The idea that Russia saw Gamergate and The Last Jedi as easy ways to influence misogynists and racists says far too much about male fandom culture.
When people talk about Trump, it's been said repeatedly that "the cruelty is the point". I think it's in there with the cultural cyber-warfare we didn't always know we were engaged in.
The more racism, homophobia, transphobia, that is encouraged, the more we are divided. The more we see people as 'other', the less able we all are to notice influence and damage.
Coming back to this after a couple of days, because I've been thinking about it pretty constantly.
The cruelty is the point. I think we're going to find out that larger conversations have been influenced by Russia and other agents than we thought.
It feels, over the last few years, like the flow of conversation has become more and more toxic. More and more divided. I'm not saying this is because of external influence. It's a weakness in us.
Politics, in particular, has felt more and more treated like sports. And more and more treated like something for sports fans.
Our team. Your team. Winners. Losers. And the politicians that have dominated the conversations have been the ones that play into this the most, even when they perform poorly in elections.
The more politics can be reduced down to teams and winning, rather than being about doing the best thing, the more it helps those who play up to it being a game.
Trump is a master of this. Look at his rallies, the chants, the sport caps. Doesn't matter that he won on a technicality. You know which supporters are his. They're wearing their team's colours.
Look at most politicians. Most crowds. They're just people. You can't tell their politics outside of guesses with regards to makeup of ethnicity, age and gender.
Well, and shit tattoos, but that's mainly the Tommy Robinson lot.
But the more obvious the tribalism is, the easier it is to ask and answer "am I on their side?"
This is a tendency we already have. Obviously. And when we treat that tribalism in politics like tribalism in sports, we lose sight of the goal.
Wih fandom, you're all in. You want your team to win and the other to lose. Their team cheats? They're scum. Your team cheats? Hey, you've got to do what you've got to do.
Also? You lay into the other team. "You're shit and you know you are". You shout, you jeer, you joke at their expense, and you don't take it too seriously because you know they're doing it back, and you don't expect them to take it too seriously.
It's not just sports fandom. Geeks, and you may not have noticed this, can get a bit emotional about their fandoms. (Hawk the Slayer's rubbish!)
(On a related Spaced and angry fandom note, didn't Simon Pegg write a "Phantom Menace raped my childhood" piece for SFX or somewhere back in 2000 or so? I can't find it anywhere)
The more divisive something is, the angrier people get, the more difficult it is to talk rationally about. Particularly when you're emotionally involved.
I mean just try to get me to say something nice about Michael Bay's Transformers movies. There is only one Transformers movie.
But man, the level of hatred I have for those movies. And they're so popular. And so wrong. And they misunderstand what made the originals so good. And... all of those emotions are easy to get tribalistic over as well.
This is where it all ties together. I've seen fan communities where people believe they have a lot in common with other people who like the same thing.
Then you have the people who get it and the people who don't. I've seen fans refer to everyone else as "muggles". Fairly innocuous, but just as tribal and just as toxic.
That kind of tribalism is so easy to fall into, amd it encourages a sports-like attitude to non-fans as the opposing team.
When you add in how easy it is to make fans feel like they're mocked for the things they love, resentment is even easier to forge. As is mocking whatever other people care about.
This is where influencers come in. Because if you believe you have something in common, you're more likely to be willing to listen to their opinions on other stuff.
So, it gets hyped up. The elements of rejection get stoked. This is why I think masculinity plays a role, due to some genre fans feeling that women reject them, and that's also easy to play into.
It becomes tribal. The deck is stacked against us. By women, by SJWs, by jocks, by people who think we're too into the things we're into. But we're proud. So we'll fight back.
If you have an enemy, you have a side. Nuance becomes lost and mocking becomes a weapon. Aren't you triggered, you snowflake?
And we're back to sports fandom. The other side is mocking us and we're mocking them. And it's a defence. Hey, this is both sides! Both sides are just as bad!
Empathy becomes difficult. Mockery becomes easy. Anything that hurts the other side becomes a weapon. The cruelty is the point.
But politics isn't, and shouldn't be, about that. It should be about all of us. About helping people.
When we come together to help everyone, we're so powerful. We can do and achieve so much. When we're divided, we're nothing. We're our worst selves.
Treating politics as sports, as tribes, as fandom, is a disservice to all of us. We're in the midst of so many crises, with increased rhetoric, and we're digging down rather than climbing out.
God, look at Kavanaugh. People drinking beer to celebrate. Because that's politics now - mocking the other team. The losers. Because it doesn't matter.
But it does matter. We do care. This, Brexit, Trump. The rhetoric is exhausting and the mockery hurts. Because it matters. And everyone needs to remember that.
The cruelty is the point. While we fight back against that cruelty, remember why it's there. And remember that we're not just fighting for 'us'. We're fighting for a lot of 'them' too.
We want a more equal society for more people. We want more protection for more people. We want better healthcare for more people. We want better pay for more people. Including those who have felt hurt and angry and lashed out and become cruel.
This isn't an us or them thing. A winners or losers thing. It's not even a middle-ground thing because the ground has shifted so far. It's an us thing. Vote for everyone. Fight for everyone. It's the only way.
Fight for love. Vote for love. If cruelty is the point, empathy and love are the only solutions that can create change. That doesn't mean ignore or forget the cruelty. It doesn't mean not fighting it. It means concentrate on the aim. Concentrate on empathy, love and change.
/thread. Sorry for going on.
