Yeah dried plums. Idk why it suddenly becomes a new word, something French I think?

Or prune juice: a warrior’s drink

I was thinking Barclay had his hand in this monstrosity

Great points, bubbles of fandom being divided over wider political, civil, or national issues seems to be highly prevalent. Agreed I’m sure there’s a minority of shills and bots but their message gets amplified by the “national debate” or what not surrounding whatever topic, it appears to be relatively easy to manipulate large groups of people with very few comments or ideas.

Bots and shills accounts are a huge problem in any public discourse about any topic, but they really come out in full force when “hot button” topics come up. IE: I watch Doctor Who, also a highly political and progressive show with “fans” suddenly and inexplicably divided the second there was a whiff of casting news regarding a new Doctor.

Years ago, before Jodie Whittaker got the role officially, there were reports that Phoebe Waller-Bridge might be in talks to play the Doctor and the Doctor Who subreddit exploded with “as a woman I don’t think the Doctor should be played by a woman” posts. After Jodie was announced the posts exploded again. Then later, there were talks a black actor could be playing the Doctor and once again inexplicably tons of 'as a black man I don’t care about representation… " posts went flying.

Even little subs like PrintSF for sf/fantasy etc. books got the occasional comments when it was time for Hugos. Any mention of female or diverse authors being nominated got random accounts never accessing the sub before saying shit like “anyone else notice all the books are by LGBTQ authors? I’m just asking questions” never to be seen again after Hugos were over. There’s still a remnant of Sad Puppy/Puppygate bad faith posters and shills sewing discord years later after the whole drama subsided.

It just seems like anytime potential division can be created there’s an influx in new/ random accounts pushing it where it makes no sense, like with Star Trek or Doctor Who specifically being great examples. I hope fediverse places make this kinda blatant discord harder to create.

I have to imagine a lot of this “I’m done with woke star trek” crap is perpetuated by bots and shills. Post histories on Reddit for accounts saying these right wing talking points were either days old in response to some new Trek show or episode, or years old accounts that haven’t posted in forever then suddenly posted a bunch of talking points in every thread they could find.

There were definitely legit accounts of people upset by new Trek for other reasons but far outnumbered by “anti wokester” puppet accounts. When it came to Twitter I wouldn’t bat a lash if one out of every hundred accounts were bots. After noticing their trends they get easier to spot. It’s the only thing that makes sense when the alternative is there are legions of trek fans that never noticed how progressive the shows were and suddenly decided to be angry in the past couple years.