It definitely feels like fandom is a no-go zone these days. It's all arguments and finger pointing. I enjoy the things I'm a fan of much more when I just keep it to myself and my close friends.
I find avoiding social media in general helps ones mood immensely. Fandom especially seems unpleasantly corrosive these days, unfortunately that leaves no forum for fanboy talk, as the toxic elements now dominate such places. I just watch the things I like, and like in the olden days, do it for myself.
You could argue, as well, that fandom itself, by its nature, is toxic, because it reinforces the lie that individuality or the inner self can be expressed through what you call "consumption," instead of through creativity. It's not what we read or watch that defines us, but what we think and do.
I find it discouraging that this essay mixes both bigotry with a genuine criticism of media as one in the same. Which is what directors and producers ignore, since to them it's all the same noise, the man babies and media SJW and racists and bigots. It makes it difficult to be a true fan who just want to say this not enjoyable as it simply lacks what made the franchise I love so enjoyable in the first place.
It isn't the opinion itself that is necessarily toxic. Instead it is how fans who hold X or Y opinion interact with other fans that can become toxic - we are talking about harassment, death threats, abuse, etc.... And the truth of the matter is that some fans hold sexist and/or racist views AND threatened other fans and even actors over it. That crosses the line into toxicity. Every fan is allowed to like or dislike a thing. Hell, you think we like Star Trek V: The Voyage Home?! The difference is that we haven't sent a death threat over it...we haven't publicly shamed William Shatner for directing it.
We appreciate the watch and the commentary. But...we state clearly the definition. We made sure to, because we, ourselves, don't want any death threats. Here: ua-cam.com/video/HCKF2_-Zsw0/v-deo.htmlm11s and then again here: ua-cam.com/video/HCKF2_-Zsw0/v-deo.html
@@Trekspertise dude did you folks really just copy and paste this canned response to all your not-100%-on-board commenting subscribers? Where's the love?
@@Trekspertise Except that William Shatner has been publicly shamed for it and I'm almost sure there have been idle death threats made since amphitheaters. I think you're confusing "we" with what "you" consider generally acceptable. "We" aren't "you." Although I'd also bet your life contains quite a few idle threats in circulation-- they're just not important in making a public case for building an audience...
Part of the reason behind the attitude that makes it difficult to criticize properties now is a very deliberate move on the part of marketing, and while fans are partially to blame, it's the studios that help escalate the controversy. The people responsible for marketing these films and shows and whatever else generally try to tie them strongly to a message that is very well-meaning. Feminism, racial equality, LGBTQ rights, whatever else. This not only brings people aboard who want to be a part of, and support that message, but also gives the marketing/PR team for that film license to point a finger at detractors and call them sexist, racist, homophobic or whatever else. It insulates their property from criticism because it lets them diminish the voice of people who often very justifiably don't like what they've made. The vocal minority of fans who this video refers to as the toxic fans play their part perfectly, drumming up enough bigoted nonsense to give those people marketing the film something to point to, "See? All our critics are like that. If you don't like the movie, you're one of them." We've seen all this play out countless times now, and the frustrating part is that the toxic fans are the ones letting them get away with it. How many people do you really think would be defending or praising the new Ghostbusters, for instance if Sony hadn't gone to such great lengths to point out the sexist trolls? People stood up to defend it, because they weren't defending a movie, they thought they were defending feminism. Without the marketing team overstating the 'girl power' angle, and drawing attention to toxic fans, everyone would have just seen the movie for what it was, an insulting and categorically unfunny reboot. It would have bombed and been forgotten. So yeah, TL;DR: It's a very intentional marketing move to ignite controversy and profit by making people feel like by seeing a movie or buying a comic or whatever else, they're fighting for a cause. At the same time they get the luxury of silencing critics because they can call them all bigots thanks to the inevitable actions of a few trolls.
It didnt die, it just distilled into those who love the shows still. Theres a channel that has recorded convention interviews with various SG actors and its super chill stuff. Like how Joe Flanagan met a real Air Force General and got to ride in a fighter jet and in exchange, changed Sheppard a little.
Didn't prevent the creators from doing the exact same thing the Star Wars owners do now. Try to find a "new better demographic" and when finding out it doesn't exists and they should have stuck to their fanbase, insult them massively. Which (SHOCKINGLY) backfires. Then blame the failure on all of them. Yeah, seems a strategy that can be done with or without social media.
I’m reminded of a line from Spock in Star Trek VI: “Are we so old and inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?” Strange to say that when a lot of the folks involved are in their 20s/30s/40s.
Fantastic video. I noticed a pattern happening and now you have shown it to the world. Hopfuly, this can start a trend to better understanding each other, rather then just who shouts the loadest. "Peace is many voices arguing." - DS9 Harbinger
The difference between Jean-Luc Picard's reaction to Dajh in STP and Luke Skywalker's reaction to Rey in TLJ informs me about which story is worthwhile and which one is not. Make our heroes flawed, make them complicated, make them fail, but do not make them fail to try. You can even turn them into villains, but whatever you do, do not ever turn them into cowards. It's as simple as that. No racism or sexism involved.
My big problem is that these franchises will sacrifice good character and story development for the sake of being able to show off how diverse they are or they're left in the hands of less-than-capable writers who don't know how to properly use the characters for something that doesn't come off as cheap.
Another problem is that many of the people running the franchises have become toxic as well. It seems to be a common occurrence when for example, a fan politely and logically points out plot holes and errors, and the response from the show runners is that the person pointing them out is clearly sexist / racist, and completely ignoring all of the logical points that the person made, dismissing them as merely being a toxic hater.
There is genuine toxicity and I don't abide harassment, but it's definitely a two-way street. And I should be able to say I didn't like the new Star Trek without being called a sexist racist and immediately paired up with people who are. Pretty much killed having a discussion about anything the in the new Trek or the new Star Wars for me, unless it's within like a small group of friends.
"And I should be able to say I didn't like the new Star Trek without being called a sexist racist and immediately paired up with people who are." I hear this claim a lot, but I never actually see it. The only critics of Discovery I ever see get called that are the ones who traffic in bigoted language and dogwhistles. When I criticize something about the show, or Diamanda Hagan does, or any number of people I follow on social media do, they don't get called bigots. Why? Because they don't act like bigots. They criticize the show (sometimes harshly, like with Hagan who just straight up hates the show) without any of this so-called "harassment." The only harassment I see comes from people so bigoted they think a Chinese woman using her accent in the Discovery trailers "ruined Star Trek." The people who try to claim Trek never injected politics until Discovery came along (proving they had literally only just learned about Star Trek that afternoon). The people who unironically throw around phrases popular with Nazis on 4chan like "virture signalling."
@Toy_Yoda People who don't show their faces or their real names can't accuse others of fear and expect to be taken seriously. Your status as pathetic coward remains, and your words mean nothing.
Toy_Yoda has proved the OP's point far better than even the OP could. Thank god there are people as openly shit as he is, to remind us why championing for the visibility and voice of vulnerable groups is just as important now as it was in the 80's. Follow the spirit that inspired Star Trek, people, and stand up for those less privileged than you. If you don't, the Toy_Yoda's of the world will only grow more vocal.
Sigh... What is the first rule of the internet? *Don't feed the trolls.* The internet in this era REALLY need to learn this lesson. What i am seeing in fandom to political discourse and everything in between is everyone screaching because some edgelord said something dumb, just to get a reaction. Its like bringing up a child, If you don't react to bad behavior they will lose the will to continue with it. But no, everyone in this thread has just fed that troll. Well done!
The problem is that it doesn't matter if a person falls into what you describe as a toxic fan, it doesn't even have to get as far as aggression, name calling or death threats. Mere disagreement has you labeled as a sexist or racist. Is it possible to simply vocalize that you don't want a female Dr Who or an all female Ghostbusters without being labeled a sexist. No its not. Is it possible to simply vocalize that you don't like it when they change the race of existing characters without being labeled a racist. No its not. Thats why theres an air of disingenuousness to this video. It implies that as long as you are not being aggressive about it you're free to express these opinions. Which in practice is not the case at all. For a lot of people disagreement is in of itself aggression. You must like the change made to this thing or else you're a .
I like and agree with most of this video's perspective and statements. My issues: I'm not racist or sexist etc, however: Boyega isn't what I dislike about the new star wars trilogy, it's the iffy nature of the writing which feels like it's not as good as it could be. New trek movies are ok but only because the story is an alternate universe. If one were to say this is how the prime universe is and it's now canon and replacing older canon: I'd take issue because it's rewriting what had already existed for decades, which no official star trek content has done since TOS for decades on end. (Yes minor changes have happened time and again, changing technologies and years when things happen, but that's all fine because of multiple time travel and / or alternate reality stories having happened within prime canon.) Doctor who: Who has always been preachy, to an extent, my dislike of Jodie Whitaker's doctor who seasons isn't that she's the Doctor, it's the writers going on a rampage of changing previous notions and concepts in universe and taking the preachiness and amplifying it about twice to 5 times as high as it was before. An example of what I mean: there had been interspecies relationships, non hetero / trans / etc characters with public displays and / or commentary on the topic of their preferences... These were all nonchalantly "matter of fact" in the past, but in the past few years ... There've been characters who's entire majority of story is "hi I'm gay" (yes that's fine but do you have any preferences in food, what's your favorite fiction, what do you want to do with your life, where do you want to go, what makes you happy or excited... And often we have characters who spend over 85% of their screen time announcing that they're not straight. That's cool, what else do I get to know about you? ) And there's more like that... It's not who or what the characters are that bothers me, so much as their character design and depth of personality feels nearly 1 dimensional. As for harry Potter? It's not racist to say that canonically a character was previously white, now we're rewriting her as a black girl.... Is a bad thing. I'd be just as pissed if someone said a new movie / show was coming out rewriting sulu as a Hispanic and uhura is Romanian. Have a character who's female? Cool! Have a character who's black? Awesome! Have a character who's gay / lesbian / bisexual / pre-op or post op transgender? Totally fine with me, but don't take characters with previously defined traits and change them into someone / something else. Exclusions would obviously be changes where character has changed a personality aspect of similar, or potentially with characters from doctor who, which is full of holographic / telepathic projections, regeneration which alters a character's personality and physical genetic make-up, becoming female or Hispanic or Asian or black is fine. What I don't like about Ghostbusters all female movie: it's advertised as a gender swap reboot, if it was one or more of the original cast hiring an all female team to take over I'd be happy. It's not that all female characters couldn't start the team on their own, it's that an all male character cast started the business , so an all female rewrite is a spit in the face of what was before, stating that what was no longer matters and don't even deserve to exist. I take issue with an effective character easure of an entire franchise. I don't mind new stories and new characters, especially if they respect or even homage what existed before. If they say their new story is the old story but with different characters doing similar things their own ways, why couldn't they either add to existing story and characters, or make their characters exist in a separate intellectual property unconnected to previously existing stories with previously existing fandoms?
This may be one of the best videos I've ever watched. I am a 50 year old man and I have been going to conventions since the early 90s and I can tell you that fandoms were all about love and you debated and back and forth but it was never serious. It's very true anonymity the internet gives people allows them to be safe from repercussions of their hateful comments. I myself personally experienced this and have left three fan pages on Facebook because there was no fun in it it was just a bunch of people constantly arguing. Although I can't say that music groups have not become that way yet I'm in 3 and it's just pretty much all love and love for the artist in the music that they made I don't know why that's different but I'm glad it is. I'm going to share this video on my Facebook page and I think a lot of people need to watch it.
I don't believe that "toxic fandom" exists. I believe it's just a conflation of three factors: 1. Toxic Creators. This typically happens with secondary creators, someone with no more creative ownership over an IP than any fan, but who is given the responsibility to continue it into the future, and chooses to do so in a way that is disrespectful of the fan community, drastically changing core aspects of the franchise or characters because it suits their own personal tastes. This is obviously well deserving of backlash from the community. 2. Non-Toxic fans. These fans, upset by the choices of toxic creators, express their dissatisfaction, which it their rights as consumers, and they have every reason to do so. These groups will express disagreement with a creative decision, but will never personally attack human beings or engage in actual harassment. 3. Trolls. Trolls are non-state actors. They are not "toxic fans," because they are not truly fans of anything. They just jump onto whatever controversy is trending and add fuel to the fire. They are not interested in effecting change within a fan property, they are just interested in getting attention and causing chaos. They don't care that the Ghost Busters are women or that Rose Tyco was a terribly designed character, they just know that throwing sexist and racist comments out there will piss people off, maybe get articles written about their "work," and if they're very lucky, drive someone famous off of Twitter. Those are their "victory conditions." The problem is that the media typically conflates groups 2 and 3, and rarely if ever passes any blame for the situation onto group 1, the instigators of the situation. The resolution to all of this must involve both a stronger commitment in those who manage IP to honor the properties that they manage, and also in a recognition that trolls are not "toxic fans," or fans of any sort, that _fan_ communities have no influence over or responsibility for their behavior, and never will. Publicizing the efforts of trolls, or publicly running away from Twitter only presents the trolls with their trophy, so never do that. Just pretend they do not exist, and they do not exist.
I still look for a single media-article that actually respects people disliking The Last Jedi. But nope, all I get it "Trolls who dislike TLJ", "Alt-right haters", "Sexists", "Afraid of woman"... just one... maybe, just ONE, media article about how we got serious issues with the structure, characters, lore. Is that too much too ask? To, just once, admit we may have some legit critism rather than the movie is flawless and we're all just terrible people for disliking it? That's how one breeds 'toxic fandom'. By literally making it up arbitrarily :/
Unfortunately, it is not made up. But you are right, a lot of people dislike The Last Jedi for completely justified reasons. You don't have to like the movie. I'm sorry people assume you to be part of the toxicity of those that hate it because of race or such, it's proof that it is rising to the point that paranoia and backlash hits the wrong targets. Toxic fans exist, using racism sexism and offensive language to speak their opinions. But you are not one of them and I apologize that so many of us assume that you are.
+ SwedenSpeedway The problem is that the actual racist/sexist/trolly voices in this discussion are a ridiculously small minority of the process, just a drop in the bucket, and yet they are the most often listened to because they are loud and obnoxious. So if you have 100 people, and one of them is loudly shouting obscenities, and there's nothing the other 99 can do so make him stop, for some reason people assume that they are somehow related to that guy shouting obscenities. That is not a toxic fandom, that is just a toxic individual who is choosing to associate himself with a non-toxic fandom. The conversation needs to move past blaming the innocents and more toward isolating the specifically toxic individuals and ignoring their presence.
@@hassathunter2464 maybe because many (not all) of the criticisms focus on the "woke" aspect which can make things dicey as you saying the wrong thing can be interpreted as being racist, sexist, homophobic. Sw fan: They did nothing with Fin...pointless character. Media: toxic fans annoyed at black stormtrooper Sw fan: rey was a Mary sue who did not earn her place in the story the way Luke did. Media: sexist fans cannot stand a strong woman lead Sw fan: the gay kiss was unecessary and a blatant pandering for the LGBTQ crowd Media: omg. Bigot! Homophobe! Focusing on the bad storytelling is a very valid concern that would have sunk the movie even if every character was white and heterosexual.
But considering the amount of emotion invested into art -- and isn't art in itself meant to be a source of deep emotions? -- then how can you avoid the investment of one's self, to some extent, in the forms of art that one likes best? I mean, I agree that the internet and similar media made it easier for peopel to be angry at each other because of trifles, but it's not like this behavior was unknown before. And as far as I can see, the only way to get rid of it would be to make art so bland that nobody would actually want to invest much emotion into it -- which I think none of us wants.
What I personally find problematic with now days loud toxic commenting on all sequel/reboot films and series is that they are very hard to ignore. Even if I don't read the comments but I want to leave my own (positive) comment, it gets attacked and my personal opinion is mocked. It is very hard to have an intelligent conversation when they hit you with a golden comment like "This movie is crap and your opinion is wrong" instead of a real argument. I could stop commenting on movie news compleately, but then the actors and film studios would not hear my good reviews and feedback. It often feels like fans who liked the series/movie are really quiet already and the only visible feedback is the loud and toxic one. Will that eventually affect the studios and what way?
