen any more. I think a lot of fans toxic or not feel that IPs have cut them off. This causes frustration. Frustration leads to wanting to blame someone. It is easier to blame the "other."
“If you do that you might be physically removed from the space, and you’ll also might get punched in the face!”
BARS! 🙌🏼
Yes, always been a degree of toxic fandom since as long as I can remember. When I first got onto the internet 25 years ago I was stunned by some of the stuff some people were saying about, say, Sophie Aldred. And before the internet, as a small child, I got a bunch of Target books ripped out of my hands by a complete stranger adult at a book fair who yelled that they were for proper serious fans and not kids. This inspires me to try and be as live and let live about other folks TV opinions as an adult now! Anyhow, best wishes, and take care, Michael.
Regarding the platform-design encouraging flamewars: one thing I like about Bluesky is the way that blocks work. If one person in a conversation blocks someone else, the conversation disappears for everyone. So if you get quote-posted and you block the quote-poster, no one can even see who they quote-posted. It also works in threads. And it's a lot harder to unblock someone once you've blocked them.
And this simple design has made Bluesky wayyy chiller than Twitter was.
The internet sure makes the toxic fans way more visible 😐🥴😒🙄
I absolutely love when you make videos addressing stuff like this! As someone that has to reckon with getting older I can anecdotally say people have always been toxic about entertainment in general. Im around the same age as you (44) and have observed the same things throughout the years. The things that have changed are the ease in which people can voice their toxic opinions and behavior thanks to the internet. Used to be they only had their small if any communities IRL to rage with. Comic book stores were lousy with them. Now we have a new wrinkle thanks to engagement monetization in social media and places like RUclips. Since being a hate filled asshat can make you money it’s easier and louder to do making people think it’s gotten worse when it’s the same that it’s always been. It also sucks that negativity and hate ensures engagement more than talking about things you love. People who are content with their fandom don’t “engage” online nearly as much but there are always more positive leaning fans out there. Cheers for this!
Spot on, I'm 51 and there's always been hate mail long before internet days. Back in the late 60s Patrick Mcgoohan had to flee after getting death threats from fans who hated or didn't understand the last episode of the Prisoner FALL OUT
I do feel the far right has become more ubiquitous in fandom spaces, as it has everywhere, and the question of how much that has to do with social media could fill multiple dissertations.
But fandom was always *mean*, even if there weren't always nazis nearby looking for ins. It used to be mainly ships people were mean about ime, that does still happen of course.
I agree that the far right are deliberately infiltrating whatever area they can to spread their propaganda, but I don't agree that they are the only or even the biggest issue. Leftists are not any less likely to be hateful, it just looks different.
Thank you for the video, Vera!
Something that really annoys me about the conversation of toxic fandoms: people who try to separate the toxicity and bigotry in order to pass the former as fair criticism. The bigotry is a lot worse, but both of them are bad! Beyond the harassment, the mindsets of "this is the only correct way for this media work to be", "everybody must share the same opinion about this work" and "if you disagree with me, you are not a real fan" are also toxic!
As a fan of any media work acting in good faith, people must be aware that some aspects of it are not made for you and they are not supposed to cater to your every taste. And if you have legitimate reasons for not liking new works in certain fandom (bigotry is definitely not one of them), so maybe you should leave it behind (to be fair, if you are a bigot, you really should leave it).
People like critical drinker are the problem I mean, he made a "Review" on the boys season 4 without even watching it. and people consider him to be the so called best critic on the internet when hes a scum bag who just rips into things he doesn't understand
It’s been bad but Social Media has been an endless supply of fuel to feed the fire with how it engenders nastiness that one thinks is them being heroic.
I've quit a few franchises because of the toxic fandoms. If you like Star Wars, watch a few vlogs and inevitably the algorithms cough up the toxic vlogs. Then there's the issue where the franchises turn on the fandom (Ghostbusters 2016). Anyone who tries to give a meaningful critic of a show is suddenly berated and lumped into the toxic fan category. This kind of poison ruins the show for me.
video isn't live yet but the answer is yes lol
Oh gosh, Vera! You’ve really put together a fantastic explanation in this. It’s “safer” to be nasty online because sometimes there’s anonymity and then the platform rewards bad behaviour!
Fan used to be synonymous with enthusiast. Fanbase was a ready-made audience for a content type. I grew up with so few fantasy-sci-fi shows I watched & enjoyed them all, even the bad ones.
