Ah, it used to be quaint the Trekkies vs Star Wars quibbles…
I think part of it is social media and people get way more attention saying something sucks vs letting people enjoy something. Or if people also like something, it gets less attention if everyone is in agreement.
Saying something is bad, or that someone doesn’t like something for the right reasons creates drama and people love that, it seems. I’ve seen it crop up on BB for fandom issues.
And one other element is people taking things way too seriously and being annoying with it.
I have long believed that everyone should be punched in the face once, just to appreciate the threat of being punched in the face again. Communicating with people without the risk of getting punched in the face can make one careless.
People who work to reinforce cultural norms (say, like white supremacy and misogyny), even if they position themselves as counter-cultural, are not in fact part of a counter-culture. They are part of a movement to reinforce the mainstream values.
And, again, if the goal is to reinforce white supremacy and the like, there isn’t anything counter-cultural about that. Richard Spencer and his ilk can try to claim that mantle all the want, but they’re not doing shit that’s subversive.
It’s kind of a distillation of every negative impulse that the internet has facilitated, all rolled into one shrieking ball of anger and horribleness.We have:
People able to find a larger audience of people who share their interests, with the attendant increased likelihood of finding the unpleasant people in that community.
The inhibition-lowering pseudoanonymity and captive audience of the internet allowing people to forget the person on the other side of the screen, and descend into behaviours that they wouldn’t display in person.
Internet echo chambers and algorithmic “engagement” which tends to push people towards rage-bait or more polarising content
An internet culture which praises and rewards snarky take-downs of “the other” rather than reflection and positive discussion.
I hate to break the news to you, but the far right aren’t going against societal norms anymore. They haven’t since about 2016, and maybe a decade earlier. Go to any deep red area in the US and it isn’t counter culture, it is just culture.
That damage is going to take a lot more to fix than a year of a moderate Democratic president.
I love video games but I am no longer a “Gamer” because the subculture is so effing toxic now. I so spent most of my time in the furry fandom and while you can come across toxic people the fandom has at least manage to kick the Nazi’s away and there is less trivia to gate-keep over.
But overall I have always been an every-fan just loving all sorts of genres and franchises. Best to not to spend your time just obsessing over one thing and gate keep said thing … it ain’t healthy.
I’ve generally believed that most of fandom was just people brought together by love of story… but looking back, there’s always some degree of disagreement in any fandom I’ve been in. (X-Files had shippers vs. noromos, then whether or not seasons 8 and 9 were a good idea. Buffy had Angel shippers vs. Spike shippers. Lucifer has a broken fanbase thanks to That Ending, which some absolutlely loved and some feel was far more bitter than sweet, for various reasons. And I’ve witnessed Twitter wars between those attempting to recontextualize Star Trek into alt-right and/or racist/sexist/etc. rhetoric and Trekkies who champion the inclusivity, multiculturalism and progressive values that were the heart of Trek’s many incarnations.)
Arguements don’t always rise to toxic levels within a particular fandom group; sometimes it’s just a fun debate. From what I’ve seen lately, the infighting does seem to be getting more heated and intense, especially when it comes down to ideology (like the Trek wars.) I think it’s largely because we’re all getting worn down and frayed by so many real world events, so tempers are shorter than usual. We’re also clinging that much harder to our “happy places” away from so much pain and fear, so we’re more tempted to fight when someone appears to challenge them. (A different opinion doesn’t always challenge what you like about something, but in many cases, fans don’t always see that when they get upset.)
I don’t think fandom’s a lost cause. I’m still seeing debates where people are willing to acknowledge other people’s views as perfectly valid, even if they aren’t agreed with. And in some cases, I think the infighting is necessary to prevent fandoms from being taken over by fascists and Nazis attempting to recruit new members under the guise of racist, sexist “jokes” and corrupted memes. But a lot of the time, I do wish fandom fighters would just take a deep breath and agree to disagree.
Fandoms are sad. I’ve honestly never had a positive experience with them and don’t really see them as a social or network opportunity on a personal level at all. To the point where I’m pretty guarded about my interests and don’t really like discussing them with people more because I dread them sharing an interest than not. My favorite thing in a conversation is when some one asks me about what I’m interested in and I can shift the conversation back to being about them within three sentences without having to get into anything that takes too much energy for me to listen to or talk about. I try to talk in shallow broad strokes and usually minimize any interests I have reflexively. These are the behaviors that my experiences with fandoms have engendered in me. There are a couple of exceptions I can think of, but of course… I won’t mention them.
There is a reason I tend to go overboard here when my fandoms get discussed. I miss old school friendly online chats about my fictional interests. Everywhere I go elsewhere online all I find is the noise of toxic whining about it. Here has been the only place I’ve found where I get that old level of friendly banter.
I was not suggesting it was. I was suggesting (rightfully so) that some people view it as such. And in the light Heemeyer is viewed by those people puts him in good company with the fictional Walter White and how he is viewed.
ETA: It is clear if you read through the saga in detail, Heemeyer was probably suicidal. Or something. All of his beefs could have been resolved without losing any face. Mostly imagined slights on the whole.
My guess is that at least part of it is that almost everything is popular now. It’s virtually impossible to have a hobby that hasn’t been made into a podcast, t-shirts, several YouTube channels and possibly plays a large part in a major film or TV series. All the things that were traditionally “geeky”- video games, anime, Dungeons & Dragons, unusual collections, comic books, Lovecraftian fiction, cryptozoology, sci-fi of all flavors, etc. etc. are all mainstream and popular now.
For some people, this is great, as they have easy access to information, content and groups relevant to their interests, but for others who are insecure and feel the need to be “special”, this is threatening and intrusive and they quickly turn toxic in a futile attempt to defend what they perceive as theirs. This isn’t an excuse, obviously, but I can understand this perspective up to a point. Knowing that there are no “cozy” niches left in our horribly overpopulated world and that no matter how into something I am, someone else is out there doing it better IS uncomfortable and threatening, but that genie is out of the bottle and it’s best to focus on the positive side, instead of finding scapegoats and lashing out at anyone new and different.
Fandom has the same problem that virtually every other aspect of society does- assholes who need to feel superior to someone, whether that’s Black people, women, young people, or just people who generally like the same thing but disagree about trivial minutiae.
