Rage against the dying of the light? Or maybe drink another Mountain Dew and fire a magic missile into the darkness. One or the other, they amount to the same thing.
Gatekeepin' it real: On the natural condition of fandom
Celebrim
Legend
I think it's normal for membership in a group to be established by displays of knowledge. Just talk to, for example, some baseball fans. Or people who drink wine and consider themselves members of a group who drink wine and not just people who drink wine.
I'm not convinced nerd culture has long encouraged gatekeeping. I think that is a statement that is probably impossible to confirm, and I'll note that there is a recognized cultural valuation that has been criticized within nerddom of not doing enough gatekeeping and feeling like you were under an obligation to accept anyone unconditionally regardless of say problems with hygiene and body odor. So if it is true that nerd culture has long encouraged gatekeeping, then I think it's also at least as true that there is also the opposite impulse in nerd culture to not do any gatekeeping.
And I think we can explain both through a "reductive and sociological" explanation - nerds were originally an outgroup subject to intense social persecution. Nerds weren't in my day a group you aspired to be a member of because they had social standing or membership in the group accrued some amount of respect. Nerds were group you were forced into much like being forced into a locker or dangled upside down in a toilet. In my day, you became a nerd for the simple reason that bigger more popular people violently forced the label on you both with the social violence of open mockery, and the literal violence of getting together in a group and pounding you bloody. That was what it meant to be a nerd for me growing up.
With this reality in mind, I think it's easy to explain both the impulse of the group to want to exclude members from entering it and take the term 'nerd' on as a point of pride and throw it back in the face of the group that had persecuted them, and also at the exact same time to want to throw open the gates of acceptance to anyone who found themselves victimized and an outcast for whatever reason. I would point out the great poetry of the bard John Hughes, when the Pretty Person tries to equate the outcast nerd group culture with her own popular group's gatekeeping culture, the nerd defends his group by stating:
Consider nerd culture in that context. You finally gets some friends. You finally win some acceptance. You finally feel you belong somewhere. Then a Pretty Person comes along, uses their superior social influence, takes that from you, tells you that you are a bad person, that you need to be excluded from nerddom, and they are the real judge of who gets to belong. And then they tell you that you are the conceited non-inclusive one for rejecting or quibbling with that analysis. Would it have been right for Brian to have after that comment decided, "No, Claire is just too conceited of a person for me to ever be friends with her. I'm going to forever hold that comment against her, and against everyone who reminds me of Claire." No, it wouldn't. It's never justified to treat others the way they treat you, and its certainly not justified to ever judge others based on how some completely different person who happens to share a few similar traits treated you, and it's even less justified to transfer that anger on to that innocent person in an act of misplaced vengeance.
But I'd be surprised if there was anyone in the threat wholly innocent of such behavior, or if any of us where wholly immune to prejudging someone as 'a Brian' or 'a Claire'.
Let me come at this from another angle. We talk like "gatekeeping" is always a bad thing. But we do that by divorcing it from its natural meaning and having an unspoken qualifier like "unjust", "sexist", or "racist" in front of it. But gatekeeping is still something that is heavily endorsed within society, but when we talk about it we use a different word than the bad word "gatekeeping". We use the word "authentic". We don't act like the search for authenticity is an act of gatekeeping, but it pretty obviously is just as those who ordain themselves experts who can decide who is or who isn't authentic and who is or who can't represent are themselves gatekeepers. One must always be on guard against false experts, the inauthentic, am I right?
You wrote: "...but, there is something about a particular strain of nerd gatekeeping that is different. Either in manner, or in degree, or both."
And I would respond that that difference is low social standing. How dare a group with such low social standing try to exclude anyone from it. Shouldn't they be looking up to us? The very idea that they don't just makes people bristle.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I suppose it depends on how we’re defining “gatekeeping.” I eww referring specifically to the kind of “you must meet the following standards to count as a true fan” behavior that we see in fandoms, but if you extrapolate to factionalism more generally, yeah, there’s definitely an inborn psychological element to that.