I feel like social media has made it so too many people overvalue their own opinions as facts. "Well if 100 people like my post, clearly I must be objectively correct in my statement"
I really enjoyed this this was not something I had ever thought about. Great graphics, transitions and really well paced. You explained the concept in a really concise and easy to follow way.
That was beautiful! I do want to add one thing I've noticed, and even been guilty of. We seem to be living in an age where everyone knows everyone, or so they think. It's easy when your favorite creator, or celebrity notices or responds to anything their fandom may do. It's easy to call a complete stranger a friend, when you are both hidden behind a computer screen. It's also easy to be more outraged by things like disagreement. It seems, more and more like people take opposing views as personal attacks, and behave in ways they otherwise wouldn't. There are many things I've said, and done, that my IRL friends would never even expect. At the end of the day, the best thing is to remember that behind every username, and avatar is another person. It is best to remember that even if it seems like the whole story is being told, that we don't really know most people on here as well as we may think. ^^
You're putting WAAAY too much thought into what is really an extremely simple issue. When someone comes into a fandom, claiming to be a fan, then creates new additions to that fandom while callously disregarding nearly every bit of established canon (usually while offering the hand wavey "it's an alternate timeline!" excuse) it reveals that they were never really a fan at all. These types are only ever interested in one thing: money. They use known fan bases and churn out substandard material that only scrapes the surface of the lore in an insulting manner to rake some in some quick cash.
@@ArcaneEther He's not interested in others opinions, unless they agree with him. He is truly intolerant of others opinions. The very definition of a bigot.
Racists and sexists shock me the most. You may dislike the story of a show or movie but when it crosses into the racist territory, such fandom is just depressing.
I'm flabbergasted that it's now generally accepted that some reasons to dislike a piece of media (that once used to have the sole function of being liked!) are now considered immoral, toxic, and objectively wrong. There is no true or authentic fan. There is likewise, no fake or inauthentic fan. You like X or you don't. Please don't conflate people who dislike things with people who harass actors. This is textbook poisoning the well.
Well said, we are always look for the purest form of fandom. The thing is that it doesn't exist. A fan is a fan for more that 100 or a 1000 different reason and a fan group is made up of the same type of fan agreeing on a percentage of liked or hates. The fan group it represents.
Trekspertise, probably the only place where you can sit down watch a video and hear him make some interesting points. Especially with fandoms. And I enjoy that. It makes me happy that someone has the common sense to talk about this and not get to angry over it. Love your work. Can't wait for the next one Edit: thanks for the heart. Appreciate all the work you've been doing and have put into your videos.
I think the evolution of nerd culture from fringe subculture to mainstream is something that has been happening to the anime fandom in the last 30 years.
So what does that say about me: Most of the characters I like are monsters, non-human-like aliens, or non-sapient animals like the Xenomorph, Diablo, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Predator, Protoss, Zerg, Mass Effect Aliens, Devilman & Devil Lady.
iIt’s important to be open minded and not confuse toxic fandom with fandom. Accusing someone of being ‘toxic’ is an easy out to discuss the failing of a particular tv show or movie.
while I would argue that the "fans" who attack any criticism with accusations of Misogyny, Racism, or Nazism as being a much larger component of toxic fandom. ... but it Was a good and well presented arguement. Well Done.
Can we differentiate between genuine bigots and the people that find casting or storytelling decisions forced, inauthentic, or inconsistent with canon? Its easy to paint people that disagree with new media with that big racist/sexist brush. Its hard to argue with someone that sees thru the story and recognizes a cynical marketing decision for what it is.
As tiresome as most of these comments are (dear god, _who cares_ about "sjw"s?) there *is* a good point to be found in their overall trend - sort of a second element to this issue. Fans want these continuations to uphold the qualities they found appealing about the original works. But you can't please everyone and, oftentimes, the people handling these properties can't identify those appealing qualities at all.
Good video. There's a lot of minutia the video does miss, though. (Of course. Can't fit the totality of human nature into 18 minutes.) People that have never even consumed a market product will often get involved in surrounding politics, or attach themselves to the IP after a perceived change incentives them. The IP holder or creator can also be legitimately in the wrong and be rightfully lambasted; schism in a fandom isn't necessarily due to resistance to rightful change. There's also further granular problems in recent company behavior, in attempting to side with history, only to venture into extremes themselves: the Ghostbusters debacle also saw Sony attempt to target and label fans as bigots in an attempt to divert attention away from the quality of the film, in addition to the actual bigots. Marvel comics somewhat similarly tried to replace superheroes with a newer, diverse cast in an attempt to please a perceived market. It instead alienated existing fans and brought in very little new interest. Yet the response by Marvel was to label said fans (once again) as bigots for not accepting the overnight genocide of decades old characters. The range of behavior and reactions to these sorts of things are diverse and wondrously strange. Not only do you have to question, is the IP holder the best group to be producing the IP, but sometimes: "Has the individual creator changed so much that the flashpoint of their creative input is no longer reflective of the message of the original product?" If Gene were alive today, would DS9 even have existed, much less Discovery? Would Discovery fans even like a modern Gene-led Trek? Again, good video.
Gene Roddenberry allegedly caused issues behind the scenes of early TNG because he had a narrow vision and the rest of the production team found good ideas rejected because they didn't match up with what Gene wanted.
@@Trekspertise I agree. Gene was very complicated as well as very protective of Star Trek. He probably would not have green lighted Ds9 or Voyager. At least not as they came to be. As far as the rest the toxic goes both ways. When a fan has a real complaint about the poor story , it gets frustrating to be called anything but a good person. I do agree that some fans sad to say do take too far. As well as Studios and artists take it too far with the fan that had the real complaint. Great video. It brought up many good points.
I agree, George. Gene was very controlling about things. Some understandable. Some odd. My opinion on that would be that especially in cinema or TV, the quality of a final product often relies on how various personalities come to a final, balanced mix. George Lucas might have lots of his own issues, but if he's with the right people that have similar authority on-set, he can be a creative powerhouse. Gene (and Berman, etc) were like that too. Whether they were more anchor or guide is up to those that worked with them.
Fancy running into you here Plague. Also, I'm pretty sure Gene would have set fire to the DS9 sets considering he was so adamant about "No conflict in my utopian vision!" that the crew members on TNG weren't allowed to have conflict with one another in the show until Gene got pried away from it, hence why the first two seasons of TNG are kind of... terrible.
Really good analysis and insight. Thanks for making this. About ten minutes in I was thinking, "This is very similar to religious disputes and factionalism"...and then you went there. Great job.
A fantastic video, but when it came to the ghostbusters reboot i would say a good 98% of fans that didn’t like the movie was because it was a reboot and not because the 4 leads are female. Its a shame the media chose to listen and amplify that 2% that were a combination of trolls and idiots that moaned about the female leads to get clicks and views. it also didn’t help that Sony double downed on the sexism angle when all the fans wanted was a continuation of GB1 + 2.
bleep bloop I know but as a ghostbusters fan I just wanted to highlight that particular point as it often gets overlooked when people discuss the problems the reboot had.
People wanted a sequel but the original actors didnt want to make one. Yes, they could have made it so that proteges are the focus of the story but i can see why they didnt. Explaining 30 years of advancement, making a history of ghosts and other events, it would be more like a fanfic.
Kuraeshin the only actor who didn’t want to do it was Bill Murray he kept flipping back and forth as to wether he was going to do it but the others wanted to and if I remember in a interview Dan said there was a script that had bill in the movie and one with bill out as well as no Egon if only for a voice cameo as Harold’s condition had deteriorated during the development of GB3 pre-production script phase. It would of worked as long as they did focus on the new team plus the GB universe is rich with stories that could be done I mean Real Ghostbusters got to have a ton stories made. Although personally I would have rather seen a live action series if either Dan and/or Ernie agreed to do it.
This is the age of the head canon, and I guess a lot of the fighting is trying to make True Fandom to resemble one's head canon. Case in point: I am, and have been a Trek fan for a long time. But I do not and will not accept Discovery into my head canon. Therefore, I will probably be missing many of your videos, because I am not buying nor watching Discovery. In what I call good fandom, I will not go banging around saying that Discovery is of the Devil; I just am not buying nor participating in it.
I just talked with a friend about this a few days ago and funnily enough also used the council of Nicaea as an example of how these tendencies always existed. I mean St. Nicholas literally slapped Arius for having a different opinion. If that isn't toxic fandom! :P
This was incredibly well-done. The analogies to religion are spot-on. It's important for each of us to be aware and realize when this sense of personal identity affects us, for it can happen to the best of us, and learn to deal with those perceived threats in a rational way.
publishers are trying to make money - a good way to do that is to appeal to a wider demographic. That means a diverse cast. Its not a liberal conspiracy. Some shows are crap and some are good. If the expanse had been shit it wouldn't have been because of diversity - it would be because of bad writing. Quality and Diversity are not correlated.
It is possible that a lot of people who are perceived to be against diversity quotas don't mind diversity in and of itself but just want to see characters that are more than their skin colour, gender or sexuality.
If that were true those people would love Star Trek Discovery because, well, no ones race gender or sexuality define them in that show. Nothing happens to Burnham because she is black or female, nothing happens to Statements because he is gay. Those traits do not define them any more than Batmans blue eyes define him. Yet people still hate on the show for those characters being non-white or non-straight. Those people cannot use this defense at all.
Sometimes they perceive characters as not "more than their skin colour, gender or sexuality" because they can't see past those characteristics and just reduce them to those characteristics. This is especially evident in backlashes that happen even before the release of many shows and movies.
@@DevonWlodyga No I do not want the media full of straight white men. That is a person of straw fallacy. Misrepresentation of someone's viewpoints speaks volumes about you.
@@TonySamedi A lot of people dislike Discovery because of retcons. A lot of people also dislike the JJ films because of retcons too. However Discovery seems to get a free pass from a lot of its fans.
Many great points in this video. You're right, these fandoms are like religions. I'm not a real Star Trek fan because I enjoy Discovery and the JJ-verse. I'm not a real Star Wars fan because I like Last Jedi (despite some serious concerns). I'm not of the pure faith, a heretic, a false prophet. When someones identity is too wrapped up in their fandom, that's when the vitriol bubbles out. I've seen channels with video after video complaining, people crying, yelling screaming because a fictional character or story doesn't line up with their personal vision. Very sad. Fan comes from fanatic and it's becoming more and more apparent that this is the case with many. Watch a movie, watch a show, and either like it or don't. Then, move on. Dwelling on things you hate aren't constructive and are a sign you're too deeply involved.
I wrote extensively about toxicity in fandoms when I was in university, and that was ten years ago. The subject is far, far stronger nowadays. It is not new, but it is more vocal. But bear in mind that we live in times that are highly politically charged, and there are entire groups of radically politically motivated people that have no hesitation to co-opt fandom identities to further their agenda - just look at gamergate. It is important that we recognise this as an intentional co-opting, with specific goals, aims and intents
Harry Michelson but will it be thoughtful insights where both sides are analyzed and the audience can decide or will it be polarized propaganda whose real purpose is to indoctrinate not entertain?
"It will go on as long as people don't use Harry Potter or Star Trek as markers of their personal identity." Uhm..... That goes against the biological and evolutionary purpose of stories.
There is another element too, the part where people blatantly attack other fans for their opinion. For instance some says why they like this, or don't like that, and a number of people just plain attack them for how they feel. That in turn causes the first person to defend themselves and attack back, escalating the situation. It's not just in fandoms, it's happening in politics too, and that is the scary part. We don't have civil discussions anymore. We (at least I am) are scared to say how we feel about something, or where we stand.
I rarely comment on UA-cam videos, but this video actually helped me put a lot of my thoughts and feelings on contemporary issues into context. Toxic fandom is definitely a byproduct of our time, and it's incredible to see that it's not something new, but has roots in religion and other older aspects of human civilisation. It feels like we would need a Star Trek-level of human enlightenment for this to disappear, but I do wonder how ingrained this trait is within our species as a whole and if it can ever be truly purged.
Thanks for watching! Can this behavior be purged? Probably not. But civility is thing that is taught...it isn't natural. Just need to encourage civility is all. That will help keep the toxicity to a minimum.
Great video. I'd like to add my theory to the mix. It's about general worsening of people's attitude, not only in fandoms but in general. I feel that nowadays not only fandoms stopped being the thing to keep "safe and hidden". It's also various other fringe opinions, often connected to racism or sexism. It may be only me, but it feels that in general more and more people are not afraid to be openly sexist, racist or another -ist targetted against someone deemed "deviant". My theory is that it's a feedback loop between the general populace and politics: Some people always vote for extreme polititians. One time or another these extreme opinions gain representation, but a small one. No issue if it is small one, right? Well, the people voting for them get emboldened and more open about their extreme attitudes. Other people who are inclined to these opinions as well suddenly see that there is representation for these opinions and vote for them too. Next term more representation is elected for these extreme opinions. And more people who were silent about their attitudes also speak up and stop hiding their "isms"... and that goes on and on. Until in the end there is so much negativity, extreme opinions and harsh insults towards people who just disagree that even the average Joe who is a good guy starts accepting stern reactions and over the top drama into his behavior. I see it in America, I see it in my home country. The elected polititians get worse and worse. And the population supporting them gets louder and fouler. Is it coincidence that it happens in the same time when every major fandom has some percieved "black sheep" sequel? In gaming too... every company that's been around for some time is supposed to "lose their touch" and the latest sequels are always "too casual". We've just accepted outrage and pointing fingers into our repertoir of public behavior. And well, how the internet was the highway for all of this - that's all in this video.
The big problem is lore breaking and pandering. People loved trek because it was a vision of what we could/ should be. It wasn't dystopia sci fi. But now it is, lore is broken all the time, and calling fans toxic or whatever else is only going to guarantee the death of the franchise. Same with Dr.who, Starwars, Ghostbusters. If writers want to make something specific, don't hijack a beloved franchise and mutilate it into what you want. Leave it alone, and make something original or atleast match content with environment. Instead of a dark startrek, do bladerunner judge dredd.. If you HAVE to piggyback on the success of something established because the woke ideas are garbage. ..
This is a really interesting video. The subsumption of consumption into identity in contemporary capitalist society is a significant component of intersubjection (as in Hegel’s use of the term). I’d be really interested in seeing your take on Peter Coffin’s conceptualisation of the same topic as cultivated identity, where fandoms are specifically cultivated by capital (like crops by a farmer) in order to extract value from us as fans, effectively transforming our identities into alienated subjects of a social power estranged from and set above us.
Impressive research! I think the majority of modern Internet-based toxicity started with 2014's Gamergate, and then proliferated from "ethics in game journalism" to all geeky fandoms. UA-cam culture perpetuated the toxic fandom - more rage results in more clicks. (I'm not talking about this channel, of course - you're cool & reasonable)
The examples you cite for racist or sexist aren't always the cause for disapproval of how a character is being misrepresented just for the sake of fitting in to or doing a money grab of the current climate. For example when a character is written for a particular race or gender and then someone decides to fuck with that by making an opposite gender or different race of an established character that is where current trends are jeopardizing the value of a given story, setting, etc. That doesn't mean the fan is a bad person. It does suggest that the person or entity forcing the change onto the fans and world at large is a dick basically. There is a current trend spreading that females are to be the lead roles of previously established male characters in remakes of popular films, stories, comics, games, etc. Then when the public rejects these it is the fan that is at fault rather than the real perpetrators of this phony crisis. You cited the 4th Ghostbusters as one example. But you failed to include the total remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with a female lead cast that completely botched the classic comedy of the original. Calling it The Hustle when the real hustle was in its abortive production in the first place.
Disliking poorly made cashgrabs of cinema or television is now hatespeech. Cheap Hollywood Schlock are peoples too, ya know! Nearly every franchise is a hollow, soulless corporate engine that is an objectively worse version than its predecessor. I, for one, welcome our new overlords like OP. Hopefully we can get a 8th Spiderman reboot before I can forget the first 3.
