1. Steven Moffat, Twitter, And Death Threats
I've
written about this in depth before but it was such a disheartening and ludicrous episode in the history of Doctor Who fandom that it bears repeating. A lot of Steven Moffat fans have no issue with people who don't like him. Discussing the issue is always interesting, there's a lot of room for give and take, and the arguments are usually restrained and civilised. But thanks to the advent of the internet, lunatic fans now have a large platform to make idiots of themselves, ruin fandom for the rest of us, and generally act like dicks with little fear of retribution. A minority of Doctor Who fans are unhappy with the way Moffat is running things, criticising what they see as an excess of overly complex stories, plot holes, and River Song as well as perceived sexism and homophobia which I discussed at length in my previous piece. Were this the 1970s, showrunners Robert Holmes and Graham Williams would most likely have received a few letters from lone fans. But because fandom has evolved since then (thanks largely to the internet itself), annoyed fans now take to the internet on various forums, blogs, and of course Twitter to vent their frustration. And that's when this sad debacle began. The anti-Moffat brigade decided to turn their attention to Twitter and a stream of Tweets were sent to him that actor Martin Freeman's partner Amanda Abbington described as "incredibly offensive". Moffat himself has said that " wanted to beat me up," and "I'm tired of being threatened and sworn at". Eventually he deleted his Twitter account and, in an
interview with his son on YouTube, has ruled out a return to it. There has never been any direct confirmation that people were threatening to kill Moffat, but what is widely known is that Amanda Abbington received death threats for defending Moffat and calling out the abusive Tweeters, which she responded to brilliantly
here. The official story is that Moffat left Twitter so he wouldn't be distracted by it when working. But I personally think that it's way too big of a coincidence and believe that his decision to leave was somewhere between the two. Both a way to minimise work distractions, and to deliver a much justified middle finger to the abusive non-fans as well as finding a way to escape the morons who think that he was deserving of abuse simply for not writing Doctor Who in a way that they approve of. Especially since, before deleting his account, he posted a Tweet asking if there was a way to limit the people following him. But obviously unless Moffat confirms otherwise, this is nothing more than a theory. Not only do these pseudo-fans have incredibly skewed priorities in their lives, but they also have serious entitlement issues if they think that threatening to kill Amdana Abbington and abusing Steven Moffat for not doing things their way is justified. In short: grow up.
What moments do you think gave fanboys and fangirls a bad name? Leave a comment...