Celebrim
Legend
Well, yes, actually I would. I think the real question is why would you even want to say you were a soccer fan if your only engagement was with the World Cup final every four years? I don't claim to be a football (the American sort) fan, and I watch football matches more often than that. (Speaking of, Geaux Tigers.)
Well, yes, actually I would. And I would cite the fact that you don't know whether or not that is a thing as proof of the fact. The real question is why would want to say that you were a fan of my favorite team if that was your only engagement with the team? Why couldn't you just be honest and admit that you weren't a fan (that is to say, a fanatic, because that is what 'fan' means)? Why do you need to be dishonest with yourself and with me and misrepresent yourself as a fan?
Why doesn't it? Why would you have an emotional need to identify yourself as a fan and claim your fandom is valid if you barely cared about the thing you were pretending to care deeply about? Couldn't you at least qualify your claim by saying, "I'm only casual fan." or "Actually, I haven't really paid much attention to the team." or "I'm not much of a fan." or "I'm not nearly the fan you are." or whatever.
I think what is going on here is a deep seated and very human fear of rejection that is making people irrational.
You see here is the problem - why is it wrong to say, "You're fake fan of the Columbus Crew, unless relevant stats for all of the players for the last however many years."? This is why it is such an utterly craptastic way to talk about the actual problem through this weird word "gatekeeping". The real issue isn't whether the club has standards. Isn't the real issue something like, "No girls allowed!" or something like that, and that rather than honestly admitting that is the standard, people have hid their crappy opinions behind, "You aren't a real nerd unless you can quote verbatim from the monster manual?" The real problem with a community isn't that it has minimum standards. The real problem with a community is if it is sexist, or racist, or whatever.
Please define the International Standard Unit of Fannishness, so that all people's fandom may be measured and ranked! Time for everyone to whip it out and engage in Nerdsizing!
Your logic might apply with a formal group, that is defined, has a charter, bylaws defining expected behaviors, and membership lists, requirements that can be objectively met, and agreements that are entered into with informed consent of all parties.
Meanwhile, for RPGs, if you ask 5 gamers what they like about RPGs, you'll get 17 answers! You can find folks on these boards who never play D&D. And others who should never play at the same tables, their expectations and desires are so different. "Fandom" is not a single, cohesive thing. With no clear definitions, just logically, declaring someone Out is not well-supported.
And then you get to ask about Who The Heck Do You Think You Are? Given that fandom is not a formal community, with no leader, no clear definitions: Nobody has authority. So, what gives anyone (you, me, whoever) the right to declare In or Out? How, other than by power of ego, does one take on the mantle of Arbiter of Geekitude?
"Well hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," are the words, right? So... the gatekeeper's ego is... more equal?
Beleriphon
Totally Awesome Pirate Brain
You could, do you watch football out of obligation, or because you like watching it. I'd say if you like watching football you're a fan of the game. You might not be particularly attached to the Buffalo Bills or the New England Patriots or the Dallas Cowboys or the Local Sports Team Piggers, but you have an attachment to the game itself.
I will say I'm a wrestling fan, not the WWE kind (not that there is anything wrong with liking the WWE) but rather the freestyle and Roman-Greco kind at the Olympics. I have no idea what the world standings are for the heavy weight categories, but I make it a point to watch it during the Olympics. I go out of my way to find when it's aired and watch. I don't particularly care who wins, but I want to watch because I enjoy the sport.
In the hypothetical, given that I don't actually watch sports very often (last event I watched was the Tour de France, and my wife and I decided we were Julian Alaphilippe fans, I'd never heard of him before), I can be a fan of soccer and only watch the World Cup and cheer for my national team. Maybe that's all I like about soccer, watching my national team compete at the highest level, that doesn't mean I'm not a fan of the game, I just don't engage with it in the way that you do with Columbus and the MLS, or a lot of people do with Manchester United.
I'm not being dishonest if I say I'm a fan of something. Lets keep our Crew example going. If I occassionally listen to the game on the radio but I'm excited when Columbus wins and disappointed when they lose I would suggest that makes me a fan. If I'm listening because I like soccer and that's the only live feed I can get, then I'm a fan of soccer if not specifically the team involved.
