Thread by @PnictogenHorses

let's talk about a *commercial* phenomenon, a remarkable one. Twitter is merely the highest-profile example.

which is: numerous corporate brands and franchises have learned how to monetize *extremist fandom*, and they've leaned into it. #StarWars gives a good example.

(cont'd)

https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/1640783422435065857

"Star Wars" fandom is ruled by a small but *high-spending* minority of hardcore nerds.

these extremist #StarWars nerds are loud (and bigoted) in their demands for the franchise—and the mere fact that @starwars *listens* shows that the hardcore fans have power of purse.

(cont'd)

@starwars and @Disney wouldn't prioritize the extreme demands of the hardcore (bigoted) #StarWars geeks, if these geeks weren't seen as central to the monetary success of the franchise. what's true of Star Wars is also true of comics, video games, $TSLA, @Twitter...

(cont'd)

#StarWars furnishes a hint about what's up: the "Star Wars" fandom is an *aging* one. it's sustained by the curdled nostalgia of folks on the downslope of their lives, looking backwards at beloved movie memories from 1980. even @elonmusk is a manifestation of nostalgia.

(cont'd)

Chara has talked about how @elonmusk and @mtaibbi and other people in that circle—a social milieu dominated by aging businesspersons—have an air of imitation youth about them. they're profoundly immature persons but they're past fifty. they're walking midlife crises.

(cont'd)

and one senses the same thing at work in the toxic #StarWars fandom, and other fandoms for commercial brands and franchises that have leaned heavily into nostalgia—and heeding the demands only of that thin sliver of the audience that spends the most money on the brand.

(cont'd)

for a *toxic fandom*, one that's become like a religious sect, is one that's likely to show zero restraint in spending money on the brand.

imagine a #StarWars fandom consisting entirely of overpaid corporate drones like @sama or @DavidSacks, and you'll get the picture.

(cont'd)

these are the people who (like the corporate executives who are the sole clientele for @sama's @OpenAI rubbish) have all the "discretionary income", i.e. they're paid huge volumes of cash to do little actual work. they're the ones who can buy $10,000 of #StarWars stuff.

(cont'd)

now that @elonmusk is mismanaging @Twitter, he's running Twitter on exactly the same principle. #Twitter now has one audience: a thin sliver of avaricious elitists—people with an idle corporate or entrepreneurial lifestyle that gives them lots of money to throw at Musk.

(cont'd)

of course @elonmusk is trying to *lie* about it, and pretend that putting @Twitter on a pay-as-you-go basis is somehow empowering to the people, but I think you may have noticed that #ElonMusk never tells the truth in public.

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen

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