Rey/Kylo Shippers: A New Look At An Old Face of Fannish Entitlement

Meta
Title:	Rey/Kylo Shippers: A New Look At An Old Face of Fannish Entitlement
Creator:	Stitch
Date(s):	January 4, 2020
Medium:	Posted to Stitch's Media Mix
Fandom:	Star Wars
Topic:	Racism in Fandom
External Links:	https://stitchmediamix.com/2020/01/04/rey-kylo-shippers-fannish-entitlement/
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"Rey/Kylo Shippers: A New Look At An Old Face of Fannish Entitlement" is a 2020 meta essay by Stitch posted to Stitch's Media Mix.

It covers the reaction from Reylo shippers to Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker and the death of Kylo Ren, and their perceived entitlement in wanting Rey and Kylo to have a traditional happily ever after. It also deals with toxic behaviour from Rey/Kylo fans towards the character of Finn, actor John Boyega, and towards black fans in the Star Wars fandom.

Key Quotes

People in 2020 are aware that the Star Wars fandom has problems. They’re aware that the fandom is frequently toxic, and that the fans target marginalized performers and fans alike.

The problem with folks’ acknowledgment of this totally toxic fandom is that… they don’t seem to understand that the concept of toxic fandom isn’t the realm of white dudes alone. For me, in fandom, the majority of the toxicity I’ve had to deal with and that has negatively impacted my health and general well-being… came from women.

Consistently, my biggest issues have come from white women and their sycophantic minions of color who literally view themselves stans/members of fandom first and as people of color second.

Too many of these fans have also made it clear that this is about desire and the entitlement to a specific reading of and ending for Kylo Ren. This is about them feeling like they wasted their time on Kylo and on wishing for his redemption arc and on an endgame relationship with Rey.

This is about feeling like they (and Kylo) deserve the happy ending they’d supposedly fought for – against “antis” who may ship Finn and Rey, the Fandom Menace, anyone on the internet that dares to go “isn’t Kylo a fascist that killed his father?” – and losing it when he doesn’t get that.

And I don’t think that the usual suspects writing about toxic and entitled fandom will ever talk about what it means to see a fanbase largely comprised of white women show their asses over their love of a white fascist villain.

Here’s the thing: I know what it’s like to have to deal with your favorite character dying. It hurts.

Many Black viewers of Orange Is the New Black flat out stopped watching after the fourth season had Poussey Washington die in the same way that Eric Garner did. I know that I will never be able to watch the end of Millennium Actress without sobbing myself into an asthma attack. And hell, when I thought Finn was going to die at the end of The Last Jedi before Rose saved him from sacrificing himself –

I was ready to have words with Rian Johnson. (Within reason of course.)

So, I genuinely do understand that when your favorite character dies, that it’s sometimes like losing a beloved friend.

But what many Rey/Kylo fans are going through takes a reasonable reaction to loss and uh…

Zooms right on past that to absolutely unreasonable responses to the outright horrific – especially when they find an acceptable or easy target for their rage and heartbreak.

I keep being told that Rey/Kylo and Finn/Rey are “just” ships – that the characters that comprise them aren’t real people.

So there’s no competition here, no need for me to care about the ships or the fandom focus on white characters at the expense of everyone else.

But if that’s how that works, then there is no reason to for these fans to behave like this.

Then there’s no reason for fans to be condescendingly racist at John Boyega, smearing him for stuff he literally didn’t do, or even this new and definitely dehumanizing thing where they refer to Finn only as FN-2187.

And there’s every reason for fandom researchers and journalists to talk seriously about the toxicity that Rey/Kylo shippers have been displaying and weaponizing for far too long in these fandom spaces.

This isn’t new, but it needs to be over.

Reactions

Stitch's use of the phrase "minions of color" in the essay has attracted strong criticism from fans.

How DARE you call other BIPOC “minions of color” as if we aren’t being viewed that way period just for existing? You speak against Racism but your posts make no active comments about actual racism. It’s all just “well I don’t like this and this is why I am saying it’s racist.” 🧐

Calling people minions of color and saying all reylos are racist because they don’t ship reyfinn isn’t “taking no crap” it called being a harasser.

