Dyson's Fear 3.0

I'm sick of fandom

Yeah, I've said it before, but now I think I'm really done with it. (And I think I've said that before.) I'm sick of people taking offense of critical thinking. This isn't taking offense at a differing opinion, which is still pretty stupid, this is taking offense at suggesting that something isn't perfect.

While I'm not going to bother linking to it, I suggested (almost word for word) in a thread on RPGnet (yeah, yeah, I should know better) that we Firefly/Serenity fans might be better off with the little we have, as Whedon's track record with TV series is uneven at best. For this thought, I'm chastised and dismissed.

Mind you, we're talking about people who refer to people they don't know, haven't met, and will never meet by their first names. We're talking about the fans who call Joss Whedon 'Joss', or Richard Dean Anderson 'Rick', as if they were best friends. We're talking about people who think that Whedon is perfect, and suggesting that he's anything less than a god is blasphemy.

I guess what I'm talking about is fan entitlement and misplaced attachment. We're talking about people who self-identify with their adoration of the geekier edges of pop culture, and not by their own achievements. We're talking about the people who think that the achievements of their WoW character actually mean something, and actually propel them into some kind of elite. Which they aren't.

I can't have conversations with these people, as there is absolutely no depth to the conversation. You either mindlessly adore, or you're 'the enemy'. There is no middle ground. These people make me ashamed to enjoy what I do, and because they're so prominent in geek circles, I've been forced to ostracise myself because I don't want to deal with these freaks. I can't game anymore because I can't find the normal people amongst all the emotionally crippled, pseudo-intellectual peons that make up the unclean face of geekdom.

I'd say that I hate geeks, but I'm fully aware that I'm one too. That said, I don't self-identify with my interests, I'm just highly aware of them. Others identify me with them, but they're not what I consider my defining traits. I'm reminded of Gabriel Kroener (check out his demo reel), the obnoxious Trek geek from the first 'Trekkies'. He behaved exactly how these people do, but he had the chance to see his behaviour from the outside, and changed. Now he's a well-adjusted, married guy in the special effects industry (with Zoic studios, the people behind the effects on BSG and Firefly) and seems to self-identify with being a professional with geek interests, instead of being just a Trek fan. Kudos go out to that guy, and I wish that more people would get the opportunity to see exactly how they act from the outside.

Also, I wish that somebody'd drop 25 million bucks on my doorstep, too.

Yeah, like that'd happen.

(Update, 4 hours later: I happened to find this site, a Godzilla fan site, and I just figured it's a perfect example of what I dub 'fandumb'. The most astoundingly dumb part of it is this rambling, full page butchering of international copyright law. Why do such a great deal of other G-Fans have to be such utter knobs?)

(Update #2: Apparently, my spell-checker prefers 'offence' over 'offense', but personal aesthetics prefer 'offense'. Neither one looks right, but 'offense' looks less wrong.)

Labels: pop culture, rant

posted by Jason @ 9:20 AM