MGibster
Legend
In my Gender and Science Fiction course I took as an undergraduate, it was crazy reading fan published zines from the 1920s and 30s, back when some people wanted to keep calling it scientifiction rather than science fiction, and seeing the same toxic traits. It's even crazier because the letters they wrote to the zines included the author's address, so you could send them mail directly or just stop by their house.Toxic fandom is not a new phenomenon. Trekkies sent hate mail to Paramount over the then-rumored death of Spock in 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. What they couldn’t do was actually change the ending of the movie, and when they saw it, they loved it.
With Wrath of Khan, there's speculation that Roddenberry himself was responsible for leaking Spock's death. There was some tension on the set because the studio opted to put someone else in charge because they weren't confident Roddenberry could deliver after the disappointing Star Trek the Motion Picture. Roddenberry was unhappy to have been essentially taken off the project and resented what he saw the militarization of Starfleet. (Don't even get me started on that.) If the creators can exhibit this kind of behavior, I guess fans will follow suit.