The culture war is, by far, the largest war being fought in the Western world, and it has more fronts than even the people fighting in it know. Still, it must be fought, because if we allow the culture to be given over to the Left in its entirety, then civilization is done. That might sound hyperbolic, but history's shown us what happens when the left is allowed to have full control over everything. Misery, death, disease, and contempt follow.
It's my honest opinion that people like The Critical Drinker and Nerdrotic are some of the most dangerous people in modern culture to the Left, because they form what is a bulwark against the Left's attempts at controlling narratives through stories.
Sadly, this means making stories, franchises, and brands that you grew up and loved fail, because sometimes the best way to protect something's legacy is to destroy it. You've seen culture-war fighters do this a lot, especially lately, and you can tell it's having a massive effect because the people who are ultimately corrupting and corroding these beloved tales are constantly complaining about us.
Polygon recently covered the lamenting of Russel T. Davies, who "Doctor Who" fans will know as the guy who gay'd up "Doctor Who" so much that it became unwatchable. In his recent book, he pointed at people like me for destroying the franchises people love:
In an excerpt from his book, The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television, former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies argues that leaks, and the small element of science fiction fandom that uses them to spread hate through monetized YouTube content, are “affecting the whole genre” of science fiction.
It isn’t just Doctor Who, either.
“Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, they’re all being brought down by contempt,” Davies writes.
He's right, and Star Wars just might be the biggest victim of an industrialized online hate economy that encourages fan divides, terrorizes actors and creatives, and pressures corporate behemoths like Disney into running away from anything bold or ambitious.
He is, of course, wrong. Davies and people like him are the ones who destroyed these franchises by injecting their personal politics into them and making said politics the actual main character, even going so far as to destroy official canon to do so. Even without our interference and commentary, the stories that they corrupted were no longer the stories that everyone fell in love with because they decided to just treat the logic of these worlds like it didn't matter.
But let's say they're right. Let's say it's us that is destroying these franchises. Let's say, even for a moment, that we're the aggressors.
Then it looks like we're an insurmountable force, and they should just give up. We outnumber them. Our followers are larger than theirs. We are Alexander, and we're marching. We've got your city surrounded, so just surrender and spare everyone the grief of fighting for something you're not going to be able to hold anyway. We're clearly going to run it better than you can, and the people will obviously be happier under our rules than yours.
So what's the issue?
Obviously, the issue is that these stories are important delivery systems for ideas that form our cultural norms. These people who mock us and laugh at us for being concerned with the upkeep and maintenance of stories about space wizards with laser swords are the same people who have worked for a very long time to worm their way into studios and writers' rooms so they can obtain and corrupt these stories that have helped define Western Civilization. They won't give them up because they recognize them as important foundational tales and narratives that, if the West is to be destroyed, have to be eroded and fundamentally reshaped.
That's why they won't just throw their hands up and say, "Fine! You try to do better," because they know we will, and it will ruin their overarching goal of reshaping Western society into their vision.
So, all they can do is try to sell you the idea that we're the ones actually ruining the brands, stories, and franchises. They try to mock us by pretending like we're overly obsessed with something that's "just a movie, bruh." They know how valuable what they have in their hands is, and all they can do to interrupt the assault is to make you think it isn't important at all. All the angry people are just nerds and geeks and chuds trying to gatekeep something that should belong to everyone, while reshaping it into something that only belongs to them.
But they're half right. We are trying to gatekeep these stories, but not from you. Fandoms want people to enjoy these stories and become involved, but only on the story's terms. Our gatekeeping is done for the purpose of keeping out the tourists who think that every story should be for them specifically, and that the immoral thing is for everyone else not to get on board with their specific beliefs.
