By Zena Airale — September 2025
Every fandom, at its heart, is a living archive—a swirl of memory-keepers, lore-nerds, remixers, and dreamers circling around the fires of story. We come to these spaces because something in the canon—the original text, show, game, or musical—called to us, maybe in a time when we needed it most. But as soon as a fandom grows beyond the handful who first found it, something else appears: the invisible gate.
What Is Gatekeeping?
Gatekeeping is the attempt to guard the “gates” of a fandom—who’s a “real fan,” who gets to speak for the group, which interpretations count and which are heresy. Sometimes, it’s as simple as side-eyeing a newcomer for not knowing deep lore, or as explicit as policing ships, genderbending, or headcanons. Sometimes it’s the insistence that “if you didn’t see the original, you don’t get it.” Other times, it’s purist arguments about what “counts” as canon or who gets to call themselves a member.
At its worst, gatekeeping becomes harassment: doxxing, exclusion, dogpiling, or the erasure of voices—especially marginalized voices—who don’t fit a narrow vision of “the real fan.” But even in softer forms, it’s a symptom of something universal: fear of loss.
Why Does Gatekeeping Happen?
It’s easy to villainize gatekeepers, but most don’t wake up hoping to be villains. Often, gatekeeping comes from a place of care—a fear that the thing you love will be lost, diluted, or misunderstood. If you’ve ever watched a show get rebooted and stripped of its heart, or seen your favorite side character retconned out of existence, you know the pain.
Fandoms become havens for those who feel unseen elsewhere. When the wider world ignores or mocks a passion, “being early” or “knowing the deep cuts” can feel like a hard-earned badge. If you’ve kept a show alive through years of hiatus, or if you translated the only available scripts for a musical no one else heard of, it’s tempting to hold tight to what makes you special. To guard the gates, even unconsciously.
But the spiral can go downward fast: gatekeeping can curdle into power, pride, and—ironically—a kind of forgetfulness. The new fans become outsiders; the point of the story gets lost in the effort to defend it. The very act of “preserving meaning” can erase the living heart of the thing.
Gatekeeping and “Feeding the System”
As I’ve studied theatre and watched fandoms cycle, I see echoes everywhere—Rose in Gypsy guarding her daughters’ “legacy,” Sondheim’s characters clinging to old wounds, even KPop stans debating who “deserves” to stan a group. Fandoms replay the same tensions as their canons: who owns the story, who gets to change it, and how do we keep the fire burning without freezing new voices out?
There’s a paradox: we need memory-keepers, archivists, and purists to keep canon alive. But we also need new voices, remixers, and casual enjoyers to keep the story growing. The system “feeds” on both—preservation and transformation.
The Cost of Closed Gates
When gatekeeping is the dominant mode, fandom becomes smaller, colder, and less interesting. Marginalized fans—queer, disabled, BIPOC, neurodivergent—often bear the brunt. Whole archives of headcanons, art, and theory vanish because someone policed the boundaries too tightly. Canon dies not from remix, but from isolation.
And on a personal level? Gatekeeping is lonely. I’ve seen brilliant fans burn out trying to keep the lore “pure,” only to realize that the real soul of a fandom is in the way stories spiral out—shared, challenged, made new.
The Upwardist Approach: Spiral Open
What would it mean to spiral upward instead?
Upwardism teaches that the highest form of loyalty to a story isn’t in freezing it, but in tending it—gardening, not gatekeeping. This doesn’t mean “anything goes” (bad-faith actors still exist), but it means making room for multiplicity. It means holding paradox: you can be a canon nerd and an AU writer, a shipper and a lore-keeper, a first-gen fan and a casual viewer. The story isn’t diminished by new arrivals—it’s made richer.
Fandoms thrive when they build on layers, not walls. When they encourage curiosity (“hey, want to know more about this character’s backstory?”) rather than suspicion (“oh, you don’t know?”). When they honor the deep cuts and the surface joys. When they remember that every “first-timer” was once someone who didn’t know the lyrics, the stats, or the in-jokes.
Practical Spiral: Memory-Keeping Over Gatekeeping
Mentor, don’t monitor. Be the person who hands down the lost script, not the one who hoards it.
Archive and amplify. Make resources, art, and guides available; celebrate deep dives and casual fandom alike.
Challenge exclusivity. Notice when inside jokes become walls instead of bridges. Make space for questions and tangents.
Hold grief and growth together. Mourn what is lost in canon changes, but also bless what new fans bring.
Conclusion: The Fire and the Spiral
Fandoms are living rituals, not relics. The gate is real, but so is the spiral. We can choose, each time we enter the space, to keep the fire open—protecting the nuance, yes, but also making room for new warmth. The point isn’t to defend the canon against the world, but to remember why it mattered in the first place, and pass it on with care.
So whether you’re an old-timer or a first-timer, a remix artist or a canon archivist: thank you for spiraling upward, for keeping the memory, and for helping stories live long enough to matter. Let’s spiral together.