What is fandom?

What is fandom?

I started pondering this question, because I live with some gamers. They both are fans of a game called Warhammer 40K and are playing the new game Space Marine 2. I'm not interested in playing it, but I do know from interacting with other Warhammer fans (not just my roommate), that many fail to see the satire in a story about genetically bred superhumans enforcing a strict imperial rule...and then dying...for a literal corpse on a throne (the Emperor is essentially dead or it is strongly eluded to that he is a corpse that is falling apart). It seems obvious to me, but satire takes critical thinking ability to suss out and not everyone is capable of doing it. So you end up with large swaths of people who get excited over this grim dark world and believe that fascism is actually the "true way" to live. It's really weird.

The same thing happens in Star Wars and in Star Trek and in Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien fanbase doesn't like anyone even messing with Tolkien's notes, which he was using to create the story that he wanted to tell. But establishing all of those things with the Silmarils and the Palantirs and ancient Numenor and the Maiar and the Istari and etc. were all things that he wrote down in notebooks to help him (as an author) world build. It's completely arguable that the character of Tom Bombadil is just a silly stand-in for the author himself, much like the character of "Dungeon Master" in the old 80's cartoons of Dungeons & Dragons was just a stand-in (a wink and a nod) to the actual story teller that hosts a game. If this is the case, in the author was poking fun at himself, is it really so egregious to say that the character of Galadriel was a kick-ass warrior or that mithril contains within it the magical and undying light of a silmaril?

Here's my point: fandom at its most fundamental level is not about anything real. What it does do is it sucks people into it (the fandom) to such an extent that they end up spending a lot of time and energy pursuing a fantasy that comes at the very real cost of the time, energy, and attention they could be applying to their own lives. Some even neglect to make friends, further their careers, or take care of their own health. These people can also get caught up in fights where one person is a problematic fan because their fanart or fanfiction isn't popular, or their particular take shines a light upon unsavory traits (like racism and sexism). 

There is also (I think) a lot of mental illness in a fandom community, and the people who are part of a fandom could be trying to cope with said mental illness via some form of escapism. In a fandom, even mentally ill people can find a community, constant mental excitement, and the chance to explore something you don't have access to in a vicarious way. So what can happen is you get access to everything else that you can't get anywhere else. However, all of this comes at a cost: you end up with a bunch of maladjusted people collecting together, and in many ways, this isn't good because some illnesses like personality disorders can be somewhat contagious.

A lot of times too, a fandom can result in groupthink, sometimes quite negatively. People can literally be doxxed and have their lives ruined simply because they don't like the same thing as most of the rest of the fandom. Anyway, no matter what I think, fandoms are here to stay for good or for ill. I only recently started really thinking of them in this other light as I've been enjoying Rings of Power on Amazon. As a result, I've looked to understand more than what I already knew (which is considerable as I've read a lot of Tolkien), but the fandom is so utterly toxic. They say, "This is just fanfiction!" as if that were some kind of insult when really...anything not written by J.R.R. Tolkien himself (who has been dead for decades) is "fanart" or "fanfiction." What are they going to do when the entire thing eventually passes into the public domain? Have a complete and utter meltdown?

I guess the only thing I can do responsibly is to manage my own role in fandom, and that is to be as self-aware as possible and to not become some kind of gatekeeper touting the phrase: "This is the only correct way to do this." But as I've gotten older, I've realized that most people do not have open minds even if they say that they do. Those doors got closed a long time ago for whatever reasons, and it would benefit all of us to keep this in mind when becoming a fan of anything.