This excellent @NYMag essay by @chaneyj about the @HBO documentary Class Action Park really reminded me of the history of the science fiction and fantasy genre, and adds a powerful new term to my SF/F vocabulary: toxic nostalgia. (1/14) https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/class-action-park-hbo-documentary-about-toxic-nostalgia.html

At first this may seem like a strange connection since Class Action Park tells the story of Action Park in New Jersey, a water park and playground from the 1970s and '80s with an extremely high accident rate.

So basically a theme park "where death was tolerated." (2/14)

Ironically, there’s a strong nostalgia from those who survived the park. "You're nostalgic for an idealized version of a reality that wasn’t quite the reality. With that nostalgia comes a sense of pride and identity associated with surviving that unencumbered environment." (3/14)

It doesn't matter that the park was run by a man who was okay with hurting and killing people. Who created a fake insurance company to insure his park. Who was a literal piece of excrement excuse for a human being. People simply ignore these disturbing parts of history. (4/14)

What really clicked everything for me was when @chaneyj wrote "A lot of the good old days were quite bad and not healthy for any of us at all. It hurts for some people to admit that because, as I noted earlier, those days were so formative to our identities." (5/14)

I grew up on classic science fiction and fantasy. It was formative to my identity as a SF writer and fan. But in the years since I’ve also learned how many of the authors I admired in my youth were actively harming others. (6/14)

And how fandom tolerated and enabled racism, sexism, and abuse for decades, and refused to welcome many people into the genre. How the SF/F genre literally helped birth a sham religion to fleece people. (7/14)

The SF/F genre is finally starting to change and to no longer tolerate all of this. To no longer look away when authors and others try to harm people. To open the genre up to all people and cultures. And it is about time. (8/14)

But as this change happens, there are still SF/F fans yearning for the good old days. For an imagined Golden Age where they didn’t realize their favorite author sexually assaulted fans. Where they could enjoy their SF/F without thinking about politics or the outside world. (9/14)

But as @chaneyj wrote about Action Park, this is essentially a false nostalgia. The SF/F genre of decades before had the same problems and troubles and concerns we see today. But before, these issues were ignored, hidden and repressed. (10/14)

The Golden Age of SF/F was, to rephrase @chaneyj, an idealized version of a reality that wasn’t quite the reality. It was hardly a Golden Age for everyone. (11/14)

There's nothing evil about nostalgia and loving what you grew up knowing. But when you turn that nostalgia into toxic nostalgia, and use it to try and harm others with a false version of how the past existed – that’s where nostalgia turns wrong. (12/14)

I still love the SF/F stories I grew up reading, even as I acknowledge and see the harm done by the authors of many of those stories. And the great thing is those stories put me in a place to experience and enjoy the wonderful SF/F stories being created today. (13/14)

We are living through a new, amazing and diverse Golden Age of SF/F, with more great stories being written today than at any point in my lifetime. Don’t let a toxic sense of SF/F nostalgia keep you from seeing the wonders being created today. (14/14)