The Droid You’re Looking For has a hilarious 5 step chart for how to cope with bad reviews of The Dark Knight Rises. Not only hilarious, but apparently essential to the health of our society. Death threats were made by raving fanboys over the temerity of critics to criticize the new Batman movie. The likelihood that anyone who readily resorts to such tactics has the acuity (mental, physical, or constitutional) to carry through on such threats is infinitesimally small. The fact that this sort of thing is common is regrettable. Both Sonny Bunch and Glenn Kenny (among many others) have weighed in on this, and I’d like to highlight one quote from each. Bunch:
Fanboy fascism and elite groupthink are, in a way, flip sides of the same coin. Both in-groups are desperate to maintain their privilege; both looks warily at the other. A certain subset of fanboy harbors the sense that a few critics out there will never respect comic book films; a certain subset of criticism does them a solid by constantly slagging comic book films and acting as if they can never, at least, suffice as entertaining summer fare—and God help anyone who thinks they can be more than that. C’est la vie. The world turns. We will soon move on to the next Internet emergency.
[T]his thing called “fan culture” or “nerd cuture” or whatever it is you want to call it is largely predicated on emotional immaturity combined with a variety of willed cultural illiteracy. Fan culture doesn’t say “comic books can be high art,” it says, “comic books are the only art.” And, further, “the film of the comic book must provide an analogous heightened experience of the comic book, and YOU, the person on the outside of our purview who is now being gifted with this artifact of AWESOMENESS, must fall into line and PRAISE this artifact and confer upon it the legitimacy it has always deserved but which YOU have been too blinkered by your own pretentious prejudices to recognize.” That’s what fan culture wants. That’s what it demands. “Nerd culture” is Peter Pan as a brain-eating zombie.
To me, this is of a piece with the Tosh rape kerfuffle and what Alex over at Confused Gender considers to be the scourge of Internet discourse. I’d like to say that the relative anonymity of the Internet is what fuels the fanboy fire, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I’ve encountered many, many people in real life (who aren’t critics or bloggers or Internet debaters in particular) whose reaction to a difference of taste is frighteningly disproportionate to the “offense” or is a maddening brand of willed cultural illiteracy, as Kenny puts it. My guess is that while the Internet offers these brain eating zombies a forum for airing their grievances in the safest, most vile way possible, it’s not the Internet that causes it (though it’s probably a contributing factor). Instead, I get the impression that there’s something more generational at work. People my age, or perhaps a little older, simply don’t care that they are, for lack of a better word, being stupid. They don’t care that they’re being jackasses. They celebrate being stupid jackasses because they damn well have the right and they don’t give a crap about anyone or anything else, goddarn it. Except they do, of course. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be upset by things like a “ruined” Tomatometer or the fact that some people think that some rape jokes are out of line. Like the self-appointed feminist warriors who simply declaim Game of Thrones on the basis of male-gaze-rape-fantasy-and-if-you-disagree-you’re-probably-a-racist-rapist, those who truly own their nerdrage are so insecure about their own taste and cultural position that, rather than simply praise something they love — or, if they want to engage in debate, meet their opponents on a genuinely critical field of battle — feel compelled to dehumanize those who disagree with them.
On one level, Bunch and Kenny are right to be a bit snarky about this whole thing: it’s kind of silly, and as idiotic as fanboys are, nobody’s in direct, literal danger here. It’s one of those “Internet emergencies” that will blow over. On another level, though, I don’t think they or anyone else of their caliber would be commenting on it if it didn’t signal a broader, more fundamental undercurrent that, if equally silly, is more dangerous to the intellectual health of our culture. One of the points I emphasized in my Tosh post was that we live in a culture where making death threats is considered to be a legitimate response in discourse. Or dismissing your opponents as misogynist-rapist-racists. Or designating them as people who deserve to be raped. As long as everyone knows that you’re not really saying these things 100% seriously, what’s the beef, right?
