Dear fanboys,I would first like to thank you for the opportunity you’ve given me over the last 20 years. I realize being accepted in a group such as yours doesn’t come quickly or easily and I would like to express my utmost appreciation for everything membership has afforded me over the years:
The smug attitude I’m allowed when involved in general discussions about pop culture.
The sense of superiority at knowing the origins of newly acquired Hollywood properties.
The righteous outrage afforded me at the slightest change in said properties in an attempt to appeal to the masses.
It’s been great and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, I feel the time has come for me to move on.
There are many reasons for my resignation and certainly too many to list, but in the interest of recreational courtesy, I will name a few:
We lost our exclusivity. For many years, our group had exclusive rights to countless unique stories and colorful characters that could be enjoyed only by having membership in our ranks. I was all in. There was a time when recalling the tragic events that led to Peter Parker’s life of crime fighting brought a tear to my eye.
Now, all I can see is that kid from “Pleasantville” staring down at the guy who played Hugh Hefner in “Star 80” on the backlot of a Hollywood set.
There was a time when reading Uncanny X-Men was a subversive act of quiet rebellion – when our parents assumed we were reading clean, comic code-approved, campy super hero fare probably like the adventures of Adam West and Burt Ward; but in actuality, thanks to the likes of Claremont, Byrne and Miller, we were reading about characters that felt like real people with real emotions who lived flawed lives, loved foolishly, fought against and sometimes alongside cold-blooded killers, died heroically, tragically and often, and all the while wearing exotic outfits or next to nothing.
Now Wolverine is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, there’s a Mutant Berry flavor of Slurpee and my mom knows who Kurt Wagner is – she thinks he’s cute.
Even our own fanboy-who-made-good Kevin Smith no longer has a gimmick, since everyone’s writing from the same source material now. There’s even a movie called “Fanboys” that’s SO Kevin Smith, they got Kevin Smith to endorse it – effectively placing Mr. Smith in the ranks of Ron Jeremy, Stan Lee, Robert Englund, Tom Savini and William Shatner – the guys who haven’t really been relevant in years, but you call anyway, not to MAKE your product, but to lend their name to it for street cred.
It’s like when AOLTimeWarner realized they were losing customers left and right to free, web-based email programs and offered AOL subscribers the option of either continuing to pay $14.95 a month for email OR the supposedly less appealing option of free use of the service, but with limited access to all kinds of “exclusive” entertainment news and anti-virus software that were really just a Google search away. Why buy the bandwidth when you can get the inbox for free? Most people join clubs to interact with like-minded people of similar interests. But when your average 45 year old woman knows what Tony Stark does in his free time, your club may not be as exclusive as you think and you may want to reconsider those monthly dues.
We lost our relevance. There was a time when TV and movie executives went out of their way to please us fanboys because they were told that should anyone dare to disrespect the sacred source material, the fan outcry would be so great as shake the very heavens and loosen the bowels of all its angels. And cry out we did.
We complained about bat-nipples, Optimus flames, TINO, Galactus-as-a-cloud, blonde Jessica Alba, X-Men in biker jackets and the missing giant squid. We lamented about organic webshooters, midichlorians, Han shooting first, nuking the fridge and swinging monkeys. We said it was too late for a Simpsons movie and Wolverine was too tall.
And in the end, everyone made money but us.
We learned all too painfully that we can neither float a Hollywood movie, nor can we crash one. If we could, Snakes on a Plane III would be in theatres right now. The decision-makers in Hollywood are slowly coming to realize that displeasing us isn’t going to affect a thing. That in the end, only quality matters. Which brings me to my final point:
We’ve become too myopic. Like the coffee connoisseur who can’t enjoy a 49 cent cup of joe, we’ve become completely out of touch with the people’s sensibilities and therefore, useless. The very fact that many of us thought a 3 hour period piece about superheroes no one’s ever heard of attempting to solve the mystery behind the murder of a tights-wearing, attempted rapist would be box office gold – compounded by the fact that most of our major complaints were about the lack of a climax involving a gigantic squid genetically bred from the brains of psychics that explodes when teleported – tells me that our organization isn’t quite ready for primetime. Except maybe on the Sci Fi Channel – whoops, I mean the Syfy Channel.
In conclusion, I don’t believe the organization continues to accurately represent my sensibilities, and I’m sure, vice versa. So it’s with utmost respect that I must tender my resignation.
As for me, I’m returning to civilian status. I feel that I can do more good for the geek community as one of the masses. I’ve decided that for the time being, I’d find more pleasure in being the common movie-goer/book-reader/comic collector with slightly more insight than you’d expect – than that guy from downstairs with the “Starfleet Academy” sticker on his car who keeps trying to tell me how absolutely anything on “Heroes” can possibly constitute good storytelling.
Fanboys, I have been and always will be your friend. But for right now, I think we should see other people.
Sincerely,
Fantasticles.
