The first few years of my comic book fandom were a secret.
As excited as I was about the monthly adventures of The X-Men, Fantastic Four, Superman, Batman and all the rest, it was tempered by the knowledge that I really couldn’t talk too much about them.
It’s hard to understand today when Tony Stark is a household name and people who’ve never read a single issue of The Avengers are demanding more Black Widow, but back then, there was a stigma attached to reading comics.
Being into them was just something a kid couldn’t cop to without becoming a target for bullies.
Thank God the times they have a changed. At some point when none of us old geeks were paying attention, we won the war.
Or, at least a peace accord was struck. We stopped having to hide our weekly trips to the comic shop. Our passion stopped being marginalized at every turn.
Our “thing” didn’t just become socially acceptable; it became celebrated.
Still, many of us harbor harsh memories of being made fun of, of being made to feel like outcasts. We remember being called names and we remember people trying to make us feel like shit just for liking something.
Which is why it baffles me that many older fans seem hell bent on making life that same kind of hell for new fans.
If you’re active in any online community, you see it almost daily. It usually takes the form of continued anger over “fake geek girls” and complaints of increased minority representation in both character and creator. They look for any way they can to invalidate the fandom of newcomers. They hurl insults, slurs and epithets just as cruel and vicious as the ones they received all those years ago.
They’ve become the bullies.
A lot has been written on this subject over the last few years, but most of those pieces focus on the problem.
Me? I often wonder what’s the root. We know some older fans are acting like unrepentant assholes, but why are they acting like unrepentant assholes?
Mark Hamill, O.G. Nerd turned icon |
I think a lot of this shitty behavior stems from an aversion to letting anyone new into the tribal. I think it stems from the fear that the things they’ve loved for so long will start to change and we all know change is scary. I think it stems from a fear of losing one’s identity as an outcast.
I think it stems from fear, period.
Fear makes people do crazy things and it makes them do terrible things. Does that excuse their behavior?
No. Not in the least. Actions should always have consequences no matter what place they’re coming from. However, I think it’s important to understand where someone’s coming from when forced to deal with them.
The good news is that, like I said, the times, they are a changing.
Despite a very vocal and often abusive minority, the face of fandom is changing and there’s nothing they can do about that.
And as fandom continues to change, and as comics begin to reflect that change, those bullying voices will start to become more and more distant. Until they fade completely, though, it’s important to remember that many of these people are still the same scared kids they were many, many years ago.
The rest? The rest are just actual unrepentant assholes.
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