Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

This is not the problem you're looking for
     It’s finally here! We geeks may have had to sit through half a game of football to see it, but we’ve finally gotten the full trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
     The trailer generated a lot of media attention. From the absurd number of times it was viewed to the record shattering pre-order rush for opening day tickets.
     You may have even seen reports about a twitter hashtag movement called #BoycottStarWarsVII. Why is there a call for a boycott? Is it a response to Disney wiping away the extended universe? Is it over fears that J.J. Abrams will ruin the franchise the same way he did Star Trek?
     Nope, it’s because people are upset that the movie features a black actor in a leading role.
     If that sounds too stupid to be true, that’s because it is. It the words of the great Admiral Akbar, “It’s a trap!”
     This is a game that Internet trolls play on the gullible and outrage inclined. Here’s how it works.
     Step 1: Get a couple people together to say the most offensive things you can think of and unite them under a trendy hashtag.
     Step 2: Wait for somebody to get offended and share your tweets with all their friends so they can get offended too.
     Step 3: Watch as your hashtag gains notoriety as people trip over themselves to proclaim how terrible the hashtag is. Bonus points for any C-List celebrities who decide to weigh in.
     Step 4: Wait for the mainstream media to catch wind of the whole thing and watch them dance.
     And, of course, dance they did.
     Salon’s headline, “Racists threaten to boycott “Star Wars VII” because it promotes “white genocide,” apparently.”
     From Wired.co.UK, “Racists want to #BoycottStarWarsVII because it’s ‘anti-white.’”
     Even “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” who should know better, missed the mark and unwittingly gave the trolls the attention they were seeking.
     One might think from their hyper exaggerated reporting that there was legitimately a massive movement of racist Star Wars fans outraged over the inclusion of a black man in the movie. After all, if there’s enough people using the hashtag to get it trending, there must be a lot of supporters, right?
     Well no, that’s not how that works. The fact is that the originators of the so-called “movement” consisted of a whole three people. That’s right. National news coverage dedicated to a “movement” of people that could comfortably fit in a restaurant booth. Sure, there were others that joined in, either fellow Internet trolls or actual racists, but their numbers were relatively small.
     Mashable, one of the few websites that didn’t take the bait, did a study on the hashtag and found that only 6 percent of the tweets in the hashtag contained racist remarks. The remaining 94 percent of the hashtag consisted of people outraged at the hashtag itself.
     Good job, Internet. By protesting fake racism, you amplified it and gave a national platform to the handful of outliers that might actually be legitimate racists.
     The saddest part is that this isn’t even the first time this has happened. Last November, when the first trailer came out, #BlackStormtrooper started trending, apparently in reaction to the reveal of Boyega taking off a storm trooper helmet. The news made a big deal about the legions of racist Star Wars fans upset that the first face they saw in the trailer belonged to a black man.
     Odd thing though. While it seemed everybody had something to say about the people complaining about a black Storm Trooper, I couldn’t find anybody that actually had an issue with it. And I looked. Beyond a handful of scattered trolls and a bunch of people who mistakenly thought that the Empire would still be using clone troopers 50 years after the Clone Wars, I couldn’t find anything noteworthy of resistance to Boyega at all.
     As far as I could tell, the perpetually outraged people of the Internet were so eager to put their foot down on racism that they didn’t even wait for the racists to show up before they started stomping.
     But here’s the bright side. If this whole kerfuffle proves anything, it proves that the Star Wars fandom doesn’t have a problem with race. After all, #BoycottStarWarsVII was where the racists were supposed to be, and they’re hard to find even there.
     The reality is that sci-fi nerds care far more about arguing over the quality of the Star Wars prequels, the dissolution of the expanded universe and, of course whether or not Han shot first. The only race they care about is the pod race on Tatooine.
     So how about instead of getting worked up about fake issues, we focus on the important things? Like getting J.J. Abrams to stop putting so many lens flares in the movie.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and may be a little short for a storm trooper.

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