Cult Worship & How I Almost Got "Cancelled"

 

Buckle up, folks, because this one's a fuckin' ride.

 
Hey, everyone, I'm still not dead but am rather stuck in the sort of existential nightmare that is known as caring for someone with dementia and Alzheimer's who routinely forgets who I am. It's a real blast. As such, I rarely (i.e. never) really find time to get anything written anymore, which has sucked immensely. Thanks to a bit of finagling, things are a little more workable for me now and I am once more traversing into this thing that I have a passion for for reasons that sometimes escape me. One of those times was fairly recently because, over on everyone's favourite hell-site Twitter, I made a comment that painted a target on me that summarily turned me into what Lindsay Ellis appropriately called "the villain of the day" because context means nothing.

Pictured here, a reenactment of my feelings for that two day period.

Now, who here knows who a Zack Snyder is and has heard of the fabled curse item that is the "Snyder Cut"? Please, be honest with me, I can take it. Let's give this a quick rundown for the uninitiated. Zack Snyder is a director who is known for elaborate action scenes that usually involve "slow-mo" sequences and often appealing to an audience that hasn't managed to shake off puberty yet, no matter how old they get. I actually do like some of his films. I've defended Watchmen, enjoy how weird (and stupid) Sucker Punch is, and have often noted that I quite enjoy his fantasy film about owls. What I don't really enjoy are his "fans" who express a cult-like devotion to his work to the point where it seems as if they genuinely believe he's the second coming. He's not.

That was Dan Haggerty, who has already left us too soon.

Anyway, the "Snyder Cut" was this thing they built as being some sort of Holy Grail of filmmaking, that being his version of Justice League, a film he never finished filming because of a private real world tragedy that he went to go deal with. That "cut" had unfinished scenes, literally no CGI, and was little more than a workprint of a film he left production of. We did get a Justice League film, which was mostly underwhelming with pretty terrible CGI, but we would never get that original cut as it never got made. But then, the last 10 years have taught us that if enough angry stupid people come together, things can indeed happen. Thus Snyder got to make his movie.

It's four hours long and doesn't feature a single scene of Darkseid on a couch.

I'm going to be honest with you right now, I have not seen his new version of the film. Something about me having very limited time to myself to enjoy anything, let alone a four hour film I never really cared about seeing, hasn't really made me chomp at the bit to give it a watch. I guess I'm a bit too busy trying to keep a loved one from attacking other loved ones in the middle of the night, but let's move on. They did it, his fans got their movie. They should be thrilled, right? Well, if my past articles talking about geek groups based around a supposed love for a thing has told you anything, then no, they're not happy. They're hateful, spiteful pieces of shit who harass anyone who offers any sort of critique regarding the film, even after Snyder himself asking them not to do that. That's nothing new for me though, I'm used to seeing geeks bully other geeks now, sadly. Where does me being "cancelled" come in here? With a single tweet, actually.

The tweet that launched a nearly three day long harassment campaign against me.

I'm sure you look at that tweet of mine there, helpfully screencapped by one of my harassers for me so I can be just tad bit more lazy, and you think "wait, what?" because your brain functions on a normal level. They took this tweet, which was inspired because I saw them harassing a mutual acquaintance commonly known as Renfamous, and made the decision that I was to be dogpiled on because, somehow, my tweet was racist. Yes, really. Now, I would share some of the many examples of hatred I got based entirely around my being befuddled over some dude on Twitter who claimed all or most Snyder fans were POC, but I'm not interested in reliving that nightmare. Instead, here's something more relaxing.

No joke, this is much more relaxing for me. It's literally from my favourite film in that series.

Fast forward to now, thirteen days after this shitshow began and members of the Snyder Cult attempted to get me banned/ratioed/run off of Twitter via mass flagging and harassment. I'm still on Twitter, I had to run blockchain countless times to stave off the flood, and I still have very real problems to deal with that do not involve a fucking four hour version of a movie that I mostly found boring. What brought me to writing this article? Oddly enough, Lindsay Ellis did, as not too long ago she also made a tweet that was grossly taken out of context that resulted in her being harassed but this ultimately led to her giving up and simply leaving Twitter for a while altogether. While I could do that, I refuse to based entirely on one vow I made to myself when I was significantly young and smaller: I will never back down from bullies. Ever.

Something I have long proudly displayed on my Twitter banner.

And make no mistake, the Snyder Cult are simply another group of bullies like ComicsGate, GamerGate, and #IStandWithVic who seek to silence anyone who speaks against their idiocy via overwhelming harassment. It may be boring tedious work, but I can delete hate mail, I can run blockchains, and I can shrug off angry idiots online calling me terrible things because I asked for a citation when they made a bold claim with zero actual evidence provided. When they called themselves provided any, it was always from biased sources or links to a few petitions that were made by POC (as if there weren't hundreds of Release the Snyder Cut petitions from white beardos). They brought nothing with them ultimately but a lot of blind hatred for a stranger. Two of the Snyder fans I encountered during this tidal wave conducted themselves in a civil manner. Two.

Not saying that's not good, just that it's not much.

Throughout the whole thing, I won't lie and tell you I never got bothered because people like this tend to try and hurt you. Some of the shittier things said to me in my DMs especially stuck with me over those days and aren't things I will repeat due to how awful they are. I will say this though: none of these people are truly fans of Snyder if they're willing to be this hateful despite him asking them not to be. They seem to take glee in it, attacking other filmmakers, critics, or even other fans. I used to call myself a Zack Snyder fan but his unasked for cult destroyed that part of me and left me wanting to just enjoy his work silently, never taking any outward joy in it because to do so would be to feed them. And I want nothing more than to see them starve as a movement. Thanks, I'm gonna go do housework now because adult. Bye.