Franchise Fandom…WHAT IS THIS?
I want to have some real talk about online fanbase discourse. I decided to post this here since I think fellow fans of the pod might appreciate what I’m trying to say here opposed to a standard pop culture subreddit.
I’ve gotten back into writing in a major way lately and have started getting into more deeply analyzing the entertainment I’m consuming. It’s honestly been a lot of fun and I’m pretty proud of the work I’ve been doing so I’ve been posting some of these longer form writings on here to see if I could genuinely spark some discussion. This has not exactly gone great.
My previous writings are all still up so absolutely take a look if you’d like, but I’ll summarize so you don’t need to: apart from a couple exceptions, these posts have all kind of been giant disasters. Keep in mind, when I say longer posts I’m talking a ten to twenty minute read at the very most. You read more than that at a day at middle school. I’m not trying to insult anyone’s ability to read, or say reading what I wrote is necessary in some way, but what really puzzles me about it is the sheer amount of comments I’ll get that boil down to “I’m not reading all that” or “next time TLDR”. I just don’t get the attitude that by refusing to read something and announcing it you should get a gold medal. I’ve read plenty of longer posts on here and I’ve never once really thought about this, but maybe I’m just using this app wrong. I just thought this was a place for more in depth discussion than something like twitter.
Another thing to note is that while many of the posts do focus on popular online criticisms I often read, I word these things in the most positive framing I possibly can because I’m not looking for a heated argument but a civil discussion. Despite this, so many people when I post these seem to think I’m attacking them personally. Maybe I shouldn’t expect so much out of big fandoms like this? But the way it’s worded and the fact I’ve seen other similar posts with civil discussion with none of this baggage I’m mentioning I guess made me believe this was a place for this kind of discussion. I’ve gotten a death threat for one of these posts (for praising The Dark Knight???) and I just had two separate commenters on my latest one about The Dark Knight genuinely question my character in a similar way just for addressing a online criticism I see about Rachel, which I didn’t think would be that controversial of an opinion if I’m honest.
I should say that a lot of these posts have been made in subreddits focused on Batman or Star Wars which are two things I could just talk about forever. This might explain the reaction since these are two of the biggest and loudest fanbases out there, but quite honestly I’ve only gotten a handful of comments that felt like they were actually engaged with what I’m saying (positively or negatively), but also the thing we’re discussing in the first place.
So my question really is, what am I looking at here? I know fandoms have a bad reputation for this kind of thing, but the number of comments made in bad faith are simply alarming. I know fans don’t NORMALLY act like this, but I’ve been to a comic book store, I know this isn’t just locked to the internet. Are most fans of popular entertainment just…angry? In general? Or is it something specifically about the way I’m writing? Am I the baddie?
TLDR; fans of popular franchises kinda scare me and I want to ask why, thanks for coming to my ted talk