I made a post asking specifically for DC fans their opinions. The people who responded aren’t actual fans—they’re just people who think they are fans but have never picked up a comic in their life. My question is: why do non-fans try so hard to engage with real fans?? You aren’t a real fan of DC, Marvel, or anything superhero-related, so you don’t deserve to be in the fandom space.
This is known as gatekeeping. There’s no such thing as a “real fan”. People from all walks of life want to be involved in a conversation about a thing they find enjoyable. If anything, we should welcome those looking to be involved or experienced with things they don’t yet understand.
This is a bit different if they’re confidently incorrect and argue, but I have to imagine this is not the majority. You can take on the role of an educator to help those that don’t know understand more.
The Linux community, and niches inside that community, are quite infamous for gatekeeping. Because you don’t use a piece of software that other people use (for usually ideological reasons), you get attacked for it.
I would know, because I was attacked for proudly embracing the use of XLibre. I didn’t care one bit.
Is shunning people for not using Linux also gatekeeping? I feel like I get that a lot.
There is literally nothing wrong with gatekeeping and yes there is such a thing as a “real fan”
I’m a big fan of gatekeeping and I don’t appreciate you trying to say what is and isn’t gate keeping as you clearly aren’t a real fan of it.
🤔
Mate, I love you, but please consider that your opinions don’t ALWAYS correspond with reality.
If you don’t have knowledge of something, then you can’t really discuss it. Someone can’t and shouldn’t talk about Israel vs. Palestine if they don’t know anything about the history of the conflict.
And I think there are objectively some things that make you a fan of something, especially when most arguments against Batman are false. If you read one issue of one comic, or watch ONE episode—hell, HALF an episode—of Batman, how can you claim to be a fan of something, yet know NOTHING about the character outside of surface-level stuff?
Do I like Mario? Sure. Do I like his games? Sure. Did I like the movie? Yeah. Did I like the second one? No, not really. Am I a fan of Mario? No. Do I like it? Sure—but I don’t know much about the character to say I’m a fan. I can at least admit it.
Do I like Star Trek? Yes. Am I a ‘Trekkie’? No, because I only really like the three Star Trek movies with Chris Pine, the Original Series, and TNG and Voyager—and that’s it. So I’m not a ‘fan,’ and it would be disingenuous for someone to say, ‘you aren’t a Trekkie or a real Mario fan,’ and then for me to get offended when I genuinely am not.
That’s your opinion and I can only repeat myself:
Please define with concise and quantifiable metrics for what constitutes a real fan of DC
Let’s look at some arguments against Batman.
“He beats up poor people.”
You could, again, say this about any rich superhero, but Batman doesn’t “beat up poor people.” Most of the people he fights are rich and wealthy crime lords who hurt innocent people in his city. That’s what the entire Court of Owls storyline is about. And even if the criminals are poor, these are still people who are going out of their way to choose to rape, kill, and maim people. The criminals who are criminals because they are poor—Batman gives them tons of job opportunities.
If someone is a pimp who pimps out underage girls, and is a rapist, an assassin, or a gang leader, should we not stop them because “they are poor”? Especially when they make so much money they could retire or go legit?
“He beats up the mentally ill.”
Again, Joker is doing what he’s doing because he wants to, and this is an insult to mentally ill people, because there are tons of mentally ill people who choose not to commit evil acts and want to treat their mental illness. Batman’s rogues gallery is not—and again, most supervillains are mentally ill—so this point is stupid.
“He recruits children.”
Teen Titans—the sidekicks of damn near every League member. And then they might say, “Well, they have powers.” They are still fighting threats that can kill them. Also, by this argument, you’re basically saying a teen should not be a superhero because he has no powers.
“Why doesn’t he use his wealth to help Gotham?”
Literally every comic, animated show, and movie shows he’s using his wealth to help Gotham.
A real fan of DC does not make these stupid arguments because they know it’s objectively false.
Not to be a jerk but none of that was concise or quantifiable. It was just a bunch of random opinions on specific storylines.
Bro… All of these points have been brought up in official media at one point or another. Does that mean those aren’t “real” DC stories?