Here’s my beef: it may be my obligation to let personal insults roll off my back, to thicken my skin, to turn the other cheek, etc. At the same time, you — and by “you,” I mean You Fanboys who get genuinely, seriously pissed off when someone dumps on your Holy Bat-Trilogy or whatever idol you’re worshipping this month — have an obligation to act smarter, to be more thoughtful, and to do better than threaten a critic’s life when his careening trolley car of paid opinion smashes your rickety, mealy apple cart of uncultivated cultural sensibility. Are these obligations legally binding, morally sacred, or enshrined in some unwritten (yet ironclad) tome of social etiquette? No. It’s simply what people do when they want to exist together and build something worth preserving. In this case, it’s cultural discourse. It’s being able to sit down and talk about what we think about art and entertainment and such — or politics, or philosophy, or how much rain our respective lawns need — without first having to establish whether one of us is an utter nincompoop. That is, if you want your viewpoint to be taken seriously. If you want your perspective to count. Because if you really mean the things you say when you say a woman should be raped by five guys, or liking Game of Thrones is tantamount to excusing rape/racism, or that a film critic should be murdered, then you’re a horrible psychopath; and if you’re just resorting to that rhetoric because you’re too lazy or uninspired to come up with something that we actually could take seriously, then you’re just wasting everyone’s time. Is it any wonder that your opponents are so quick to dismiss you and that which you love?☕
July 18th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Perhaps shockingly, I don’t have much to add on this topic, at least not now. I could write my own lamentation, but at this stage it wouldn’t be substantially different from yours. This side of the Internet culture is exceedingly depressing. I want to think that most of those who engage in such “nerdrage” wouldn’t be so crass and extreme in real life, and they probably wouldn’t because, as you hinted, the Net’s anonymity is a key factor in a lot of this. And yet, even then, they are still expressing attitudes that are their own, or that they have adopted from others and cannot separate from their own, and their online freedom to cry rape and death (not necessarily in that order) to all who disagree with their most fervent fanboy opinions desensitizes them to such attitudes in real life. What’s said on the Internet doesn’t stay on the Internet. Online culture increasingly influences offline culture.
July 18th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Thanks for the apt comment. I often wonder, though, if perhaps online culture reflects offline culture more than it influences it. There’s so much written about the “impact of the Internet,” and it is no doubt seismic in historical scope. Yet human consciousness evolves alongside its technology. The tool is a product of the mind, even as the mind is influenced by the nature of the tool. I don’t want to pretend that Internet culture isn’t very unique, yet I often find that it simply magnifies what is present elsewhere. My concern is that what I sense in the Internet-based, anonymous nerdrage isn’t just something that happened because of Internet anonymity, but something that evolved coincidentally with it, or found its purest, unleashed expression via this form. Were we already desensitized, and did we only begin to grasp this once the Internet exposed it? I don’t know. I wish I did. At any rate, it is, as you say, exceedingly depressing.
July 19th, 2012 at 9:37 pm
As usual, it’s a combination of many factors. The Internet culture (varied as I admit it is) both reflects and influences the rest of our culture. I’d say that pop culture was already pretty crass, on the whole, well before the Internet, but that the Internet gave it an outlet through which it exploded. The combinations of anonymity and connectivity allow people to say what they think to anyone in the world who is also connected, without much fear consequences that affect their “real” life. The instantaneous nature of posting something online and getting feedback within minutes or seconds encourages Internet trolls to spout their opinions quickly and without second thoughts. Now, people who believe in courtesy and intelligent discourse can use this technology for insanely productive means, but for those without that belief, or those who at heart really believe that their opinions and thoughts are the only ones that matter, the Internet seems to encourage the worst in them.
Don’t think I pretend to understand it all – I don’t. Well, maybe I do, at least at the most basic level: sin. Mankind is fallen. No one without Christ is holy, and those of us with Christ are still being sanctified. There do seem to have been times in history when even the popular culture held ideas like courtesy, politeness, and honor in much higher regard, and “normal folks” and even youths could be expected to express their opinions with some degree of respect for the people they were talking to or writing to. So perhaps we’ll get a culture that does this again — I hope so. But the root of all society’s problems will always be sin, and rejection of Christ.
July 19th, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Also, Daren at the m0vie blog has a well-expressed post on this same issue.
July 19th, 2012 at 12:47 am
[...] just finished a post about the idiocy in some of the reactions to the new Batman movie, and then I read on Opus that Rush Limbaugh has also allegedly bought a(nother) one-way ticket on [...]
July 19th, 2012 at 12:55 am
Simple thing Matt. We all are often caught up in traffic. Here in India, quite a lot more. You here abuses flying across cars. Flipped birds. We, I, behave a lot differently, and dare I say a lot more aggressively in such a situation, and it is all about anonymity. I mean, we’re not going to meet them again, right? The situation changes drastically if the guy in the other car is one of our colleagues. I believe we were always like this.
Coming back to “killing”. Honestly, I haven’t read any of those comments, but I suppose they wouldn’t be any more vitriolic than Serena Williams’ blast at one of them US Opens. I see my tweet feed, and I often come across, let us say, not so respectable stuff said about your politicians. Do we consider that an intellectual form of this phenomenon? I don’t know, but I share Sonny Bunch’s viewpoint on the stuff around Kyle Smith. And I have seen Margaret become the second coming of Christ. What I think about the film, is a different matter.
What my opinion is this. Let us not repeat the same thing, and categorize them as “fanboys/nerds/___”. I am one of them. It is just that the internet gives us the same superpower the enclosure of our cars have been giving us all this while.
