So This Thing Happened...
I've held off on opening my mouth about this mostly because there's been enough Angry White Guys opening their yaps and sounding off without much thought as it is...but a couple of years back, I wrote something about an argument that was going on in the overall gaming community at the time (and has flared up now and again since) that left me scratching my head. Thanks to certain recent revelations, I now kind of get what was going on behind all the fuss, the person who had kicked things off into a state of high dudgeon, and a few other things that were involved. (I'm not naming names because That Guy has already had his ego stroked by bad publicity.)
My feelings on the utter absurdity of the entire exercise haven't changed. For the sake of some self- important jerk's ego, an entire community threw itself under the proverbial bus. Not the first time we've ended up living down to our worse reputation. Our track record on this is not something in which we should take any pride. ("But which fandom do you mean?" All of them.)
Part of this is, of course, spurred by the attempts to expand the number of seats at the table, as if the effort of having to share that sense of wonder, that excitement, that thrill ride with someone who isn't Just Like Me is somehow too overwhelming for some people.
And I just do not get the malfunction.
On the other hand, some of this may also be due to the 'mainstreaming' of the fandom. When you open this stuff up to become a more general cultural experience, it's pretty much a given that you won't be able to please everyone in the audience about everything. So maybe there's progress and growth along with the baloney.
My feelings on the utter absurdity of the entire exercise haven't changed. For the sake of some self- important jerk's ego, an entire community threw itself under the proverbial bus. Not the first time we've ended up living down to our worse reputation. Our track record on this is not something in which we should take any pride. ("But which fandom do you mean?" All of them.)
Part of this is, of course, spurred by the attempts to expand the number of seats at the table, as if the effort of having to share that sense of wonder, that excitement, that thrill ride with someone who isn't Just Like Me is somehow too overwhelming for some people.
And I just do not get the malfunction.
On the other hand, some of this may also be due to the 'mainstreaming' of the fandom. When you open this stuff up to become a more general cultural experience, it's pretty much a given that you won't be able to please everyone in the audience about everything. So maybe there's progress and growth along with the baloney.
Comments
Post a Comment