Who or What Is A Fan?

Yes, I know, an honest-to-God article after all these...weeks? So a while back I was a part of a conversation between two coworkers here the topic of fans came up and one of my coworkers was expressing how bad it is for actors to disrespect fans (specifically "Star Wars" fans) and the other coworker stated that he has no respect for "Star Wars" in general as these are the people who bullied Kelly Marie Tran off of the internet due to her character Rose Tico and made the Jar Jar Binks actor suicidal. I never thought much about fandoms, and while I consider myself to be a fan of quite a few things I tend to shy away from fandom circles in general but this got me thinking, and when I get thinking an article is soon too follow to join me if you will as we figure out who or what is a fan?

So who is a fan? A fan is pretty much anyone who enjoys a thing, there are Real Fan, Hardcore Fan, and Casual Fans. The Real Fans are the ones who've either been there since the beginning or got on the bus late and while they love their thing passionately, they're not afraid to admit the flaws or failures. The "Real" part of "Real" Fan doesn't mean "real" as in "truly a fan" but rather real as in "realistic". A "Real" Fan understands that nothing is perfect and everything will have its flaws but they'll stick with their fandom through thick and thin, a lot of sports fans find themselves in this camp, people who'll root for a team while in the same breath acknowledging how much their team sucks. As the Johnny Come-Lately to a lot of fandoms, I find myself in this camp also; I've recently become a fan of The MegaTen series and while I haven't played every single game in the series (nor do I intend to) what I have played I've greatly enjoyed enough for me to want to stick around to see what their next offering will be.

The Hardcore Fan is the one who knows all the things, they can be realistic as well and usually they are but they are the ones who have played every MegaTen game, know all the backstories, know all the easter eggs, and can tell you everything top to bottom about everything. You can find Hardcore fans in pretty much every genre. I myself would consider myself a hardcore fan of "Mortal Kombat" as I do know quite a bit of lore and other obscure "Mortal Kombat" trivia that may or may not be privy to your usual "Mortal Kombat" fan. And I suppose "Mortal Kombat" would be a good segway to discuss casual fans. The casual fan is the person who is aware of the thing, they enjoy the thing but other than their enjoyment they don't really care all that much about it. And by "don't care" I mean to say they're not going to do any homework or look into things too deeply. For example, your casual "Mortal Kombat" fans know who Scorpion and Sub-Zero are but they probably don't know who The Shirai'Ryu or The Lin Kuei are, they know "Mortal Kombat" is a fighting game but they don't care about the lore or anything like that. They probably know everything they can about the character they're playing as but that's about it.

I'm a casual fan when it comes to "Street Fighter" I know enough about the characters and some of the lore but I honestly can't tell you anything of substance like I can with "Mortal Kombat". That being said I'm breaking all of this down to explain the levels of fandom and who is a fan, but who isn't a fan? As I've explained the tiers of fandoms, in my humble opinion a fan needs to be able to do a few things and that is to separate the art from the artists or the actor from the character. For me to consider you a fan you cannot bully someone. I have no love for Rose Tico, the character absolutely sucks, Kelly Marie Tran I know nothing about and I'm sure she's a lovely person, unfortunately done dirty by writers and directors who genuinely had no clue what they were doing. A Fan should hate a character and not the actor and recognize that the two are different things, if a fan doesn't then the fan in my opinion cannot be called a fan. Now this is different if the fandom is getting lectured by the actor in question about their role in things or shows obvious signs of not knowing anything about the fandom. Case in point; "Mortal Kombat".

They did this character no favors...

"Mortal Kombat" the 2021 movie was an absolute sh*tshow of epic proportions, from "the arcana"...whatever the f*ck that was providing the characters with their powers, to Reiko and Mileena, and the film's biggest what the f*ck, Cole Young. The people who made that movie weren't fans and it shows based on how the characters were treated. the creators of that movie were casual fans, they may have played a game or two but they don't understand the lore, they don't understand the characters and they don't understand the story AT ALL and it's all made evident on screen as there are various story elements in the movie that are so radically different from the game that it might as well have been its own thing. I refuse to believe a single person who was a fan of "Mortal Kombat" worked on that movie. Therefore the art in question speaks for itself, I have nothing against Lewis Tan, he was just doing his job and is not representative of the people who created the work, as a fan I'm aware of this and I respect that, I do have everything against Cole Young the character as he is representative of a studio system that wants to suck the soul out of any IP it touches Shang Tsung style.

Once again, who the f*ck is this?

I, as a fan, can make those distinctions between the actor and the character and therefore I don't feel the need to bully the actor for doing their job. Now to be fair, some actors consider it bullying when the internet rejects or despises a character they portrayed, after all, it is their face attached to the character receiving the hatred so it stands to reason that they might take that personally but if they're mature and well into their craft they should be able to roll with the punches or embrace the humor behind it all. Actors who have thick skin and are willing to endear themselves to the fans can go a long way to establishing goodwill. 

Now let's talk about Gatekeepers, Gatekeepers are very important! This term has a lot of ire behind it and is usually used as a derogatory term but nonetheless, gatekeepers are important to keep fandoms in line. The gatekeepers determine who is and isn't a fan simply by observing a person's knowledge about the subject they're talking about. After all, if you're wearing a Nirvana t-shirt you should at the very least know a song of theirs. Some people feel they might get gatekept unfairly, mostly women feel this way BUT if you just prove you know what you're talking about no one will bother you. Being a comic book fan myself I was never gatekept on anything and have found myself gatekeeping for the most part against casuals who wanted to argue with me about the origins of Superman's powers (them being from the yellow sunlight). Even then a gatekeeper's role isn't to bully but to maintain that the people within the fandom actually care about the fandom, and while opinions may differ the point is fans are allowed to enjoy what they enjoy within their fandom. There are some people who like the 2021 "Mortal Kombat" movie, I'm not saying those people aren't fans, just the people who made the movie are not, I will say it does call into question how much they care about "Mortal Kombat" lore, and even then it just calls into question which part of "Mortal Kombat" they enjoy, the fighting and the brutality or the whole thing from the lore to the fighting and so on. Long story short, you shouldn't be bullying people, not fellow fans, not actors and a real fan should know this. Likewise, fans and the source material are worthy of respect because if you're adapting their fandom in the first place THE FANS are the reasons it is being adapted and that must be respected to disrespect them is to not only belittle the source material you're entering into but to mock they very reason you're doing so, which is insane. Lemme know what you guys think and I'll catch you lovely folks next time.