I was affected by the toxic of the fandom, new Star Wars movies was attacked by this, at the point to fail in tickets, so basically toxic fandom destroy Star Wars. The sexism, narcissism and racism was brutal, I feel I was affected because now producers do not see Star Wars as a good investment. So not much Star Wars in the future, I don't going to enjoy new Star Wars in movies anymore in a large time, I'm old, so probably I die before next Star Wars movie. (Yes I was there in 1977).
I honestly dont think that toxicity withing a fandom is only a thing of minorities, infact i find some of these backlashes justified. For example, the reason for the Ghostbusters backlash was not that the cast consisted of only women, but because of the fact that an all-female reboot meant that the movie would probably priorizite political messages over being true to the source material, which is exactly what ended up happening. And then of course, this repeated a while later when Ocean 11 got an all-female reboot, which was also a complete failiure as it didnt stay true to the actual franchise. And i can already tell you that the coming all-female Terminator movie is probably gonna be just as bad. I understand the Whovians concern over the franchise becoming part of CNNs political propaganda, but honestly, for all i care they could cast a sentient octopus as the Doctor as long as that octopus plays the role well. I also understand that part about Hermione being cast as being black when really, even though i couldnt tell you an instance of Hermiones skin color being ever described, she has never been established to be black, and so just making her is stupid. Had they wanted a black character in the story they could probably have gotten away with making Scorpio mixed race with his mother, who isnt in the story afaik, being black, but just taking a character who, while never having been specified to be white, has been depicted as such many times (just look up the original cover art of Prisoner of Azkaban, shes pretty clearly shown to be white on that one, and while i dont think that JKR had personally approved every single cover art in the world, i would assume she at least approved all of them the first time around and never demanded she be depicted as black, besides, she was also directly involved in the casting of the main characters in the movies, and Hermione was clearly white enough there to be played by Emma Watson) and so this change was just another example of characters being made another race just for the sake of diversity. Thats not toxicity. Thats fans wanting their beloved franchise to stay intact as it is.
Sometimes it is a marketing ploy like what sony did deleting critical comments of the trailer and leaving up the vile sexist ones. Sometimes they even highlight the most negative comments/ hateful attacks, and anyone critical after that is a sexist, racist, or homophobe. Lastly, many people can be toxic look at what happened to the casting of Ruby Rose and being attacked for not being gay or jewish enough. We need to find the clear line where criticism isn't considered harassment, and truly bad people are not the same as the majority. Also, I think the fact that the internet makes the small percent of hateful comments looks more massive. Twitter has 330 Million people on it each month, so even is the .1 percent looks like a massive attack. 330,000 So the massive reach of the internet makes a small problem look so much larger.
the Ghostbust trailer is now RIGGED to say 0 comments ! Even while showing MY COMMENT ! And no Like / Dislike counters either. It must have been a really high number really fast ! They keep rigging the numbers, doing things to make people not like it here !
@3:25 - That's it exactly. That's why fans get so heated, I think; when a new incarnation of a property strips whichever element connected with them on a personal level *out* of the thing that they loved because that element within it resonated on the personal level, it feels like the ultimate betrayal of the property's point and purpose, to them. 'What's the point of X when you don't have Y? Y was the whole point!' And the fact that other people- who had a different element resonate with them personally, an element which is still present- can declare the new incarnation of the property *good*, or even superior, seems incomprehensible- because to this fan who has lost the element that resonated with them, the property seems to have been stripped of everything that made it (to them) what it was.
7:19 Love the Charlie Brooker style with Beethoven No.7 playing as you say something profound. He normally used it over Doug Stanhope talking, with the same affect. ua-cam.com/video/ZQQgb5hXQGU/v-deo.html
Man...I am so happy I subscribed to you. This video has stated so much that I have been thinking or saying is wrong with a lot of fandoms when one goes to a video about a subject, or a site, etc. You try to talk to people.. And you see such ugliness. And it turns so many people away from great franchises due to how the fans you see act towards it. ESPECIALLY the overly hateful racism and sexism. Terminator 6 is currently getting slammed by sexist and homophobic comments all over UA-cam due to 3 women in a EARLY production photo being released. And it made me sick to see the things people are posting online. And not just in the comments... UA-camrs are adding to that fire by putting out videos encouraging that line of thinking. And it's sad. Sad to see such ugliness rise from something that is meant to entertain and bring fans together.
I dislike Discovery partly for the same reason I disliked Enterprise; both are unnecessary prequels that don't mesh well with what came before them. I also hate the idea of paying to watch that one show only via the All Access app, so it was the first Trek series I stopped watching early on. Normally I give them more time to find their footing, but what I had seen up to the mid-season break wasn't worth the cost I had been paying. I don't give a damn what color or gender any respective cast member of any Star Trek show is. Outside of a handful of instances, I haven't seen many fans complaining about any of those things. What I have seen is articles and some fans implying dislike of Discovery is mostly due to race, sexual orientation, or the gender of characters on the show. It is possible to dislike a program without being a racist or a sexist, or being homophobic. It does seem however, that those terms sometimes get used as a cudgel against naysayers, as a way to silence opposition.
I never got the “unnecessary” and “no one asked for it” complaint. Surely everything was unasked for when they first started. But I do agree that STD was awful.
@@johnthecrazed5679 I just don't care for most prequels because they so often have to be shoehorned into the existing storyline. I would much rather see a story move forward than focusing on trying to squeeze into an irrelevant past point-in-time, especially when the creative team takes massive liberties with established lore and settings.
@monochrome George Don't get your hopes up. Seeing as he's well into his 80's now it'll be a very very different sort of show i bet. Might be great, might also not.
The problem with this video is that it doesn't admit any of the faults of certain IPs which have enabled, encouraged, or warranted the backlash. The showrunners and actors of STD and the GB reboot in particular are pretty antagonistic, and they went in the implicit far left direction to attack the average person. No doubt some of the backlash was toxic and awful, but the IP itself holds some accountability for the issues.
@@Trekspertise The absolute vast majority of criticism against all these IPs does not include threats of violence. You cannot take the extreme examples and use them as representative of all response. That's completely disingenuous.
Part of the problem is fans thinking they represent the average person and anything that they don’t like is taken as a personal attack on them. And multiply this by many average fans and it becomes a wave and a backlash against perceived direct attack on them by the IP owners.
Paused at 12:02 - There's an argument that almost ever comes up, "Who's a true fan?" Nah. It's usually the fans being attacked for disliking movie/tv show makers, openly forcing their indoctrination on all the viewers. No matter what that specific indoctrination happens to be.
"Yeah, that movie wasnt great" "You only hated it cause it had women in it!" "No, I didn't like it cause it just wasn't as good as the original, which I'd argue had better female characters cause, you know, they actually had character and weren't just amazing at everything" "You lying bigot! We will destroy you for this!"
I believe the solution to this entire internet toxicity is to avoid it, have your friends, have your family and comment publicly a few times. But when you receive illogical hate, block them and continue to block them until only purity remains. The solutions is to ignore the bad and let the good in and to be more selective of what you want to see and be friends with.
EXACTLY, I just don't waste time on ranting negative critics, I've seen extremist right-wing AND left-wing fans ranting like lunatics and haven't hesitated for a second to block either. So much quieter when it's just people discussing the ACTUAL narrative & characters in regards to it, instead of crazed rants about race or gender politics that have very little to do with the narratives in question.
I read LOTR in the early 90s, before the Internet. For ten years until the movies came out, it was a story that I loved mostly privately. Whenever I met another fan we would talk about how great it was and that was that. When I first took a look at online fandom, I was stunned at the vitriol, and the sexist and racist content being thrown around. In particular, I noted the contrast between the LOTR fandom and the ASOIAF fandom in terms of how scarily obsessed the latter were and willing to hear anyone criticize the genius of George R.R. Martin. I've never seen a level of fanaticism like it in ANY other fandom. I discussed why with another major fantasy fan, and he believed that because ASOIAF came out after the Internet had gotten started, it quickly fostered a toxic cult mentality online that was already very strong by the time the show came around. The Harry Potter series has a similar timeline, but its readers started out as children, not engaging online so young, and the subject matter is not as intense. So the fandom did not become so overheated.
One thing I would have liked to see commented on is how toxic fandom seems to legitimize the toxicity in how it's responded to. Each of the aforementioned toxic fandom examples had a counter-group that was equally toxic as the original group.
One phenomenon that I think is overlooked is how far fans have drifted from the source material's creators. When I was deep in BTVS fandom I knew every writer and director, what their style of writing or directing was, and how their inclusion at that particular point in the season could affect the narrative. My most consistent fandom these days is Agents of Shield and I can name the EPs and that's it. I have no clue who is writing the episodes or directing them! Understanding the source of the material in fandoms is so important because the comic company or movie studio will often get blamed for changes that are upsetting when it's really something the writer of that particular story arc came up with. Like how Jason Aaron wrote the Original Sin storyline that led up to Secret Wars 2015 and All New, All Different Marvel and he was the one who decided that Thor would become unworthy of Mjolnir and that Jane Foster would become the new Thor. He also decided that Jane Foster's run as Thor would be finite before the backlash against her even occurred. I know that the keyboard warriors of Twitter and Reddit think that the ANAD line failed because of their novel length tirades against "forced diversity" but it was honestly just event fatigue and the fact that DC Rebirth was just 100% better than anything Marvel was putting out at the time. I digress...the fans who are getting angry literally have no idea who is writing or drawing their comics or who is writing or directing their favorite TV shows & movies and react like they've been betrayed by their closest friend when creators do something that they don't agree with. I recently started paying more attention to comic artists and there are a ton of women and people of color drawing comics. The longest line I've ever seen at New York Comic Con was for Sanford Green, who has drawn Luke Cage and Power Man & Iron Fist! But when I went to get Chris Clairmont's, he wrote some of the most iconic X-Men storylines in the 1990's, autograph last year I was the only person in line.
I can remember back in the days when DS9 was going to come on air, people would go on pretty racist tirades against the casting of Avery Brooks as the lead role, and I still recall the stupid "But what if she's going to have her period?!" jokes (comedic genius, truly) when Kate Mulgrew was revealed to be playing a female captain on Voyager. As you say, it's always been there. It just never was as loud, and these people also never were nearly as interconnected as they are now through social media.
This is a good point. I myself don't remember that stuff, but back when DS9 was starting I was like 12 and didn't have the internet. I just got to enjoy DS9 for the show itself, not worrying about backlash and getting to see the best Trek ever, where the lead character was from my city. (New Orleans). I'm reminded of a quote I once read, I forget where (perhaps a Gaiman book?) "Has the world gone mad?" "Nope, it was always this way. You just didn't get out enough". Most of us who fell in love with this stuff fell in love with it when we were children. I was in single digits when my love of Trek began, and thus I was entirely unconcerned with real world politics. Nowadays, when you're older, it's damn near impossible to not see politics in things, be it intentionally there or not. Sometimes it's not the media changed, it's you have, you've grown up and have the real world weight on your shoulders now and can't easily get back to that pure simple place of just enjoying some show for being a show.
remember when TNG came out and trekkers hated Picard and crew? Saying it never used to be this way is just blatantly false. Fandom has always been toxic. It just seems worse because now everyone is connected via the internet.
I once worked with someone who grew up in the same neighborhood as Mulgrew and were classmates. From what I heard, Janeway is not that different from her personality. Take that as you will.
I prefer maps, tech manuals, and source books. Even if my favorite fandom is going off in a direction that I disagree with, I can always tell myself a better story.
Reading the comments and seeing how a lot of fans didn't understand the video. If you only didn't like the new Ghostbusters or other development in your franchise is fine but it is not what happened. If you don't like anything there is no need to tell all the world about that: After all, It is just a film. I liked the old films better, and at worst I Ieave the theater annoyed, but the next day I already forgot about it. Why there is a need to keep revising something I didn't like? "True" Fandom is inerently toxic.
It also seems like only the negative opinions of films are welcomed, as when someone expresses a positive opinion about it, they get immediately attacked and labelled as an apologist or a shill or a reason their precious franchise is being destroyed. I don't understand why negativity is celebrated while positivity is shunned,... which seems to be a common theme these days.
I Followed the Development of Ghostbuster 3 (as it once was) and the debacle and delay around Bill Murray and the endless delays - until I think Sony were sick of the sight of the original cast - that they got a reboot is partly their fault - especially Bill Murray - "However" people were prepared to give it a chance if they got the tone right - they didn't really the Jokes don't land - it's kind bland and nothing of significance happens. However I don't personally find it offensive - heck I even bought the Movie on DVD. But the tone is off and that as much as anything else is irritating to fans of The Ghostbusters Movies or the earlier seasons of The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon. Basically all they had to do was to try to not make something outright terrible and they'd have got a franchise out of it - but the writing wasn't strong enough even without Sony's & Paul Fiege Marketing antics (later copied by The Last Jedi & Solo). People who make a legit complaint don't like being talked down to - and the Woman fans who offer any criticism can get ignored completely as their views don't fit the narrative so they get even more sidelined into essential invisibility. As for Hermione - well that was in part down to The Author being a clown on Twitter. Saying when the Original Hermione was Cast she was perfect and she help select her - and then later doing an about face and saying "She never said she was white" - well people knew that was an outright lie and they didn't like being patronised and talked down to when they showed her-her own dialogue showing she'd white and her own comments about the casting for the movies. She made herself look like a fool - now was there a way to spin it sure - you just say "A play is a different medium and that we felt she brought something to the role that was suited to an older Adult interpretation of the Character". If she'd said that people would have grumbled a bit and got over it - instead she was a dick about it and it rubbed people up the wrong way and brought out their inner-keyboard warrior it seems. She got people being a prat to her online as she was making repeated counter factual statements that people knew were B.S. That sort of stuff annoys people. That is why Kathy K is so loathed - she said to George Lucas' face that she was going to protect his legacy and his Characters and she then proceeded to tank the whole franchise in under 3 years. It makes her look bad - if she'd said nothing there would be nothing to hold against her - but she said she'd protect them, she said Luke was important etc.. and it was all lies. that sort of thing wound some people up. Now again if they'd approached the angle slightly differently with Luke they still could have got most of their deconstructionist demolition job on screen and not have had it look so darn odd. But it's clear to the fandom Disney-Lucasfilm wasn't protecting the Legacy it was pushing them out the door as quickly as possible to replace them with characters that they have not even properly developed yet - and the lack of a time gap between episode 7 & 8 causes even more problems. You make a movie that confuses and annoys people they don't spend money or it or it's merchandise. Sort of like how Mad Max pretty much tanked it's own Franchise by making Max a guest star in his own Movie (if that is even Max at all - which it may not be). So not much money there - shame really that the best Mad Max thing in recent times is the Videogame. (but some people seem to like that Movie - I don't personally care for it much at all - it's not much more than a Mad Max 2 remake). You annoy people long enough eventually they stop showing up - especially when they don't think you are even serious in what you are doing (TLJ or Fury Road was at least that) - That was what stopped people showing up for The Last Knight - after the lazy mess that was Age of Extinction people said right this needs to change - it didn't it got worse - so it killed the golden goose. Star Wars is at that tipping point if Episode 9 is a disaster then the only place it can go is far future sequel - whole other Galaxy or Prequel. As they will have eradiated the Sequel era for a darn long time.
Fandom is like any other orthodoxy. It restricts thought, excludes the new and forbids experimentation. The future will not look like the past, which I find comforting.
If it was possible to talk about these issues, it wouldn't be such a big deal that these franchises are recasting and rewriting classic stories. I would invite the dialogue, because we can access the ideas themselves. However, as people are recognizing the shift in values in these narratives, they are also recognizing that they cannot discuss these changes precisely because of the way they have been cast or written. To the degree we can't talk about the ideas, art shifts into propaganda. You blame all the polarization on "racists and sexists." I blame polarization on ANYONE who manipulates race and sex to force people to accept their unpopular ideas. That includes the intersectional, social justice narrative injected into so many familiar franchises. If I could disagree with the ideas without being accused of hating people, I might be less skeptical and more prone to embrace certain casting and writing decisions.