I disagree. Fans are passionate but not all of them are "enthusiastic". George Lucas recalls fans HATING c3po amd R2 vehemently. He spoke about it after phantom menace. So fandom has kimda always had a group of fans who are vocal about their dislikes
I know right?!?? It was slim pickings in those days, but some of the best things came out of that era!
Yes. Same for music fans. I like Slipknot, but I have a problem with some Slipknot fans... It's always been like that, but now, as you said, social media amplifies the negative aspects.
When this conversation comes up, I or someone else always bring up the original fandom around Sherlock Holmes and how fans sent death threats to Doyle until he brought Holmes back. And that isn’t the only example from long before the pop culture fandom that people think of today when they think of fandom.
Star wars has always been this way but the culture war tourists lookibg to recruit and colonise are a major problem
I think this video just explained something that I've been wondering about for a while. All of my social media feeds are remarkably free of toxic nonsense, even my Twitter For You feed is all stuff that I like and I think it's because I've always been a firm believer in not feeding trolls. I have s strict policy of only giving engagement to things that I like and I think it's paying off.
The one that's always really gotten to me is that The Mary Tyler Moore Show had to change its main character from being divorced to just broken up with an unmarried partner, because the studio freaked out that fans of The Dick Van Dyke Show would be furious that Laura Petrie had divorced Rob, even though it was clearly a separate show that had nothing to do with the earlier role.
Completely agree. I'm told it was same in the 80s, except it stayed within fan groups in pubs, writing letters to show writers. It just wasn't online. Social media makes everything good and bad bigger. I also think that the algorithms that tend to encourage any kind of hate/moaning/shock click bait, combine with fandom to create toxicity. People are being encouraged to enjoy hating on the things they are fans of. This is why I still use forums because there are moderators that keep things fun and less chaotic. Xitter is just annoying, it's just like shouting at everyone in a street with no structure or control.
As someone who loves Star Wars in particular, I've been so saddened about how much more toxic the fandom has gotten in recent years. I can hardly go anywhere near anything related to it online anymore without quickly running into angry comments about how Disney has ruined it. And a lot of those get even worse and devolve into bigoted comments about Kathleen Kennedy and "wokeness". There's still good non-toxic spaces around, but they feel so outnumbered a lot of the time...
Star Wars is the same fandom that drove a child actor into a mental institution for the crime of starring in a movie they didn't like. That was 25 years ago, and nothing has changed since then.
I once off-handedly mentioned to an online friend that the state of the Star Wars fandom depressed me and they responded that it was because Star Wars had been awful since the Last Jedi (as if that makes it ok). I didn’t really know how to respond, other than to politely tell him I liked the Last Jedi and we've agreed not to talk about Star Wars ever again. I’m not going to say it’s ruined the friendship but there has definitely been more of a barrier that wasn’t there before.
I've mentioned this before, but I used to fall under the gatekeeper camp, and with that, could tend to be somewhat toxic. I'm obviously not proud of that, and in the last 20 years I have changed a lot. I enjoy what I like, I try to let others enjoy what they like, and have been driven away from forums because of the growing toxicity in them. Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, anime... it's ridiculous how often I long to have actual discussions with people, only to leave because a simple comment will get you attacked by the bullies (weird how 40 years ago we were the ones getting bullied and now nerds are the biggest bullies - very sad). If it weren't for really good friends I've made in the various communities, I would quit social media altogether. But there are still some great people out there.
I do remember a lot of letters to game magazines back in the early nineties that would be absolutely unhinged and thankfully the editors would laugh about it but it always was one of those memories I still remember.
Also it got so bad recently with the Sonic comics that Sega is actually suing somebody for harassment and it's over such a minor thing... :(
To answer the question: Yes, yes they have. I've encountered that with the Sherlock fandom firsthand. And I should've learned that sooner, as I also noticed it with the Startrek fandom.
As someone who was a gamer since before 2014 (and the august that never ends) I can say there was a lot of naked and extremely toxic misogyny in the fandoms there.
Just pointing at a woman and saying she might be doing something 'wrong' (even if the wrong thing is just a rumour someone made up) would get a lot of abuse thrown and her, and 'ordinary' male gamers would absolutely join in the pile on, without considering what they doing or why.
Even my favorite gaming forums were full of intense, burning rage over what were utterly minor things.
I wholeheartedly concur ! I’m 40, and got a Nes when I was a child, then a SNes, and so on… I’ve always played video games, as far as I can remember, yet, when I started playing online with mostly dudes, very often my “street cred” as a gamer was questioned, when I never heard any of them wonder if the rest of the dudes had been playing games for decades, every time I did a minor thing, I got the “that’s why girls shouldn’t play” and random sexist comments.
