My name isn't actually Douglas.

civilization 5 barbarians: a small rapscallion of a skeleton. his heart is full of malice that his tiny body cannot accomplish, so he settles for smacking your beverages off of the coffee table when you aren’t looking. his shenanigans are tiresome

civilization 6 barbarians:

this fucking dude -

“the beast walks,” said Harshsmell the dwarf emperor, stroking his expansive shield-beard.

“and the Fifth Age of this world comes to a bony end,” moaned Bibarel the elf, prancingly.

“that isn’t true,” said a shadow near the wall. a man stepped out of it. four swords glittered on his back, and a hood covered his face.

“who are you, and how the balls did you get into my throne room?!’ shrieked Harshsmell

“I have come to put an end to this giant skeleton bullshit”

“fool!” shouted Harshsmell beardily. “no mere man can kill Fuckmountain! he pisses fire! his teeth are made of diamonds, and inside his head are thoughts only of malice and fucking shit up. no heart lies in his chest, because he’s a FUCKING SKELETON. he’s literally made of bones, the least-stabbable organ. you can’t kill that, dipshit”

“I’m gonna.”

“he ate two castles,” Harshsmell continued, moaning. “at the same time. i was there.”

the man stood his ground. Harshsmell glared at him dwarfily. “GUARDS! this man distresses me. take him away”

the guards moved forward to seize the intruder, but he stood his ground. though his face was not visible, Bibarel studied him.

“friend, is that Skullantula the Up-Fucker that you carry?” he asked

“it is,” said the man. he unsheathed one of his swords. it was made of jagged blood, but inscribed on the side with ancient elfin magic was a skull. both of the skull’s eyes were eight-balls.

the guards stopped in their tracks. one of them gave the sword an appraising nod and a thumbs up

“and Stabslicer the Grim,” the man continued, “and the Killblade of the Metalzillas, and the Large Fucking Hellscalpel, the last sword forged by the hands of the fire wizards of Double Lava Mountain”

“the fire wizards,” rumbled Harshsmell, “have been dead for two hundred years”

“and I’m the one who killed them”

“holy shit. fuck.”

“yeah, I know, right?”

“who are you, that could do such great things? no one man should have all that power”

“i am no man,” said the intruder, and finally pulled back his hood to reveal his face. he was three wolves. “I am Three-Wolves. I am three wolves.”

“forsooth,” Bibarel medievaled.

“yeah, pretty much” Three-Wolves said. “so are we stabbing some skeleton motherfuckers or not?”

Harshsmell fretted at his shield-beard. the long-fossilized remains of ancient side-dishes fell from its depths and shattered on the floor. “for the past thousand years, no dwarven army has left the depths of our mountain home, The Home Mountain. you will march alone”

“but your dwarfiness,” Bibarel interjected, “perhaps we can still help? we could offer him a mount.”

Three-Wolves stared stoically through one of the throne room’s many window-axes. “i was just gonna get an Uber or something”

“this is no mere transportation that we offer you, friend,” preened Bibarel. “it is the lord of the giant war scorpions, Bloodvizier VII, King of the Bugmoors”

“his mighty carapace is stronger than dwarven kill-steel,” Harshsmell boasted. “and his bitey things are like fearsome spears, if the spears were really fucking sharp and full of poison and attached to a scorpion”

“bears piss themselves at the very mention of his name,” Bibarel said. “not even little bears. the big ones”

“hell yea,” said Three-Wolves. “i’ll take it. also also the elf, because I need directions”

the journey was a long and arduous one, past the lightning spires of Napalm Druid Valley and across the abyssal Killfjord of the Squid Wizard. they knew they were getting close when they saw the giant head of an evil skeleton across the horizon, because that is what they were looking for

Bibarel stared in elfish terror as the beast Fuckmountain Deathmonster swallowed an entire mountain of swords, then ate a handful of catapults for dessert “already he has slain the hobbit viking warhost from the lawless northern lands of Fuckshire. do you truly think you can stab such a terror?”