To be honest ... the moment somebody starts spewing their rants and rhetorics about Obama, Trump, liberals, Jesus, Nazis, SJWs, anti-SJWs, etc ... it's no longer even a discussion about Star Trek anyways. Or Star Wars, or Stargate, or whatever. You can always tell what a person loves by how much time and effort they spend on it ... and it seems most internet visitors aren't very loving towards the things they nominally claim they love, they only use the fandom itself as an platform or as a "captive" audience for speaking about other things.
Progressive/liberal is fine, but I don't remember any direct insults by Gene Roddenberry against people who disagreed with him. The strongly disagreed with Christianity, but he didn't call the Klingons or the Borg a stand in for Christians. They were stand ins for the USSR (atheists). The producers today are.
I have seen it, and it is very atheistic, but in my view that is Picard, not the producer of the show. There are plenty of episodes that are much more even handed such as the TOS episode "Bread and Circuses" and the DS9 (post Roddenberry I know) episode "In the Hands of the Prophets".
Star Wars fans aren't racist. They just didn't like that there was a black stormtrooper because most of us thought that all stormtroopers were supposed to be clones of Jango Fett...who wasn't black. But, of course, the media misinterpreted it and blew it way out of propertion by saying that we hated that he was black JUST BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK IN AND OF ITSELF. I mean, c'mon! We didn't have a problem with Lando, we didn't have a problem Mace Windu being a black jedi master. Why would we now after all these years have a problem with a black stormtrooper? :\
Infact most of us would LOVE Lando to return, but JJ just didn't think anyone would and didn't even call him to return. Now they ONLY call him cause Leia passed away in real-life. Who are the racists really here?
I fully and completely condone racial and sexist attacks, death treats and insults, especially towards actors, which are given a role to act out and are not at fault what that role is in the context of the movie they are being cast in. On the other hand, there is an argument to be made against selecting black or female characters where they do not belong. That statement sounds incredibly sexist and racist, so let me elaborate. Context matters here and with it we need to understand where the show is grounded. I have absolutely no problem with shows and movies that have traditionally been multicultural like Star Wars and Star Trek casting women and black actors. My issues with those shows lie in their poor execution and/or complete disregard for continuity. I have often said that Star Trek Discovery would have been a half-decent sci-fi show if it was not called Star Trek, black actors and gay couples included. Even shows that have traditionally cast white men like The Ghost Busters would probably not nearly generate the amount of sexist and racial attacks they had if their execution had been better. Here again I stress that I am fully against such attacks. But in recent years, far left ideology is on the rise and one of the things far-left and far-right ideologies do is a sort of almost religious indoctrination and ideological washing. We have seen this in the past with Fascism, Nazism and Communism, and it is making a comeback with this new wave of extreme Feminism and extreme Multiculturalism. This ideological washing has made its way into mainstream media in the form of black washing and female washing, for a lack of a better term. Examples here are BBCs black Achilles, black Hermine Granger, the new female doctor Who to name a few. Such blatant attempts at ideological indoctrination are naturally going to be rejected by fans, who see right though them. These complaints are going to be exacerbated if the execution and quality of the show or movie in question is poor. In this case it becomes blatantly obvious where the priorities of producers lie, namely in ideological statement and not in making a quality show.Thus, fan backlash is inevitable especially if the universe they are based in has an established following. Moreover the further fans sit on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum the more their arguments are going to attack the ideological attempt at multiculturalism or feminism rather than the poor execution and poor quality. However this does not mean that we should not attempt to read between the lines of such attacks, however vile they are.
It isn't the opinion itself that is necessarily toxic. Instead it is how fans who hold X or Y opinion interact with other fans that can become toxic - we are talking about harassment, death threats, abuse, etc.... And the truth of the matter is that some fans hold sexist and/or racist views AND threatened other fans and even actors over it. That crosses the line into toxicity. Every fan is allowed to like or dislike a thing. Hell, you think we like Star Trek V: The Voyage Home?! The difference is that we haven't sent a death threat over it...we haven't publicly shamed William Shatner for directing it.
Some of these backslashes are most definitely not illogical, sexist, or racist. For example, casting female actresses for specific roles that have always been written as canonically male is weird. The Master becoming female for some reason, or now the Doctor becoming female, yeah, that's weird. Most people probably just roll with it because Doctor Who is a very weird show, but it's still strange. Of course then there's things like backlash against Finn being played by a black character... That's not based in logic. He's a storm trooper. He can be any race. Clone troopers weren't black. But storm troopers? Yeah, sure.
Problem is... unless you're a giant SW-fan, to most people clone trooper = stormtrooper. And rather than take the confusion away, they immediately pulled the "RACIST" card. And never let go off it during the current Star Wars drama.
I've seen every ST episode and movie ever made, many times. It restores my faith in humanity. I love it. The comparison of ST with religion is dead on accurate. ST has improved me as a person, it has opened my mind, it has challenged my prejudice, it has made me cry, made me think, made me wanna be better, made me love and hate my self, it has changed my mind about nearly everything. Ive watched it since age 5 until the present 29. I will show my children ST and teach them that excellence is expected from them every day and that they shouldn't discriminate or be discriminated against. ST is the most beautiful peace of collected works of art, that I have ever seen. Having said that . . . the Abramverse is an insult to the intellect and the STD is total and absolute gardbage. And no, I am not a toxic fan, nor am I a racist, masoginist, a fan boy or a nerd. I'm just a man who has been touched by this amazing art, changed by it, and am now watching as this holy thing is being torn apart in front of my eyes and destroyed by politics and the pursuit of profit.
@@Heathboy420 if you insist. I think your far more toxic they are. Since you took time out of your day to tell him in an attempt to make to make them feel bad for no reason other then they don't like a show that you like. Pretty toxic to me.
@@realwhatbrains yeah yeah whatever you need to tell yourself to make your team the good guys. My team doesn’t harass the cast, crew, and other fans. I just don’t care what you think of me so i tell you what others are too polite to say.
Toxic fandom is a myth. There is no prof of any of the claims that there are groups of fans that are actively sexist/racist. They are always curiously invisible. (Or one person) What we have seen Ghostbusters, star trek, doctor who, star wars etc. Is products made by those with no or little faith in their product. And we see the media blitz of "people attack our show". " sexist hate our movie". "Racist hate comics" Bottom line we love the underdog , and studios go out of their way to play the underdog / victim of "the evil fans" aka shifting blame for poor quality or lack of interest on someone else In this case the fans. But oops! Those fans were also the customers. The only anger we ACTUALLY see from the fans is anger of being g grouped and labeled Yup you guessed it "toxic fan" is the geek version of a racial slur
You’re overlooking the rise of the internet, complaining voices being magnified. And the rise of narcissism, everyone thinks their opinion is so important, completely unaware of how irrelevant they are
Exactly. The Internet's accessibility to the masses is one of the main culprits. Haters have been around forever. Crap like Twitter and Facebook just give them a platform to air their opinions. But its the ridiculous hardline stance but sides of the argument that really escalates this shit.
even the people on high shunning their own customers and putting out serious accusations like "racism" and "homophobia' ... you name it. i'm gay and i got that. i was told by tim schaffer i didn't exist.
I think the religious wars that left millions dead meant that people used to think their opinions were more important. I mean, it's just a hunch, but no one online is willing to burn someone else alive because they don't like the other person's opinion about their fandom.
+14:01 ; Can you Back up the claim that she left "because" of online Harassment as she doesn't seem to have said a word anywhere to that effect - in her last interview she heavily implied it was Cultural Pressures to conform & of being a English Speaking Asian in the Western World that stressed her out a bit. She cited things like beauty culture and consumerism and lamented her parents westernising their names. She didn't say a word about People being mean to her online - Neither have I seen any reply to Haden Christian essentially telling her to grow thicker skin. Most of the people I know and the channels I follow feel kinda sorry for the poor dear - even sort of ironically adopting her in some cases - as a "Victim" of bad Wardrobe and a Bad Script. I think she's actually gained from the whole New Jar Jar Binks debacle around her - unlike the real Jar Jar actor who never recovered from it. Even though in his case no one really even thinks of Jar Jar as a person underneath - so insults to him are to the CGI muppet not to the actor blocking the shots or voicing him. Anymore than they'd harass Wato's voice artist for making a racial stereotype. - no they blamed George or the CGI character directly. The title of the article about her interview said as much in the editors comments but nothing i've seen to that effect has come from her own mouth - and many people have concluded that she's under an NDA during filming so that is why she put her Instagram on hold (she didn't shut it down it's just in a suspended state). Fine if she wants to say some Star Wars fan had trouble separating blame on to where it belongs (clue : it's not her) - But until she says so herself or even someone else who knows her personally says so (like her Mother say) then I consider that Heresay.
90 Lancaster did stuff like this fly under your radar?? www.imdb.com/news/ni62079213 "Actress Kelly Marie Tran has deleted all of her Instagram posts, after reportedly suffering "months of harassment" following the December 2017 release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
@S C Yeah, notice how NONE of these newsposts have any kind of proof. The only "proof" they got is a wikia vandalism, and trust me, wikia gets that stuff a lot. Once in 6 months is probably the least vandalised wikia in existance. That 'reportedly' is all made up by the media. She never till this date made any remarks, nor did any of her co-workers, nor her relatives... nobody. No-one knows.
+Hassat Hunter lol - you need proof? Go to any comment section - there a plenty of scumbag toxic fanboys in anyone of them - stop blaming the victim or media for the all the douchebags in the world
Great essay. Thanks for posting this. I started thinking of fandom, especially toxic fandom, as a sort of ultra-nationalist stance, but I never knew why,. I hope this gets widely seen. And meanwhile, I do my part in toning down the noise and hate by 1) not making criticisms of media personal and 2) understanding that everybody sees and reads everything through the lense of their own experiences. And, also, but it took me to my 40s to get this.... Coming to the realization that I am not my interests. I am me.
I think I know what you mean about it being an ultra-nationalistic stance since for decades the majority of comic books and video games were steered towards a white male audience. Now with more people getting involved, there's this "get off my lawn" attitude that became toxic. Too few trekkies took to heart the Vulcan philosophy "infinite diversity in infinite combinations".
The main problem is changing the race Richmond or establish characters such as Mary Jane Harry Potter is Hermione Granger and the little mermaid Ariel do you say something familiar about all these girls they’re all white and they all have red hair incidence I don’t think it is
I'm not a social person, but I'm an anamoly. Maybe it's because I have autism but I learned a long time ago and. maybe because of other things I learned toxic fandom is a terrible thing.
Great essay, Thanks! I don't know if you had intended to keep the video short, but you made some statements there that were not completely fleshed out, or at least not argued for. I would very much like to see a follow-up in this series that better describes how you came to the conclusion that the toxicity in fandom originates or is focused in the vocal sexist and racist minority of the population. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how that impacts decisions of content owners creators, marketers. How might an enterprising proprietor of a franchise mobilize a moral majority against a vocal minority in order to best take advantage of the market. How any dissenting opinions could be silenced, disenfranchised, and demonized regardless of merit. I'm sure your format of video essay, well thought-out wordplay, and deep commitment to intellectual integrity would bring quite a bit of insight to this subject. Thanks again for all of your hard work.
Dude. This vid is amazing. So well thought out, informative and accurate. And although we all understand toxic fandom, and mostly ignore it. You put great perspective on it.
Very complex subject, very well presented. Specially the idea that this dynamic exponentially increased by the internet is inevitable and here to stay. Don´t read the comments seems to be the only solution to keep a relative mental health, but can we?
I really hope this video will grab the rug by the correct corner. [Edit: I think it did! Awesome!] Too many write of legit critcism of new movies as Nostalgia craziness, and write the toxicness up as a side symptom. These are two separate things, one of which, legitimate criticism, is not a problem. I can't express how much I hate the new Star Wars movies for example, but the toxic shit people done, bullying the actors for example, Is waaaaay beyond what is acceptable. Write essays, make videos, whetever, where you collect your points, but don't attack people over it. Yes, I despise it all. And while Star Wars is an integral part of my life, maybe even my identity... It could never, ever be enough of a reason to harass others.
There is no rule that says one must love every single movie or episode of a franchise in order to be a fan. Sometimes we must accept that things change, because the audience changes. This is especially true for things like Star Trek, which thrived on resonating with the cultural and social topics of the day. What good would Star Trek be if it still looked like something from the 1960's? Answer: absolutely none, except to the old fan who already got the message of the time long ago. It is time for those fans to step aside and let today's messages reach today's audiences. Now, Star Wars is different, of course. Something that applies to Star Trek doesn't necessarily apply to Star Wars. AND, there is also no rule anywhere that says one cannot be a Star Trek and Star Wars fan at the same time. That is another toxic fandom rift that needs to be dissipated. Bottom line, we all have different opinions, different likes and dislikes, and cannot say that our own opinions determines what is and is not part of the franchise, because we are not the only people in it. I don't particularly care for the new Star Trek Discovery, but I know others enjoy it, and will defend its right to exist just as hard as any previous show. I still have very personal negative feelings toward the Star Wars prequels, but they exist and there is nothing I can do to change that (though I have written out an alternative story that I feel fits so much better :P)
1234kalmar I wholeheartedly agree. You see this so much in music too. Chester Bennigton’s last album with Linkin Park talks about his depression, but some fans hated it because it didn’t sound like their older music. Many of those same fans voiced their opinions on social media. He took his life because he couldn’t deal with it. It’s so sad to see this stuff become more normal.
Thanks for another great, thought-provoking episode, Kyle and team! My Patreon contributions to your channel are money well spent, indeed. Keep up the good work!
It definitely feels like fandom is a no-go zone these days. It's all arguments and finger pointing. I enjoy the things I'm a fan of much more when I just keep it to myself and my close friends.
I find avoiding social media in general helps ones mood immensely.
Fandom especially seems unpleasantly corrosive these days, unfortunately that leaves no forum for fanboy talk, as the toxic elements now dominate such places.
I just watch the things I like, and like in the olden days, do it for myself.
As a religious history nerd I smiled BIG when you brought in Nicea. Also wow I'm late to the comment party on this video. Great channel!
You're too late trekspertise, I STARTED READING THE COMMENTS!!!
Dear gods...
You could argue, as well, that fandom itself, by its nature, is toxic, because it reinforces the lie that individuality or the inner self can be expressed through what you call "consumption," instead of through creativity. It's not what we read or watch that defines us, but what we think and do.
I find it discouraging that this essay mixes both bigotry with a genuine criticism of media as one in the same. Which is what directors and producers ignore, since to them it's all the same noise, the man babies and media SJW and racists and bigots. It makes it difficult to be a true fan who just want to say this not enjoyable as it simply lacks what made the franchise I love so enjoyable in the first place.
It isn't the opinion itself that is necessarily toxic. Instead it is how fans who hold X or Y opinion interact with other fans that can become toxic - we are talking about harassment, death threats, abuse, etc.... And the truth of the matter is that some fans hold sexist and/or racist views AND threatened other fans and even actors over it. That crosses the line into toxicity.
Every fan is allowed to like or dislike a thing. Hell, you think we like Star Trek V: The Voyage Home?! The difference is that we haven't sent a death threat over it...we haven't publicly shamed William Shatner for directing it.
We appreciate the watch and the commentary. But...we state clearly the definition. We made sure to, because we, ourselves, don't want any death threats. Here: ua-cam.com/video/HCKF2_-Zsw0/v-deo.htmlm11s
and then again here: ua-cam.com/video/HCKF2_-Zsw0/v-deo.html
@@Trekspertise dude did you folks really just copy and paste this canned response to all your not-100%-on-board commenting subscribers? Where's the love?
@@Trekspertise Except that William Shatner has been publicly shamed for it and I'm almost sure there have been idle death threats made since amphitheaters. I think you're confusing "we" with what "you" consider generally acceptable. "We" aren't "you." Although I'd also bet your life contains quite a few idle threats in circulation-- they're just not important in making a public case for building an audience...
