Yes, I see now the fundamental principle why I can't stand both "drama kids" and leftists. It's that obnoxious desperation for an identity. Besides that, they need the divisive mentality you mentioned in order to build up whatever identity they think they're creating for themselves. I do have another group to add to this, though of course they irk me to a significantly lesser degree, and that's Catholic trad circles. Many of them consider themselves Catholic "nerds," in the same way you've described here. I do hope the TLM gets more mainstream just so that that mentality gets diluted some.
Since I studied historical forms of the mass in graduate school I've always been a trad kind of guy, but I realized after awhile that the online trad cath movement is something different - sedevantists, etc. do indeed adopt an identity that focuses entirely around Vatican II being bad and being "other" than the rest of all Christianity. TBH I found a lot of the discussions compelling until I heard a very traditional clergyman I respect tear it apart. I was in danger of adopting Francis Derangement Syndrome myself, thank God.
There are those types in other Christian forms, too, particularly Orthodoxy.
"people have far too much of their personal identity wrapped up in liking a certain thing (a thing they have no part in the creation of) and needing it to be good."
The terrible sequel trilogy taught me this. The real problem wasn't that the new Star Wars sucked, it's that people cared too much. There is so much to consume these days. People get their identities wrapped up in what they consume, and they forget that their primary identity should always be with their family, friends, religion and community. The "Nerd" identity is a problem and people who do so create all these barriers to exclude others and exalt themselves. At the end of the day Star Wars is just some crap someone made up. Who cares if it sucks.
Most normies thought the movies were ok or mediocre, but they leave it at that and just never watch the movie again. I wish more people could do the same.
There is so much media out there you can avoid Star Wars forever and never run out of new things to see.
As I posted on Twitter recently, the issue with online discourse about "normies", "fans", and "nerds" is that different people (including some that share some degree of ideological common ground) can't agree on definitions and are essentially talking over each other as a result.
This quote is a prime example of how different corners of the Internet use terms differently:
"Tolkien fandom is something else entirely, dominated by the worst kind of nerds – sex-obsessed leftists who detest Tolkien’s religion and wish his works were not Catholic, and to whom scholarship is post-modern pasting of queer themes into a book where nothing of the kind is present. It’s debatable whether they actually like the books. Luckily, they only got involved recently in film adaptation, and we saw how that turned out."
When it comes to matters pertaining to the culture war in the entertainment sphere, I like to keep up with two different groups: the indie writer types (such as you, JD Cowan, Brian Niemeier, etc), and the Nerdrotic/Film Threat/Geeks + Gamers/Critical Drinker/Friday Night Tights types (henceforth "The Fellowship", as they currently like to refer to themselves - the term "Fandom Menace" fell out of favor years ago). It's interesting to see and contrast their differing perspectives.
The two groups have, in some ways, much in common, yet in other ways think and define things very differently (although there are a few people like Razorfist who sort of straddle the line between the two, arguably falling into both camps at once). Many of the biggest differences come down to semantics.
In this instance, you used the term "fandom" to refer to the type of leftist cultural entryists who inserted themselves into Tolkien scholarship and websites like The One Ring. Similarly, JD Cowan uses the term "Fandom" (with a capital F) to refer to activists who took over science fiction literary circles in order to push their ideological agendas.
However, the way The Fellowship uses the word "fandom" is diametrically opposed to this. Their definition of a fan is someone who is an enthusiast of something as it already is. For example, by their definition, a Star Wars fan likes Star Wars as it already is, a Tolkien fan likes Tolkien's works as they already are, etc. By their definition, the leftist Tolkien scholars who try to change the meanings of his works are inherently not Tolkien fans, since the only thing they are truly fans of is social justice (Tolkien and his works are just a means to that end for them) and their desire to subvert Tolkien's works rather than protect them makes them anti-fans.
This difference in semantics is especially interesting when it comes to Tolkien, since The Fellowship has been proudly saying for a few years now that Tolkien fandom is the best fandom. The reason is that unlike the fanbases of Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, etc (which all became split when bad, social justice-infected versions of those franchises came to be made, with some parts of the fandom opposing these corruptions and others overlooking or defending them) the vast majority of Tolkien fans stood united against Amazon's "The Rings of Power" before it was even released, with the ones who defended it - or even watched it - being tiny in comparison.
When the trailer for "The Rings of Power" came out, thousands of Tolkien fans let their disapproval of the show's disrespect to Tolkien be known by posting comments reading "Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt," a quote inspired by Frodo's line "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." Comments sections of the trailer and other promotional materials for the show were flooded with this comment and slight variations thereof over and over again. When the mainstream media started accusing people posting the comment of being Russian bots, they responded by posting the quote in Russian. And when the show was actually released, the viewership numbers were abysmal right off the bat, without the usual temporary period of fans giving it a chance like what happened with other franchises. The show was a flop before it was even out.
