#while the general sw fandom is... *cricket noises*

[him-e]

The center of alt-right and radical right-wing ideology in Star Wars fandom is on YouTube, a favorable (and profitable) home for indignation against non-white and non-cis male individuals built up on 4chan during Gamergate. It isn’t difficult to find videos of mostly white men belaboring their strongly held belief that women and minorities are ruining video games, comic books, and Star Wars. [...] Whether they realize it or not, they are diligently carrying forward Steve Bannon’s master plan to change culture in order to change politics. And there is no better target for such an agenda than a franchise considered to be a cultural touchpoint of modern Western myth. The shared narrative across this group’s thousands of videos is simple: First, Kathleen Kennedy ruined Star Wars by allowing women to work in too many creative jobs at LucasFilm. Then, Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars by emasculating Luke Skywalker, creating the character of Rose Tico, and letting Rey win a lightsaber fight before going through an extensive training montage. And before all of that, Disney ruined Star Wars by hiring both Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson. For anybody not radicalized enough to believe this narrative, these types of videos with outrageous headlines written in all caps and memes do look, well, silly. It’s simple to look at these people, have a laugh, and walk away. But we do unfortunately have to pay attention to what these angry (mostly) white men in front of a web camera have to say because [...] the systems of power leveraging this kind of enmity online are organized, ruthless and tied back to some of the most hateful people in the United States.

In Plain Sight: How White Supremacy, Misogyny, and Hate Targeted the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and Won by Rewriting Ripley