The Fans That Destroyed The Earth

Who should play the next James Bond?

Why should fans of 007 pick the next performer to play the role? Are they so scared in Hollywood or that lazy?

Too often the Internets gets blocked up with What Fans Want.

Well, if a Fan of some genre or media knows so much, why are they just Fans? Can't they get the jobs to make the stuff that gets Fans?

Fans churn out reviews of movies and tv and books that are old, new and unmade - like they're possessed, and yet it's always about someone else's works. Fans even make videos of themselves opening packages of what they are Fans of, and those videos have millions of Fans.

Perhaps we shouldn't have provided Internets space to Fan Fiction, Fan Movies and Mashups, just insane niches that feed Fan Entitlement. ("My Little Pony" has, for instance, expanded and distorted into a weird mix of Salvador Dali and Larry Flynt.)

I get it - we make things from the artifacts of our lives. I've done it, but not in any coordinated Fan Horde Attacks.

And the Internets is a machine that builds Fans. See this "Sexts, Hugs, and Rock'nRoll" article about the ongoing DigiTour of ... well, never heard of these folks until now so I'll call them Internets Idols:

"With full lips, Bieber bangs, and piercing blue eyes, Hayes has the unsalted-butter looks of the love interest on a CW show or the villain in a John Hughes movie. He dresses in the superficially alternative but fundamentally nonthreatening uniform popularized by Urban Outfitters and adopted by every (white) Cool Guy in every high school in America: jeans, skate shoes, graphic T-shirt or baggy tank top with the armholes cut low. He speaks slowly and indistinctly, with a soft North Carolina accent. He has beautiful teeth."

And all he (Hayes) does is make Fans.

Fan demands of casting and scripting are ridiculous, media makers use them for publicity, but it's too far - look what happened to the simple science fiction awards known as Hugos: a weird Fan Coup has butchered the proceedings.

You're a Fan of something? Great. Shut up. I'm working here.