I’m not really sure if it needs to be explained why calling WOC who disagree with you “minions of color” (implying they have no autonomy) and dehumanizing them as “social justice Pokémon of color” is a very bad thing.

However, other fans have praised the essay for drawing needed attention to toxic fan behaviour, in Star Wars fandom and outside it.

I’m a huge, huge Star Wars fan. I talk, write and think about Star Wars way more than a normal people should. I wax poetic about the Hero’s Journey and I actually kind of enjoy The Phantom Menace. I like to think I’m well informed about the reading of the characters and themes of that universe.

And the first time I read someone refer to Kylo Ren as an “abused boy” I was absolutely flabbergasted. Within the first five minutes of being introduced, Kylo Ren murdered a defenseless old man and ordered his space fascist to massacre an entire village. Ever since I’ve tried to find an answer and I think I found it here.

Your blog is awesome by the way.

I know I’m kinda late to this article, but I just found it, read the whole thing and goddamn…

“But it’s interesting to me how in many of the conversations we have about toxic fandom(s), folks just flat out refuse to deal with a reality of fandom: that the toxicity comes from white women (and their token friends of color) in fandom spaces just as regularly as it does from the white dudes.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself! A few months ago I made a Reddit post about how Finn was done dirty in the Sequel Trilogy and giving him a good arc as a Stormtrooper turned Jedi would’ve been so easy… Upvoted 5000+ times on SaltierThanCrait, the supposed “alt-right hate sub.” Meanwhile, 99% of the conversations on r/StarWars leading up to Rise of Skywalker were about golden boy “Ben Solo” and how people can’t wait for JJ to redeem him and for Rey to have his babies. This narrative that “only people who hate women and POC dislike the Sequels” is so false and tiresome.

“Like… how many people’s coverage of The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t encompass the weirdness of how the Reylo shippers in a majority of the fandom are handling this ending Quite Badly.”

The near media blackout on the toxicity of Reylos and their reaction to TROS has been infuriating. And it’s unbelievably STILL going on! Almost 6 months later and I’m still seeing people make posts about how they can’t eat, sleep, etc. or they’re still having breakdowns because Kylo died. The May the 4th tags on Twitter were filled with angry Reylos. Can’t believe they think they can harass Lucasfilm into going back on his death less than a year after the film’s release…

Overall this is a great article and I definitely know a few people who would benefit from reading it. Thanks!

NGL I clicked on this article expecting to get my back up. (I’m very marginally involved in this fandom, and vaguely into Adam Driver’s weird physicality, and I’ve always thought of Reylo shippers as largely innocent weirdos who are sick of being lectured about how it’s not nice to do space kidnappings).

But you’re completely right about the volume and acceleration of brigading, and who it centers/targets. I do think part of the problem is the way fandom language conflates a personal like/dislike of a ship with a shipping subculture. Any group culture can avalanche into something that can really hurt people, in ways that tend to kind of follow the gravity of existing power structures. I do think that the conflation of ship with fucked-up shipping subculture has continued to accelerate this thing, because it’s inspecific. (I don’t mean you – you’ve gone out of your way to be specific here and elsewhere). It kind of allows people who are genuinely behaving badly, and are ginning up groups behaving badly, to disappear in a cloud of “they’re attacking YOU for your PRIVATE DESIRE to read about pasty fascist sexy space kidnapping”.

I mean, I saw a listicle go past me on tumblr that had a sequence of “reasons why you’re the problem” and it put “shipping reylo” next to “not supporting Land Back”. I’m 99% sure that whoever wrote that list was operating in a context where “shipping” meant “participating in twitter brigading”. Participating in twitter brigading in a way that reinscribes racist power dynamics is. Indeed. Very bad. Shipping two white characters inside one’s own head, or even writing fanfiction about those characters, merits examination as a potential part of a troubling trend, but that’s qualitatively different from letting shiplust turn into weird internet bloodlust against other real people who exist.