This is addressed to all of the legions of people who refer to themselves as part of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom. It is not addressed to anyone else. Why? Because something occurred to me this morning. Go back (if you have a streaming service like Netflix or, better yet, for this experiment, Hulu), and watch both the shows Wednesday, and the original 1964 television show, The Addams Family. (And while you’re at it, catch both the original live-action and animated films, too. Maybe even take in the Broadway musical.) Now we all like to laugh at the movies, the shows, the musical. But let’s consider a moment why we are laughing. Are we laughing at The Addamses, or are we laughing with them? That’s much the question posed to “fandom” nowadays but from a different perspective.  You see, fandom has been accused of many terrible things in the past decade or so. Society has come to sneer at us rather than admire us, or at least mock us, and that is a problem. But why do they sneer? Oh, I don’t know. Rampant misogyny. The assault of certain costume-wearing folks. The elitism, the beatnik snobbery, and the tendency to gang up on one another, plus, the way we treat new “Initiates” has changed: Whereas we used to open our arms and accept people for who they were, without question — just like how in the first live-action film, the Addamses embrace Uncle Fester, imposter or not. And they don’t just welcome strangers. The Addams Family embraces them and celebrates their “differentness.” So must we too. So those of you out there in the world of fandom who would do things to get the rest of society to “sneer at” and henceforth reject us, I beg of you, stop. Why? Because in a kooky (please forgive the awful contextual pun of that) way, . .  . WE are the Addams Family. So the next time you get in a fight over movie trivia; the next time you so want to run up and pinch that cosplayer’s butt; the next time you get the urge to all gang up on someone like a mob; and the next time you think your specialized counterculture status grants you immunity from the mores of society, think of this essay and remember; We, of fandom, are the real Addams Family. So remember that. Remember, each time you act in every way you do, and whichever way you treat each other (especially “the Outsiders”), remember: You are an Addams. You have Class. You have Style. You have Dignity. You are above such mendacity and cruelty — we of the Fandom class are much like the Addams family, and we welcome (at least, we used to) each and every unique trait each person has. Each and everything that might make them seem like “nerds,”“geeks,” or “freaks” to “ordinary people,” as it were. Remember that you are an Addams in every way you act at Con, or wherever (maybe just the comic book store, who knows). And remember that the real joke of the shows, the movies, and the musical, is that they, the Addamses, love each other and embrace one another despite their differences, eccentricities, and weirdnesses. They are us. We are them, in the grand metaphor of society. So ganging up? Trivia quizzes? Gatekeeping? Gender-bias? Leave those things to the Mundanes of the world. Let them have it. Let them revel in it and destroy themselves with it, if they want to . . .

But as for us? WE are Addamses. We have more class and dignity than that.  So let’s act like it; embrace one another now, or forever feel the stones hurled at you by the “Normies.” Because when you act that way, you make the Mundanes right about us; you make them right to cast us out; and you make them right to see us like a circus act.

So “Stop that at once,” you can almost hear the animated Morticia tell Wednesday. We have lost the way, folks. Or at least, some of us have, but it’s not too late to turn the RV around and head for the safety and sanctity of our grand ancestral home. And as one of the animated films can be quoted as saying, we really need to ask ourselves sardonically, ironically, and critically — in a singsong voice if necessary — “What’s so great about being yourself when you can be like everyone else?”