“stabbing is for assholes,” Three-Wolves said. “i’m gonna skip straight to killing him”

Three-Wolves adjusted his vorpal codpiece and unsheathed all of his swords, and his cape billowed dramatically in front of the sun. then he kicked the war scorpion and they took off at a full arachnogallop across the obsidian plains, which were entirely covered in hobbit blood

seeing them approach, Fuckmountain reared back and stuffed a fair maiden into his mouth. her skin was as white as snow, fresh snow and not the shitty old stuff, and her bosom was really big. “please don’t come any closer!” she shrieked “it will eat me if you do”

but Three-Wolves did not hold any pity or lust in his three separate, discrete wolf hearts, only vengeance. he leapt from Bloodvizier VII and did six backflips before landing on Fuckmountain’s head. Fuckmountain roared, and lava shot from his eyes and melted swords shot from his skeleton dick. while he was roaring, Three-Wolves swung down and hurled the legendary sword Stabslicer the Grim into one of his eye sockets

“fool!” Bibarel moaned, from the middle of a giant puddle of his own fear pee “he doesn’t have eyes for you to stab!”

“i wasn’t stabbing shit,” Three-Wolves shouted back “it’s just hard to hold four swords, and i never liked that one”

he reached inside of his cloak and pulled out a dagger made out of enchanted hell-uranium, and covered with chainsaw blades. he pushed a button and they all glowed, but they glowed black

“it can’t be!” Bibarel gurgled. “the Laser Edge of the Starlich has been lost for aeons”

“like balls it has!!” Three-Wolves bellowed a mighty war bellow and sliced off Fuckmountain’s head, and stabbed him through the spine, and cut off his skeleton dick. he landed, and all the evil skeleton dust was already blowing away behind him

“friend, that was truly amazing” Bibarel gushed. “you have saved our kingdom!”

“yeah i totally did,” Three-Wolves said, stoically sheathing all of his weapons, and putting the safety cap back onto his vorpal codpiece “but there’s an even badder guy out there”

“what could ever be worse than a giant lava-pissing skeleton?”

“this” Three-Wolves said. he held up a stone covered in runes, and decorated with crystals made out of the souls of powerful monster-stabbers “it was in his head or some shit”

“a Thrall-Stone of Beam'uvee” Bibarel gasped. “but the art of making those is lost. there’s only one people who ever knew how to make them”

when they arrived in the lands of the turbo-dragons, nothing but misery and woe awaited them. Misery and Woe were the names of the sphinx liches who guarded the front door

“TRAVELERS” they shrieked, in scary voices of bones and mystery. “BEFORE YE PROCEED YE MUST ANSWER OUR FIVE RIDDLES”

and then they were dead because Three-Wolves also twisted their heads off. he was thinking about starting a collection, maybe

Bibarel the elf stayed simperingly close as they crossed the land. Castle Knifedick, loomed above them, covered with towers that were shaped like knives and also dicks. war drums echoed from the hillsides, and later, war saxophones. the legendary kill-legions of the turbodragon war host marched down to meet them

“Piss-gargling mortal!!” shouted Skullhate von Hateskull, the Bloodconsul of the Turbodragons. the Bloodconsul was elected by popular referendum every two years, because the turbodragons had a rich tradition of democracy and a robust social safety net “you should not have come here!!!”

“yeah probably” shouted back Three-Wolves, and unsheathed three swords at once “but i did”

the turbodragons readied their many arms, halberds made of crystalized shark blood and javelins made of regular shark blood. acid dripped from their stingers and their fangs and just their general anatomy, really. for a moment there was no sound on the battlefield except tense silence, and also screaming, because Three-Wolves had already started murdering them

“FUCK!” shouted the dying turbodragons “ARGH”

Three-Wolves was in his element now, and that was the element of murdering shit. a siege pterodactyl flew past and shot ballista bolts made out of the middle fingers of fossilized frost giants, and he chopped them all in half. he got cornered by a legion of thirty one shrapnel golems and machete elementals, and he bellowed the mighty Warcry of the Berserker Liches, which worked really good because he had three separate mouths for bellowing with. after he killed them all he still had enough killing left over for like thirty turbodragons

“Seize them!” shouted Skullhate von Hateskull “we shall rip the blood from their bones and feast on their guts!”

and then while his mouth was open, Three-Wolves pulled back his arm. it bulged with thews and stuff, and he threw the Large Fucking Hellscalpel like a javelin. it stabbed out all of Skullhate von Hateskull’s teeth and impaled his head, and then kept flying into space, because Three-Wolves was a really good thrower. but he was not dead yet. Three-Wolves did four backflips and jumped off of a ballista bolt in the middle of the air, then punched through his chest and pulled out all six of his dragon hearts, and took a bite out of one just to show that he wasn’t fucking around

the other turbodragons stared at this really hard, and all of them immediately both peed and cried from fear. they ran away, and some of them flew.