Part of the reason behind the attitude that makes it difficult to criticize properties now is a very deliberate move on the part of marketing, and while fans are partially to blame, it's the studios that help escalate the controversy. The people responsible for marketing these films and shows and whatever else generally try to tie them strongly to a message that is very well-meaning. Feminism, racial equality, LGBTQ rights, whatever else. This not only brings people aboard who want to be a part of, and support that message, but also gives the marketing/PR team for that film license to point a finger at detractors and call them sexist, racist, homophobic or whatever else. It insulates their property from criticism because it lets them diminish the voice of people who often very justifiably don't like what they've made. The vocal minority of fans who this video refers to as the toxic fans play their part perfectly, drumming up enough bigoted nonsense to give those people marketing the film something to point to, "See? All our critics are like that. If you don't like the movie, you're one of them."
We've seen all this play out countless times now, and the frustrating part is that the toxic fans are the ones letting them get away with it. How many people do you really think would be defending or praising the new Ghostbusters, for instance if Sony hadn't gone to such great lengths to point out the sexist trolls? People stood up to defend it, because they weren't defending a movie, they thought they were defending feminism. Without the marketing team overstating the 'girl power' angle, and drawing attention to toxic fans, everyone would have just seen the movie for what it was, an insulting and categorically unfunny reboot. It would have bombed and been forgotten.
So yeah, TL;DR: It's a very intentional marketing move to ignite controversy and profit by making people feel like by seeing a movie or buying a comic or whatever else, they're fighting for a cause. At the same time they get the luxury of silencing critics because they can call them all bigots thanks to the inevitable actions of a few trolls.
I am kinda glad that the Star Gate fandom died before social media exploded.
*remembers the backlash against Stargate Universe, and shudders*
that was like... 2010 the internet was so different then even compared to now
It didnt die, it just distilled into those who love the shows still. Theres a channel that has recorded convention interviews with various SG actors and its super chill stuff. Like how Joe Flanagan met a real Air Force General and got to ride in a fighter jet and in exchange, changed Sheppard a little.
Didn't prevent the creators from doing the exact same thing the Star Wars owners do now.
Try to find a "new better demographic" and when finding out it doesn't exists and they should have stuck to their fanbase, insult them massively. Which (SHOCKINGLY) backfires. Then blame the failure on all of them.
Yeah, seems a strategy that can be done with or without social media.
@@arklestudios It was and remains shit.
I feel that fiction is like trying to hit a homerun and it just can't be done every time.
I’m reminded of a line from Spock in Star Trek VI: “Are we so old and inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness?” Strange to say that when a lot of the folks involved are in their 20s/30s/40s.
If you want to do a follow-up to this, maybe do a video on “how to separate ‘(not) what I wanted’ from ‘actually good/bad”.
Fantastic video. I noticed a pattern happening and now you have shown it to the world. Hopfuly, this can start a trend to better understanding each other, rather then just who shouts the loadest. "Peace is many voices arguing." - DS9 Harbinger
Unfortunately it's only gotten worse over the years. So much for 21st century peaceful coexistence and cooperation.
Kelly Tran never publicly stated why she disabled her social media. The disabling of the account coincided with the filming of episode 9.
A thoughtful look at a modern phenomena or rather as your essay shows, a modern expression of a long standing tendency. Thanks
The difference between Jean-Luc Picard's reaction to Dajh in STP and Luke Skywalker's reaction to Rey in TLJ informs me about which story is worthwhile and which one is not. Make our heroes flawed, make them complicated, make them fail, but do not make them fail to try. You can even turn them into villains, but whatever you do, do not ever turn them into cowards. It's as simple as that. No racism or sexism involved.
My big problem is that these franchises will sacrifice good character and story development for the sake of being able to show off how diverse they are or they're left in the hands of less-than-capable writers who don't know how to properly use the characters for something that doesn't come off as cheap.
Nailed it.
Another problem is that many of the people running the franchises have become toxic as well. It seems to be a common occurrence when for example, a fan politely and logically points out plot holes and errors, and the response from the show runners is that the person pointing them out is clearly sexist / racist, and completely ignoring all of the logical points that the person made, dismissing them as merely being a toxic hater.
There is genuine toxicity and I don't abide harassment, but it's definitely a two-way street. And I should be able to say I didn't like the new Star Trek without being called a sexist racist and immediately paired up with people who are. Pretty much killed having a discussion about anything the in the new Trek or the new Star Wars for me, unless it's within like a small group of friends.
"And I should be able to say I didn't like the new Star Trek without being called a sexist racist and immediately paired up with people who are."
I hear this claim a lot, but I never actually see it. The only critics of Discovery I ever see get called that are the ones who traffic in bigoted language and dogwhistles. When I criticize something about the show, or Diamanda Hagan does, or any number of people I follow on social media do, they don't get called bigots. Why? Because they don't act like bigots. They criticize the show (sometimes harshly, like with Hagan who just straight up hates the show) without any of this so-called "harassment." The only harassment I see comes from people so bigoted they think a Chinese woman using her accent in the Discovery trailers "ruined Star Trek." The people who try to claim Trek never injected politics until Discovery came along (proving they had literally only just learned about Star Trek that afternoon). The people who unironically throw around phrases popular with Nazis on 4chan like "virture signalling."
@Toy_YodaSo you're really good at being a pathetic coward. Just want you to know your efforts don't go unrecognized. Well done.
@Toy_Yoda People who don't show their faces or their real names can't accuse others of fear and expect to be taken seriously. Your status as pathetic coward remains, and your words mean nothing.
Toy_Yoda has proved the OP's point far better than even the OP could. Thank god there are people as openly shit as he is, to remind us why championing for the visibility and voice of vulnerable groups is just as important now as it was in the 80's. Follow the spirit that inspired Star Trek, people, and stand up for those less privileged than you. If you don't, the Toy_Yoda's of the world will only grow more vocal.
Sigh...
What is the first rule of the internet?
*Don't feed the trolls.* The internet in this era REALLY need to learn this lesson. What i am seeing in fandom to political discourse and everything in between is everyone screaching because some edgelord said something dumb, just to get a reaction.
Its like bringing up a child, If you don't react to bad behavior they will lose the will to continue with it.
But no, everyone in this thread has just fed that troll. Well done!
The problem is that it doesn't matter if a person falls into what you describe as a toxic fan, it doesn't even have to get as far as aggression, name calling or death threats. Mere disagreement has you labeled as a sexist or racist. Is it possible to simply vocalize that you don't want a female Dr Who or an all female Ghostbusters without being labeled a sexist. No its not. Is it possible to simply vocalize that you don't like it when they change the race of existing characters without being labeled a racist. No its not. Thats why theres an air of disingenuousness to this video. It implies that as long as you are not being aggressive about it you're free to express these opinions. Which in practice is not the case at all. For a lot of people disagreement is in of itself aggression. You must like the change made to this thing or else you're a .
I like and agree with most of this video's perspective and statements.
My issues: I'm not racist or sexist etc, however:
Boyega isn't what I dislike about the new star wars trilogy, it's the iffy nature of the writing which feels like it's not as good as it could be.
New trek movies are ok but only because the story is an alternate universe. If one were to say this is how the prime universe is and it's now canon and replacing older canon: I'd take issue because it's rewriting what had already existed for decades, which no official star trek content has done since TOS for decades on end. (Yes minor changes have happened time and again, changing technologies and years when things happen, but that's all fine because of multiple time travel and / or alternate reality stories having happened within prime canon.)
Doctor who: Who has always been preachy, to an extent, my dislike of Jodie Whitaker's doctor who seasons isn't that she's the Doctor, it's the writers going on a rampage of changing previous notions and concepts in universe and taking the preachiness and amplifying it about twice to 5 times as high as it was before. An example of what I mean: there had been interspecies relationships, non hetero / trans / etc characters with public displays and / or commentary on the topic of their preferences... These were all nonchalantly "matter of fact" in the past, but in the past few years ... There've been characters who's entire majority of story is "hi I'm gay" (yes that's fine but do you have any preferences in food, what's your favorite fiction, what do you want to do with your life, where do you want to go, what makes you happy or excited... And often we have characters who spend over 85% of their screen time announcing that they're not straight. That's cool, what else do I get to know about you? ) And there's more like that... It's not who or what the characters are that bothers me, so much as their character design and depth of personality feels nearly 1 dimensional.
As for harry Potter? It's not racist to say that canonically a character was previously white, now we're rewriting her as a black girl.... Is a bad thing. I'd be just as pissed if someone said a new movie / show was coming out rewriting sulu as a Hispanic and uhura is Romanian. Have a character who's female? Cool! Have a character who's black? Awesome! Have a character who's gay / lesbian / bisexual / pre-op or post op transgender? Totally fine with me, but don't take characters with previously defined traits and change them into someone / something else. Exclusions would obviously be changes where character has changed a personality aspect of similar, or potentially with characters from doctor who, which is full of holographic / telepathic projections, regeneration which alters a character's personality and physical genetic make-up, becoming female or Hispanic or Asian or black is fine.
What I don't like about Ghostbusters all female movie: it's advertised as a gender swap reboot, if it was one or more of the original cast hiring an all female team to take over I'd be happy.
It's not that all female characters couldn't start the team on their own, it's that an all male character cast started the business , so an all female rewrite is a spit in the face of what was before, stating that what was no longer matters and don't even deserve to exist. I take issue with an effective character easure of an entire franchise.
I don't mind new stories and new characters, especially if they respect or even homage what existed before. If they say their new story is the old story but with different characters doing similar things their own ways, why couldn't they either add to existing story and characters, or make their characters exist in a separate intellectual property unconnected to previously existing stories with previously existing fandoms?
TLDR
(D stands for did)
This may be one of the best videos I've ever watched. I am a 50 year old man and I have been going to conventions since the early 90s and I can tell you that fandoms were all about love and you debated and back and forth but it was never serious. It's very true anonymity the internet gives people allows them to be safe from repercussions of their hateful comments. I myself personally experienced this and have left three fan pages on Facebook because there was no fun in it it was just a bunch of people constantly arguing. Although I can't say that music groups have not become that way yet I'm in 3 and it's just pretty much all love and love for the artist in the music that they made I don't know why that's different but I'm glad it is. I'm going to share this video on my Facebook page and I think a lot of people need to watch it.
You convince anyone to watch?
I don't believe that "toxic fandom" exists. I believe it's just a conflation of three factors:
1. Toxic Creators. This typically happens with secondary creators, someone with no more creative ownership over an IP than any fan, but who is given the responsibility to continue it into the future, and chooses to do so in a way that is disrespectful of the fan community, drastically changing core aspects of the franchise or characters because it suits their own personal tastes. This is obviously well deserving of backlash from the community.
2. Non-Toxic fans. These fans, upset by the choices of toxic creators, express their dissatisfaction, which it their rights as consumers, and they have every reason to do so. These groups will express disagreement with a creative decision, but will never personally attack human beings or engage in actual harassment.
3. Trolls. Trolls are non-state actors. They are not "toxic fans," because they are not truly fans of anything. They just jump onto whatever controversy is trending and add fuel to the fire. They are not interested in effecting change within a fan property, they are just interested in getting attention and causing chaos. They don't care that the Ghost Busters are women or that Rose Tyco was a terribly designed character, they just know that throwing sexist and racist comments out there will piss people off, maybe get articles written about their "work," and if they're very lucky, drive someone famous off of Twitter. Those are their "victory conditions."
The problem is that the media typically conflates groups 2 and 3, and rarely if ever passes any blame for the situation onto group 1, the instigators of the situation. The resolution to all of this must involve both a stronger commitment in those who manage IP to honor the properties that they manage, and also in a recognition that trolls are not "toxic fans," or fans of any sort, that _fan_ communities have no influence over or responsibility for their behavior, and never will. Publicizing the efforts of trolls, or publicly running away from Twitter only presents the trolls with their trophy, so never do that. Just pretend they do not exist, and they do not exist.
I still look for a single media-article that actually respects people disliking The Last Jedi. But nope, all I get it "Trolls who dislike TLJ", "Alt-right haters", "Sexists", "Afraid of woman"... just one... maybe, just ONE, media article about how we got serious issues with the structure, characters, lore. Is that too much too ask? To, just once, admit we may have some legit critism rather than the movie is flawless and we're all just terrible people for disliking it?
That's how one breeds 'toxic fandom'. By literally making it up arbitrarily :/
Unfortunately, it is not made up. But you are right, a lot of people dislike The Last Jedi for completely justified reasons.
You don't have to like the movie. I'm sorry people assume you to be part of the toxicity of those that hate it because of race or such, it's proof that it is rising to the point that paranoia and backlash hits the wrong targets.
Toxic fans exist, using racism sexism and offensive language to speak their opinions. But you are not one of them and I apologize that so many of us assume that you are.
+ SwedenSpeedway
The problem is that the actual racist/sexist/trolly voices in this discussion are a ridiculously small minority of the process, just a drop in the bucket, and yet they are the most often listened to because they are loud and obnoxious. So if you have 100 people, and one of them is loudly shouting obscenities, and there's nothing the other 99 can do so make him stop, for some reason people assume that they are somehow related to that guy shouting obscenities. That is not a toxic fandom, that is just a toxic individual who is choosing to associate himself with a non-toxic fandom. The conversation needs to move past blaming the innocents and more toward isolating the specifically toxic individuals and ignoring their presence.
@@hassathunter2464 maybe because many (not all) of the criticisms focus on the "woke" aspect which can make things dicey as you saying the wrong thing can be interpreted as being racist, sexist, homophobic.
Sw fan: They did nothing with Fin...pointless character.
Media: toxic fans annoyed at black stormtrooper
Sw fan: rey was a Mary sue who did not earn her place in the story the way Luke did.
Media: sexist fans cannot stand a strong woman lead
Sw fan: the gay kiss was unecessary and a blatant pandering for the LGBTQ crowd
Media: omg. Bigot! Homophobe!
Focusing on the bad storytelling is a very valid concern that would have sunk the movie even if every character was white and heterosexual.
But considering the amount of emotion invested into art -- and isn't art in itself meant to be a source of deep emotions? -- then how can you avoid the investment of one's self, to some extent, in the forms of art that one likes best? I mean, I agree that the internet and similar media made it easier for peopel to be angry at each other because of trifles, but it's not like this behavior was unknown before. And as far as I can see, the only way to get rid of it would be to make art so bland that nobody would actually want to invest much emotion into it -- which I think none of us wants.
That's just the thing - we are hardwired for religion...suckers for a good story.
Scariest thing is Stephen King unintentionally predicted toxic fandoms through the character of Annie Wilkes when he wrote Misery
i think there had already been some people like that
Yeah, there were always single obsessed types. King didn't predict an entire culture of psychotic fans.
What I personally find problematic with now days loud toxic commenting on all sequel/reboot films and series is that they are very hard to ignore. Even if I don't read the comments but I want to leave my own (positive) comment, it gets attacked and my personal opinion is mocked. It is very hard to have an intelligent conversation when they hit you with a golden comment like "This movie is crap and your opinion is wrong" instead of a real argument.
I could stop commenting on movie news compleately, but then the actors and film studios would not hear my good reviews and feedback. It often feels like fans who liked the series/movie are really quiet already and the only visible feedback is the loud and toxic one. Will that eventually affect the studios and what way?
Reading the comments gives me the impression that most commenters didn't actually watch the video 😥
We've sensed this =/
You are wrong about that, and your assumption just makes you look narrow minded and bigoted.
I feel like social media has made it so too many people overvalue their own opinions as facts. "Well if 100 people like my post, clearly I must be objectively correct in my statement"
I really enjoyed this this was not something I had ever thought about. Great graphics, transitions and really well paced. You explained the concept in a really concise and easy to follow way.
Thank you :)
That was beautiful! I do want to add one thing I've noticed, and even been guilty of. We seem to be living in an age where everyone knows everyone, or so they think. It's easy when your favorite creator, or celebrity notices or responds to anything their fandom may do. It's easy to call a complete stranger a friend, when you are both hidden behind a computer screen.
It's also easy to be more outraged by things like disagreement. It seems, more and more like people take opposing views as personal attacks, and behave in ways they otherwise wouldn't. There are many things I've said, and done, that my IRL friends would never even expect.
At the end of the day, the best thing is to remember that behind every username, and avatar is another person. It is best to remember that even if it seems like the whole story is being told, that we don't really know most people on here as well as we may think. ^^
You're putting WAAAY too much thought into what is really an extremely simple issue.
