“Star Wars” may take place in a galaxy far, far away. But it’s almost everywhere you look — from your local Target to Disneyland. Every corner.
That’s only going to increase with the new “Star Wars” project “The High Republic” — a set of comic books and novels announced this week and due out later this year.
We’re living in a time of peak fandom. We’ve learned from “Star Wars” and, to a lesser extent, Marvel that fandom can be toxic and divisive the bigger the property gets. And right now, we seem to be saturated.
Nerd culture has been on the rise since the 1990s. Disney, which owns both the “Star Wars” and Marvel properties, has marketed its product everywhere and capitalized on the growth in popularity of the fandoms, according to Ashley Hinck, an assistant professor for the communication department at Xavier University
“I don’t think Disney could have done that 30 years ago,” Hinck said. “They didn’t do that in 1980 for a reason. They did it now because fandom is in a different place, because fandom is mainstream and valued.”
These days, such pop culture brands are not only familiar, but comfortable. Enthusiasts are OK sharing details about their favorite television show or their favorite movie. Fan culture has risen with the internet, Hinck said, with Facebook groups, online forums and social media make it easier for us to connect to the people who love what we love.
“The thing that you love these cultures and communities have gotten bigger and become more active, right, so you’re not the only ‘Star Trek’ fan in your small town anymore,” Hinck said. “You’re connecting up with tons of other ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Harry Potter’ fans across the globe. And if you can do that, suddenly these communities become really big, really powerful.”
What once was niche is now mainstream. But does the explosive growth of fan culture detract from what makes those communities special or, worse yet, create toxicity and divisiveness?
More mainstream
Shows like the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” — a story of two physicists friends who meander through socially awkward situations — present nerd culture as something nerdy. It’s a negative.
But things have changed. Fan culture is now mainstream. That’s why you buy a Pizza Planet T-shirt at Target without having to visit Pixar Pier in Disneyland.
“We all perform our fandom, whether you’re a casual fan or a super fan,” Hinck said.
Hinck remembers a time when this wasn’t the case. She grew up a fan of the “Harry Potter” franchise at a time when there wasn’t much merchandise being sold based on the book and movie series by J.K. Rowling. So when Hinck saw someone wearing a “Harry Potter” shirt, she instantly knew they were a big fan.
Superfans, she said, understand that there are “rules” of how to act. There are certain T-shirts that only superfans would know about. There are some insights only the hardcore fan would know that Sharon Star Wars Fan wouldn’t understand.
But casual fans now embrace aspects of hardcore fandom. Someone who wears a “Harry Potter” shirt of the character Moaning Myrtle might just need a thin T-shirt for the gym, or they might have bought it while at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. It doesn’t necessarily mean they know the name of the elf of Hepzibah Smith, who gave Tom Riddle the Hufflepuff Cup. Or, for “Star Wars” fans, knowing the true answer to the question “Who shot first?” (The answer, obviously, is Han Solo.)
Now, anyone can be a fan without being a superfan.
But does that water down the fandom and dilute the special connections that some communities hold dear?
“It also may make it harder to find superfans like myself,” Hinck said.
The toxic side
Of course, widespread communities mean more discourse — and more opportunities for arguments, factions and divisiveness.
As we’ve seen with the most recent “Star Wars” movies, there are fans who are just as willing to trash a product as there are fans who want to celebrate it.
A recent example is the reaction to the new “Star Wars: The High Republic” campaign launched by Lucasfilm. The campaign is set to be a collection of comic books and novels that take place in a previously unseen era of “Star Wars” — set 200 years before the beginning of the prequel trilogy.
That might have some “Star Wars” fans jumping for joy. But the reaction was decidedly mixed. Plenty of online critics slammed Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy over the decision, even though the product hadn’t even been released yet.
“And each faction is starting to try to claim that they have the right way of interpreting ‘Star Wars’ and that seems to be part of where the problems coming in, along with more reactionary, both progressive and conservative approaches to the content as well, which is becoming evident across our lives these days,” CarrieLynn Reinhard, an associate professor for Dominican University, told me back in January.
I wrote about a similar topic after the release of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Toxic fandom has poisoned the well of fan culture. Fans are ridiculing stories before they’re even released, and they’re not celebrating the stories that once made them fans in the first place. Part of that, experts told me, is because companies sometimes create products that fans see as not being consistent with their values.
Some superfans take it too far, and their heavy criticism that can severely challenge a brand.
And then there are the people who want to avoid fandom altogether, Hinck said. Some people don’t want to be associated with hardcore fans and their toxicity. They want to wear their “Star Trek” T-shirts and move about the world without having to debate aspects of the series.
That’s why, according to Hinck, it’s important for fans to use the power of community for strength and social good.
The power of community
Fandom, at its essence, is another word for a community united around a particular product. Fans celebrate the same idea, concept and franchise. And that can do so much for the public good, Hinck said.
“You get social support from those people,” she said. “You have friends in that community, right? We all need communities. And the more communities we have, the more robust society we have, right?”
Hinck believes that healthy fan communities can do a lot of good.
“They can mobilize together to donate money to charity, to register to vote, to support a particular candidate to volunteer,” Hinck said. “And in some ways, it’s more powerful than other sources of our politics. Because fans are already committed to their fan object if they really, really love ‘Star Wars.’ And then ‘Star Wars’ becomes connected to a political issue. It’s easy to care about that political issue you already really care about ‘Star Wars.’”
But is there a ceiling?
Hinck said it’s impossible to know how far fan culture could go and how much fans will ultimately influence media companies and the decisions they make.
“I think companies are still struggling with how to understand fans and fandom,” Hinck said. “Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they kind of miss a little. So maybe peak fandom will be companies better understanding what fan communities do, what fandom looks like, the variety of fandom that exists, and maybe not just the quintessential examples, not just the fandoms or franchises that are easy to go mainstream.”