“friend, you did it!” Bibarel squealed elfishly. then he stopped and stared at something on the ground

“well i mean, yeah” Three-Wolves said, then noticed that Bibarel was acting stranger than usual, and he was usually pretty strange already “also what the balls is up with you”

instead of answering, Bibarel pulled a ring off of Skullhate von Hateskull’s finger. it was made out of fire, and it was inlaid with blood rubies and the teeth of especially evil smurfs, which glowed with wicked necromagics. “it is the Ring of Grimfucler, the thrall-ring of the skull lords, minted in the dark heart of one of the seven secret underground moons”

Bibarel was going to say more arcane BS, but then Three-Wolves took the ring from him

“no, friend!” gasped Bibarel “its allure enraptured hella kings in the Before Ages, but you must resist it! all who wear the ring succumb to its dark ways!”

“sounds fake” Three-Wolves growled “also it’s gotta be at least a +2 or something, so blow me”

Three-Wolves put the ring on and the ghosts of powerful king-wizards and war-sages loomed over him. they wailed with a billion centuries or pain and stretched out bony-ass bone hands at him.

“fuck off ghosts!” Three-Wolves shouted, and chopped them all to death. they crumbled into evil dust and he yawned “so anyway i was thinking like taco bell or something for lunch”

“i guess that sounds cool” Bibarel said “i’ve got like a coupon for 20% off”

and they rode off toward the sunset, which was coincidentally in the same direction as Taco Bell. but also meanwhile, in a far off land full of evil and stuff, they were being watched through a scrying pool full of mercury and hero bones, and the dark shape looming over it cackled and said to itself “THE TIME HAS COME. I WILL KILL THOSE GUYS SO HARD”

Yes. Obviously. He characterizes these fans as self-absorbed, socially deficient, intellectually incurious, emotionally dependent on formula, and “excruciatingly boring.” That is not neutral description. It is a negative judgment about their character and the way they live.

2. Does Ebert imply that a depth of knowledge about a fannish subject is inherently bad on its own?

Not quite. His stated objection is to people using expertise as a display of devotion, a source of status, or a substitute for broader interests and spontaneous social interaction.

I would argue that the rest of the review makes his position a little more clear, though.

3. Does Ebert state that this pattern of behavior is a quality of all fans?

No. He says “a lot of fans,” “extreme fandom,” and “such people.” He is identifying a type of fan, not making a literal universal claim.

4. Did the reader see a mildly critical opinion containing the word ‘fandom’ and immediately succumb to an emotional reaction rather than fully read and engage with the passage?

Calling people socially inept, intellectually empty, self-absorbed, and excruciatingly boring is not “mildly critical.” It is openly contemptuous.

A person can understand the passage perfectly well and still object to it. Disagreement is not evidence of failed reading comprehension, no matter how many condescending bullet points one wraps around the accusation.

5. Did the reader see the words ‘socially inept’ and immediately assume this refers solely to autistic people? Why or why not?

“Socially inept” does not mean “autistic,” and Ebert does not explicitly mention autism.

But the behaviors he associates with social deficiency overlap heavily with stereotypes about autistic people: intense specialist interests, encyclopedic knowledge, reliance on predictable conversational scripts, and difficulty improvising socially.

The word “solely” is doing dishonest work here. The relevant question is not whether the description refers exclusively to autistic people. It is whether Ebert treats traits commonly associated with autistic people as evidence that someone is socially or intellectually defective.

6. Is the job of a cultural critic to ‘let people enjoy things?’

No. Critics are allowed to criticize fandom, fan culture, consumer identity, nostalgia, and the social uses people make of art.

Readers are equally allowed to criticize the critic’s assumptions, generalizations, and contempt. “A critic’s job is not to let people enjoy things” does not mean every hostile remark made by a critic is therefore insightful.

There is also a rather important contextual omission here. Ebert did not write this as a general essay about fandom in the age of twitter, harassment campaigns, shipping discourse, or whatever present-day fandom behavior the quotation is now being aimed at.

He wrote it in his February 4, 2009 review of Fanboys, a road comedy set in 1998. So this is a late-2000s review discussing a particular stereotype of 1990s fandom. The film follows a group of friends who plan to break into Skywalker Ranch so that their terminally ill friend can see The Phantom Menace before he dies. Ebert’s argument is that the movie identifies too closely with its heroes and should have mocked them more. The rest of the review makes his position much less ambiguous. He calls their fandom “an idiotic lifestyle,” describes them as “tragically hurtling into a cultural dead end,” dismisses their knowledge as having “no purpose other than being mastered,” and ends with a joke about their mothers cleaning up after them.