Take up arms against Haterism and the Forces of Fan Dumb.
Check out Streebo’s full rant on Haterism and the Forces of Fan Dumb after the leap!
What is an “Art Jihad” exactly? I’ll try to explain the philosophy behind it. Unfortunately we live in interesting times where the concept of a jihad has become an all too real part of many peoples’ lives. Using the term “jihad” is not meant to belittle anyone involved in protecting our country or their loved ones – but instead meant to imbue the term with the veracity it needs to get through to the masses. We as filmmakers, artists, and yes even radio hosts – are in fact involved in a psychic war for the minds of audiences everywhere. This is a very powerful tool and an opportunity that should not be squandered.
I can remember it like it was yesterday – I’m five years old and I’m sitting in the dark cool Biloxi theater slurping on a large Coke and choking down a box of chocolate covered raisins. I nearly dropped my raisins when the entire theater was illuminated with the cool blue glow of a lightsaber. From that moment on – I was a believer. From The Wolfman to Colonial Vipers I took it all in and loved every second of it.
Over the years, I’ve gone from wide eyed believer staring at the screen in sheer ecstasy to being a hardened genre geek that has seen everything and been there and done that two times too many. Along the way I never lost my wide-eyed four year old belief but somehow trouble came into paradise in the form of the internet. Over the past decade we went from having to hunt down physical copies of everything we were looking for in rare bookstores, pawn shops and flea markets to being able to find it all at the touch of a button.
We live in an unprecedented point in human history here at the dawn of the Digital Age. We live in a time when at any given moment we can pop open our iPhones, laptops or PC’s and discover all the genre rarities that we have been looking for over the past thirty years. No more searching, scraping or looking. It’s all right here on Netflix, Amazon, eBay, etc. This ease of search has taken the work out of being a fan and in effect spoiled many so called fans. Attention spans have shriveled to the point where we watch an average of one to three minutes of video at any given time – resulting in a lack of commitment from fans. So called “fans” have become quick to judge and even quicker to hate anything that crosses their pass.
The modern so called fan has literally forgotten what it meant to be a real fan and to just enjoy the works they see without pre-judging them. Movies in the digital age are judged long before the works are even completed with fly by night scumbag websites posting reviews of bootleg scripts or even downloading a movie illegally and then reviewing it publicly while having no right to do so. The right of judgement is reserved for the fan and the audience that actually paid to see the movie in some form or another. Dumb-ass kids today think that since they can steal any movie they like online that it gives them the right to judge it and it does not.
It took me a few years to realize that these so-called Fans are not really fans at all – but pawns in the thrall of Haterism. Go to any major online genre forum such as the IMDb or Bloody Disgusting and the like and make a thread about the latest theatrical release that you watched in the theater and in a matter of moments one of these Haters will reply to you to tell you how horrible they think the movie is. If you continue looking around you will see that the majority of threads will be dedicated to how great something is from thirty years ago and how horrible everything that is released today is. As stated above these are self entitled little bandits with no commitment to the work other than the amount of time it took them to download it illegally. You can rest assured that they will fight tooth and nail to let you know that they hate the movie, its writer and director and that you should be ashamed to enjoy it.
This is in fact the opposite. It is time to start calling these Haters exactly what they are – Haters. They do their best to sour every movie or TV experience for the true fans – and they should be called out as such. They should be driven from the genre. Told that they are in fact haters that are more in love with their own childhood bias than anything else out there.
This is what the Art Jihad is all about. Stop wasting your time with these Haters and get back to enjoying the movies that you love – new and old. As soon as you encounter one of these useless genre trolls – tell them as such. Put them on ignore and go about your business never bothering to respond to them. Leave the Haters to tear each other apart in their misery while we – the true Fans of the world continue to enjoy the many and varied genre works that come our way every month.
It’s time to reclaim our genres from Haterism and the Forces of Fan Dumb. Now go forth and fight. The Art Jihad is calling. Take up arms and smash the trolls into protean goo.
And when you’re finished wiping troll goo off your boots, sit down an enjoy the latest episode of MVP Mutant Radio as we help you rediscover your inner fan again.
