Wednesday 28 November 2012

Twilight and acceptance.

Hi all, FOC back again

You asked for it and now I'll post my opinion:

From what I know of Twilight I do not care for it.

That's all I need to say.

Now I know what you are thinking, "Hey FOC! I was expecting a rant!" Well sorry to disappoint you but I'm not going to do that. Why? Well let me tell you a story.

Mrs Camelot is awesome and as such she agreed to make the pilgrimage with me to San Diego Comic Con a couple of years ago. I'm going to assume that you know what SDCC is, if not you can Google it. The day before the Con started we went to pick up our tickets only to get confronted by a queue the size of a small country. It was huge and it literally took us 90 minutes to get to the end.

During the wait I got chatting to some fellow queuers. They were really nice people who had travelled from the mid west to make the trip. The reason for their visit? Twilight.

Now I could go into why I think Twilight sucks but that's all been said before. That's not interesting to me. What does interest and concern me is the sheer hate that this bit of pop culture ephemera has been subjected to. At some point it has morphed from legitimate criticism to hatred of the fandom. Now I ask you, what harm does an admittedly badly written book/film do to you? What drives people to actually wish death on the followers, even in jest? It's geek elitism and that I find bizarre. My fellow queue buddies do not deserve that.

Not too long ago Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Gaming were mocked as the hobbies of losers. Now as Geekdom has become mainstream you are beginning to see a stratification of Geek culture between what is acceptable and what is still open for mockery and hate. Console gaming is OK, Tabletop less so and LARP is still open to ridicule. Why?

Here's the thing, my fandom is not better than anyone else's, my opinion no more or less valid. There is a place for everything, even if you think it sucks. So if you like Nicky Minaj or Justin Beiber or Twilight or dressing in a fur suit then good for you! You pursue that interest as far as you can because I'd rather people have diverse interests and variety makes the world a better place.

There's a place for everything, the stuff you like, the stuff you love and even the stuff you think sucks a hairy fat one. I'm glad Twilight exists because it made people happy and we should have more shit like that.

Your resident understanding dude

Fall of Camelot.