The online Star Wars community has a very poor reputation for toxicity and bigotry. ”It’s very toxic, they just can’t enjoy anything,” said Kirsten Baker, 10. The sentiment that a lot of fans can’t seem to enjoy anything seems to resonate along the less toxic sides of the community. From bigotry to radicalization, this will be an analysis of the worst parts of the Star Wars fandom.
The year is 2022, it is spring and the Star Wars series Kenobi has just aired its first two episodes. The show follows Obi-Wan Kenobi’s time on the planet Tatooine in the time period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Kenobi deals with an antagonist named Reva, an inquisitor of the Galactic Empire, played by Moses Ingram. Online, fans did not receive her well, and Ingram received several death threats and racist remarks across her social media accounts. This is not an isolated incident; individuals, for example, Jake Lloyd, young Anakin Skywalker, in The Phantom Menace or Ahmed Best, Jar-Jar Binks, in the same film, both received waves of vitriol from the Star Wars community, derailing their lives. Luckily, in this case, the official Star Wars twitter and co-star Ewan Mcgregor, Obi-wan, came to her defense, standing in solidarity. In retrospect, where did this all come from?
The online Star Wars community has a history of not reacting very well to diverse representation, believing most of the new representation in modern Star Wars to be a part of a political agenda being pushed by Lucasfilm, especially in more recent years after the conclusion of the sequel trilogy. Overall nerd culture even outside of Star Wars has gotten very toxic over the years not just contained to Star Wars. Lots of video game fandoms are incredibly toxic for a lot of the same reasons as the Star Wars community, such as Call Of Duty and Counter Strike.
Now, where does this end? In reality you won’t encounter much toxicity from Star Wars fans in real life, most if not all the problems and incidents I’ve talked about stem from online interactions and posts. Someone I interviewed summed it up pretty well, stating, “I know fans that are like the diehard people, there’s definitely toxic people but not incredibly toxic”. Personally, I agree with this statement and I think it applies to most communities overall, especially online ones. Almost always, any of the toxicity you will encounter in whatever fandom you’re in will be online and rarely ever in real life. That doesn’t, however, mean to ignore it. Toxicity in a community will always be a problem and it’s important to step up and speak out against it.
