I’m going to start this post by saying, first and foremost, that I don’t believe that anyone should take it upon themselves to “yuck someone’s yum”. I think that there might be exceptions to that as there are most things. After all…
And let’s start there. When Anakin tells Obi-wan “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy,” Obi-wan snaps back with the above line. The irony of using an absolute to knock absolutes was never lost on me. I love Ewan McGregor’s portrayal of Kenobi as much as I love how clueless he shows the Jedi order to be concerning where they’ve ended up. Though many of the Jedi tenants stated absolutes without the follow-through in the exact verbage, they were still very much absolutes.
I’m getting traditionally off track. I say ‘traditionally’ as when I was still directing band and choir, my high school kids always knew how to stall a rehearsal: throw down a hot take about Star Wars. I feel like I would monologue forever if I had the time to do so and, honestly, some times I did even though the time wasn’t there.
Back to the original point: fandoms. The more that I read online, be it on Facebook, Reddit, Threads…doesn’t matter, I find that people spend so much more energy hating on other people’s passions than they do actually pursuing their own. Now, to be fair, that last part is a bit of an assumption. But I feel pretty good about it, and here’s why: though I hate to admit it, there have been several occasions where I would find such a hater and doom-scroll their past posts and marvel at the amount of effort they gave to that hate. Would I get anything from that? In the moment: no. Now though, it does give me context for this blog post so…yeah.
I happen to be a person who belongs to a couple of fandoms that tend to catch a lot of hate. For this post, I’ll talk about two of them: Disney and cigars.
First, those two fandoms do not mesh well at all. I’m pretty sure they’re at complete odds with one another. I’m ok with that, but it helps me to make some of the points I mean to in this post. I’ve been into cigars and their associated culture since I was a teenager. I have no idea why. Something about the regalia of a cedar humidor holding hand-made aged cigars was like a type of lore to me.
I like to think I enjoy my cigars respectively in consideration to others, but still find people pretty willing to throw hate on the whole thing. And, for the associated health risks, I get it. That said, if I have a cigar in public, it would be at a cigar lounge or bar or something of the like. Typically I enjoy them at home on the deck or front porch, especially when my head is being held down by grad school work or some other menial task that I’m responsible for finishing on my laptop. Long story short-I talk/post about cigars pretty publically but enjoy it pretty privately. Doesn’t seem to matter. Anyways…they’ve always been one of my passions, not just a thing I consume, so I consider cigars to be a pretty random fandom of mine.
On the other end of the random fandom spectrum is my love of Disney. I always really liked animated movies, so Disney was always something I at least liked. That said, I didn’t really geek out over Disney until my wife and I went for our first time as a couple. I had been before with both my family and my own high school marching band, but going with Carla made it completely different. I think having your ‘the one’ to share it with makes it all the more impactful and meaningful. It also doesn’t hurt that they’ve taken ownership of so many of the other things I liked, such as Star Wars and Marvel.
The hate for my Disney fandom comes from being one of those childless millennials you hear so much about these days. Don’t get me wrong, I love my life with my wife and don’t feel that we’re missing a single thing in it. The hatred for this fandom starts there, though, as being a childless millennial also makes me a Disney Adult. That’s right…if you see my wife and I in the parks, you’ll see us decked out in ears, pins, you name it… and you’ll see us *gasp* without children in tow. People LOVE to hate us and people like us because we dare to derive some joy from being there despite not having kids of our own. If you don’t believe me, just do a quick search on your own and see what I mean. It’s WILD (at least, to me it is).
It is my absolute belief that this stems from people leaning into absolutes of their own. I feel like so many people feel that there truly is one single right way to do things and that they spend a LOT of time raging against anything that runs counter to their own personal grain. I recently commented on someone’s Thread that asked something along the lines of “Drop one hot take about what needs to change about video games”. My response? Essentially that there isn’t one right way to go about playing games (easy modes for harder games, casual gaming, etc) and that people should stop gate-keeping everything.
How can anyone be certain enough of anything to hold so many absolutes? I may be old school *checks notes* …ok I AM definetely old school, but I’ve always been of a mind to not act with certainty without being certain. This even shows up more recently in my current bout of grad school: make a claim in a paper and/or discussion post? Back it up with research or it means nothing. The last paper I wrote for my educational leadership program had maybe twelve different sources? My last discussion post: four. And neither of those things were even a luke-warm take, let alone with the same kind of heat that people seem to be slinging at others online daily…which is white hot.
In posting about both my random fandoms, people are just pleased as punch to make all kinds of judgements about me without ever asking a single question. Being into something like cigar smoking seems to invite people to immediately knock me down a class or two before they even know my name, let alone what it is that draws me in. And the online Disney Adult hate is a force to be reckoned with. Without knowing a thing about me outside of whatever Disney content I’ve posted, people launch right into things like how I ‘ruin everything for the kids that these things were made for’ and how I must need mental help. Where do the get this stuff? I’m never sure and they don’t seem to ever be curious enough about me to even ask a single question or do any digging.
All of this brings to mind a fandom that I thankfully don’t see get a lot of hate; Ted Lasso. Everyone knows the barbecue sauce episode and if you don’t, do yourself a favor and look it up. Much of what Ted says in that famous monologue really stuck with me and this really great (and recently viral-ish thanks to Mr. Lasso) Walt Whitman quote, in my opinion, is a way we should all strive to live:
“Be curious, not judgmental”
Absolutely,
Bryce
OffOfMadison 