Dubuque: Fans lose in fight between MiLB and the Empire
From Patrick Dubuque at Baseball Prospectus on December 16, 2019:
A confession: I am one of those unhappy few who bear an impervious indifference to Star Wars. I liked the old ones as a kid, hated the prequels as a young adult, haven’t gotten around to watching most of the new ones. Space opera just isn’t my thing. But it is kind of fascinating, from a safe distance, to watch people for whom it is, painfully, their thing. The struggle I identify most with is this battle over “canon” in a series, given the barnacles of popular culture that grow over anything successful in this world.
I grew up watching the Mariners, so I fully understand the desire to, as Disney/Marvel did when they obtained the Star Wars franchise, excise most of the Expanded Universe from the canon. All these things that people consumed, cared about: Well, they still existed, but they weren’t real. They were retrospective dream sequences. And now, as nerd culture divides itself into sides over Episode VIII versus IX, the battle begins over what we, collectively, decide has meaning. And as they fight, the truth is that one billionaire in Hollywood has all the power, and they have none.
Fandoms have a lot in common, unfortunately for the fans.
Read the full article here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/55925/cold-takes-fans-lose-fight-mlb-milb-empire/
Originally published: December 16, 2019. Last Updated: December 16, 2019.