So you can be right when you say that "Tolkien fandom" is the worst (because you use "fandom" to refer to cultural entryists), and yet simultaneously The Fellowship can be right when they say that "Tolkien fandom" is the best (because they use the term to refer to the vast body of people who know and like Tolkien's works as-is and stand against attempts to corrupt them).
And that's just one example of the many semantic differences that cause people who are semi-aligned from different corners of the Internet to talk over each other.
When it comes specifically to how "fans" should be defined (it originally started as a shortened form of "fanatic" in the negative sense, but that usage has fallen out of favor so long ago that I doubt it is possible to ever put the genie back in the bottle), I'm inclined to agree more with the definition used by The Fellowship. This recent whistleblower leak to Chris Gore of Film Threat by a WGA writer who works at Disney is one example of why (there are of course many others):
"Writers hired on comic book shows are told it’s a POSITIVE that they are unfamiliar with the original comic book and not a fan of the existing IP because they want to do a “modern new take on the material relevant to today."
This any many other pieces of evidence show that cultural entryists are not true enthusiasts of the properties they attempt to remake in their image. They might infiltrate fandoms and attempt to take them over, but that doesn't make them "fans" (in the sense of being an enthusiast of a storytelling property) any more than a wolf wearing a sheepskin is a sheep. They are, however, "fans" in the sense of "social justice fanatic." So once again, it comes down to a question of semantics.
This essay is absolutely correct and brilliant. I’ve wanted to write something along these lines but it felt like a huge topic to discuss.
I was born in 1979. Like ALL the other boys, I played with Star Wars toys. GI Joe, and read every issue of Spider-Man. I loved Batman. We all played Nintendo. We were late Gen Xer normies. We all loved Nirvana—millions of us—so obviously we weren’t “punk” for listening.
I used to work in an office where everyone got super psyched for the next cookie cutter MCU movie. They’d boldly call themselves nerds. Then, the day after, would discuss the film like it was Citizen Kane.
I once got death stares from audience members when I walked out of Spider-Man as soon as the credits started because I didn’t give a shit about waiting for the Easter Egg at the end.
I think another huge tell that nerd culture is mainstream is it’s now loaded with e-girls and similar women chasing in on the aesthetic.
I'll be honest, I'm mega obsessed with the fantasy genre, with Tolkien, Howard and classical lit and medieval folklore and lit. I'm not normal in just how deep my obsessions run, but I don't stress out over portrayals and adaptations, if they're good I leave it at that, if their bad I may do a small rant on yt, but then I immediately prefer to put it behind me. Typically bad movies or adaptations are things I only keep in my immediate sphere of interest for about a day or two, then I put it behind me and re-watch an old movie from the 40s up through to the 90s or something to cleanse my palate.
Because why obsess over something that bothers you? Especially when there are dates to plan with the gf, books to write, a dog to spoil and good food to enjoy and novels and history books to read?
This article is one I do like, not sure that most nerds are political by nature, or that they lean left, not that I'm terribly interested in the obsessions of others. I read what I love, watch what I love and have no interest in ever interesting myself in the tastes of others. Let others love what they will, and let franchises run their course, and let men be men, and women be women, and people do as they please it isn't my affair. Not sure what your thoughts on this are Mr. Stewart, also interesting analysis about us 80s & 90s kids, I consider myself a Gen Yer, though I was born in '91.
The Rings of Power was not very good, but contrary to expectations/fears it was devoid of sex and certainly of queerness. In general Tolkien fans, as far as I can tell (myself being someone who liked the books but would not consider myself a fan in that sense), are respectful toward Tolkien's faith even if not sharing it and not really sex-obsessed at all.
Jim Shooter lays it out on his blog that he championed Newsstand Distribution (for the Normies whose moms took them to grocery, drug, and book stores) AND Direct Sales (for the Local Comic Shops where the Nerds were).
During the 1986 sale period through 1987, he was trying to sell the new owners on this concept, but they listened to the champion of Direct Sales ONLY. He was fired not long after that decision was made.
Marvel destroyed their ability to GROW their audience by choosing NERDS over NORMIES.
That was an interesting read David. I consider myself a geek who grew up in the 90's and while I can't Identify with everything that was said, the self mythologizing part was what I realized I was doing in my own writing here on substack. I wouldn't say I consider being a geek my identity, but it is always something I strayed away from and came back to, it was always there in the background of my life.
