Videos like the one above are helpful because they point out the grifting being done in the name of “fandom” at its ugliest, they point out that people can amass huge audiences in a fandom, and profit off those audiences, without ever having proved they even like the thing they’re dedicating all their time to. They can be seen as a very useful wake-up call for people wondering why they devote so much of who they are to these pursuits, when it doesn’t seem to make them like a thing more than the millions upon millions of other people who have never once even thought to join a forum or tweet about Star Wars, much less build a whole persona around it. In fact it seems to make them angrier and more frustrated way more often.
But for all the useful information in that video, it neglects the basic fact that “fandom” itself is a grift, selling people the lie that obsessing over fictional things whose creation is completely out of your control is a positive, healthy way to live. Fandom is grass-roots marketing at its purest, the belief that opting to be walking commercials for someone else’s art can be spiritually rewarding. That you can build meaningful, healthy relationships out of that shared obsession, and that the world can be made a better, more manageable, more interesting place by simply mixing consumerism with love and letting the two impulses inform one another.
Being a fan of things makes sense, is understandable, and mostly harmless. But there’s a problem with toxic fandom because the societal construct that is modern fandom is, itself, toxic.
Anyway, I like Star Wars, I like talking about it with people, and I like talking about it with people in small, quiet places, because talking about it with people in larger ones is an exercise in harvesting anger and frustration pretty much 100% of the time.
I love this post, thanks for posting it! The only thing I would add is that the video (I assume you’re referring to the Major Lee clip) is a perfect example of the problem - not the solution. I think a few folks here might be swayed by the fact that he’s supposedly on ‘our’ side of the argument, but he’s no better than the people he’s opposing. More tellingly, he debated a popular Youtuber named Mauler on a stream called EFAP and basically fell apart when it came to matters of plot, lore, characters etc etc regarding TLJ. I suspect this clip is his revenge.
I’d say the video highlights and informs people of what certain toxic channels and media are like and how they operate - rather than an attempt at a solution to the issue.
Again, taking the video on it’s own merit it doesn’t really matter that the creator of it didn’t apparantly converse well in some sort of online debate - the points made in the video still stand - they aren’t diminished or disappear because of a chat with whoever this Mauler fellow is.
‘Revenge’? Really? Well even IF so, then it seems something constructive has come out of this supposed attempt at ‘revenge’ then - nice one 😃
As in the TLJ Spoiler thread, I don’t understand the ‘swaying’ thing - or ‘sides’ - the video seems to simply illustrate what some of the more hyperbolic, toxic, or repeatedly negative channels & media out there over a couple of years - maybe longer. It seems to be one of the few out videos there that has done such in this manner (as far I can know - though please link or share any others; I think Biggs Audio Dynamite wanted people to PM him with any other examples?)
Also, as in the TLJ Spoiler thread - it seems you are attempting to somehow discredit [or denigrate] the man behind the video - rather than discussing the actual content he highlighted in the video. A shame, that.
I’ll leave it there as I don’t know anything about this MajorLee guy (other than he made an insightful video on the toxicity in some of the Star Wars media) - and I’m now just repeating what has already been said in the TLJ Spoiler thread 😉
He has basically picked three or four of the most outspoken Youtubers of a certain type - ie the ones who aggressively conflate SW with identity politics - and cynically merged it with a general position that ‘the haters don’t understand the genius of TLJ’. It’s a silly argument that typically ignores - and even ridicules - the enormous spectrum of opinion that actually resides between and around those two separate subjects.
The reason I pointed out his EFAP debate is that Mauler - unlike other critics - only debates films at the level of technique, storytelling, narrative consistency etc etc. And in this instance Major Lee fell to pieces and revealed quite tellingly that he doesn’t care about these things at all and loves TLJ regardless. Which is absolutely fine, but he knows that there are genuine reasons for fans to take issue with the films (particularly TLJ) and/or the direction they’re going in, and instead uses this video to strawman any detractors before delivering the punchline at the end (which is, of course, that TLJ is brilliant). It’s sloppy argumentation that adds nothing of value to this conversation.