The better question is how does it hurt you? Why does it matter to you how I identify myself? What exactly would the problem be with engaging with a fandom in only a small way, and why would I need to qualify that to you? Why should I? Who are you to judge whether I'm worthy of being a fan, or should be able to call myself one?
In the long run the answer to all of those is none, and you're not. But again, that's me saying I'm fan. I'm not trying to join your club, merely identify that I like the same thing you do. So, if I like the same thing you do, why do I have to engage with it in the same way, or as frequently as you do?
From the perspective of the team they'll happily accept my $1 as much as your $1000, and they'll happily call me a fan. Why? Because they know by acknowledging my level of interest giving me a means to participate they can extract my $1 but it takes effort on their part to do it, while it takes much less for you to part with $1000 to participate given your level of attachment to your favourite team.
Yes, a big problem is that asshats hide behind "You must know X facts about Y things before you can join" when they really mean "No Homers!" (they're allowed one, no Homer-S!). It doesn't change the fact the people that do this would do it to anybody that doesn't fit their preconceived notion of what a fan of their chosen fandom looks or behaves like. Morrus' post was making it clear that saying folks that Critical Roll and streaming shows can't be real fans of D&D isn't allowed around these parts. The reason Morrus has unfortunately had to point this out is that there are some people that claim CR viewers (lets assume some portion of them don't play the D&D TTRPG) can't be real fans is because they don't know anything about Mystara, or Greyhawk, or Blackmoor, or whatever. I think you'll agree that's dumb.
If somebody wanted to join a D&D game then that group is well within their rights to set whatever rules and requirements you want. You could make them filling a 1000 question quiz to determine if they're going to join, that's up to you. However, nobody gets to decide if I'm a fan of D&D, or the Columbus Crew, or Local Town Sports Piggers but me.
You can still be a douche without be sexist, racist or whatever. Mind you those are views that tend to get held by certain people that want to be gatekeepers Particularly with D&D. You're right in saying the problem isn't that D&D has minimum standards to be a fan, it has 0 standards to be a fan of D&D; rather the problem is there are some people out there that think it should have minimum standards, and act like they know for certain what those standards are and will enforce them.
Gatekeeping isn't a weird word, it has sociological contexts that are being used accurately to describe the particular behaviour Morrus wants to stop. The reason he wants to stop that is because D&D fandom isn't an exclusive club or group, its an open ended concept that changes and morphs over time. You can join or leave as you wish, there are no specific rules that must be followed. I think the only general concept is you have to like D&D in some capacity.
Don Durito
Hero
“Fan” is short for fanatic
Wiseblood
Adventurer
If I told you there was an international standard for fandom would you accept those standards? This to me is ipso facto gatekeeping.
Have you ever encountered someone who feigned interest or knowledge for acceptance?
Conversely
Have you ever encountered someone who surprised you with their knowledge?
If yes, did you ask any questions and were you gatekeeping or were you just interested?
Are we a mob with pitchforks and torches stepping and fetching at the command of popular opinion?
CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
Rather than tiptoeing around, asking for proof statements and standards of measurement for gatekeeping, and what does/doesn't constitute poor behavior, etc., I propose the following.
You know when someone is being a jerk, so call them out on it.
You know when YOU are being a jerk; so check yourself and apologize.
That is really all the evidence/proof/test/qualifier you need. If it's hard for you to figure out how close to the line you can get before you cross over from "fan" to "jerk," just avoid it altogether.
You know when someone is being a jerk, so call them out on it.
You know when YOU are being a jerk; so check yourself and apologize.
That is really all the evidence/proof/test/qualifier you need. If it's hard for you to figure out how close to the line you can get before you cross over from "fan" to "jerk," just avoid it altogether.
Wiseblood
Adventurer
I wasn’t asking for proof. Only asking that ones own argument be held to the same standard.
Just in case. Was I being a jerk?
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