Stop calling these Fandom Menace YouTubers stupid, when what they really are is manipulative. Yes, there are a lot of chronically online people who say infuriating shit because they genuinely lack media literacy, but if you see someone making a demonstrably false statement, i.e. labelling Amandla Stenberg's calm Instagram video a 'meltdown', it is because they're a manipulator. They know full well that it plays into the angry Black woman trope, and they know exactly what their followers are going to do. This is how gatekeeping works. You have a small, but deeply entitled group of people who believe that Star Wars should be theirs and only theirs, and they intend to keep it that way by trolling people out of the fandom.
For example, I saw someone on Facebook share a screenshot of a 1981 fanzine called Against The Sith, which was edited by fangirls, and it provides clear evidence that women and girls were an active part of the fandom in its early days. However, this completely goes against the Fandom Menace claim that once upon a time, the fandom was a boy's club until Disney made it 'woke'.
What are you supposed to do when you have clear, in-your-face evidence disproving your narrative? You make shit up.
So, this Fandom Menace troll kept leaving a bunch of long comments insisting that the screenshot had to be fake, claiming that the word Sith wasn't around back then, and that woke people were trying to rewrite history. Then, a bunch of people, including OG Star Wars fans, corrected him and said, 'Actually, the word Sith absolutely was around back then because fans were reading the novelisations.' Then the troll replied, 'Well, maybe the reprints of these novelisations had the word Sith in it, but not the originals,' to which the OG fans replied, 'No, I actually have a vintage first edition copy of the novelisation and I am telling you, the word Sith absolutely was around back then and Star Wars fans would've known this.' Every time they corrected this guy, he kept doubling down. Why?
Because the point of fandom gatekeeping isn't to be right; it's to piss people off and waste their time.
You see, these people don't care about making themselves look nice and reasonable to outsiders. They actually like their horrible reputation, because if the Star Wars fandom becomes associated with them, it means newcomers will be hesitant to join, and it also means longtime fans will either leave entirely or stop talking about Star Wars on the internet.
(Obviously, I do think more needs to be done about the Fandom Menace than simply refusing to engage with them, and I could write a separate post on that, but my overall point here is to remind people of the difference between ignorance and malice)
One of the reasons why I felt the need to create a Star Wars blog on here is because it's one of the very few apps where I don't have to block people every single day. I refuse allow these shitheads to tell me that I'm not allowed to be a part of this fandom. If that means moving to a healthier space, then so be it.
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