I don't follow politics anymore.

I wasn't always like this. I used to be a good liberal; I went to demonstrations, paid close attention to every SCOTUS decision, kept up with everything that went to shit during the first Trump presidency, etc. I wrote my representative about things that still needed to be undone. I would feel anxious regarding the state of the future. I followed the day-to-day of the Mueller investigation. I joined a small group that read political theory and philosophy. I'd try eagerly to defend my values to friends, family, and coworkers. I wanted to do my part to make this world a better place!

I learned about historical materialism, and this tracked with me in a way liberal idealism never did. The US isn't this pinnacle, this culmination of moral progress humanity achieved, but like every society that came before it a small ruling class that exploits a larger group. Liberal democracy itself is a product of changing material conditions. And like every other exploited class before me, I held to the ideology of my society (liberalism) and I believed my exploitation was just. I used to dismiss this framing as hippie nonsense, but it turns out this is a bedrock for much current sociology. Slowly, this plus Trump plus COVID broke me from trying to reason with conservatives or care about changing minds.

I don't know what the solution to anything is. I doubt that materialism is true, though I still think the framing is useful. I still vote, but as a basic bit of harm reduction. I no longer feel invested in seeing the US succeed as a bastion of liberal democracy. I have no pride in liberal accomplishments and feel no surprise in reactionary successes. I don't care that Trump was indicted. I wasn't shocked that Roe was overturn. I can't do anything about the Chevron decision. I would've lost it a few years ago, but today I just don't care. That's probably what conservatives want, and I don't care about that either.

Instead of following politics or reading theory, I read whatever philosophy I want. Instead of keeping up with debates, I focus on my hobbies and hanging out with friends. My apathy isn't due to being unaffected by modern politics, it very much is, but I've accepted my lot in life, the way I assume everyone of every society preceding mine has done. I feel liberated from a struggle I rarely if ever got to be a participant in. And, you know what, I'm accomplishing just about as much as I was before. I didn't realize it, but I've been checked out for a long time now, and I wonder if others feel the same.

The recent reaction to the Rings of Power trailer and a thought-provoking video about ragebait from the Youtuber Arbitor Ian made me think about this topic.

Fan as Identity and Fandom as Tribe

We all know that guy who is an extreme purist about a beloved franchise. As they love to talk about it, they love the source material, or they love the originals. Any adaptation of or addition to these is seen as deviating from these "sacred texts". Especially if the more recent material produced significantly differs from these sacred texts, it has to be bad. So, you should watch or create hours-long videos nitpicking them.

This type of person accepts as a given that the original material they are talking about is sacred. Therefore, any change to it is bad. They are often known as a purist, however, I think the better term for it is conservative.

There is research that posits that fandom is basically a postmodern tribe and fan a postmodern identity (1, 2). The idea is not entirely new. Sports fandoms and fans have been noted for these qualities before (3, 4).

I think this makes intuitive sense to people who read both humanities and participate in a fandom. Fans take their fictional worlds to heart, and they strongly identify with the characters, the universe, the stories, the games, etc. Combined with the weakening of more traditional identities, and the rise of internet that has created the conditions to connect with people worldwide, it's not surprising that such postmodern identities and tribes would be born.

The Conservative Fan

I talk about conservatism here in the broad sense, meaning being biased toward conserving what traditionally exists, a standpoint that values tradition. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry about this is well-researched.

"Conservatism in a broad sense, as a social attitude, has always existed. It expresses the instinctive human fear of sudden change, and tendency to habitual action."

I think the "purist fan" fits this definition perfectly. Combining this with the idea that a fan is a type postmodern identity, we can assert that this type of fan is a type of postmodern conservative. Therefore, fandom purism is a type of postmodern conservatism.

The Reactionary Fan and Outrage Culture

There are a lot of descriptions of what a reactionary is, and there is no agreed upon definition. I'm going to use a definition that makes sense to me as a broader definition.

For me, a reactionary, in its broadest sense, is someone who doesn't analyze things much and instead opts to act on impulsive emotion, which is very often anger, resentment, hatred. They approach topics from a very bad faith position. They make short, quippy, and wrong statements.

Reactionaries often, but not necessarily, defend conservative or conservative-adjacent views, because conservatism is biased toward reacting to changes and seeing them as negative. This aligns with the reactionary mindset that is built upon heavily reacting to things. Since change is inevitable and will always create reactions, conservatism -which is about resisting change- is a perfect fit for reactionarism.

A relevant extension of this reactionarism is the outrage culture. A production can't be just bad or mediocre, it has to be awful. You can't just dislike it and move on, you have to feel outrage. You have to belittle it at every chance you get. It's because your identity as a true nerd, and a fan of [insert fictional world], is threatened. You have to act now! They are trying to take it away!

Ragebait being amplified by social media algorithms also strengthens this. However, pointing to it as the sole reason would be a mistake.

The Synthesis and Some More Considerations

The purist fan is a postmodern conservative. They attach their identity very strongly to some sacred texts (book, comics, movie, etc.), and they don't want them to change. Therefore, there is a heavy bias involved in discussing developments around these texts.

The conservative fan can also be a reactionary fan, but doesn't have to be. They don't have to go out there and yell at people, or condescendingly talk to their social circle, like a reactionary fan does. However, they often do.

It shouldn't be hard to see why conservatism and reactionarism, in the context of fandom, would be related to their corresponding ideologies in the classical sense of the words. While decompartmentalization exists, and people don't necessarily act the same way in different areas of their lives, it makes sense that a general attitude about change would affect one's approach to both fandom and regular politics.

I think this is a major reason why we see so many loud "purists" about fandom topics follow reactionary politics in regular politics. It also explains why the regular reactionaries can so easily convince fandom reactionaries to adapt their arguments. They come from the same attitude toward change and same attachment to conservative identity politics.

So, this is my analysis of this topic. Before closing, I want to raise a question that's been on my mind. The quote I shared at the start of the post, the fear of change, I suspect this might be one of the key underlying characteristics of these people, both in regular and fandom politics. People who get attached to certain periods of time in the past so strongly that they dislike any change, or even react violently—they are at the heart of this.

There is a related, very famous meta-analysis studying 22,818 cases (88 samples) across 12 countries. Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. According to the study, conservatism is negatively correlated with openness to experience (-.32) and positively correlated with dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34).

Returning to fandom context, what I'm trying to get at is that maybe holding so dearly to experiences we've had as kids or teenagers is maybe not that good. Sure, there is nothing wrong with nostalgia, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying things we did as kids or teens. But I suspect this overemphasis on being forever teens is turning people into dogmatic, reactionary people. Maybe it's time to grow up and accept change, even find ways to cherish it.

Very Important Note

This is not an endorsement of any change to stories and franchises. Obviously, some can be bad. In fact, many adaptations of source material lose some things, partially because of differences in medium and partially because of financial interests involved in movie and show production. RoP is a good example of mediocritization due to financial concerns.

As you can guess, I did not even like Rings of Power. But even though I've been a Legendarium fan since I was a kid, it wasn't because they changed the source material. It's because I think RoP was, to use a more modern term, mid. However, this did not cause me to go on a rant about how they are ruining the Legendarium. This is a key difference, in my opinion, between simply disliking and being a reactionary.