As a certified geek/nerd of many fandoms, I’ll be the first to tell you that most of them have the potential of constantly one-upping each other for the most toxic fans. Star Wars fans have screamed at my wife about how she should appreciate J.J. Abrams’ involvement with the franchise, in the middle of a game store. I’ve seen men on Instagram ask a woman if she “even knows what comic her shirt is from,” despite the woman being one of the top PR executives at Marvel. Countless game shaming comes across all platforms of social media and forum sites. If you like passive games like Animal Crossing or Minecraft, you’re not a gamer. If you focus on stories instead of grinding, you’re not a gamer. If you choose consoles over PC (or vice versa), you’re not a gamer. Wrestling fans belittle each other on the regular for a variety of reasons, like loving women’s wrestling, watching major/minor organizations over the other, or simply their preferred era. As a member of all these fandoms and many more, I can honestly say there is one fandom from which I’ve felt that I’ve seen minimal toxicity throughout the years. This year my feelings were given some much-needed validation.
Back in February, before all this COVID-related isolation, I attended my first horror con. My wife and I took a weekend trip to Charlotte to check out Mad Monster Party. As a newbie to conventions, I was nervous and excited. I didn’t know what to expect but as a horror nut, I was stoked to load up on awesome horror memorabilia and meet some of my horror and sci-fi idols like Neve Campbell, Robert Englund, and Carl Weathers. On the second day of the convention, I had become familiar with the schedule, which meant I had to start making the hard decisions. Meet Robert Englund, or watch All Hail the Popcorn King, an insight to Joe Lansdale’s delightfully silly and spooky Drive-In books (Sorry, Joe…I’ll catch it next time around!).
As the day whittled down, there were only a few events left, mostly stuff I wasn’t too interested in. Late Saturday night, wedged between an auction/costume contest and “scareoke” was a small one-hour panel called Vincent Price: Master of Menace, Lover of Life. I didn’t know much about the panel, but I had seen a table for Vincent Price’s daughter Victoria, and hoped she’d be leading it. We were tired and ready to roll out after the costume contest but decided to stick around. I’ve only seen a handful of Vincent Price’s films, and felt I owed it to myself to learn a little more about the “Master of Horror.” The panel blew me away.
I went into it thinking we would get a rundown of each of his films with a Q&A at the end, entirely focused on his career. This was so much more than that. Victoria Price did spend some time talking about her dad’s preferred roles, his shenanigans, and the history behind his decisions. However, the panel got extremely deep and intimate when she started discussing that she felt it was her mission to continue embracing her dad’s legacy and keep sharing his life and moments with the horror community. There was one problem though: she didn’t like horror and the macabre! How do you connect with a fandom when you don’t even share the love the fandom itself?
Turns out, when the fans just want you to experience their fandom – to introduce you to something they love, to simply see your reaction, to share their passion – rather than belittle you over which piece of it is your favorite, it becomes pretty easy for outsiders to embrace that fandom. She had experiences and information that she was eager to share, and the people there readily wanted her to share it. It didn’t matter that she didn’t love horror. She had a name the horror community recognized and a passion to talk about her father, and that’s all it took to create a connection. The horror community embraced Victoria in a positive way, and this opened doors. She started touring for conventions, meeting countless horror lovers, watching more horror films and, perhaps most importantly, learning stories she had never been told about her dad.
Her panel was the highlight of the con, and that is saying a lot since I got to meet Freddy Krueger himself! Before we took off, we made our way down to the showroom and Victoria was sitting at her table, with no line, and a stack of her books. I used this as an opportunity to hear more about her experiences within the horror community, how comfortable she was among a group of people she never thought she related with, and how much she’d gone from being nervous about the fandom to being a staple in it. Victoria personalized and signed my book with the simple message of “In Joy, ALL LOVE”.
It makes you think. When we focus on finding joy in the things that we love and share those experiences with one another in a positive way, we can expand our fandoms by making connections with even the most unlikely of people. We should be doing this in all fandoms. I don’t want you to think I’m naïve, and that I think toxic fans don’t exist in the horror community. They absolutely do. Gatekeeping is a problem in seemingly every facet of life and is truly the dark cloud of any fandom. I can say that in the many years I’ve felt a part of the horror community, it has at least felt minimal, and that makes me proud. Keep it up.
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