It was even worse with the Warhammer community. I was the sole female player for a long time, and when I lost, I can’t even describe the abuse I was receiving, and when I won, all the dudes were like “oh we let you win otherwise you would have cried!” there was literally no winning. I ended up giving up on this game which I loved, and like many, pretending I was a guy when playing online
To answer your question, yeah. Here is my experience with a negative fandom.
*Eljay Johnsen,* *The TTV Channel,* and *Crusty783* a trollish meming ninjagotuber, they all try to force their opinions and views onto others through their videos and clickbaits, and Eljay tries to force other people like me to "grow up" (he's anti-Peter Pan), he is cold, filled with hate, and doesn't care about the feelings of others except himself and his "friends." The Ninjago community also force-ship every character and make them seem LGBTQ when they are not. They don't accept and agree with the choices made by series creator Tommy Andreasen. And RUclipsr *BendoBricks* is trying to retcon what Tommy had established by making a "rewrite" project that's born out of spite and ego, as well as out of the community's entitlement and hatred.
I was a fan of the Lego cartoon series Ninjago, it used to bring me so much joy. After 2019 I didn't got to watch the rest of the series after its eleventh season from same year because I had a lot of stuff going on in my life and the seasons that followed were very controversial. But when I heard it was ending in 2022 I regained interest and watched its fifteenth and final season, I enjoyed it, but for some reason it was being hated on by a majority of its fandom.
I tried to defend the season and the choices made by the show's creator but fans were ruthless when they disagreed with and avoided me, they were even making demeaning edit memes out of the ending scene just because it had a very heart-warming pop song that fitted the tone of the ending scene, it was all giving me flashbacks to another conflict I had with the Star Wars fandom over Rise of Skywalker and the "Rey Skywalker" scene (I too was and am a defender of the SW Sequels), so I let my anger get the best of me, I got emotional towards two female fan artists because of how they didn't like the final season. When I went to Twitter to apologize to them for the way I acted to earn forgiveness to put it all behind us, but Crusty783 took a screencap of my pleas when they had my friend's illustration of my OC as my profile pic at the time.
I went to Crusty's Discord to ask him to take the screencap down and erase it from his drive, he did, but one of his friends immediately put it back in public after discovering why I wanted it removed, for minutes they were trying to convince me to face consequences, and forgiveness mainly comes when there is enough silence between me and the two girls, it seemed they were trying to help me, but they started using the illustration of my OC as their profile pic and poorly pretending to be me to mock me and humiliate me everywhere even chanting/spamming my name and using my name in a hashtag. They even used a picture of myself they grabbed from my Instagram as a profile pic! I had to suspend my Insta in *FEAR FOR MY LIFE* and *FOR THE LIFE OF MY FRIEND!* So I sought to expose the troll for what he did to me but to no avail as revenge is not a best route. When I left a comment about my ordeal other people supported me and felt sympathy for me and to my surprise Crusty came to apologize for the harsh jokes! I was relieved. All had been forgiven.
But because of my ongoing depression, I could not bear to still see people talking negative about the final season and me! When one of the two female fan artists said she would never forgive me and never wants to hear from me again even claiming I was playing victim! She even justified *THE SAME JOKES Crusty APOLOGIZED to me for!* She doesn't know that I was actually in fear for my life! That is when I learned she is an emo, a satanist, and a sociopath. One the night after, I had sui**dal thoughts until the users from the Ninjago subreddit saved me.
*Important note: One thing to know about me is that I have special needs and I'm very sensitive to people talking angerly and rudely. Keep this fact in mind as I continue my story, this plays an important role.*
When I came to announce my departure from the Ninjago fanbase, the fandom's leader who is a cold, stern, and bossy man Eljay Johnsen rudely recounted my mistakes, repeatedly told me to "grow up," and justified the jokes by Crusty! So I respected what he was demanding, but when I made a full apology as my final goodbye to the community he was telling me to "grow up," called me childish and pathetic, and rudely told me to "get lost!" That broke me to my core, and he owed me an apology! For the rest of 2023, I tried to tell others how Eljay owed me an apology for cold-heartedly telling me to "get lost" because I have very high sensitivities. But in the middle of this past January, Eljay exposed all my mistake posts and my anti-emo rants.
