Fandoms are the one subject we have probably dissected to death. We agreed in the past that fandoms bring unrivaled joy to the soul. They create an avenue for us to share our passions with like-minded people. At the same time, fandoms are more trouble than they are worth, nurturing pointless arguments that inevitably poison your love for your favourite franchise. In fact, I have argued on more than one occasion that abandoning a toxic fandom is better than tolerating the infighting it attracts. Most fandoms follow the same life cycle. They always start by scratching that one itch you never knew existed. They can spend years identifying unique ways of exceeding your expectations. But after a while, they veer off the beaten path, and the experimentation begins, either as a means of rejuvenating a franchise that has existed for too long (Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars) or an attempt to expand the fanbase. Either way, the franchise starts adding misses and failures to the board, and before long, it has more installments you hate than those you love. Then the fighting begins. You start throwing vitriol at the new fans. You don’t understand how they can love these recent installments (sequels, reboots, remakes, etc) when the original was so much better. The newcomers are equally dismissive of the franchise’s origins. Eventually, the fandom fractures because multiple factions can’t agree on what that franchise should or should not be. This is where I have always encouraged people to jump ship. If you have hated every sequel the Alien franchise has given us in the last two decades, leave. Why does the idea of newer fans enjoying a show as abysmal as Alien: Earth irritate you? If Alien (1979) and Aliens are the only installments you like in this franchise, maybe the Alien franchise left you behind. Maybe you should do the same. That conclusion seemed fairly obvious to me, and also highly practical. I could not understand why so many people stick with fandoms that continue to disappoint them. But then I heard something profound this week. Someone on a podcast said that, at the end of the day, fandom is not a choice, which blew my mind because it made so much sense. In other words, it is not a case of hard-headed stubbornness. People don’t linger in toxic fandoms (that left them behind) out of boredom. They don’t have a choice. I know individuals who have not enjoyed a single one of the hundreds of Star Trek episodes we have received in the last two decades. To them, Star Trek peaked with Deep Space 9 in the 1990s. You see them in Star Trek forums raising a stink every other week, determined to explain (in long and detailed essays) why you are wrong for liking every new Star Trek show that debuts. Why won’t they stop? What is the point of chasing aggressive verbal exchanges with a younger crop of viewers who never saw Deep Space 9, and largely prefer the current slate of Star Trek shows? Well, they can’t help it. They can’t stop loving that thing that brought them immense joy three decades ago, and they desperately want that magic to return. And if it does not, raising hell for everyone else is the next best thing. The toxicity keeps the fandom alive for them in ways that recent installments cannot. At the very least, it allows them to engage with the thing they love. It is comparable to a person who chooses to stay in close contact with a former lover, even though seeing them with someone else feels like a knife to the gut. Keeping that person in their life is worth the misery. Or at least, it is better than the empty void that will swallow them if that person retreats from their life entirely. Is it the healthiest mindset? Obviously not. katmic200@gmail.comThe post Not the toxic fandoms again! appeared first on The Observer.