I am what some people would call a nerd; I love Star Wars, Star Trek, comic books, movies and my favorite TV shows. One would think that being a nerd in today's interconnected world would be a good thing. The idea of being everyone would be able to connect with the things that they enjoyed and build those connections.
Yes, that does happen. I have met plenty of people online or in real life who are fans of the same things I'm a fan of. When that happens, everything is in peace and total harmony on all the platforms.
The one rule of nerd-ing around on the internet that I hold above all else; never read too deep into the comment section. The comment section is what one would call a black hole, sure, you get the nice comments about the latest Star Wars movie. But then a subculture appears beneath all of the fandoms, no matter what you enjoy: the fanboys.
When I say fanboys; I don't mean a regular fan who goes to every Marvel movie no matter how much they change the story from the original content. When I say fanboys, I'm talking about the people who will nit-pick at just about everything. If something is out of place, fanboys will react like you walked up to them and punched them in the face. These fans will release their inner rage at anyone that disagrees with their opinion. They know everything about the subject, once someone replies correcting them, it will turn ugly pretty fast.
Looking at it from afar, it seems nothing would please them. (It isn't likely anything will.)
With all the superhero TV shows and movies from San Diego Comic-Con this year, there was plenty of news to be spread around on Facebook. This controversy happens year round and with this year's announcements of new films and shows such as "Titans," "Shazam!" and "Aquaman." There was plenty of controversies to go around for everyone's Facebook feeds. From costumes to movie posters, a lot of fanboys had something to say about it.
I know, not everyone is going to like every TV show, movie or comic that comes out. Everyone is free to share their own opinion. I respect that. Talking with two contradicting opinions regarding movies and TV shows is nice when everyone plays along. But the real problem underneath it all is that fanboys will be, in the most delicate terms possible, absolute jerks about it. Some fanboys go and harass the people behind the camera to the point where it's categorized as cyber-bullying. Some going to such extremes as starting petitions to get whole movies removed from the canonical story (I'm looking at you, Star Wars fanboys).
When I go to post this article to Twitter, I'm going to bet that some of these fans will tell me that I'm overreacting.
But, let's take a look at a few things, shall we?
One example would be when Warner Brothers announced the casting of Gal Gadot as the infamous Wonder Woman for the solo film they put out years ago. With every article, I read there were plenty of comments to go around. These ranged from her being too skinny, her eyes not being the right color or the way she looked. From what I read, it was pretty tame compared to other situations much like this one. I remember arguing with a few people over Twitter who were complaining about Gadot's figure.
It's not just superheroes, but all reaches of sci-fi. Kelly Marie Tran of the latest installment in the 'Star Wars' franchise received so much hate for her character that she completely deleted herself off of Instagram. These comments ranged from the comments about her character being useless, another Jar Jar Binks, to blatant and disgusting racism.
Why? Because they hated her character in the movie. Watching the entire thing unfold, it was such an extreme response for disliking her character. Instead of talking about the movie itself, they went after the actress racist remarks.
I'm pretty sure hurt fanboys didn't call Ahmed Best, the actor who played Jar Jar Binks, autistic or call him blatantly racist things. They didn't. Instead, fans just told Best to go kill himself and that their childhood was ruined by him. He's been receiving harassment about the role since "The Phantom Menace" came out and even considered suicide.
In recent Superhero News, the bullying doesn't stop there. In fact, the comments get worse.
Ruby Rose, who was cast in the upcoming crossover of DC's CW shows as Batwoman, left Twitter and disabled her Instagram comments due to the amount of harassment she received from both the LGBTQ+ community and comic book fans alike.
Earlier, Anna Diop, who will be portraying Starfire in the upcoming live-action Teen Titans show, strayed away from her social media accounts due to the racist comments about Starfire being African American.
Amidst all this information, I want to leave this message with all of you.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, that I know! That's perfectly valid and what makes conversation about these things rather lovely (when they're cordial). But, attacking the people who put a lot of hard work into these movies is not OK. At that point people are not stating their opinion; they are just harassing people.
Nerds are supposed to be cool. Let's all be cool with each other and enjoy the action!