When someone comes into a fandom, claiming to be a fan, then creates new additions to that fandom while callously disregarding nearly every bit of established canon (usually while offering the hand wavey "it's an alternate timeline!" excuse) it reveals that they were never really a fan at all.
These types are only ever interested in one thing: money. They use known fan bases and churn out substandard material that only scrapes the surface of the lore in an insulting manner to rake some in some quick cash.
Sounds like more fan arguing over the true meaning of fandom to us =)
Well then, you're simply not listen to anyone's arguments. You didn't even refute a single point I made here.
@@ArcaneEther He's not interested in others opinions, unless they agree with him. He is truly intolerant of others opinions. The very definition of a bigot.
Racists and sexists shock me the most. You may dislike the story of a show or movie but when it crosses into the racist territory, such fandom is just depressing.
I'm flabbergasted that it's now generally accepted that some reasons to dislike a piece of media (that once used to have the sole function of being liked!) are now considered immoral, toxic, and objectively wrong.
There is no true or authentic fan. There is likewise, no fake or inauthentic fan. You like X or you don't.
Please don't conflate people who dislike things with people who harass actors. This is textbook poisoning the well.
Well said, we are always look for the purest form of fandom. The thing is that it doesn't exist. A fan is a fan for more that 100 or a 1000 different reason and a fan group is made up of the same type of fan agreeing on a percentage of liked or hates. The fan group it represents.
+Trekspertise is always a refreshing entry in the log. A tough topic for tough times, thanks for taking the challenge. Keep it up!
Trekspertise, probably the only place where you can sit down watch a video and hear him make some interesting points. Especially with fandoms.
And I enjoy that. It makes me happy that someone has the common sense to talk about this and not get to angry over it.
Love your work. Can't wait for the next one
Edit: thanks for the heart. Appreciate all the work you've been doing and have put into your videos.
Thank you very much for watching :)
I think the evolution of nerd culture from fringe subculture to mainstream is something that has been happening to the anime fandom in the last 30 years.
So what does that say about me: Most of the characters I like are monsters, non-human-like aliens, or non-sapient animals like the Xenomorph, Diablo, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Predator, Protoss, Zerg, Mass Effect Aliens, Devilman & Devil Lady.
iIt’s important to be open minded and not confuse toxic fandom with fandom. Accusing someone of being ‘toxic’ is an easy out to discuss the failing of a particular tv show or movie.
while I would argue that the "fans" who attack any criticism with accusations of Misogyny, Racism, or Nazism as being a much larger component of toxic fandom.
... but it Was a good and well presented arguement.
Well Done.
Can we differentiate between genuine bigots and the people that find casting or storytelling decisions forced, inauthentic, or inconsistent with canon? Its easy to paint people that disagree with new media with that big racist/sexist brush. Its hard to argue with someone that sees thru the story and recognizes a cynical marketing decision for what it is.
As tiresome as most of these comments are (dear god, _who cares_ about "sjw"s?) there *is* a good point to be found in their overall trend - sort of a second element to this issue.
Fans want these continuations to uphold the qualities they found appealing about the original works. But you can't please everyone and, oftentimes, the people handling these properties can't identify those appealing qualities at all.
Good video.
There's a lot of minutia the video does miss, though. (Of course. Can't fit the totality of human nature into 18 minutes.) People that have never even consumed a market product will often get involved in surrounding politics, or attach themselves to the IP after a perceived change incentives them. The IP holder or creator can also be legitimately in the wrong and be rightfully lambasted; schism in a fandom isn't necessarily due to resistance to rightful change. There's also further granular problems in recent company behavior, in attempting to side with history, only to venture into extremes themselves: the Ghostbusters debacle also saw Sony attempt to target and label fans as bigots in an attempt to divert attention away from the quality of the film, in addition to the actual bigots. Marvel comics somewhat similarly tried to replace superheroes with a newer, diverse cast in an attempt to please a perceived market. It instead alienated existing fans and brought in very little new interest. Yet the response by Marvel was to label said fans (once again) as bigots for not accepting the overnight genocide of decades old characters. The range of behavior and reactions to these sorts of things are diverse and wondrously strange.
Not only do you have to question, is the IP holder the best group to be producing the IP, but sometimes: "Has the individual creator changed so much that the flashpoint of their creative input is no longer reflective of the message of the original product?" If Gene were alive today, would DS9 even have existed, much less Discovery? Would Discovery fans even like a modern Gene-led Trek? Again, good video.
Gene Roddenberry allegedly caused issues behind the scenes of early TNG because he had a narrow vision and the rest of the production team found good ideas rejected because they didn't match up with what Gene wanted.
Gene...was a complicated person.
@@Trekspertise I agree. Gene was very complicated as well as very protective of Star Trek. He probably would not have green lighted Ds9 or Voyager. At least not as they came to be. As far as the rest the toxic goes both ways. When a fan has a real complaint about the poor story , it gets frustrating to be called anything but a good person. I do agree that some fans sad to say do take too far. As well as Studios and artists take it too far with the fan that had the real complaint. Great video. It brought up many good points.
I agree, George. Gene was very controlling about things. Some understandable. Some odd. My opinion on that would be that especially in cinema or TV, the quality of a final product often relies on how various personalities come to a final, balanced mix. George Lucas might have lots of his own issues, but if he's with the right people that have similar authority on-set, he can be a creative powerhouse. Gene (and Berman, etc) were like that too. Whether they were more anchor or guide is up to those that worked with them.
Fancy running into you here Plague. Also, I'm pretty sure Gene would have set fire to the DS9 sets considering he was so adamant about "No conflict in my utopian vision!" that the crew members on TNG weren't allowed to have conflict with one another in the show until Gene got pried away from it, hence why the first two seasons of TNG are kind of... terrible.
Really good analysis and insight. Thanks for making this. About ten minutes in I was thinking, "This is very similar to religious disputes and factionalism"...and then you went there. Great job.
A fantastic video, but when it came to the ghostbusters reboot i would say a good 98% of fans that didn’t like the movie was because it was a reboot and not because the 4 leads are female.
Its a shame the media chose to listen and amplify that 2% that were a combination of trolls and idiots that moaned about the female leads to get clicks and views.
it also didn’t help that Sony double downed on the sexism angle when all the fans wanted was a continuation of GB1 + 2.
Right... but the video is specifically about threats and harrasment not the star ratings on IMDB.
bleep bloop I know but as a ghostbusters fan I just wanted to highlight that particular point as it often gets overlooked when people discuss the problems the reboot had.
People wanted a sequel but the original actors didnt want to make one. Yes, they could have made it so that proteges are the focus of the story but i can see why they didnt. Explaining 30 years of advancement, making a history of ghosts and other events, it would be more like a fanfic.
Kuraeshin the only actor who didn’t want to do it was Bill Murray he kept flipping back and forth as to wether he was going to do it but the others wanted to and if I remember in a interview Dan said there was a script that had bill in the movie and one with bill out as well as no Egon if only for a voice cameo as Harold’s condition had deteriorated during the development of GB3 pre-production script phase.
It would of worked as long as they did focus on the new team plus the GB universe is rich with stories that could be done I mean Real Ghostbusters got to have a ton stories made.
Although personally I would have rather seen a live action series if either Dan and/or Ernie agreed to do it.
Or maybe it just wasn't funny. The characters aren't memorable.
15:27 Tims, where are you?
It is the best corner.
Saw that, immediately starting looking for a Tim comment thread.
This is the age of the head canon, and I guess a lot of the fighting is trying to make True Fandom to resemble one's head canon.
Case in point: I am, and have been a Trek fan for a long time. But I do not and will not accept Discovery into my head canon. Therefore, I will probably be missing many of your videos, because I am not buying nor watching Discovery. In what I call good fandom, I will not go banging around saying that Discovery is of the Devil; I just am not buying nor participating in it.
Season 3's not bad, might be worth a second glance.
I just talked with a friend about this a few days ago and funnily enough also used the council of Nicaea as an example of how these tendencies always existed. I mean St. Nicholas literally slapped Arius for having a different opinion. If that isn't toxic fandom! :P
The very epitome of it =)
Sometimes a lump of coal just isn't enough.
You run 7:15 through 9:00 over Beethoven's Symphony # 7 Allegretto (2nd movement)
And I didn't even have to look it up.
Yeah, ... fandom.
This was incredibly well-done. The analogies to religion are spot-on. It's important for each of us to be aware and realize when this sense of personal identity affects us, for it can happen to the best of us, and learn to deal with those perceived threats in a rational way.
And not accidental; LOTR, Star Trek and Star Wars all have a very heavily religious or philosophical subtext to them.
Luke Skywalker is like Jesus Christ himself to Star Wars fans, isn't he?
publishers are trying to make money - a good way to do that is to appeal to a wider demographic. That means a diverse cast. Its not a liberal conspiracy. Some shows are crap and some are good. If the expanse had been shit it wouldn't have been because of diversity - it would be because of bad writing. Quality and Diversity are not correlated.
It is possible that a lot of people who are perceived to be against diversity quotas don't mind diversity in and of itself but just want to see characters that are more than their skin colour, gender or sexuality.
If that were true those people would love Star Trek Discovery because, well, no ones race gender or sexuality define them in that show.
Nothing happens to Burnham because she is black or female, nothing happens to Statements because he is gay. Those traits do not define them any more than Batmans blue eyes define him.
Yet people still hate on the show for those characters being non-white or non-straight.
Those people cannot use this defense at all.
Sometimes they perceive characters as not "more than their skin colour, gender or sexuality" because they can't see past those characteristics and just reduce them to those characteristics. This is especially evident in backlashes that happen even before the release of many shows and movies.
@@DevonWlodyga No I do not want the media full of straight white men. That is a person of straw fallacy. Misrepresentation of someone's viewpoints speaks volumes about you.
@@TonySamedi A lot of people dislike Discovery because of retcons.
A lot of people also dislike the JJ films because of retcons too. However Discovery seems to get a free pass from a lot of its fans.
@@sinachiniforoosh It is because the promotion of these shows (before they air) focus too much on the physical characteristics of the cast.
Many great points in this video. You're right, these fandoms are like religions. I'm not a real Star Trek fan because I enjoy Discovery and the JJ-verse. I'm not a real Star Wars fan because I like Last Jedi (despite some serious concerns). I'm not of the pure faith, a heretic, a false prophet. When someones identity is too wrapped up in their fandom, that's when the vitriol bubbles out. I've seen channels with video after video complaining, people crying, yelling screaming because a fictional character or story doesn't line up with their personal vision. Very sad. Fan comes from fanatic and it's becoming more and more apparent that this is the case with many. Watch a movie, watch a show, and either like it or don't. Then, move on. Dwelling on things you hate aren't constructive and are a sign you're too deeply involved.
I wrote extensively about toxicity in fandoms when I was in university, and that was ten years ago. The subject is far, far stronger nowadays. It is not new, but it is more vocal. But bear in mind that we live in times that are highly politically charged, and there are entire groups of radically politically motivated people that have no hesitation to co-opt fandom identities to further their agenda - just look at gamergate. It is important that we recognise this as an intentional co-opting, with specific goals, aims and intents
Gamergate was a huge moment for all of this. Agreed. And there is good scholarship now, too, which is nice.
That is precisely why people like gamergaters and comicsgaters want the politics out of comics and games.
It's a cop out. There are always going to be politics in comics and games.
Harry Michelson but will it be thoughtful insights where both sides are analyzed and the audience can decide or will it be polarized propaganda whose real purpose is to indoctrinate not entertain?
"It will go on as long as people don't use Harry Potter or Star Trek as markers of their personal identity."
Uhm..... That goes against the biological and evolutionary purpose of stories.
There is another element too, the part where people blatantly attack other fans for their opinion. For instance some says why they like this, or don't like that, and a number of people just plain attack them for how they feel. That in turn causes the first person to defend themselves and attack back, escalating the situation. It's not just in fandoms, it's happening in politics too, and that is the scary part. We don't have civil discussions anymore. We (at least I am) are scared to say how we feel about something, or where we stand.
PRECISELY!
I rarely comment on UA-cam videos, but this video actually helped me put a lot of my thoughts and feelings on contemporary issues into context. Toxic fandom is definitely a byproduct of our time, and it's incredible to see that it's not something new, but has roots in religion and other older aspects of human civilisation. It feels like we would need a Star Trek-level of human enlightenment for this to disappear, but I do wonder how ingrained this trait is within our species as a whole and if it can ever be truly purged.
Thanks for watching!
Can this behavior be purged? Probably not. But civility is thing that is taught...it isn't natural. Just need to encourage civility is all. That will help keep the toxicity to a minimum.
Human nature will never change! History has sadly shown that.
Great video. I'd like to add my theory to the mix. It's about general worsening of people's attitude, not only in fandoms but in general. I feel that nowadays not only fandoms stopped being the thing to keep "safe and hidden". It's also various other fringe opinions, often connected to racism or sexism. It may be only me, but it feels that in general more and more people are not afraid to be openly sexist, racist or another -ist targetted against someone deemed "deviant". My theory is that it's a feedback loop between the general populace and politics:
Some people always vote for extreme polititians. One time or another these extreme opinions gain representation, but a small one. No issue if it is small one, right? Well, the people voting for them get emboldened and more open about their extreme attitudes. Other people who are inclined to these opinions as well suddenly see that there is representation for these opinions and vote for them too. Next term more representation is elected for these extreme opinions. And more people who were silent about their attitudes also speak up and stop hiding their "isms"... and that goes on and on. Until in the end there is so much negativity, extreme opinions and harsh insults towards people who just disagree that even the average Joe who is a good guy starts accepting stern reactions and over the top drama into his behavior. I see it in America, I see it in my home country. The elected polititians get worse and worse. And the population supporting them gets louder and fouler. Is it coincidence that it happens in the same time when every major fandom has some percieved "black sheep" sequel? In gaming too... every company that's been around for some time is supposed to "lose their touch" and the latest sequels are always "too casual". We've just accepted outrage and pointing fingers into our repertoir of public behavior. And well, how the internet was the highway for all of this - that's all in this video.
The big problem is lore breaking and pandering.
People loved trek because it was a vision of what we could/ should be. It wasn't dystopia sci fi. But now it is, lore is broken all the time, and calling fans toxic or whatever else is only going to guarantee the death of the franchise.
Same with Dr.who, Starwars, Ghostbusters.
If writers want to make something specific, don't hijack a beloved franchise and mutilate it into what you want. Leave it alone, and make something original or atleast match content with environment. Instead of a dark startrek, do bladerunner judge dredd.. If you HAVE to piggyback on the success of something established because the woke ideas are garbage. ..
This is a really interesting video. The subsumption of consumption into identity in contemporary capitalist society is a significant component of intersubjection (as in Hegel’s use of the term). I’d be really interested in seeing your take on Peter Coffin’s conceptualisation of the same topic as cultivated identity, where fandoms are specifically cultivated by capital (like crops by a farmer) in order to extract value from us as fans, effectively transforming our identities into alienated subjects of a social power estranged from and set above us.
Impressive research!
I think the majority of modern Internet-based toxicity started with 2014's Gamergate, and then proliferated from "ethics in game journalism" to all geeky fandoms. UA-cam culture perpetuated the toxic fandom - more rage results in more clicks.
(I'm not talking about this channel, of course - you're cool & reasonable)
The examples you cite for racist or sexist aren't always the cause for disapproval of how a character is being misrepresented just for the sake of fitting in to or doing a money grab of the current climate. For example when a character is written for a particular race or gender and then someone decides to fuck with that by making an opposite gender or different race of an established character that is where current trends are jeopardizing the value of a given story, setting, etc. That doesn't mean the fan is a bad person. It does suggest that the person or entity forcing the change onto the fans and world at large is a dick basically.
There is a current trend spreading that females are to be the lead roles of previously established male characters in remakes of popular films, stories, comics, games, etc. Then when the public rejects these it is the fan that is at fault rather than the real perpetrators of this phony crisis. You cited the 4th Ghostbusters as one example. But you failed to include the total remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with a female lead cast that completely botched the classic comedy of the original. Calling it The Hustle when the real hustle was in its abortive production in the first place.
