I find it laughable that you think that geeks weren't exactly as messy about every fandom update. 25 years ago Star Wars caused public meltdowns. I was there, where grown men cried, in public.
Yeah there was no shortage of people acting like the Star Wars franchise had been utterly ruined by the prequels and the OT special Edition back in the day. Same thing is happening now with the sequels.
It’s true what people say, “nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans”.
One could argue that it's the same nerds. The difference isn't generational, it's the forums for discussion. Modern platforms offer more validation (in the form of echo chambers) and monetisation in response to over-reacting to this kind of stuff.
Yeah, I did start to mention that possibility. The meme doesn't really specifically state that it's a new crop of people, and I do actually suspect it's a mixture of older nerds who have gone insane and newer nerds who started out insane.
You enjoy hearing people bitch and moan about what's canon and what's not canon?
You didn't think it was just a little embarrassing, when "Star Trek: Lower Decks" did a one-off joke about a Space Koala God, and people GENUINELY FREAKED OUT, DEMANDING TO KNOW IF THAT SHIT WAS NOW CANON, IN THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE, and actually got into heated debates, about it?
That's not fucking cringe behavior, to you?
Hell, I didn't even touch the whole racism and sexism thing. Again, I'm not under any fucking illusions about the past. I know oldschool nerds were mostly heterosexual white men, with some creepy attitudes about a LOT of things. But godDAMN, things have gotten next-level racist, sexist, and intolerant.
To my eternal shame, the realm of the nerds is the ONE AREA where a lot of the young people are seemingly becoming more bigoted and chauvinistic, compared to the oldheads. Fucking depresses me off my fucking ass, man.
People were bitching and moaning twenty years ago about midichlorians, a one-off throw away line that nobody knows it even exists, outside of huge Star Wars nerds.
As for the racism and sexism, it's despicable, but nothing new. The "new" thing is the internet giving a place and validation to all those deranged individuals, who share controversial takes and create circlejerks and echo chambers where those controversial opinions are upvoted.
Where do you see all this behavior that you don't like? Maybe you need to remove yourself from these crowds you hate so much. If everyone else is the asshole, maybe you're the asshole, etc. Just leave any community you don't enjoy, period.
I don't see any kind of the BS that you mention. I talk to sensible people of my own choosing about things I want to talk to them about. You should try that, I suppose. 🤷♂️ Best of luck to you. 👍
They were the same as they've always fucking been, you're just older and have a better capacity to both notice it and be tired of it, so now you see it more and have a bias because of that.
Before the internet was big we had shitloads of counter monkeys hanging out at the comic shop willing to do either one and sometimes both of these to anyone who would, or had to, listen - with the most likely person being the dude working at the comic shop. Nerds have been doing this shit over comics alone for decades.
It's not about "figuring out" what's canon. It's this hand-wringing, "b-b-b-but is it canon or not" bullshit. It is indeed the whining that I'm talking about.
I have only watched the first episode of the new Fallout series, but apparently there's some kind of inconsistency, between the timeline of the games, and the timeline in the show. As I said, oldschool nerds would have been like "HMMM, BEING A SMART PERSON, I NOTICED EVERY TINY THING THAT WAS CHANGED. FIRST, DID EVERYONE ELSE NOTICE EVERYTHING I NOTICED? I BET YOU DIDN'T, BECASUE I'M VERY VERY SMART AND MY KNOWLEDGE OF THE LORE KNOWS NO BOUNDS."
Then they would all argue about whether the version of the timeline in the new TV show or movie is good or bad.
But these kids now....they just start whining and screaming. Todd Howard literally had to make a video statement, confirming that the game timeline was not being retconned.
Nobody used to do that. It's cringe shit, man.
I guess I blame Disney for going out of their way to ostentatiously obliterate the Star Wars expanded-universe canon, in a very insulting and apocalyptic manner. And Marvel for pushing the idea that the film timeline is the "official" one.
But it's still cringe to get so bent out of shape. Be a judgmental, picky, annoying nerd, all you want. But at least have the decency to be smug and superior, rather than an irritating little pussy.
I'm sure if the internet existed at the time, there would be plenty of things to find on the wayback machine of nerds in the 50's complaining about DC taking away Superman's exhaustive list of super powers and making it a more manageable, consistent set. Or turning Batman from a light-hearted detective series into whatever it is today.