fan backlash, steven universe
One of the weirdest online phenomena I've experienced first hand was the coordinated hatred of Steven Universe as a show.
And I don't mean the "Su fans annoy me for some reason that totally has to do with the fandom and not my unexamined homophobia"-crowd, that's pretty expected, but the "...and thus we can conclude Rebecca Sugar is a fascist"-crowd.
re: fan backlash, steven universe
@Owlor Heh. If you hang around me long enough, you'll probably get sick of hearing me use the phrase "semantic naivete." But that is a great example of the sort of behavior I'm referring to with it.
That part of the SU crowd drove me nuts. Screaming pareidolia and apophenia not just with their "fan theories" (like the "reference to the Diamonds" in Gravity Falls they were SURE was crossover evidence, when... um... what they had ACTUALLY seen was a NFPA 704 fire diamond on an extinguisher at the Mystery Shack), but with "suspicious" political references.
Sigh. It reminds me of the time people were determined that the "30-50 feral hogs within 3-5 minutes" thing was a fascist dog whistle, because 30+50+3+5=88=HH=Heil Hitler.
And it was like, I get it, I had some really smart friends go in for it, and I have seen 4channers go that deep in attempts to sneak alt-right memes in. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean..." and all. It's the same logic as people seeing "666" in the old Proctor-Gamble logo. Just because someone can tease meaning out of something doesn't mean it was actually MEANT.
But god, some of the stretches people were going through to make Rebecca seem like a pedophile (for X-rated Zim fanart when SHE was underage!) or a racist (imo valid criticism of Black-coded character tropes taken ad absurdum)... JFC.
The main fallacy, I think, is seeing intentionality where there isn't any-- that notion that every creative work is One Person's Masterful Vision and NOTHING in a show or book happens by accident. Add in a shallow grasp of how signs and symbols work in practice, and... yeah. You get people coming to some really awful conclusions. >_<
re: fan backlash, steven universe
@zebratron2084 What I always wonder in cases like that is "are you people actually this dense or are you just pretending because it's politically convenient?" and honestly either scenario seem plausible.
The whole thing very much seemed to follow the general trans/queerphobia playbook, painting the target as predatory and fascistic based on the tiniest evidence, completely ignoring the complexities of art or people.