Analogy FAIL; or, I am not a gifted minority
So, it looks like someone has reinvented “Fans are Slans” for the 21st century.
Fandom is a subculture - which is, arguably, becoming the mainstream, one bestseller and blockbuster at a time. Fandom is a vibrant and fractious community which I am glad to be part of. But although I have made jokes about “passing for a mundane,” fandom is not some kind of unacknowledged and oppressed elite. Anyone who has heard about or witnessed some of the godawful things that happen at cons knows that fans can be as petty, mean, or thoughtless as anyone.
Fans are not Slans. We weren’t in 1940 and we aren’t today.
Fandom is a subculture - which is, arguably, becoming the mainstream, one bestseller and blockbuster at a time. Fandom is a vibrant and fractious community which I am glad to be part of. But although I have made jokes about “passing for a mundane,” fandom is not some kind of unacknowledged and oppressed elite. Anyone who has heard about or witnessed some of the godawful things that happen at cons knows that fans can be as petty, mean, or thoughtless as anyone.
Fans are not Slans. We weren’t in 1940 and we aren’t today.