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| Picture From Dorkly's 12 Types of Doctor Who Fan |
I've been a Doctor Who fan for a long time and there has never been a better time to be a Doctor Who fan. The show is popular, possibly more popular than it has ever been, and it has a genuinely global reach. There's enough merchandise out there to sink a battleship. You can watch it any time you like in a myriad of formats. There are websites and podcasts. You can interact with fellow fans on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even in the real world. Being a Doctor Who fan is acceptable. We're fans of one of the most popular shows on British television. The Doctor is one of the few genuinely mythological characters created by television whose existence passes beyond just television.
It's great.
And I have to remind myself of this periodically because I remember being a Doctor Who fan in the dark days. When watching Doctor Who was like raging against the dying of the light. When 'it's not as good as it used to be' was regularly repeated like a mantra by Doctor Who fans and non-Doctor Who fans alike. When being a Doctor Who fan made you an acceptable target not just for ridicule but actual bullying at school. [As an example of how this worked watch the conversation between Paul Cornell and Dr. Matthew Sweet in the latter's excellent Culture Show Doctor Who Special. If you can find it. That, my friends, is what it could be like at its worst].
Mostly, of course, it was mockery or bafflement that you were on the receiving end of, which are still quite common even today. If I had a pound for every time someone said "Yeah, but it's a kids show", I'd have £3,966.
I was lucky. I never cared about how people felt about my Doctor Who obsessions to the point of being belligerently upfront about it. But I can understand why some Classic Doctor Who fans can come across as overly defensive and angry at new fans. The atmosphere in the tale end of Classic Doctor Who within fandom could be poisonousness. We learned our debating styles when things were ugly (and very, very male). That doesn't excuse shitty behavior but it does explain it a little.
Me, I always hung on to the joy that Doctor Who bought (and brings) me. It is still one of the few things that can make me deliriously and childishly happy. I watch every episode as two versions of me. The one is the now me. The bitter, cynical 43-year-old git who is archly critical and capable of spotting a continuity error at a thousand yards. The other is the 11-year-old me. Fresh-faced, excited and just in it for the FUN. He's the one that doesn't care about dodgy special effects, gaping plot holes, UNIT dating controversies or any of that kind of stuff. He just wants to escape. Sometimes the 43-year-old me wins but mostly the 11-year-old me does.
And I try to hang on to that feeling because it is easily lost in all the criticism and cynicism and sheer bloody smart-arsery of the modern 24/7 online culture. We sometimes forget amongst all the words and noise to just have fun.
Doctor Who has never been more popular. It's never been more accessible in either Classic or New Who form (and I'm not going to rant on here about how much I hate the artificial separation of Classic and New Who, even though I've fallen into the trap of using them myself all the bloody time).
It's fun being a Doctor Who fan now more than ever. Let's not lose that.
Doctor Who has never been more popular. It's never been more accessible in either Classic or New Who form (and I'm not going to rant on here about how much I hate the artificial separation of Classic and New Who, even though I've fallen into the trap of using them myself all the bloody time).
It's fun being a Doctor Who fan now more than ever. Let's not lose that.
I thoroughly agree with every part of this, and most especially with the sentiments expressed in the final two paragraphs. I could have written this post myself, but I doubt it would have been so elegantly put.
ReplyDeleteI liked Doctor Who before it was popular.
ReplyDeleteI liked it when liking Doctor Who was hard. It was a true test of character, or commitment. Of dogged persistence and sheer bloody-mindedness.
These days, liking Doctor Who is easy. Far too easy. If anything it doesn't show a determination to swim firmly against the tide, but rather a willingness to just have fun being swept along with it.
When I liked Doctor Who it wasn't fun. It was hard and it was a trial (it was almost as hard as sitting through Trial) and it proved that you were the kind of person who believed so strongly in something that you were willing to keep committed to it even through the rest of the world totally ignored you.
And that, my friend, that is what is important. And that is the problem with these johnny-come-latelies.
They have it too easy.