Good stuff. In general your assessment of the historical pattern is correct. However, no pattern lasts forever, and I'm not sure it will prove true for 40k.
Every fandom is different, because it attracts a different personality type. Trek fans tend towards being liberals, this being the ideology of the universe. Ditto Marvel fans. Those fandoms therefore proved as powerless to prevent woke takeover as liberals in general have been. Harry Potter? They started as SJWs so 'nuff said.
However, the woke took it on the chin with the Rings of Power. Tolkien fans tend towards high IQ traditionalists, with a not insignificant faction who are at the very least quietly hostile towards wokeness - or modernity in general for that matter. Trying to insert The Message into Prof Tolkien's carefully constructed mythology was interpreted not just as crass vandalism, but as blaspheming. Result: Rings flopped, and was acknowledged only for purposes of savage mockery.
So, 40k. Here we have a fandom who positively revel in the grimdark savagery of the wartorn future. More, 40k was adopted years ago as the unofficial flagship franchise for the online right. These are people who don't just have qualms about the woke, they loathe them on a visceral level. They've been fighting them for years. They've gotten good at it. They LIKE it. They wage memetic warfare for funsies.
So when the woke come for 40k I think they'll get more than they expect.
I think the fandom will be immune to conversion, can’t see the same happening for a company the size of GW, as any company any bigger than 4 people seems to go into fetal position whenever a group of 10 or more blue hairs threaten a boycott...not sure why they don’t just say fuck off. In my opinion, saying fuck off is a WAY more lucrative proposition than the losses of watering yourself down for people who have no skin in the game
Excellent essay. I hope it is wrong, that the 40k fandom is anti-woke enough at its core and in its content (a world where paranoia and hatred of outsiders is the only safe bet leans against woke) that woke nonsense will just be pushed out the same way the body rejects foreign objects.
On the other hand, I am worried you are right. GW has been a shitty company for years, and I doubt they have the spine to push back on demands from the outside. When it was just man dollies, some books and some video games, that was probably ok. But if a big budget, wide release show or film catches on, the sharks will circle as they always do. I am not confident that GW will resist ruining their IP, the only really valuable thing they have, if some danger hairs argue it will help the company and the world, and they are racists if they say no.
I also hope I am wrong, but the companies able to resist the “invading hordes” of the woke are few and far between...not sure GW can weather that storm
It is inevitable, unfortunately. D&D, Magic, The Witcher, Marvel, DC, Star Wars, WoT, etc. They destroy everything. They can't create, so they just leech off of others.
I could at least respect it if they did so to make more money and make obscure IPs more marketable. Money grubbing would normally just cause some small refinements.
I can't wait until the Amazon 40K show devotes an entire movie-length episode to a LGBTQIA++ relationship, that completely contradicts the existing storyline and kills off a popular character before the character can do anything much.....
Good stuff. In general your assessment of the historical pattern is correct. However, no pattern lasts forever, and I'm not sure it will prove true for 40k.
Every fandom is different, because it attracts a different personality type. Trek fans tend towards being liberals, this being the ideology of the universe. Ditto Marvel fans. Those fandoms therefore proved as powerless to prevent woke takeover as liberals in general have been. Harry Potter? They started as SJWs so 'nuff said.
However, the woke took it on the chin with the Rings of Power. Tolkien fans tend towards high IQ traditionalists, with a not insignificant faction who are at the very least quietly hostile towards wokeness - or modernity in general for that matter. Trying to insert The Message into Prof Tolkien's carefully constructed mythology was interpreted not just as crass vandalism, but as blaspheming. Result: Rings flopped, and was acknowledged only for purposes of savage mockery.
So, 40k. Here we have a fandom who positively revel in the grimdark savagery of the wartorn future. More, 40k was adopted years ago as the unofficial flagship franchise for the online right. These are people who don't just have qualms about the woke, they loathe them on a visceral level. They've been fighting them for years. They've gotten good at it. They LIKE it. They wage memetic warfare for funsies.
So when the woke come for 40k I think they'll get more than they expect.
I think the fandom will be immune to conversion, can’t see the same happening for a company the size of GW, as any company any bigger than 4 people seems to go into fetal position whenever a group of 10 or more blue hairs threaten a boycott...not sure why they don’t just say fuck off. In my opinion, saying fuck off is a WAY more lucrative proposition than the losses of watering yourself down for people who have no skin in the game
Well there's ESG pressure being applied at the financial level, which has a big impact on what the board considers economically feasible.
I think your basic advice, for the fandom to simply take possession of the lore and tell GW "This isn't yours anymore," is exactly the right strategy.
Excellent essay. I hope it is wrong, that the 40k fandom is anti-woke enough at its core and in its content (a world where paranoia and hatred of outsiders is the only safe bet leans against woke) that woke nonsense will just be pushed out the same way the body rejects foreign objects.
On the other hand, I am worried you are right. GW has been a shitty company for years, and I doubt they have the spine to push back on demands from the outside. When it was just man dollies, some books and some video games, that was probably ok. But if a big budget, wide release show or film catches on, the sharks will circle as they always do. I am not confident that GW will resist ruining their IP, the only really valuable thing they have, if some danger hairs argue it will help the company and the world, and they are racists if they say no.
I also hope I am wrong, but the companies able to resist the “invading hordes” of the woke are few and far between...not sure GW can weather that storm
Meaningness' "Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths" is a classic that relates to this.
It is inevitable, unfortunately. D&D, Magic, The Witcher, Marvel, DC, Star Wars, WoT, etc. They destroy everything. They can't create, so they just leech off of others.
I could at least respect it if they did so to make more money and make obscure IPs more marketable. Money grubbing would normally just cause some small refinements.
I can't wait until the Amazon 40K show devotes an entire movie-length episode to a LGBTQIA++ relationship, that completely contradicts the existing storyline and kills off a popular character before the character can do anything much.....
You know what Jay, you can only write so many great comments like these before I subscribe to your stack. Consider me upgrade to paid my friend.
Lol is “effortcomment” a thing? If so, I love it. Can’t thank you enough for reading and boosting Jay!