Whaaaaat (Destiny)

by kidtsunami , Atlanta, GA, Tuesday, November 06, 2018, 13:43 (2005 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Ultimately, I think the issue of "change" is where the majority of the tension comes from in these situations. The majority of fans of any game/book/movie love to have new fans join them in celebrating the thing that they love together. What they don't want is to have the thing that they love changed in order to attract new fans. And this trend is often misdiagnosed, then made worse by the fact that a significant portion of the people expressing their concerns do so poorly, or rudely, or aggressively, because they're being jerks on the internet. And that is precisely where the "gatekeeping" phenomenon comes in. Marvel comics over the past several years is a great example. Marvel looked at their readership and thought "it sure would be great if more women bought our comics... let's do something about that." Totally valid observation, and a great goal. But rather than creating new content to achieve that goal, they took a bunch of their existing franchises and characters and changed them (swapping sex or race or both). Fans complained because their favorite characters and books were suddenly being transformed, and then the whole argument between the self-described "real fans" and everyone else takes off. This is utterly predictable and understandable, and not due to widespread discrimination among comic-book fans. That's just what happens when you take something that people love and change it.

Whoa man, #ComicsGate is not just "Fans complained", it's been targeted harassment and campaigns to get people fired when they defend themselves against said bigoted harassment.

You're really minimizing some insidious behavior here.

That is definitely a portion of the situation. It’s terrible. I’m not minimizing any of that. But the numbers of people participating in that behaviour are only a small minority of the fan base who has been generally unhappy with the direction that Marvel has taken. It’s not accurate to paint the entire fan base with the same brush as a minority of people who are behaving terribly.

The volume of people not engaging in that behavior doesn't make the behavior go away. It provides people like you cover to say "it's a small minority". When someone sends a death threat or joins a call to fire Chuck Wendig they take all those voices not engaging in the ugly behavior and feel emboldened because they're on the same side whether those voices like it or not.

The people who have been under represented by mainstream entertainment for years have just as much reason to be upset, if not more so. But I don't see a hashtag co-opted by a hate campaign from them...