Fandom Culture: A Dark Neverland

in which I discuss the corrosive nature of adult obsession with children's stories

There once was a story about a place called Neverland. If you went there, so it was said, you would never have to grow up, or have responsibilities, or any of the dull sort of rubbish meant to contribute to and build society. Instead, you could spend your days frolicking through deep woods where pixies and pirates hide out, visiting mermaids in magical blue lagoons, telling stories around the campfire every night outside the treehouse where you lived, and even flying! Of course, this was all very quaint and charming, because it was a story about children.

The real Neverland—and there is a real one—is very different. In this Neverland, instead of deep woods, you’ll find a maze of hallways and booths and conference rooms, the never-ending bowls of a convention center smack in the middle of a bustling city. In this place, there is no magic. Or if there is, it’s called money—and lots of it is used to create vast hordes of merch; stacks upon stacks of Funko Pops, posters for every movie, and various plastic gadgetry belonging to one universe or another. Unfortunately, this is not a story about children.

No, the average inhabitant of this Neverland is at least twenty, and probably older than twenty-five. Often older than thirty. Single. Childless. Lost boys and girls—the perfect Perpetual Consumers.

Right about now is when the harpies come crawling out of the woodwork to cry something like, “Why can’t you just let people enjoy things?”

I myself enjoy things with fandoms attached to them. It’s okay to enjoy things. It’s good, even. Everyone should have things they can enjoy. However, the term “enjoyment” implies something healthy, balanced. What we’re really discussing here isn’t “enjoyment,” it’s obsession. Addiction. Frenzied, interminable consumption and shirking of the normal responsibilities of adult life within a functional society. There’s nothing healthy about being trapped within the labyrinth of this dark Neverland.

In this place, adults remain perpetually infantile. Worse, though, they drag children’s content through the mud of the adult world, sexualizing it, twisting it, corrupting it, all in the name of what they call “nostalgia,” but really, it’s because they’re unable to let go of it. Unable to function without it. Without healthy relationships or children of their own, it’s all they have, and so rather than leaving it unblemished and pure for the next generation of children to enjoy, they cling to it with selfish, consumeristic hands, continuously “remaking” and “reshaping” and “adding onto” it in ways that do nothing other than deplete the value of the original art. It merely serves to feed the unquenchable frenzy of a vapid soul.

Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with enjoyment for these things. There’s nothing wrong with feeling nostalgic for the things you enjoyed as a child. To some extent, we all feel this. And that’s healthy. Sometimes it’s even fun to go to the occasional special themed event or dress up in costume. But fandom culture—this vast, childless vacuum sucking up stories intended for children—has gone too far. It has made adults into eternal children, and inserted adult content into children’s spaces and children’s stories.

Needless to say, societies don’t become more healthy or more functional as a result of this.

It’s time to leave Dark Neverland behind and move towards a brighter future—not just for our own health and wellbeing, but for that of our children. Let them have their stories with their purity and magic intact. They deserve that luxury, at least.