The growing toxicity of fanbases

HutchinsonianDemon
2018-06-07T17:03:07Z

So, it might just be that I'm older and notice these things more, but it really seems to me that fan groups are becoming more and more toxic overall. It feels like over the past 5-8 years specifically fanbases are reaching toxic levels faster and faster.

I remember when bronies became a thing, it took them like 3-4 years before the dangerous, threatening, and assholeish behavior really began to become common. Then Steven Universe came out and it only took them like 2 years to start sending death threats to people who didn't support their head-cannons. Rick and Morty went toxic in under a year and a half.

Then there's the shit in long-running franchises. Star Wars has had multiple of the actors shutting off social media from the toxic bile being shot at them. Chris Pratt is getting hate for what Star Lord did in Infinity War.

There's memes too, weirdly enough. Calarts is the biggest example I can think of. People made a dumb joke about how all the cartoons look a like today and someone pointed out how a few of the artists went to this one school in California and it became a catch all term for the shitty artstyle, and then within like 4 weeks the school has to go into lockdown because someone made a tongue-in-cheek threat of shooting the school up. A few years ago trolling attempts would be things like ordering a bunch of pizzas to the school or something annoying and dickish but overall harmless like that.

I know toxicity amongst fanbases has always been a thing, but it really seems to me that they're reaching unseen levels and doing so faster and faster. I mean Rick and Morty fans rioted over fucking dipping sauce, there are the aforementioned Steven Universe death threats, the directed attacks of actors on social media, fucking joking about shooting schools up because you don't like the art-style a few of their graduates used in a time where we've seen like 6 school shootings in half a year, there was that whole Voltron incident where a fan stole storyboards or something and threatened to release them to the public unless the creators of the show made their favorite gay ship a thing.

I guess what I'm getting at is what the fuck is happening that's poisoning every single community online? It's like everything has suddenly devolved into Youtube comments. How did we get to this level of toxicity? Or am I just more aware of this shit now and it's not really all that different from how it used to be?

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