Did the nerds win?

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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. The solution is also not relentless positivity or deference to the massive conglomerates who profit from the passion of fans. It is possible to enjoy something deeply without trying to exert control over it. It is healthy to love one chapter of a story while being disinterested in another, and to accept that someone with the opposite opinion is still one of you.

What ultimately matters about your Star Trek, your Star Wars, your Lord of the Rings isn’t the canon, the nuts and bolts knowledge that would help you save the day if Jason Nesmith ever called to tell you that “it’s all real.” It’s not real. Even in Galaxy Quest, the thing that made it “real” for the Thermians wasn’t the fact that they built the ship but that it helped them rebuild their lives. It made them better. Corporate profits be damned, that’s where its value lies. If the thing that you love no longer does that for you, if it’s making you worse, you can let it go. It may be part of you, but it doesn’t belong to you.
 

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