Disliking poorly made cashgrabs of cinema or television is now hatespeech. Cheap Hollywood Schlock are peoples too, ya know!
Nearly every franchise is a hollow, soulless corporate engine that is an objectively worse version than its predecessor. I, for one, welcome our new overlords like OP. Hopefully we can get a 8th Spiderman reboot before I can forget the first 3.
I was affected by the toxic of the fandom, new Star Wars movies was attacked by this, at the point to fail in tickets, so basically toxic fandom destroy Star Wars. The sexism, narcissism and racism was brutal, I feel I was affected because now producers do not see Star Wars as a good investment. So not much Star Wars in the future, I don't going to enjoy new Star Wars in movies anymore in a large time, I'm old, so probably I die before next Star Wars movie. (Yes I was there in 1977).
Good job I belive this needs to be said as often and as loud as possible. Thank you.
Thank you for watching =)
I honestly dont think that toxicity withing a fandom is only a thing of minorities, infact i find some of these backlashes justified. For example, the reason for the Ghostbusters backlash was not that the cast consisted of only women, but because of the fact that an all-female reboot meant that the movie would probably priorizite political messages over being true to the source material, which is exactly what ended up happening. And then of course, this repeated a while later when Ocean 11 got an all-female reboot, which was also a complete failiure as it didnt stay true to the actual franchise. And i can already tell you that the coming all-female Terminator movie is probably gonna be just as bad. I understand the Whovians concern over the franchise becoming part of CNNs political propaganda, but honestly, for all i care they could cast a sentient octopus as the Doctor as long as that octopus plays the role well. I also understand that part about Hermione being cast as being black when really, even though i couldnt tell you an instance of Hermiones skin color being ever described, she has never been established to be black, and so just making her is stupid. Had they wanted a black character in the story they could probably have gotten away with making Scorpio mixed race with his mother, who isnt in the story afaik, being black, but just taking a character who, while never having been specified to be white, has been depicted as such many times (just look up the original cover art of Prisoner of Azkaban, shes pretty clearly shown to be white on that one, and while i dont think that JKR had personally approved every single cover art in the world, i would assume she at least approved all of them the first time around and never demanded she be depicted as black, besides, she was also directly involved in the casting of the main characters in the movies, and Hermione was clearly white enough there to be played by Emma Watson) and so this change was just another example of characters being made another race just for the sake of diversity. Thats not toxicity. Thats fans wanting their beloved franchise to stay intact as it is.
Sometimes it is a marketing ploy like what sony did deleting critical comments of the trailer and leaving up the vile sexist ones.
Sometimes they even highlight the most negative comments/ hateful attacks, and anyone critical after that is a sexist, racist, or homophobe.
Lastly, many people can be toxic look at what happened to the casting of Ruby Rose and being attacked for not being gay or jewish enough.
We need to find the clear line where criticism isn't considered harassment, and truly bad people are not the same as the majority. Also, I think the fact that the internet makes the small percent of hateful comments looks more massive. Twitter has 330 Million people on it each month, so even is the .1 percent looks like a massive attack. 330,000 So the massive reach of the internet makes a small problem look so much larger.
the Ghostbust trailer is now RIGGED to say 0 comments ! Even while showing MY COMMENT ! And no Like / Dislike counters either. It must have been a really high number really fast ! They keep rigging the numbers, doing things to make people not like it here !
@@adamlevine6700 It was Paul Blart Mall Cop, but with Ghosterbusters.
@3:25 - That's it exactly. That's why fans get so heated, I think; when a new incarnation of a property strips whichever element connected with them on a personal level *out* of the thing that they loved because that element within it resonated on the personal level, it feels like the ultimate betrayal of the property's point and purpose, to them. 'What's the point of X when you don't have Y? Y was the whole point!' And the fact that other people- who had a different element resonate with them personally, an element which is still present- can declare the new incarnation of the property *good*, or even superior, seems incomprehensible- because to this fan who has lost the element that resonated with them, the property seems to have been stripped of everything that made it (to them) what it was.
7:19 Love the Charlie Brooker style with Beethoven No.7 playing as you say something profound. He normally used it over Doug Stanhope talking, with the same affect.
ua-cam.com/video/ZQQgb5hXQGU/v-deo.html
Man...I am so happy I subscribed to you. This video has stated so much that I have been thinking or saying is wrong with a lot of fandoms when one goes to a video about a subject, or a site, etc. You try to talk to people.. And you see such ugliness. And it turns so many people away from great franchises due to how the fans you see act towards it. ESPECIALLY the overly hateful racism and sexism. Terminator 6 is currently getting slammed by sexist and homophobic comments all over UA-cam due to 3 women in a EARLY production photo being released. And it made me sick to see the things people are posting online. And not just in the comments... UA-camrs are adding to that fire by putting out videos encouraging that line of thinking. And it's sad. Sad to see such ugliness rise from something that is meant to entertain and bring fans together.
I dislike Discovery partly for the same reason I disliked Enterprise; both are unnecessary prequels that don't mesh well with what came before them. I also hate the idea of paying to watch that one show only via the All Access app, so it was the first Trek series I stopped watching early on. Normally I give them more time to find their footing, but what I had seen up to the mid-season break wasn't worth the cost I had been paying.
I don't give a damn what color or gender any respective cast member of any Star Trek show is. Outside of a handful of instances, I haven't seen many fans complaining about any of those things. What I have seen is articles and some fans implying dislike of Discovery is mostly due to race, sexual orientation, or the gender of characters on the show.
It is possible to dislike a program without being a racist or a sexist, or being homophobic. It does seem however, that those terms sometimes get used as a cudgel against naysayers, as a way to silence opposition.
I never got the “unnecessary” and “no one asked for it” complaint. Surely everything was unasked for when they first started.
But I do agree that STD was awful.
@@johnthecrazed5679 I just don't care for most prequels because they so often have to be shoehorned into the existing storyline. I would much rather see a story move forward than focusing on trying to squeeze into an irrelevant past point-in-time, especially when the creative team takes massive liberties with established lore and settings.
I really hope with this new Picard show we will finally get the post Voyager show a lot of us have been after for years.
Exactly! Stop dragging your feet and MOVE THE STORY FORWARD! All this prequel dwelling in the past shite i've seen enough of.
@monochrome George Don't get your hopes up. Seeing as he's well into his 80's now it'll be a very very different sort of show i bet. Might be great, might also not.
The problem with this video is that it doesn't admit any of the faults of certain IPs which have enabled, encouraged, or warranted the backlash. The showrunners and actors of STD and the GB reboot in particular are pretty antagonistic, and they went in the implicit far left direction to attack the average person. No doubt some of the backlash was toxic and awful, but the IP itself holds some accountability for the issues.
That's because it doesn't matter what the IPs do. No matter what an IP does to a property, a death threat is NEVER the right course of action.
@@Trekspertise The absolute vast majority of criticism against all these IPs does not include threats of violence. You cannot take the extreme examples and use them as representative of all response. That's completely disingenuous.
And criticism isn't toxic. There is a certain brand of fan reaction that is toxic. We define that incredibly clearly in this video.
Part of the problem is fans thinking they represent the average person and anything that they don’t like is taken as a personal attack on them. And multiply this by many average fans and it becomes a wave and a backlash against perceived direct attack on them by the IP owners.
Paused at 12:02 - There's an argument that almost ever comes up, "Who's a true fan?"
Nah. It's usually the fans being attacked for disliking movie/tv show makers, openly forcing their indoctrination on all the viewers. No matter what that specific indoctrination happens to be.
"Yeah, that movie wasnt great"
"You only hated it cause it had women in it!"
"No, I didn't like it cause it just wasn't as good as the original, which I'd argue had better female characters cause, you know, they actually had character and weren't just amazing at everything"
"You lying bigot! We will destroy you for this!"
I believe the solution to this entire internet toxicity is to avoid it, have your friends, have your family and comment publicly a few times. But when you receive illogical hate, block them and continue to block them until only purity remains. The solutions is to ignore the bad and let the good in and to be more selective of what you want to see and be friends with.
EXACTLY, I just don't waste time on ranting negative critics, I've seen extremist right-wing AND left-wing fans ranting like lunatics and haven't hesitated for a second to block either. So much quieter when it's just people discussing the ACTUAL narrative & characters in regards to it, instead of crazed rants about race or gender politics that have very little to do with the narratives in question.
Really appreciate the theory. Honestly learned so much sociology from this video as well!!
I read LOTR in the early 90s, before the Internet. For ten years until the movies came out, it was a story that I loved mostly privately. Whenever I met another fan we would talk about how great it was and that was that. When I first took a look at online fandom, I was stunned at the vitriol, and the sexist and racist content being thrown around.
In particular, I noted the contrast between the LOTR fandom and the ASOIAF fandom in terms of how scarily obsessed the latter were and willing to hear anyone criticize the genius of George R.R. Martin. I've never seen a level of fanaticism like it in ANY other fandom.
I discussed why with another major fantasy fan, and he believed that because ASOIAF came out after the Internet had gotten started, it quickly fostered a toxic cult mentality online that was already very strong by the time the show came around. The Harry Potter series has a similar timeline, but its readers started out as children, not engaging online so young, and the subject matter is not as intense. So the fandom did not become so overheated.
This is amazing, thanks for continuing to make videos.
One thing I would have liked to see commented on is how toxic fandom seems to legitimize the toxicity in how it's responded to. Each of the aforementioned toxic fandom examples had a counter-group that was equally toxic as the original group.
Watching this in 2020, it did not age very well.....
It is still highly relevant.
@@Trekspertise No, it isn't.
One phenomenon that I think is overlooked is how far fans have drifted from the source material's creators. When I was deep in BTVS fandom I knew every writer and director, what their style of writing or directing was, and how their inclusion at that particular point in the season could affect the narrative. My most consistent fandom these days is Agents of Shield and I can name the EPs and that's it. I have no clue who is writing the episodes or directing them! Understanding the source of the material in fandoms is so important because the comic company or movie studio will often get blamed for changes that are upsetting when it's really something the writer of that particular story arc came up with. Like how Jason Aaron wrote the Original Sin storyline that led up to Secret Wars 2015 and All New, All Different Marvel and he was the one who decided that Thor would become unworthy of Mjolnir and that Jane Foster would become the new Thor. He also decided that Jane Foster's run as Thor would be finite before the backlash against her even occurred. I know that the keyboard warriors of Twitter and Reddit think that the ANAD line failed because of their novel length tirades against "forced diversity" but it was honestly just event fatigue and the fact that DC Rebirth was just 100% better than anything Marvel was putting out at the time. I digress...the fans who are getting angry literally have no idea who is writing or drawing their comics or who is writing or directing their favorite TV shows & movies and react like they've been betrayed by their closest friend when creators do something that they don't agree with. I recently started paying more attention to comic artists and there are a ton of women and people of color drawing comics. The longest line I've ever seen at New York Comic Con was for Sanford Green, who has drawn Luke Cage and Power Man & Iron Fist! But when I went to get Chris Clairmont's, he wrote some of the most iconic X-Men storylines in the 1990's, autograph last year I was the only person in line.
I can remember back in the days when DS9 was going to come on air, people would go on pretty racist tirades against the casting of Avery Brooks as the lead role, and I still recall the stupid "But what if she's going to have her period?!" jokes (comedic genius, truly) when Kate Mulgrew was revealed to be playing a female captain on Voyager.
As you say, it's always been there. It just never was as loud, and these people also never were nearly as interconnected as they are now through social media.
This is a good point.
I myself don't remember that stuff, but back when DS9 was starting I was like 12 and didn't have the internet.
I just got to enjoy DS9 for the show itself, not worrying about backlash and getting to see the best Trek ever, where the lead character was from my city. (New Orleans).
I'm reminded of a quote I once read, I forget where (perhaps a Gaiman book?)
"Has the world gone mad?"
"Nope, it was always this way. You just didn't get out enough".
Most of us who fell in love with this stuff fell in love with it when we were children.
I was in single digits when my love of Trek began, and thus I was entirely unconcerned with real world politics.
Nowadays, when you're older, it's damn near impossible to not see politics in things, be it intentionally there or not.
Sometimes it's not the media changed, it's you have, you've grown up and have the real world weight on your shoulders now and can't easily get back to that pure simple place of just enjoying some show for being a show.
remember when TNG came out and trekkers hated Picard and crew? Saying it never used to be this way is just blatantly false. Fandom has always been toxic. It just seems worse because now everyone is connected via the internet.
Honestly, as bad as this is, it's nowhere NEAR as bad as the Star Wars fandom
I once worked with someone who grew up in the same neighborhood as Mulgrew and were classmates. From what I heard, Janeway is not that different from her personality. Take that as you will.
oh i agree absolutely.
I prefer maps, tech manuals, and source books. Even if my favorite fandom is going off in a direction that I disagree with, I can always tell myself a better story.
Reading the comments and seeing how a lot of fans didn't understand the video.
If you only didn't like the new Ghostbusters or other development in your franchise is fine but it is not what happened. If you don't like anything there is no need to tell all the world about that: After all, It is just a film. I liked the old films better, and at worst I Ieave the theater annoyed, but the next day I already forgot about it. Why there is a need to keep revising something I didn't like?
"True" Fandom is inerently toxic.
It also seems like only the negative opinions of films are welcomed, as when someone expresses a positive opinion about it, they get immediately attacked and labelled as an apologist or a shill or a reason their precious franchise is being destroyed.
I don't understand why negativity is celebrated while positivity is shunned,... which seems to be a common theme these days.
I Followed the Development of Ghostbuster 3 (as it once was) and the debacle and delay around Bill Murray and the endless delays - until I think Sony were sick of the sight of the original cast - that they got a reboot is partly their fault - especially Bill Murray - "However" people were prepared to give it a chance if they got the tone right - they didn't really the Jokes don't land - it's kind bland and nothing of significance happens.
However I don't personally find it offensive - heck I even bought the Movie on DVD.
But the tone is off and that as much as anything else is irritating to fans of The Ghostbusters Movies or the earlier seasons of The Real Ghostbusters Cartoon.
Basically all they had to do was to try to not make something outright terrible and they'd have got a franchise out of it - but the writing wasn't strong enough even without Sony's & Paul Fiege Marketing antics (later copied by The Last Jedi & Solo).
People who make a legit complaint don't like being talked down to - and the Woman fans who offer any criticism can get ignored completely as their views don't fit the narrative so they get even more sidelined into essential invisibility.
As for Hermione - well that was in part down to The Author being a clown on Twitter. Saying when the Original Hermione was Cast she was perfect and she help select her - and then later doing an about face and saying "She never said she was white" - well people knew that was an outright lie and they didn't like being patronised and talked down to when they showed her-her own dialogue showing she'd white and her own comments about the casting for the movies.
She made herself look like a fool - now was there a way to spin it sure - you just say "A play is a different medium and that we felt she brought something to the role that was suited to an older Adult interpretation of the Character".
If she'd said that people would have grumbled a bit and got over it - instead she was a dick about it and it rubbed people up the wrong way and brought out their inner-keyboard warrior it seems.
She got people being a prat to her online as she was making repeated counter factual statements that people knew were B.S. That sort of stuff annoys people.
That is why Kathy K is so loathed - she said to George Lucas' face that she was going to protect his legacy and his Characters and she then proceeded to tank the whole franchise in under 3 years. It makes her look bad - if she'd said nothing there would be nothing to hold against her - but she said she'd protect them, she said Luke was important etc.. and it was all lies. that sort of thing wound some people up.
Now again if they'd approached the angle slightly differently with Luke they still could have got most of their deconstructionist demolition job on screen and not have had it look so darn odd.
But it's clear to the fandom Disney-Lucasfilm wasn't protecting the Legacy it was pushing them out the door as quickly as possible to replace them with characters that they have not even properly developed yet - and the lack of a time gap between episode 7 & 8 causes even more problems. You make a movie that confuses and annoys people they don't spend money or it or it's merchandise. Sort of like how Mad Max pretty much tanked it's own Franchise by making Max a guest star in his own Movie (if that is even Max at all - which it may not be).