July 19th, 2012 at 12:57 am
Aha, sorry for the typo, it is hear* in the third sentence..
July 19th, 2012 at 8:42 am
What I say in the closed comfort of my car would burn Sam Kinison’s ears. I think you’re right about that. ;) And this is certainly not a phenomenon restricted to movie nerds or critics (which are often one and the same; I’m one, too). What astounds me, though, is that people have utterly no shame about this kind of behavior. It’s one thing to spout off at some driver that you know cannot hear you; it’s another thing to throw that invective out into the cyberspace where potentially millions can read/hear it. On top of that, those potential millions might tacitly approve what you said and how you said it. And not all of it is predicated upon anonymity. Many of these comments are in Facebook feeds, Tweets, Tumblrs, blogs, etc. that are directly tied with a name and occupation.
July 19th, 2012 at 5:55 am
[...] just finished a post about the idiocy in some of the reactions to the new Batman movie, and then I read on Opus that Rush Limbaugh has also allegedly bought a(nother) one-way ticket on [...]
July 19th, 2012 at 8:29 am
“That’s what fan culture wants. That’s what it demands. “Nerd culture” is Peter Pan as a brain-eating zombie.”
I can’t quite get behind this, though I appreciate the rest of the points. I’m a fully certified and official nerd myself, as are you, I think. I also am frustrated by the cheapening of certain genres by critics. However, your point about discourse is right on target (proof of nerdiness, my brain quoted “Stay on target!” as I typed that…). I think it is indicative of the increasing adversarial nature of our culture. I agree with theplausible, that humanity has always been like this, but I also think that it ebbs and flows in cultures. It certainly isn’t just nerds who seem to equate attacks on things they love, support of things they hate, or differences of opinion are personal attacks (or worse, attacks on something “worth defending”). The internet just has a knack for aggregating vitriol, and encouraging people to speak up because others are speaking up.
There is another question, though. There are people out there who troll because they can… trolling is their amusement. I wonder how much trolls who want nothing more than to see flame wars contribute to starting these “internet emergency” wildfires.
July 19th, 2012 at 8:53 am
It often seems like the Internet was built for trolls, which is too bad. And I hope that you’re right, in that this is part of the “flow” of “ebb and flow,” and the adversarial vitriol will recede just a bit. As I said in my replies to Satish and David, I agree that this perhaps the Internet just magnifies something already present in humanity, and it’s certainly not restricted just to pop culture snit-fits, but I wonder if there’s something we can do culturally to combat not just these symptoms but the problem. I don’t hope for an ultimate cure; just an effective balm, you might say.
Re: Kenny’s comment in “nerd culture”… Kenny’s a nerd, too. Almost everyone in the pop culture profession is a nerd, and I certainly identify as one. But you have to admit that perhaps there is a special brand of nerd culture that really deserves the description he gives. I often describe myself as a “fanboy” of something or other (like Doctor Who), and yet my brand of fanboy is clearly of a different stripe of fanboy from the people leaving those comments on RT. Bizarrely, I think there’s a strong anti-intellectual streak among a lot of nerds and geeks (who are stereotyped as being into things that require a bit of intellect to appreciate), and it erupts like clockwork whenever somebody — anybody — challenges their dominant place at the top of the heap, as when a critic dares to pan a comic book movie that is guaranteed to reap zillions of dollars in profit. I can’t take offense to somebody denigrating “fan culture” in that context, since it’s a brand of my nerd subculture with whom — despite some overlap in taste — I don’t really have anything in common. Sort of like if somebody refers to “crazy Christians” in context of the Westboro nutters. Instead of taking offense that they’re whacking at Christianity in total, I assume that they’re attacking those crazy Christians as opposed to those crazy Christians.
July 19th, 2012 at 10:20 am
An ultimate cure will have to wait, for sure, but the pendulum continues to swing, and I’ve seen nothing, yet, that will stop it. People will get so fed up with this crap that eventually it will swing the other way. The biggest danger I can see is that our society may fracture so much that you will have different large groups with different pendulums, some swinging in the direction of greater politeness in discourse and some swinging in the direction of vulgar abuse. Here’s hoping, though, that that does not happen.
Oh, definitely. My point is that the nerd communities are extremely varied, and some of them are bat-#### (pun intended) while others are not. I fully recognize the existence of the brain-eating-zombie nerd culture. Heck, if anything fan-girls are even more terrifying than fan-boys… I do get tired of all nerds being lumped together, though. I’ve been, and still would be if the chance arose, an old-school, tabletop RPG player. Being in that arena taught me that nerds cover the whole spectrum of humanity, which is not something that our society, in general, is ready to accept. Mind you, our society is a lot closer to accepting this than it was a few decades back!