Unpopular opinion: gatekeeping trivia is actually pretty lame

I was reading an old issue of 'Wizard' magazine from 1998 and saw a fact about how many times Wolverine's claws had been broken. It was just a random, pointless stat. I realized a lot of fans use that kind of obscure detail to test if you're a 'real' fan, but it doesn't actually make the stories better. Has anyone else felt pressured to memorize trivia just to fit in at a shop or con?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_coleman3mo agoMost Upvoted

That's not really gatekeeping though...

thomas1052mo agoMost Upvoted

Haha "no true Scotsman rulebooks" yeah that's perfect. Ericfox nailed it with that one. People get so worked up over whose definition of gatekeeping is correct that they completely miss the point. I had a guy try to tell me that saying "you need to be familiar with the source material to get this reference" wasn't gatekeeping because he was just stating facts. Like okay buddy, you're literally standing at the gate telling people they can't come in without a ticket. That's the textbook definition right there. The whole conversation just becomes about who gets to police the word instead of looking at the actual behavior.

ericfox2mo ago

Gatekeeping debates on Reddit are like watching two people argue over who gets to guard an open gate in an empty field. You're both standing there with your little "no true Scotsman" rulebooks, getting really serious about definitions. Meanwhile, the rest of us just walked around the fence like three days ago.