So not much money there - shame really that the best Mad Max thing in recent times is the Videogame. (but some people seem to like that Movie - I don't personally care for it much at all - it's not much more than a Mad Max 2 remake).
You annoy people long enough eventually they stop showing up - especially when they don't think you are even serious in what you are doing (TLJ or Fury Road was at least that) - That was what stopped people showing up for The Last Knight - after the lazy mess that was Age of Extinction people said right this needs to change - it didn't it got worse - so it killed the golden goose. Star Wars is at that tipping point if Episode 9 is a disaster then the only place it can go is far future sequel - whole other Galaxy or Prequel.
As they will have eradiated the Sequel era for a darn long time.
Funny how this only seems to apply to genre fiction. Fairly few internet wars about 'Coronation Street'.
Another excellent video. One of my favourite channels on UA-cam. Thank you for this recent essay.
your essays are frequently excellent
Fandom is like any other orthodoxy.
It restricts thought, excludes the new and forbids experimentation.
The future will not look like the past, which I find comforting.
Now you're getting it.
With all do respect, I've always had it. Starting before you were born.
By the way, I very much enjoy your insights and analysis.
If it was possible to talk about these issues, it wouldn't be such a big deal that these franchises are recasting and rewriting classic stories. I would invite the dialogue, because we can access the ideas themselves. However, as people are recognizing the shift in values in these narratives, they are also recognizing that they cannot discuss these changes precisely because of the way they have been cast or written. To the degree we can't talk about the ideas, art shifts into propaganda. You blame all the polarization on "racists and sexists." I blame polarization on ANYONE who manipulates race and sex to force people to accept their unpopular ideas. That includes the intersectional, social justice narrative injected into so many familiar franchises. If I could disagree with the ideas without being accused of hating people, I might be less skeptical and more prone to embrace certain casting and writing decisions.
People criticise Star Trek for being progressive. Star Trek. STAR TREK. I have to wonder what these people thought they were watching.
To be honest ... the moment somebody starts spewing their rants and rhetorics about Obama, Trump, liberals, Jesus, Nazis, SJWs, anti-SJWs, etc ... it's no longer even a discussion about Star Trek anyways. Or Star Wars, or Stargate, or whatever. You can always tell what a person loves by how much time and effort they spend on it ... and it seems most internet visitors aren't very loving towards the things they nominally claim they love, they only use the fandom itself as an platform or as a "captive" audience for speaking about other things.
Progressive/liberal is fine, but I don't remember any direct insults by Gene Roddenberry against people who disagreed with him. The strongly disagreed with Christianity, but he didn't call the Klingons or the Borg a stand in for Christians. They were stand ins for the USSR (atheists). The producers today are.
Charlie, you need to watch "Who Watches The Watchers."
I have seen it, and it is very atheistic, but in my view that is Picard, not the producer of the show. There are plenty of episodes that are much more even handed such as the TOS episode "Bread and Circuses" and the DS9 (post Roddenberry I know) episode "In the Hands of the Prophets".
Star Wars fans aren't racist. They just didn't like that there was a black stormtrooper because most of us thought that all stormtroopers were supposed to be clones of Jango Fett...who wasn't black. But, of course, the media misinterpreted it and blew it way out of propertion by saying that we hated that he was black JUST BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK IN AND OF ITSELF. I mean, c'mon! We didn't have a problem with Lando, we didn't have a problem Mace Windu being a black jedi master. Why would we now after all these years have a problem with a black stormtrooper?
:\
Infact most of us would LOVE Lando to return, but JJ just didn't think anyone would and didn't even call him to return. Now they ONLY call him cause Leia passed away in real-life.
Who are the racists really here?
I fully and completely condone racial and sexist attacks, death treats and insults, especially towards actors, which are given a role to act out and are not at fault what that role is in the context of the movie they are being cast in.
On the other hand, there is an argument to be made against selecting black or female characters where they do not belong. That statement sounds incredibly sexist and racist, so let me elaborate. Context matters here and with it we need to understand where the show is grounded. I have absolutely no problem with shows and movies that have traditionally been multicultural like Star Wars and Star Trek casting women and black actors. My issues with those shows lie in their poor execution and/or complete disregard for continuity. I have often said that Star Trek Discovery would have been a half-decent sci-fi show if it was not called Star Trek, black actors and gay couples included. Even shows that have traditionally cast white men like The Ghost Busters would probably not nearly generate the amount of sexist and racial attacks they had if their execution had been better. Here again I stress that I am fully against such attacks.
But in recent years, far left ideology is on the rise and one of the things far-left and far-right ideologies do is a sort of almost religious indoctrination and ideological washing. We have seen this in the past with Fascism, Nazism and Communism, and it is making a comeback with this new wave of extreme Feminism and extreme Multiculturalism. This ideological washing has made its way into mainstream media in the form of black washing and female washing, for a lack of a better term. Examples here are BBCs black Achilles, black Hermine Granger, the new female doctor Who to name a few. Such blatant attempts at ideological indoctrination are naturally going to be rejected by fans, who see right though them. These complaints are going to be exacerbated if the execution and quality of the show or movie in question is poor. In this case it becomes blatantly obvious where the priorities of producers lie, namely in ideological statement and not in making a quality show.Thus, fan backlash is inevitable especially if the universe they are based in has an established following. Moreover the further fans sit on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum the more their arguments are going to attack the ideological attempt at multiculturalism or feminism rather than the poor execution and poor quality. However this does not mean that we should not attempt to read between the lines of such attacks, however vile they are.
It isn't the opinion itself that is necessarily toxic. Instead it is how fans who hold X or Y opinion interact with other fans that can become toxic - we are talking about harassment, death threats, abuse, etc.... And the truth of the matter is that some fans hold sexist and/or racist views AND threatened other fans and even actors over it. That crosses the line into toxicity.
Every fan is allowed to like or dislike a thing. Hell, you think we like Star Trek V: The Voyage Home?! The difference is that we haven't sent a death threat over it...we haven't publicly shamed William Shatner for directing it.
Some of these backslashes are most definitely not illogical, sexist, or racist. For example, casting female actresses for specific roles that have always been written as canonically male is weird. The Master becoming female for some reason, or now the Doctor becoming female, yeah, that's weird. Most people probably just roll with it because Doctor Who is a very weird show, but it's still strange.
Of course then there's things like backlash against Finn being played by a black character... That's not based in logic. He's a storm trooper. He can be any race. Clone troopers weren't black. But storm troopers? Yeah, sure.
Problem is... unless you're a giant SW-fan, to most people clone trooper = stormtrooper.
And rather than take the confusion away, they immediately pulled the "RACIST" card. And never let go off it during the current Star Wars drama.
I've seen every ST episode and movie ever made, many times. It restores my faith in humanity. I love it. The comparison of ST with religion is dead on accurate. ST has improved me as a person, it has opened my mind, it has challenged my prejudice, it has made me cry, made me think, made me wanna be better, made me love and hate my self, it has changed my mind about nearly everything. Ive watched it since age 5 until the present 29. I will show my children ST and teach them that excellence is expected from them every day and that they shouldn't discriminate or be discriminated against. ST is the most beautiful peace of collected works of art, that I have ever seen.
Having said that . . . the Abramverse is an insult to the intellect and the STD is total and absolute gardbage. And no, I am not a toxic fan, nor am I a racist, masoginist, a fan boy or a nerd. I'm just a man who has been touched by this amazing art, changed by it, and am now watching as this holy thing is being torn apart in front of my eyes and destroyed by politics and the pursuit of profit.
Naw bro you’re toxic. A purist and a gatekeeper. I am sure you have redeeming qualities. I speak in regards to star trek.
@@Heathboy420 Takes a toxic fan to notice one eh?
@@realwhatbrains you tell me
@@Heathboy420 if you insist. I think your far more toxic they are. Since you took time out of your day to tell him in an attempt to make to make them feel bad for no reason other then they don't like a show that you like. Pretty toxic to me.
@@realwhatbrains yeah yeah whatever you need to tell yourself to make your team the good guys. My team doesn’t harass the cast, crew, and other fans. I just don’t care what you think of me so i tell you what others are too polite to say.
Toxic fandom is a myth.
There is no prof of any of the claims that there are groups of fans that are actively sexist/racist.
They are always curiously invisible. (Or one person)
What we have seen Ghostbusters, star trek, doctor who, star wars etc. Is products made by those with no or little faith in their product.
And we see the media blitz of "people attack our show". " sexist hate our movie". "Racist hate comics"
Bottom line we love the underdog , and studios go out of their way to play the underdog / victim of "the evil fans" aka shifting blame for poor quality or lack of interest on someone else
In this case the fans. But oops! Those fans were also the customers.
The only anger we ACTUALLY see from the fans is anger of being g grouped and labeled
Yup you guessed it "toxic fan" is the geek version of a racial slur
You’re overlooking the rise of the internet, complaining voices being magnified. And the rise of narcissism, everyone thinks their opinion is so important, completely unaware of how irrelevant they are
Exactly. The Internet's accessibility to the masses is one of the main culprits. Haters have been around forever. Crap like Twitter and Facebook just give them a platform to air their opinions. But its the ridiculous hardline stance but sides of the argument that really escalates this shit.
He's overlooked only about 50% of all of this topic
Agenda spotted. I smell Soy.
even the people on high shunning their own customers and putting out serious accusations like "racism" and "homophobia' ... you name it.
i'm gay and i got that. i was told by tim schaffer i didn't exist.
Sjws
I think the religious wars that left millions dead meant that people used to think their opinions were more important. I mean, it's just a hunch, but no one online is willing to burn someone else alive because they don't like the other person's opinion about their fandom.
+14:01 ; Can you Back up the claim that she left "because" of online Harassment as she doesn't seem to have said a word anywhere to that effect - in her last interview she heavily implied it was Cultural Pressures to conform & of being a English Speaking Asian in the Western World that stressed her out a bit. She cited things like beauty culture and consumerism and lamented her parents westernising their names.
She didn't say a word about People being mean to her online - Neither have I seen any reply to Haden Christian essentially telling her to grow thicker skin.
Most of the people I know and the channels I follow feel kinda sorry for the poor dear - even sort of ironically adopting her in some cases - as a "Victim" of bad Wardrobe and a Bad Script. I think she's actually gained from the whole New Jar Jar Binks debacle around her - unlike the real Jar Jar actor who never recovered from it. Even though in his case no one really even thinks of Jar Jar as a person underneath - so insults to him are to the CGI muppet not to the actor blocking the shots or voicing him. Anymore than they'd harass Wato's voice artist for making a racial stereotype. - no they blamed George or the CGI character directly.
The title of the article about her interview said as much in the editors comments but nothing i've seen to that effect has come from her own mouth - and many people have concluded that she's under an NDA during filming so that is why she put her Instagram on hold (she didn't shut it down it's just in a suspended state). Fine if she wants to say some Star Wars fan had trouble separating blame on to where it belongs (clue : it's not her) - But until she says so herself or even someone else who knows her personally says so (like her Mother say) then I consider that Heresay.
90 Lancaster
did stuff like this fly under your radar??
www.imdb.com/news/ni62079213
"Actress Kelly Marie Tran has deleted all of her Instagram posts, after reportedly suffering "months of harassment" following the December 2017 release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
@S C Yeah, notice how NONE of these newsposts have any kind of proof. The only "proof" they got is a wikia vandalism, and trust me, wikia gets that stuff a lot. Once in 6 months is probably the least vandalised wikia in existance.
That 'reportedly' is all made up by the media. She never till this date made any remarks, nor did any of her co-workers, nor her relatives... nobody. No-one knows.
+Hassat Hunter
lol - you need proof? Go to any comment section - there a plenty of scumbag toxic fanboys in anyone of them - stop blaming the victim or media for the all the douchebags in the world
Great essay. Thanks for posting this. I started thinking of fandom, especially toxic fandom, as a sort of ultra-nationalist stance, but I never knew why,. I hope this gets widely seen. And meanwhile, I do my part in toning down the noise and hate by 1) not making criticisms of media personal and 2) understanding that everybody sees and reads everything through the lense of their own experiences. And, also, but it took me to my 40s to get this.... Coming to the realization that I am not my interests. I am me.
I think I know what you mean about it being an ultra-nationalistic stance since for decades the majority of comic books and video games were steered towards a white male audience. Now with more people getting involved, there's this "get off my lawn" attitude that became toxic. Too few trekkies took to heart the Vulcan philosophy "infinite diversity in infinite combinations".
The main problem is changing the race Richmond or establish characters such as Mary Jane Harry Potter is Hermione Granger and the little mermaid Ariel do you say something familiar about all these girls they’re all white and they all have red hair incidence I don’t think it is
I'm not a social person, but I'm an anamoly. Maybe it's because I have autism but I learned a long time ago and. maybe because of other things I learned toxic fandom is a terrible thing.
Everyone knows that Brady's papercuts is the best corner
Damn straight.
Great essay, Thanks! I don't know if you had intended to keep the video short, but you made some statements there that were not completely fleshed out, or at least not argued for. I would very much like to see a follow-up in this series that better describes how you came to the conclusion that the toxicity in fandom originates or is focused in the vocal sexist and racist minority of the population. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how that impacts decisions of content owners creators, marketers. How might an enterprising proprietor of a franchise mobilize a moral majority against a vocal minority in order to best take advantage of the market. How any dissenting opinions could be silenced, disenfranchised, and demonized regardless of merit. I'm sure your format of video essay, well thought-out wordplay, and deep commitment to intellectual integrity would bring quite a bit of insight to this subject. Thanks again for all of your hard work.
Dude. This vid is amazing. So well thought out, informative and accurate. And although we all understand toxic fandom, and mostly ignore it. You put great perspective on it.
Thank you so much for watching. Hopefully this video will do some good for the world.
Very complex subject, very well presented. Specially the idea that this dynamic exponentially increased by the internet is inevitable and here to stay. Don´t read the comments seems to be the only solution to keep a relative mental health, but can we?
I really hope this video will grab the rug by the correct corner. [Edit: I think it did! Awesome!] Too many write of legit critcism of new movies as Nostalgia craziness, and write the toxicness up as a side symptom. These are two separate things, one of which, legitimate criticism, is not a problem.
I can't express how much I hate the new Star Wars movies for example, but the toxic shit people done, bullying the actors for example, Is waaaaay beyond what is acceptable. Write essays, make videos, whetever, where you collect your points, but don't attack people over it.
Yes, I despise it all. And while Star Wars is an integral part of my life, maybe even my identity... It could never, ever be enough of a reason to harass others.
There is no rule that says one must love every single movie or episode of a franchise in order to be a fan. Sometimes we must accept that things change, because the audience changes. This is especially true for things like Star Trek, which thrived on resonating with the cultural and social topics of the day. What good would Star Trek be if it still looked like something from the 1960's? Answer: absolutely none, except to the old fan who already got the message of the time long ago. It is time for those fans to step aside and let today's messages reach today's audiences.
Now, Star Wars is different, of course. Something that applies to Star Trek doesn't necessarily apply to Star Wars. AND, there is also no rule anywhere that says one cannot be a Star Trek and Star Wars fan at the same time. That is another toxic fandom rift that needs to be dissipated.
Bottom line, we all have different opinions, different likes and dislikes, and cannot say that our own opinions determines what is and is not part of the franchise, because we are not the only people in it. I don't particularly care for the new Star Trek Discovery, but I know others enjoy it, and will defend its right to exist just as hard as any previous show. I still have very personal negative feelings toward the Star Wars prequels, but they exist and there is nothing I can do to change that (though I have written out an alternative story that I feel fits so much better :P)
1234kalmar I wholeheartedly agree. You see this so much in music too. Chester Bennigton’s last album with Linkin Park talks about his depression, but some fans hated it because it didn’t sound like their older music. Many of those same fans voiced their opinions on social media. He took his life because he couldn’t deal with it. It’s so sad to see this stuff become more normal.
you said this way better and faster then i did lol basically i dislike the changes to stuff, that being said let people enjoy what they want.
Thanks for another great, thought-provoking episode, Kyle and team! My Patreon contributions to your channel are money well spent, indeed. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for watching :)