Fanboy Thugs

Ever since I started writing fan fiction and getting fanzines in the early 1990s, I've always been befuddled by the attitudes of a small number of SW fans. There have always been people who resent Lucas for some reason and think that if only the GFFA was in their hands, it would be so much better. There have been know-it-all fanboys since civilization began. Sometime over the past 20 years they got together like some hellish Reese's peanut butter cup and it seems like with every passing year, they get louder, more obnoxious, and uglier.

As a result George Lucas is the Emmanuel Goldstein for unfocused and irrational nerd rage. The people who hate him loathe him beyond reason or logic, which is why I call it Lucas Derangement Syndrome. Really, what on Earth justifies it? But the internet echo chamber and the media have fanned it for so long, it has inspired a cottage industry for small-timers trying to get attention (and perhaps a shot at the big time). This is why we have basher-themed documentaries and epic-length scathing "reviews" on YouTube. They get a tremendous amount of press from the mainstream media and even got some approving nods from people in Hollywood. Because of that, you just know there's more coming which will keep feeding the hate.

Let's be honest. This is no longer about a love or passion for SW. It hasn't been for years. The kinds of people who are gleefully pumping their fists in the air over the YouTube bashfests don't really care about our favorite saga. The only thing they care about is being right. You see, they're just like the villain in "The Incredibles," the obnoxious fanboy who wanted to be a superhero but didn't have any powers and was only a nuisance. It turns out he's the supervillain later on in the movie. He creates all of these gizmos to give the illusion of power and then tries to destroy the superheroes he could never be. At one point he tells Mr. Incredible that "I've outgrown you." But we know he didn't outgrow anything; he's held on to this immature anger all of this time. These doofuses feel like Lucas personally betrayed them. Yet not every fan felt the same way they did. Moreover, the prequels were all very successful at the box office, they sold lots of action figures, and brought in many new fans. I think that upset them even further.

So, they're trying to win here by re-writing the narrative with the help of a compliant media always eager for controversy and an appetite to tear down a public figure. In the internet echo chamber, it's easy to find a lot of other loud voices egging each other on. They're trying to make sure the only thing that remains from that era 1997-2005 is their sound and fury.

Which is why they are viciously attacking any nail that can't be hammered down. Technology has made a society that's already rude, crude, and narcissistic even more so and nothing's a quicker getaway car than an anonymous internet comment. A couple of months ago, somebody hacked into the e-mail account of another SW fan site to send me (via SWPAS) hate mail. Yes, somebody went through the trouble of hacking just to do that.

But what's truly alarming is what happened this week on the Star Wars Examiner's page. The author posted rebuttals to the YouTube TPM basher. Not a single commenter who disagreed with the author bothered to actually argue his points. Instead they lobbed ad hominem attacks, outraged that someone out there actually LIKED TPM. They called the author "gay," wished for someone to beat up the author's son, and hoped the author's son would someday stab the author in the job. Absolutely sickening.

Yeah, that's what it come down to. I'm sorry, but anyone who writes something like this, or hacks into e-mail accounts just to get at me is NOT a good person and no one I would ever want to associate with. I was thisclose to cancelling my trip to Celebration V and you know, there's still four months where I could very well choose to do that, money be damned. This isn't passionate love for a childhood tale, this is thuggery.

I'm thisclose to printing up all of those comments from Star Wars Examiner and send them to Lucasfilm. These are the kinds of "fans" they have been desperate to keep? Thugs who throw around gay slurs and tell someone his son deserves to be beat up or that he deserves to be murdered by his son? Why?

Update: I've since found out that the author got comments concerning molestation and sodomy of his son.

OT: Malcolm McLaren

As I tweeted yesterday, the death of former Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren made me feel old. Granted, McLaren was old enough to be my dad but it's yet another background figure in the pop culture world I grew up in who has gone off to the Other Side. All of the punk rock guys seem to either have died really young or turned out to have been surprisingly old (but not that old) once their obits were written; case in point was the death of The Cramps frontman Lux Interior last year. How could he have been in his 60s? I saw him perform in a g-string during a show in 1990.

Anyway, McLaren was an interesting figure. He was to '70s British punk rock what Bill Graham was to the San Francisco hippie music scene in the '60s. He had always been considered both a visionary and a villain, depending on who you talk to. He did not invent punk. He and his then-partner, couture designer Vivienne Westwood, ran a clothing store. He saw a golden opportunity when he saw the New York Dolls in the early '70s. He became their manager and proceeded to run the legendary band into the ground. Undeterred, McLaren and Westwood changed the name of their London store to Sex and started hawking bondage-inspired clothing, ripped up stuff rife with safety pins...you know, ye olde punk aesthetic. He figured the best way to promote their wares was to create a scene that wanted them. That's right, kids. It was about capitalism, not anarchy. So he put together the Sex Pistols with an eye more toward outrage and image rather than talent. So what if they couldn't play anything? It's not hard to learn three cords, is it? According to legend, McLaren picked John Lydon (re-christened Johnny Rotten) purely because of his "I Hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt, his bad teeth, and green hair.

McLaren's gambit worked. The Sex Pistols shocked and frightened the general public, the tabloids couldn't stop writing about them, and the kids loved them. Countless unemployed British teenagers formed their own bands in the Pistols' wake. Soon, McLaren's orbit would read like a Who's Who of that era: shop employee Chrissie Hynde, Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Siouxsie Sioux, Billy Idol, Adam Ant, etc.. The Pistols imploded and McLaren ended up in a feud with Rotten for years afterwards; the latter accused McLaren of ripping him and his bandmates off.

McLaren kept on looking for the next big thing. He managed Adam and the Ants, then he found his almost discovery, Boy George. Some former Ants were formed into a new band, Bow Wow Wow, and Boy George--then just a club kid--was McLaren's first choice for lead singer. For some reason it didn't pan out, so McLaren found someone even more outrageous...a 14-year-old Burmese immigrant named Annabella Lwin, who was pimped out as some kind of exotic teenage sex kitten. Bow Wow Wow of course scored a big hit with "I Want Candy" in 1982. He briefly managed the Red Hot Chili Peppers early on in their career. As a solo artist, he knocked off African music three years before Paul Simon did with "Graceland." Personally, I loved his 1989 album "Waltz Darling," which featured "Deep In Vogue" a year before Madonna hopped on the "strike a pose" bandwagon.

Many of McLaren's proteges found success for at least a time. The Sex Pistols live on as rock legends, which is kind of ironic if you think about it. Westwood continues to be one of the fashion industry's top designers, and McLaren's son runs the pricey lingerie line Agent Provocateur. He understood the flim-flam that goes with rock 'n roll and pop as well as the connection with fashion and if you want evidence that lives on, look at Madonna's 27-year career or Lady Gaga.