Click here to read some Toxic Scifi Fan Hate Mail I got in Part I. Sometimes you have to ‘hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats’ – authors are no exception. I think their comments speak for themselves, so let me get right into my response – posted as follows:
Listen up, Dingus. I took the first two or three shots because I believe in finding common ground but now you’ve taken it too far. You think ‘nobody cares about quality anymore’ and ‘It’s all about cheap nostalgia, ‘Star Wars is an abomination,’ and ‘Rose Tico ruined everything?’ You just walked into my kill zone, sweetie – so let me give you a nickel’s worth of free advice.
Number one: stop reading / watching / experiencing scifi. If I were the principal and this was school, you’d be expelled. This isn’t room for you in scifi anymore – you don’t understand what science fiction is, you can’t understand what it feels like to color outside the lines. You can’t know, because you don’t want to know, what it feels like to be a Rose Marie Tran or a Ursula K. Le Guin in a Neil Gaiman or Scott Adams world.
Number two: Stop telling everyone that you love science fiction. No you don’t – you love a scifi-based play zone with safety corners and bubble wrap where your fee fees and your two movie dollars are more important than treating other people with respect and dignity. Stick to your Middle School-era TV shows and books where all the main characters are ruggedly handsome white guys, all the aliens are metaphors for brown people and all girls are dopey victims.
If it helps – let’s not call it ‘explusion.’ Let’s say: You’ve officially graduated from science fiction. Enjoy it, here’s your cap and gown, go down the road and watch Marvel and Fast X movies – that’s your speed and that’s what you deserve. I’ll tell you this now so you can skip to the end of your life – you’re going to miss everything cool and die miserable. That’s all people like you are capable of because you don’t understand what it takes to create – all you know how to do is destroy.
The irony is, you’ll never figure out how scifi has passed you by, and is treating you like you treated it. It was there to challenge you, it was there to open new doors – you couldn’t handle either of those things so you shrank back into destruction. I outgrew your immature, selfish mindset years ago and have no interest in lowering myself to debate you.
Go outside, touch some grass. Then go inside and get some help. You’ve got more issues than Time Magazine, and writing hate mail to me won’t make that better.
With concern,
J
So yeah – dang, that took a lot out of me. It’s been years since I’ve navigated an email flame war – so I know I’m a little rusty. It’s part of my healing journey to stand up for myself and others.
If anything else comes of this Scifi Fan Hate Mail, I’ll keep you posted. I’m wore out, but I also feel … kinda good.