The whole Ninjago fandom turned on me and I left in sadness deleting all my accounts of all the socials. It all came to a tragic end. And now I'm severely depressed and alone, struggling with my health. And I can't forgive myself for the trouble I caused them. Eljay is also at fault for how he treated me.
To everyone reading this, here's what you must do for me: Criticize the Ninjago community. They deserve to be criticized and called out for their sins, ego, entitlement, cyberbullying, lack of sympathy, and lack of empathy. And tell BendoBricks that the series' central villain "The Overlord" can NEVER be destroyed, he is part of the balance between light and darkness in Ninjago and that fact must not be retconned because it was established and confirmed by Tommy Andreasen. The Ninjago fandom is the worst fandom alongside Sonic, My Little Pony, SMG4, Undertale, Star Wars, Steven Universe, The Owl House, Halo, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, and Super Smash Brothers.
I hope you all understand. Thank you for reading.
Before the internet came fanzines. I know most people will know of DW Bulletin. In the 80s this fanzine was exactly like going online now. I first became exposed to it in 1986 a few months before Trial of a Timelord started. It was an incredibly depressing discovery. However like you say in your video I couldn't walk away from it. I had to continue buying it as I wanted to see where the discourse went. I was 35 by the time the internet really took off and Who returned. It's been interesting seeing all the kids growing up and suddenly taking social media by storm and literally replay the 80s all over again.
What's hard is having friends on both sides of the argument. I consider myself a free agent. I have my opinions but I do my best to listen to both sides and avoid cognitive bias. I have been shut out of fan groups simply because I refuse to hate what they hate or hate at they level want me to hate things. I will not disavow long time friends just because people like that tell me I should. I shouldn't be vilified because I have friends who are HP fans or support Gina Carano. I want to like or dislike a Sci Fi Show or character on my terms. Agreeing to disagree no longer seems to be an option and just because a person doesn't have enough outrage over a controversial topic, it doesn't mean that person is insensitive, phobic or a bad person. As someone who has been falsely accused of being toxic, I see a lot of toxicity not just in my critics but in people who claim to preach tolerance and diversity. I dealt with two people at a convention who promote cosplay for marginalized bodies who claim to be people who have overcome adversity but in reality, they are the adversity after how I saw the way they demonized their critics and how they gate keep at the convention where I saw them serve on panels. Through them, I've learned a lot and gained awareness that when you promote a positive cause like body positivity or diversity with hate, you eventually become just as hateful. I do not hate these people back because hate doesn't need help.
I think another thing has changed since the pre-internet days (and even more the pre-VHS days...) Is the amount of TV/film content available to watch. Until the 90s, most homes in the UK had 4 TV channels. If you liked sci-fi, you watched all sci-fi programs (even if you thought they weren't incredible) because there was nothing else to watch. You didn't rant about things, because the lack of choice meant there was nothing else to watch (and it was the best thing to watch at that moment).
The lack of smartphones also meant that you actually watched the program in front of you. It drew you in. If there was something in a program that irked you, you didn't stop watching to rant about it online (as that didn't exist) you just continued watching, and the thing that irked you was probably forgotten.
Your affection of 'subscribe' at the end made me laugh so hard just now.
A recurring aspect in a lot of it could be defined by one word; 'change'. Even those who may have had a time when they liked the art form they were into (it's prevalent in music too), the time they related to it was the 'best' for them, and any aspect of that which gets changed over time often draws a level of wariness or skepticism
Could be wrong, but just my opinion on it...
I started watching when the Tom Baker era came to the states via PBS in the mid seventies, admittedly a high standard to start watching, though it always had a cheesy side to it and it didn't take itself too seriously. I still watch when I get a chance, though it's not available any more where I live, but I managed to burn through the latest two incarnations when visiting England recently, much to my wife's consternation. That all to say, as someone who watches to be entertained and happy to be confused I've been fine with it even if mildly disappointed at times and awesomely pleased at others. As someone who generally gets bored of a series after 3-4 years I have to say it's remarkable that they manage to continue to find interesting stories
My reaction to RUclips suggestions to what I suspect are toxic videos/channels is simply to select either not interested or don't show me this channel.
The fact that I repeatedly need to do this shows RUclips algorithms don't care what I want but continue to push toxic channels because they generate the most viewer interactions.
Funny thing, that doesn’t work for the back end “inspiration” tab. I’ve tried.
As narrow as it is, I just think that it's just down to the fact that people are just bastards.
