On Fandom

In my twenties, I prided myself on being a geek. I reacted with overblown excitement to new Star Wars or Lord of the Rings announcements. I saw every Marvel film opening weekend. I obsessed over Game of Thrones theories and went to see Doctor Who episodes in cinemas. I collected random merchandise pertaining to whatever properties I liked, from action figures to posters and mugs and whatever else could clutter my room. In one share house I lived in, we had maps of Westeros on the walls, which a visiting girlfriend proclaimed was ‘a bit sad’.
 
I didn’t feel that way, but my attitudes to these things did slowly change. Around 2015 I remember beginning to feel a kind of self-consciousness about being excited for the new Marvel film, largely due to a suspicion that I was getting all worked up over a homogenised corporate led franchise that was suffocating the film industry with its ubiquity. Around the same time I remember watching episodes of Star Wars: Rebels with a housemate and starting to wonder if our giddy anticipation for an animated children’s show was just a bit performative.
 
In the 2010s, geek culture had become popular culture. It was no longer embarrassing to like Doctor Who or  or Star Wars or Game of Thrones or superheroes because everyone liked at least one of those things. The biggest TV shows and movies were all brands that, once upon a time, had been nerd stuff. And maybe, partly bolstered by a snooty ‘I liked this stuff before it was cool’ mentality, I played up how into it all I was.
 
For all my ‘geekiness’ I don’t know if I was ever a true obsessive of any of these things. I never went back and watched classic Doctor Who or delved into the Star Wars books or Marvel comics. The Lord of the Rings movies were seminal for me, but I only read the books once as a kid and I couldn’t get my head around The Silmarillion or any of the expanded lore stuff. I think I liked the idea of myself as a ‘real fan’, whatever the hell that means, and acted in accordance with that conception despite more realistically being someone who liked the more accessible mainline versions of these franchises but didn’t have much time or inclination for the serious deep dive. And while I’ve certainly gone about as far as it’s possible to go down the Hannibal or Animorphs or A Series of Unfortunate Events rabbit holes, all of those offer a comparatively manageable range of materials to consume.
 
The turning point for my understanding of fandom was the release of The Last Jedi. Seeing the starkly divided and outraged reaction to that film made me wonder if intense passion for anything in pop culture is really a good thing. As the arguments intensified and culture wars sprung up around the film and involved creatives were sent death threats I found I was no longer comfortable referring to myself as a Star Wars fan because in that moment, who the hell wanted to be a Star Wars fan?
 
Maybe I got wary about overt passion after that. Bit by bit, the intensity of my feelings towards the things I’d once loved started to wane. I stopped watching Star Wars shows and Doctor Who. I washed my hands of Marvel after Endgame. I gave up on The Rings of Power halfway through the first season.
 
Understand, my love for the original works that initially drew me in has never gone anywhere. I still adore the Eccleston/Tennant years of Doctor Who and I’ll love The Lord of the Rings until the day I die. But I think I’ve come to realise that liking something, even loving it, doesn’t mean you have to define yourself by it or keep up with every new development or even have any opinion at all on its current state. I don’t need The Acolyte to be for me because it’s not and that’s fine. I’m happy to leave my Star Wars fandom where it started; with the six movies I loved as a kid.
 
None of this is to suggest that I’ve entirely sworn off obsessive love for certain books or movies or TV shows. I’ll be first in line for new Saw movies. I buy every Animorphs graphic novel on release day. I wrote a whole fucking book about Hannibal Lecter. And yeah, I have a display of my Hannibal collection in my room and entire shelves devoted to Animorphs and A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I’m not trawling through forums or getting aggressive online about what minutiae from a fictional story has offended me today.  
 
My first love will always be stories and so in some ways a loss of passion is a bit of a sad thing. But passion is a double-edged sword. I think the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realise that I’d rather love something at arms’ length than to let that love turn me into an objectionable jerk. 

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