Yes, I see now the fundamental principle why I can't stand both "drama kids" and leftists. It's that obnoxious desperation for an identity. Besides that, they need the divisive mentality you mentioned in order to build up whatever identity they think they're creating for themselves. I do have another group to add to this, though of course they irk me to a significantly lesser degree, and that's Catholic trad circles. Many of them consider themselves Catholic "nerds," in the same way you've described here. I do hope the TLM gets more mainstream just so that that mentality gets diluted some.
Since I studied historical forms of the mass in graduate school I've always been a trad kind of guy, but I realized after awhile that the online trad cath movement is something different - sedevantists, etc. do indeed adopt an identity that focuses entirely around Vatican II being bad and being "other" than the rest of all Christianity. TBH I found a lot of the discussions compelling until I heard a very traditional clergyman I respect tear it apart. I was in danger of adopting Francis Derangement Syndrome myself, thank God.
There are those types in other Christian forms, too, particularly Orthodoxy.
I've heard that quip that if you have 4 ortho-bros in a room, you'll get 5 different opinions.
There is a species of extremely online Christians I refer to as High Church Nerds.
"He's got a case of terminally online orthobro convertitis."
Right?
It's even more common among Catholics.
I saw someone actually compare the Cathbros/Orthobros to Goths and that’s really accurate.
"people have far too much of their personal identity wrapped up in liking a certain thing (a thing they have no part in the creation of) and needing it to be good."
The terrible sequel trilogy taught me this. The real problem wasn't that the new Star Wars sucked, it's that people cared too much. There is so much to consume these days. People get their identities wrapped up in what they consume, and they forget that their primary identity should always be with their family, friends, religion and community. The "Nerd" identity is a problem and people who do so create all these barriers to exclude others and exalt themselves. At the end of the day Star Wars is just some crap someone made up. Who cares if it sucks.
Most normies thought the movies were ok or mediocre, but they leave it at that and just never watch the movie again. I wish more people could do the same.
There is so much media out there you can avoid Star Wars forever and never run out of new things to see.
As I posted on Twitter recently, the issue with online discourse about "normies", "fans", and "nerds" is that different people (including some that share some degree of ideological common ground) can't agree on definitions and are essentially talking over each other as a result.
This quote is a prime example of how different corners of the Internet use terms differently:
"Tolkien fandom is something else entirely, dominated by the worst kind of nerds – sex-obsessed leftists who detest Tolkien’s religion and wish his works were not Catholic, and to whom scholarship is post-modern pasting of queer themes into a book where nothing of the kind is present. It’s debatable whether they actually like the books. Luckily, they only got involved recently in film adaptation, and we saw how that turned out."
When it comes to matters pertaining to the culture war in the entertainment sphere, I like to keep up with two different groups: the indie writer types (such as you, JD Cowan, Brian Niemeier, etc), and the Nerdrotic/Film Threat/Geeks + Gamers/Critical Drinker/Friday Night Tights types (henceforth "The Fellowship", as they currently like to refer to themselves - the term "Fandom Menace" fell out of favor years ago). It's interesting to see and contrast their differing perspectives.
The two groups have, in some ways, much in common, yet in other ways think and define things very differently (although there are a few people like Razorfist who sort of straddle the line between the two, arguably falling into both camps at once). Many of the biggest differences come down to semantics.
In this instance, you used the term "fandom" to refer to the type of leftist cultural entryists who inserted themselves into Tolkien scholarship and websites like The One Ring. Similarly, JD Cowan uses the term "Fandom" (with a capital F) to refer to activists who took over science fiction literary circles in order to push their ideological agendas.
However, the way The Fellowship uses the word "fandom" is diametrically opposed to this. Their definition of a fan is someone who is an enthusiast of something as it already is. For example, by their definition, a Star Wars fan likes Star Wars as it already is, a Tolkien fan likes Tolkien's works as they already are, etc. By their definition, the leftist Tolkien scholars who try to change the meanings of his works are inherently not Tolkien fans, since the only thing they are truly fans of is social justice (Tolkien and his works are just a means to that end for them) and their desire to subvert Tolkien's works rather than protect them makes them anti-fans.
This difference in semantics is especially interesting when it comes to Tolkien, since The Fellowship has been proudly saying for a few years now that Tolkien fandom is the best fandom. The reason is that unlike the fanbases of Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, etc (which all became split when bad, social justice-infected versions of those franchises came to be made, with some parts of the fandom opposing these corruptions and others overlooking or defending them) the vast majority of Tolkien fans stood united against Amazon's "The Rings of Power" before it was even released, with the ones who defended it - or even watched it - being tiny in comparison.
