Bob the Mole

[Crossposted from my Tumblr]

Here’s the scoop on the latest kerfluffle.

Shortly after the conclusion of GISHWHES (the Misha-organized scavenger hunt), all participants received an email pointing to mysterious websites and twitter accounts that hinted at a new event, “Christmas Will Never Be The Same”. After the success of GISHWHES and various other Misha-related events, expectations were high for another creative, participatory, and/or charitable event.

Today the event turned out to be a web screening of “Stonehenge Apocalypse”, a Syfy original movie starring Misha. He and another actor will be providing MST3K style commentary. There is a small fee for viewing, and options to spend more money to interact with the actors/receive swag. All in all, a bit of a letdown after all the fan speculation.

What’s been fascinating to me is the fan reactions (all readable on the Tumblr #misha collins tag while the wank lasts). They tend to fall among the following broad categories…

• “I’m disappointed that this event is kinda lame and costs too much money. It’s Christmas, and I thought Misha would give us a gift.”
  
• “How dare you criticize Misha! He does so much for us and we should be grateful for what we get.”
• “Misha is a sell-out, going commercial and exploiting impressionable young girls for money and boobs.”
• “Stop putting hate on the #Misha Collins tag! I will block anyone who does!”
• “I’m not criticizing Misha, I’m just saying I’m disappointed. I’m entitled to my feelings and I’m allowed to have an opinion, aren’t I? I’m just stating my opinion.”
• “You’re an entitled cunt for having such high expectations of someone who just had a baby, ran a marathon for charity WITH A COLD, and is still wading through photos of hairy men in tutus trying to identify the GISHWHES winners. What more does this beautiful man have to do for you?”
• “It’s just $8, and I know you have money so stop acting like you’re an advocate for impoverished fans.”
• “What’s going on? Why is everyone angry at Misha? What’s this Stonehenge thing? I’m so confused!”

Oh, Fandom. Never ever change.

I know I’m getting to be an old fart when fandom wars make me tick off squares on a bingo card. But there’s an extra layer of madness that keeps me hanging around the Misha Collins fandom.

On one hand we have the ginormous hydra-headed internecine fandom. On the other hand the object of the fandom’s devotion is a professional troll with a degree in Social Theory, who likes to poke things to see what happens.

Whether Misha genuinely miscalculated the excitement value of the Christmas project, or consciously engineered high expectations followed by a plausible let-down just to collect data on fan reactions, I do not know. But I really REALLY want it to be the latter.

Because I’m an old fandom fart and I want to see something new under the sun.

au_bingo

5.    There's nothing good on Hulu. Why is there nothing good on Hulu?