About the Author
ConservaTibbs
Opinion Archives
E-mail Scott
Scott's Links


Your entertainment choices are not that important

By Scott Tibbs, August 21, 2018

When a 27 year old woman who works as a political pundit makes a joke demeaning Star Wars and fans of the franchise, she is inundated with death threats and rape threats. While it may be true that the language of the Internet is hyperbole, I have to ask a serious question: What is wrong with you people?

As a geek myself, I say this to geek culture: Some of you take this stuff entirely too seriously. The sarcastic response to nerd rage is an obvious, "there there, did the mean person hurt your pwecious widdle feeeeeeeeeelings?" But this merits a serious response also.

If I like a movie, a video game, or something else in pop culture, it does not affect me at all if someone else does not like it or actively hates it. If someone vents about how terrible that thing is, that does not reduce my enjoyment of it. Because let's be honest here: There is no right or wrong answer. We all like what we like, and we dislike other things. If I hate X, I am absolutely right. If someone else loves X, then he is absolutely right. This is not a case where there are objective moral standards at stake. Opinions on matters of entertainment are inherently subjective.

This should not even need to be said. The fact that people get so irrationally angry at criticism of their entertainment indicates a much deeper psychological and spiritual problem than simple disagreement.

I have been active in politics for over twenty years. I have been a candidate for office three times. I have had many heated and sometimes bitterly personal arguments stemming from political disagreements. I have been threatened and harassed, and my enemies have tried to blackmail me into silence. This gives me a perspective on battles over entertainment and that perspective is this: Differences of opinion on entertainment choices are completely frivolous and do not matter. Focus your outrage on things that actually do matter, and where there is real human suffering. Stop making your entertainment choices into your personal gods.