Angry ‘Star Wars’ Fanboys Need a New Schtick

It is really annoying to talk about Star Wars online because a certain group of “fans” are determined to make us all miserable. These so-called fans all say the same thing; they call it “Disney Star Wars” and pretend as if they know more about the franchise than anyone else.

It all stems from a collection of dudebros online. I would call them out by name, but the entire point of their behavior is to get attention from disingenuous nonsense and hate, so let’s talk about the phenomenon more generally. These online personalities weaponize the same tired boilerplate hatred and bigotry, time and time again, to get their fanbase yelling at anyone who likes something Disney makes.

They call any critic who likes the thing a “shill” and use their ideas about what is “woke” (a whole other subject, tbh) to trash any kind of Star Wars story that dares to center someone not cisgender, straight, white, or male. Every single one of the people who follow them repeats the same exact talking points and insults to people they think are “wrong,” and it shows a real lack of originality on that side of this “fandom.” They all sound the same not because they’ve identified some universal problem with Star Wars, but because they’re all getting their ideas from the same group of people who have weaponized their hatred.

I’m putting words like “fan” and “fandom” in quotation marks because I truly do not think any of those people are really fans of Star Wars. They don’t understand the themes within it if they think acting like this is what George Lucas would want. If anything, they’re the Palpatines of the world because they’re orchestrating these attacks on fans and silencing them constantly.

They’re just people filled with hate

Before The Acolyte was released, this chorus of unoriginal bigotry trashed it for one reason or another. A woman created the series, and the lead character is played by a Black non-binary actor. Of course they all hated it before they saw a single frame; they’re bigots. After the series came out, their complaints were things like “Those were the good episodes?” without explaining what they didn’t like about it.

I’m sure if they did, it’d be like “why no white man?!” or “ugh the fOrCe iS fEmAlE” and offer no real criticism. That’s just who they are. Instead of enjoying something they claim to love, they hate on it despite the fact that the series is giving a lot of people enjoyment. We’re all tweeting about Yord and thinking about our theories, and then people who follow these bozos are attacking those fans for simply enjoying something.

What does that do or who does that help? Personally, I feel as if it is their way of silencing people. If you attack and attack, then maybe people just won’t talk about that thing, and then these angry voices are the only ones you hear. We can all live in a vacuum of a handful of outrage mongers and their predictable bad-faith attention seeking because their fans simply do not have a single original thought.

I am not letting it happen, though. I don’t care how many times these men try to body-shame me or pretend like they know more than I do about Star Wars. I’m going to push back against their narrative that shows like The Acolyte are not (their idea of) Star Wars. It isn’t coming from a place of genuine criticism. It is coming from a place of using hatred for personal gain, and it really is just exhausting that they continue to dominate conversations.