The worst guys on the internet are now acting like ‘shipping’ is a new thing

Another day, another moment online when haters don’t seem to know anything. With Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the worst of mankind is coming out of the woodwork to try to tear down the show. Why? Because they think they know what Tolkien would want. Exhausting.

The official Rings of Power account made a cute little joke about shipping. Estrid (Nia Towle) and Isildur (Maxim Baldry) have captured the attention of fans, so the account simply posted 4 pictures of them and wrote, “Okay, we ship them.” It is a social media account for the show, meant to engage with fans and get people talking. Shouting out shipping is not unheard of.

So tell me why this angered men? Someone replied to the official tweet with “Imagine being a Lord of The Rings fan and experiencing the official page talk about shipping characters.” That’s wild because I grew up when the Peter Jackson movies were coming out and we all shipped those characters a lot. But I guess if your only interaction with other fans is to spread hate, you wouldn’t know.

The modern idea of shipping is often attributed to the show The X-Files and the reaction to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. It happened long before then in media, but there wasn’t an online response or name for it yet. Now, we have ship wars and everyone remembers the first couple that really made them get into fandom.

Another prominent figure in current toxic online fandom replied, “I acrimoniously loathe shipping in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.” From what I can tell, this man is in his mid 50s, putting him in his mid 20s when shipping became a thing as we know it today—let alone that shipping Kirk and Spock was a thing way before that.

This is just the latest tactic from these guys to try to be angry about something. They’re upset that a show that Tolkien’s family approves of used “shipping” on a social media post? These angry people want to hold Peter Jackson’s movies as the bible when the Tolkien estate didn’t even like them! This backlash is just a bunch of angry old men online who have tapped into hate that they pretend is legitimate criticism.

You don’t have to like it or engage with it, but acting as if shipping is not a normal part of being a fan of something is just absurd.