‘Rick and Morty‘, is one of the most popular surreal sci-fi animations that has some really annoying fans. The show stars Rick, a chronically unimpressed and inebriated scientist who also happens to be the smartest man in the universe. His stuttering sidekick Morty gets dragged along on his insane adventures because Rick has very few friends, and he kind of likes the little guy. Only Sometimes. Rick is so smart he rarely feels challenged. He constantly places himself in highly dangerous situations just to feel the thrill of being alive.
Along with that he makes sure to insult everyone he meets along the way. He is hilarious, but he also happens to appeal to a certain type of person – the kind who thinks they’re smart because they don’t like things. People who think that cynicism, nihilism, substance abuse, and isolation are indicators of intelligence, rather than just being kind of depressing. Of course, there is a huge fandom for this show, and like the obnoxious character, its’ fandom is also obnoxious and toxic.
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Why ‘Rick And Morty’ Fans Are Toxic?
On ‘Rick and Morty’ McDonald’s happened to be mentioned in the first episode of season 3. The episode ended with Rick going on a maniacal, nihilist rant, where he stated to Morty that nothing matters. However, that the only thing he wants, the only thing he needs to complete his “series arc,” is to acquire McDonald’s Szechuan sauce. This was a temporary promotion for the Disney movie ‘Mulan‘ years ago. It was an amusing sequence that underlined how unhinged Rick can be. How nothing really matters to a man who’s seen a million different universes, and now just wants some obscure dipping sauce for his chicken nuggets.
However, many fans wanted that sauce too. How could they be like Rick, and call themselves true fans if they didn’t taste that sauce? So, by popular demand, McDonald’s brought back the sauce, for one day only. Although, they severely underestimated the number of deranged ‘Rick and Morty‘ fans out there. Some even camped outside before stores opened, and many queued for hours to acquire the much-coveted ‘Mulan‘ sauce. Of course, most locations quickly ran out, and some didn’t receive any at all.
This lead to hoards of angry fans berating cashiers, protesting, chanting, and stealing packets of sauce; police were called to at least one outlet to control the angry mob. Packets of the sauce were even selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay, in a bizarre Szechuan sauce black market. Keep in mind, this chaos was caused by some cheap, saccharine ooze that, most likely, doesn’t taste significantly different from McDonald’s other preservative-packed sauces.
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Why Fans Should Not Take Control Of The Show?
‘Rick and Morty’ is standing on the shoulders of decades and decades of once-ground-breaking science fiction that was processed by pop culture long ago, now instantly recognizable and easily digested. Keeping up with ‘Rick and Morty’ does not require intelligence, but simply a familiarity with sci-fi tropes.
Of course, the majority of fans know this. The majority of fans just want to make cute artwork, memes, and talk about the show. It’s the minority of trolls and troublemakers that make embarrassing statements about how incredibly intelligent and Rick-like they are.
When the creators of the show prepared for the third season, they made sure that half of the writing staff were women. Many of the “incredibly intelligent” fans didn’t like that, because, you know why! I am not going to spell it out here. Two episodes credited to female writers (Jane Becker and Jessica Gao) were decreed intellectually inferior, ruined by female emotional instability and menstrual cycles, or whatever.
The two writers were subsequently harassed on Twitter, for “ruining” the show, and even had their personal information leaked. If this is not cyberbullying, I do not know what is then. There are certain limits to free speech and where an audience have to draw the line. Audience must not push past their so-called free speech rights and dish about a creator’s effort and time.
There is a difference between criticism and bullying. Even critics have their set of rules they must follow to critique a film, show or a book. Bullying is what one do when they just don’t like something because it doesn’t fall under their category of narrow-minded outlook and dish badly about it or even go to an extent that happened to ‘She-Hulk’ writer Jessica Gao. Bullying in any form is not advisable. Free speech does not give any one the right to say whatever they want.
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