02.5: I Love Star Wars. I Hate the Fandom.

I've been a near lifelong Star Wars fan. The first film came out when I was really young. My mom tells me that Darth Vader made me cry. This changed with Empire Strikes Back. I fell in obsessive love. My birthday, leaf raking, and snow shoveling money was poured into Star Wars toys, comics, and books. I played Star Wars pretend, made Star Wars costumes for me and my dolls/stuffies. 

This obsession literally never ended and was a huge source of mockery in middle and high school. There was even an awkward police encounter as an adult. (Black cloaked people in a park in the late 80s/early 90s were assumed to be Satanists, not costumed nerds. The officers declined our offer of grilled hotdogs.) My first convention costume was a version of ROTJ Luke Skywalker. I have custom made Jedi robes and my Star Wars collection is immense. Without duplicating, I can wear a different Star Wars t-shirt every day for close to two months. I still go to opening night of every new Star Wars film.

Star Wars has always been my place of refuge. Whenever I was made fun of as a child, my mind would go to that place. What would Luke or Han or Leia do? Even my mom recognized this tactic and would get me to be brave about new things by asking me if my heroes would hesitate. No matter how awful my day was, I could always come home to my comics, books, records, and pretend.

As a teen and later an adult, I discovered independent fan clubs (the official one had been rolled into a general Lucasfilm Club) and the new Star Wars role-playing game. This gave me like minded folks to hang out with. These were adult men and women who also liked to dress up and play games. We hung out at each others' homes, went to conventions together, and even camped out together. I was in heaven.

BBSs, newsgroups, and the later internet message boards gave me my first tastes of toxic fandom. I never IDd myself in these forums as male or female. The fact that the others assumed I was male due to my knowledge of the universe and ability to debate the specifics of weapon and ship capabilities should have been a warning. It wasn't. I was socially oblivious and just enjoying the debates.

My in person introversion manifested in the fact that I tended to operate in a pretty closed loop. I went to and volunteered at cons, but didn't really socialize outside of a small group of gamers. This had the unfortunate side effect of isolating me from changes in the Star Wars fandom.

When the big costume clubs first appeared on the local scene, mine was not a pleasant experience. I was pretty directly informed by some of their members that I wasn't a real fan if I didn't spend obscene amounts of time and money on a screen accurate costume. I also started running into people with that attitude online. This caused me to pull further back into my closed world. I stopped volunteering to run Star Wars related games and panels at the local cons. I also stopped posting and commenting as part of the online fandom.

Like a lot of adult fans, I was disappointed with the prequels. My issues were not the same as the screaming internet hoards though. Jar Jar was just a modern Ewok. Something cute and funny for the kids. I could ignore that. Hell, midichlorians weren't even my hangup. I just mentally processed them as a symptom of Force sensitivity not a cause. The little buggers were just attracted to Force users. Nope, I lost it over the immaculate conception of Darth Vader. As a non-Christian, it felt pretty much like an F-U to non-Christian fans. Even with that, my whole response was to make a Star Wars nativity to go under my Hannukah display. I made a joke and moved on.

The shear toxicity I saw at cons and online was staggering. This caused me to stop even reading online fan resources. I withdrew completely to just reading the books and watching the official media. The one time I decided to wear my custom Jedi robes to a convention, the only comment I got from another fan was a member of one of the costume clubs telling me that the shirt was folded across the wrong way. I have never worn them to anything but work functions since.

The idea that the fandom is toxic seems to be finally trickling into the regular media. It should have been obvious the moment that George Lucas commented that the fans ruined it for him and when Jake Loyd talked about fans bullying him. I guess it takes neckbeards trying to tank Disney's productions for the media to really notice. I legitimately enjoy the Disney movies and love their diversity. I will keep going to their movies, reading their books/comics, and even collecting the things I like. The screaming neckbeards, with their boycotts and vitriol, just confirm my choice to stay out of the Star Wars fandom.