When the trailer for "The Rings of Power" came out, thousands of Tolkien fans let their disapproval of the show's disrespect to Tolkien be known by posting comments reading "Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt," a quote inspired by Frodo's line "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." Comments sections of the trailer and other promotional materials for the show were flooded with this comment and slight variations thereof over and over again. When the mainstream media started accusing people posting the comment of being Russian bots, they responded by posting the quote in Russian. And when the show was actually released, the viewership numbers were abysmal right off the bat, without the usual temporary period of fans giving it a chance like what happened with other franchises. The show was a flop before it was even out.
So you can be right when you say that "Tolkien fandom" is the worst (because you use "fandom" to refer to cultural entryists), and yet simultaneously The Fellowship can be right when they say that "Tolkien fandom" is the best (because they use the term to refer to the vast body of people who know and like Tolkien's works as-is and stand against attempts to corrupt them).
And that's just one example of the many semantic differences that cause people who are semi-aligned from different corners of the Internet to talk over each other.
When it comes specifically to how "fans" should be defined (it originally started as a shortened form of "fanatic" in the negative sense, but that usage has fallen out of favor so long ago that I doubt it is possible to ever put the genie back in the bottle), I'm inclined to agree more with the definition used by The Fellowship. This recent whistleblower leak to Chris Gore of Film Threat by a WGA writer who works at Disney is one example of why (there are of course many others):
"Writers hired on comic book shows are told it’s a POSITIVE that they are unfamiliar with the original comic book and not a fan of the existing IP because they want to do a “modern new take on the material relevant to today."
This any many other pieces of evidence show that cultural entryists are not true enthusiasts of the properties they attempt to remake in their image. They might infiltrate fandoms and attempt to take them over, but that doesn't make them "fans" (in the sense of being an enthusiast of a storytelling property) any more than a wolf wearing a sheepskin is a sheep. They are, however, "fans" in the sense of "social justice fanatic." So once again, it comes down to a question of semantics.
This essay is absolutely correct and brilliant. I’ve wanted to write something along these lines but it felt like a huge topic to discuss.
I was born in 1979. Like ALL the other boys, I played with Star Wars toys. GI Joe, and read every issue of Spider-Man. I loved Batman. We all played Nintendo. We were late Gen Xer normies. We all loved Nirvana—millions of us—so obviously we weren’t “punk” for listening.
I used to work in an office where everyone got super psyched for the next cookie cutter MCU movie. They’d boldly call themselves nerds. Then, the day after, would discuss the film like it was Citizen Kane.
I once got death stares from audience members when I walked out of Spider-Man as soon as the credits started because I didn’t give a shit about waiting for the Easter Egg at the end.
I think another huge tell that nerd culture is mainstream is it’s now loaded with e-girls and similar women chasing in on the aesthetic.
I'll be honest, I'm mega obsessed with the fantasy genre, with Tolkien, Howard and classical lit and medieval folklore and lit. I'm not normal in just how deep my obsessions run, but I don't stress out over portrayals and adaptations, if they're good I leave it at that, if their bad I may do a small rant on yt, but then I immediately prefer to put it behind me. Typically bad movies or adaptations are things I only keep in my immediate sphere of interest for about a day or two, then I put it behind me and re-watch an old movie from the 40s up through to the 90s or something to cleanse my palate.
Because why obsess over something that bothers you? Especially when there are dates to plan with the gf, books to write, a dog to spoil and good food to enjoy and novels and history books to read?
This article is one I do like, not sure that most nerds are political by nature, or that they lean left, not that I'm terribly interested in the obsessions of others. I read what I love, watch what I love and have no interest in ever interesting myself in the tastes of others. Let others love what they will, and let franchises run their course, and let men be men, and women be women, and people do as they please it isn't my affair. Not sure what your thoughts on this are Mr. Stewart, also interesting analysis about us 80s & 90s kids, I consider myself a Gen Yer, though I was born in '91.
The Rings of Power was not very good, but contrary to expectations/fears it was devoid of sex and certainly of queerness. In general Tolkien fans, as far as I can tell (myself being someone who liked the books but would not consider myself a fan in that sense), are respectful toward Tolkien's faith even if not sharing it and not really sex-obsessed at all.
Jim Shooter lays it out on his blog that he championed Newsstand Distribution (for the Normies whose moms took them to grocery, drug, and book stores) AND Direct Sales (for the Local Comic Shops where the Nerds were).
During the 1986 sale period through 1987, he was trying to sell the new owners on this concept, but they listened to the champion of Direct Sales ONLY. He was fired not long after that decision was made.
Marvel destroyed their ability to GROW their audience by choosing NERDS over NORMIES.
The Emperor will cleanse such heretics.
That was an interesting read David. I consider myself a geek who grew up in the 90's and while I can't Identify with everything that was said, the self mythologizing part was what I realized I was doing in my own writing here on substack. I wouldn't say I consider being a geek my identity, but it is always something I strayed away from and came back to, it was always there in the background of my life.
well on point!