There’s something broken in nerd culture.
There’s something broken, and painful, and wrong, and if we don’t correct it—hell, if we can’t at least learn to see it, to recognize it in ourselves, to notice when we’re being this ugly—we are going to spoil the very things that we cherish. The things that misguided posts like these are, however clumsily and cruelly, trying to protect.
Who ever told you that your fandoms belong to you?
I don’t care what it is. A band, a book. A television show. No matter what it is, at some point you stopped thinking about it as “a thing I like” and you started thinking about it as yours. And there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you remember that it’s a feeling, not a fact. So long as you remember that that feeling is best, is most powerful, when it is shared.
How dare you, OP on the bottom right. How can you say—scream—"no, it’s not allowed to be your thing, go away" of fucking The Perks of Being a Wallflower? Have you READ Perks? Because far as I can tell, that novel (and movie!) is all about the intimacy and necessity of inclusiveness. It’s about how we’re all broken inside, all desperate, all searching for a family to call our own. For people who will love us for our jagged edges; people whose own jagged edges fit against ours like puzzle pieces. It’s about finding the beauty in mediocrity, in discovering more in people than you ever thought they could give you.
How dare you tell anyone they don’t get to be a part of that? How dare you tell them that because of what they like—flower crowns, Instagram filters, a pair of broken shoelaces and a caption in Helvetica—they’re somehow lesser, different, not allowed. Cut off.
How dare you make yourself gatekeeper?
What makes you think you’re worthy?
So you’re right, OP on the top, who in a fugue of almost self-awareness tagged your post “this makes me angrier than it should.” Because bow ties don’t belong to the Whovians, they don’t belong to anyone, and they don’t because they’re fucking bow ties. They’ve been a menswear accessory staple for a decent few centuries. Matt Smith has been the Doctor since April of 2010. It doesn’t belong to you; it’s not yours. And you don’t get to call anyone a fuckwit for putting a decorative piece of silk around their neck just because they think it makes them look dapper.Because lord knows you can’t just like the way something looks. Lord knows you can’t just like something. You have to be in The Club.
Didn’t you join these fandoms because you were sick of other people telling you you couldn’t be in The Club?
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your Joy Division shirt was out of stock because of other Joy Division fans, and not because some ~mindless wannabes~ decided to ruin your day?
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe instead of policing why other people like or attend movies, you could actually turn a critical eye to the movie itself? That you can and should taste your media with your whole tongue, so you know just what it is you’re swallowing?
that if you walk up to someone who doesn’t seem to know her way around and you say “Hey, I notice you’ve only highlighted that one quote, y’know, the one about being infinite, and I was wondering why it spoke to you? And do you want to talk about the other parts?” you might
Somewhere along the line, someone handed you a book. Someone sent you a playlist. Someone forced you to sit down on their couch and watch something with them, because they knew you’d love it. And that act, whatever it was, gave you a sense of completion and home. Absolutely, you have a right to that feeling.
But what on earth gave you the impression that you have the right to deny that feeling to someone else?