While I have no doubt there was always a level of toxicity (hence the archetypal gatekeeping asshole “Comic Book Guy”-The Simpsons didn’t invent him, he was based the kind of guy a lot of us knew), I think the speed of it all has gotten faster. Shitty ideas travel quicker, the reach of one dirtbag is farther, the consequences are less.
To pull an odd analogy, card game analysis. In something like Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap, the tools for gathering data and quantifying results have gotten significantly better, deck ideas proliferate at astonishing speed, and metagames become “solved” rather quickly. We’re so much better at figuring out how to get better at games. I think some of this is true for fandoms. The tools at someone’s disposal have gotten that much more powerful, and folks have cracked the metagame, figured out how to speed run being a toxic fan.
Can’t wait to watch this when it goes live.
Fans have always been like this. Just ask Justinian how bad a bunch of sports hooligans got back in 532.
12:00 it make me sad sometimes, when I ponder that the internet was such a wonderous invention, capable of connecting us as human beings and sharing the wonders of our lives, cultures and world only for it to bring out the worst aspects in some. It somewhat takes the shine off all those science-fictions of the previous centuries where the 21st Century was held up as a wonderous place to be.
Once again an interesting and well thought out take. I’m old enough to remember Chris Chibnall being on TV criticising the then production team of Doctor WHO.
A Bald Captain who commands his ship from a hotel lobby...... pffft.
I remember the outrage when TNG came out initially. Hating on the families and kids running around the ship.....Rabble Rabble Rabble etc.
Differnce as you pointed out excellently was the lack of easy to use, easy to anonymise forus m to pour the bile.
To be honest at 56 years old I would say oh it's way worse now but when I think about it this element has always been there before the Internet a lot of these people just had no way to connect with other people. I remember being at a Star Trek convention in the late 80s and they were showing slideshow of different characters and Wesley crusher came up and people started booing😮 I was shocked it was only my third convention and I've never seen people act like this before. And if somebody who read star log magazine and Star Trek magazine when it came out a lot of the things people would say were probably left out by the editors because they couldn't print them. so I feel it's worse now but the Internet has contributed to that and to be honest the political climate we live in today has even accelerated it even further.
LOCs, letterzines and N/Ls (see, I'm proper old school) were full of acrimony back in the day. But those things had editors, so, at least we had that!
It’s the same for our recommends. Because I watch DW content, I’m recommended all of the hate and “anti-woke” bull. I keep pressing “don’t recommend channel” time after time and they still show up. It’s all for engagement. I won’t give it to them.
I blame the Toymaker...😏
A couple of things going on here I think. One, fandom. A fan is someone who was blown away by something at an impressionable age, and spends the rest of their life going back to the same well, chasing the same blown-away feeling. Some of them don't understand that the diminishing returns are because they're older and more experienced, so they're harder to surprise or impress, and blame the thing, and the people running it, for not doing it properly any more.
Two, nerds. Nerds are the kids who were bullied at school. It should be no surprise that leaves some a little maladjusted. And their nerdy activities were their refuge from the people that abused and excluded them. If a nerdy activity becomes popular, some nerds feel like the popular kids who wouldn't let them sit at their lunch table have followed them to the nerds' lunch table and won't let them sit there either.
And you're right that fandom has always had its toxic elements. I was involved in analogue comics fandom in the 90s, and there were some fairly unpleasant feuds that went on. The people who wrote and read fanzines back then were aficionados of the more indie, "critically acclaimed" end of the market, and they (we) didn't hide their (our) contempt for the traditional superhero stuff and the "zombies" who read them. The traditional stuff was more popular, but those fans didn't get articles into zines. The "critical" fans used to be the gatekeepers, and we were terrible snobs. These days, social media allows the "traditional" fans to make their greater numbers count, and there's a lot of resentment over how condescending the "critical" fans can be.
I want to say sorry in advance. I loved this video, and it utterly sync'd up with a issue I had today. No body is ever...restrained, any more. I mean this isn that every reaction, every conversation, every topic is a 250% or you "lose" kinda deal that ends up so utterly, bafflingly frustrated for me. This isn't fun to exist in. You can't say you enjoy something, because the heaters of such a thing come up to you in your twitter mentions, demanding you either explain why you like something, or disagreeing so much with your opinion that you're suddenly the bad guy for mildly taking any personal joy in something. Comic fans seem to get angry if you're enjoying a new series, normally because the new series is somehow both woke and bad for something that can't be woke...which I don't...get. Game fans get venomously angry over the most minor of problems, and when the big problems come into focus, they take the easiest part to complain about and claim victory...even though they changed nothing and the problem is still there...or they just want TnA in games more which is weird because we have the internet on a phone now. Music twitter weirdly has it's hang ups where now music is being accused of being TOO political...again. I'm now sure this is the 11th time since the early 70s this has happened, and it's funnier every time in some ways.
