Living in the bush I don’t get to see other Transformer fans very often. I don’t get to pop over to a mate’s house to see his latest acquisitions. I don’t attend meets, I don’t go to pop culture conventions, hell I don’t even get to visit toy stores. So when it comes to talking to others about a shared hobby I have to rely almost solely on the internet.
But the way a large segment of the fandom has been going in the last few years, I find myself thinking more often than not why I bother.
I don’t know when this all started. Maybe it was the live action Transformer movies. Most people seemed to like, or at least tolerate, the first movie in 2007. Those raising very vocal hatred for it being largely groups of GeeWunners who wanted it to look like the 1984 cartoon.
But then Revenge of the Fallen came out and a massive amount of the fandom started bitching, and it seems they have never stopped. It’s been years since a Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay (The Last Knight) has been released, and you still can’t surf a Transformers site without there being negative comments and memes threaded throughout screaming about how people hated them and it ‘raped their childhood’. Now in 2024, it’s the same arguments and complaints about the new Transformers One trailer: “Why isn’t this part of the G1 cartoon universe?! It’s a kick in the teeth to all the fans who carried the franchise for 40 years – Habro owes us!” Fans treating it as a personal insult that an animated movie designed to sell children’s toys isn’t aimed soley at middle-aged men – the sense of entitlement is staggering.
And it seems this negativity of the fandom has spread from the movies to encompass any and everything Transformers. Be it comics, cartoons, toys – whatever. If it’s toys it’s all nitpicking about release times, non screen accurate figures and online retailers. If it’s the cartoons then it’s that the cartoon isn’t specifically aimed at demographic X – and if it IS aimed at demographic X then demographic Y kicks up a fuss.
When it’s about the comics people seem to get the most vocal of all (at least in years where a new movie hasn’t been released). Pre the reboot at IDW it was all about the writers having an agenda and virtue signalling and what have you. Now it’s about crossovers. The amount of hatred on the internet about the My Little Pony crossover coming up has been frankly disgusting. Anyone who isn’t hating on the idea getting accused of being a homosexual or engaging in bestiality. Grown men – grown men – talking about how they despise My Little Pony. Why any grown man without a daughter has watched enough episodes to form such a strong opinion on a cartoon aimed at little girls is beyond me – but they must have watched it because they all seem to be experts on it and hate it. Even one of the artists that did one of the front covers for the upcoming crossover comics has received enough abuse to comment about it publicly. People abusing someone for doing their job and daring to draw a fictional horse on the same page as a fictional robot – way to make the fandom look good fellas.
Now bear in mind I don’t have a problem with people who have a genuine complaint. If you’ve bought a figure that snapped the moment you tried to transform it, despite you being gentle and following the instructions precisely, then damn right you are valid in being pissed off about it. Complain away and you will find a sympathetic ear in me. You got ripped off by an ebay seller and your TR Trypticon turns out to be a pack of beach towels – yell to high heaven! Preach brother! And if you didn’t like a comic or cartoon or movie or toy, then I’ll happily read your opinion if you keep it civil, logical, factual and state your opinion once.
But it’s the constant bitching I can’t hack anymore. The people who didn’t like a movie and then years later are still writing post after post about how they hated it. People talking about how much a toy or movie sucks before they have even been released yet, like their opinion on something they have yet to personally experience makes it fact. People acting like so-called experts when they know little more than someone who has just entered a toyshop for the first time.
And the bitching about nothing! Sexuality in Transformers? Seriously? That is what brings people to boiling point? People lost their shit when the first wrist-rest mouse pads were released, like the manufactures had made booby pads based on their mothers instead of fictional shape-shifting alien robots. People scream abuse at each other over whether it is valid for Transformers to feel romantic affection for each other since they don’t breed. Is such a thing really worth calling a stranger a ‘f**king c**t’ over?
So it’s sad to say I’m feeling pretty done right now. I’m sick of clicking on a link or a FB post or a thread on a fansite to find out about some of the latest Transformer news and being confronted with a wall of vitriolic shit. I’m sick of saying I like something and having a dozen people call me an idiot or a faggot or worse for daring to have an opinion different to theirs. Sick of clicking to see if a toy is available only to see the people that got their toys and the people that didn’t, who ordered from the same online retailer, tearing each other a new one.
I know this kind of behaviour is not solely related to the Transformers fandom, it certainly happened in the Ghostbusters fandom with Frozen Empire. Some days it seems it’s the whole internet in general. Maybe I’m too old for the digital world. Whenever I converse online I try to think about, if I said this to a bloke in the pub, would it earn me a punch in the face? Because that was the reality I grew up with, with no internet and texting being easily accessible until I was in my 20’s. When you said something to someone you were saying it to their face. But now we have people who have done nearly all of their socialization their whole lives online, and have grown up in a world where you can say whatever hateful shit you like to someone because chances are that person is on the other side of the planet and you will never have to face consequences for your actions. Yes, the internet is getting too angry for even Big Angry Trev.
Now people who live in GlassGas houses shouldn’t throw Cyberstones, and there are undoubtedly people out there that I have gotten into heated online arguments with over the years over very silly issues. So I am guilty too. But I pride myself that each year I get into less online fights, get into less pointless arguments and get better at cyber-walking away. I’m not perfect but I’m getting better. And maybe that it a goal we could all aim for – to improve our skill of walking away from the keyboard or smartphone when the blood begins to boil, and go play with our Technobots for a while.
So when I go home tonight, I won’t be surfing the big Transformer sites. I’m going to try my best to practice what I’m preaching and be a chilled out fan. I’m going to open up a bunch of new figures I just got and play with them with my son, as a reminder to myself that this hobby should be positive, should be fun, and in the end is about plastic toy robots.
Hey! If you are a positive person who loves talking about all the things they LIKE about Transformers? Why not restore my faith and write something happy in the comments below!
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