I see the appeal of being a conspiracy theorist. Sometimes a social trend is so bonkers or out there that you have to believe that it’s completely artificial and being pushed by some shadowy group. But reality, I’ve found, is much more simplistic.

It’s that time again, where Rings of Power is getting it’s second season and Tolkien fans the world over (on social media at least) are pissed off about it. They swear up and down that anyone who likes it is either a shill or a fool because the alternative is too horrifying to comprehend. I’m not into ROP myself, because I’m not giving Amazon Prime a fucking dime of my money after being ripped off last time, but I’ve observed the fanbase and it feels natural to me. Plenty of fanart, fanfictions, character studies, the works. RoP has all the hallmarks of something people would be into. It’s an adapatation of a popular fantasy series, it has a colorful cast of characters, beautiful men and women, and Orcs. Who doesn’t love orcs? This is exactly how Game of Thrones and The Hobbit got off the ground back in the Tumblr days.

Another example is Velma, which got a second season. Twitter was alight with instructions begging people not to “hatewatch” and just let it rot. Then it became one of the streamed shows. At that point, I have to ask: Is it more believable that 10s of thousands of people watched Velma just to make mean reddit posts about it, or that a lot of people just wanted to watch Velma? Velma’s a really funny case because it’s not a great show, it’s like 3/5 but the hate is so exaggerated and manufactured that you’d never know it. If you google it right now, you’ll see thousands and thousands of 1-star reviews made by people who just did what they were told.

So to conclude, modern society really needs to grow up and stop thinking everything popular that got a bad video essay review is a scheme.