People are more willing to put everything on the lines to be behind something. Sometimes to the point it becomes all that they are. I think the English term is "Their whole personality" if I'm right (My English is bad. Sorry). It's frustrating, and that leads to more anger, to more hate in a loop. It's kinda sad. No one takes the path of understanding. The assassin's creed thing coming on kinda proves how wild the world is when my government is currently being contacted about the historical depiction of someone in a series that said Jesus was a con artist at one point...it's weird to be a fan right now. I actually don't want to ever be called that, because it has the baggage of every vitriolic person sprewing bile about their favourite thing, to the point everyone else doesn't want to ever know about it. I kinda hate enjoying stuff now....
Yeah, I agree. Lots of younger folks saying "this x flavour of toxic behaviour never happened in fandom before" yeah it did. None of this is new per se. There's a lot more puritanism around right now imo but the amounts vary, but it's all the same stuff. But the spaces it all happens in are different and as you say will promote negative, extreme dickheadedness which is not helping.
This is so much deeper than just sh*t posts on social media. This is about our society and all media as a whole today.
I totally agree with you. In the past, most people just complained to their friends. Now the internet, which has given us access to knowledge and history, has created a mob mentality. I also agree that the almighty algorithm is the biggest problem! Many people rely on the clicks, but that just leads to receiving more of that content. Anonymity Is also part of the problem. Like you compared with writing letters, when you have to identify yourself, you are careful with what you say and do. When you are anonymous, people do not self-censor and purposefully troll to make others angry.
So how do we solve it? This problem is much bigger than just the fandoms.
Absolutely! But the fact that reasonable analysis - like the things on this channel - do have a reasonable following is encouraging. Does analysis need more proliferation? Of course. I still have hope that things can change but sadly it will only happen when things get even worse and finally people have had enough and either choose other platforms or we get some regulation.
Okay so I have been in the Doctor Who and SW fandoms literally my whole life (my dad took me to see rotj opening night when I was three, and I would watch old dw on pbs in the middle of the night with him.) and I have been one of the people who thought DW was worse cause I was in the tumblr trenches during Superwholock and was *always* a Martha Jones fan. We needed to make separate character tags to find her content.
Which actually made me agree with Vera’s video and take. Back during things like Superwholock we had much better ways to filter out the content we didn’t want to see whereas now it’s so much harder to avoid. The rage farming is so prolific honestly it feels like some channels that are more people working are purposefully adding those sorts of “fans” to boost their engagement when they used to be far less vitriolic as a general pup culture thing.
That’s not to dismiss actual issues people have with shows, because honestly people are right when they discuss specific points that they have. However the difference is how people are engaging with the creators, both the people who create whatever thing we’re discussing and the creators’ ideas around social media. Like rage bait being so encouraged is just giving people permission to hop into a fight just because you can instead of moving on. Yes, it always happened but I think the difference is the scale of fandom in addition to social media.
i bet even the gladiators of ancient rome had toxic fans, lol. i think there's an additional social media thing in the mix that is maybe only a small factor but..who knows really, and that's the attitude that liking stuff at all is cringe and bad. to be clear, not as in "that thing you like is cringe" which probably is as old as humanity, but "you are cringe for expressing enjoyment". which seems like it could have a chilling effect on public convo (depending on the space ur in of course), and if people avoid talking openly about their enjoyment for things because they cbf dealing with randos hopping into their mentions just to insult them, then all ur left with is the negativity & ragebait.
I remember when Gen 2 of Pokémon came out. Fans of Pokémon hated it, and now they look back on it fondly.
I think a lot of fan rage is directed toward things that are new, and things that try something different. It's not right, and I always get annoyed when I see negative reviews on things that haven't been released yet, and the reviewer straight up states they haven't seen/heard/read what they're reviewing. They just "know" they're going to hate it before ever experiencing it.
"Nothing engages like a fight" video uploaded during EVO. well played.
I've been in Madonna's fandom since I've been a multiplying bunch of cells, and that was wild. We bullied Britney's fandom, and Gaga's fandom, and only didn't bully Swift fandom because, well, internet in retirement houses is not that good.