Zack Snyder has always been a contrarian figure in cinema, after exploding in popularity with Dawn of the Dead and 300, he went on to create Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, both films made a considerable amount of money while also being as divisive as the director who helmed them.
After personal tragedy forced him to leave the production of Justice League before it was finished, the legend of his fabled “Snydercut” grew and grew. By 2018 the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement had blossomed into a full-on movement, while Rolling Stone recently published an article claiming many of these fans were “Bots” (13% of the users) it still left 87% who were passionate fans who took the movement very seriously.
By the time the SnyderCut had been released on HBO Max, Zack Snyder commanded an army of supporters, an army so large that it propelled his Netflix original film Army of the Dead to be watched by 75 million households, totaling a viewership of 186.54 million hours. At the time of its release, the film tied with Project Power as the eighth most-watched original film on the streamer.
It became clear that Zack Snyder called “The Boss” by his most devoted fans was not going away and would continue to support him even after he switched studios.
For the most part, the Zack Snyder fandom was a friendly place, with its members raising over half a million for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in honor of his daughter who tragically took her own life. Zack Snyder himself has stood up against hate and toxicity online, condemning the toxic Youtube Channel Geeks and Gamers, live on a stream. Indeed his fans come from all walks of life, joined by a simple passion for a director and his work.
However like all fandoms, a darker side began to emerge, the movement started as a smaller more tightly monitored place, centered around Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, but as it got larger, trolls began to pop up. Some journalists and writers began to report getting hateful messages sent to their DMs and message boxes. Some WB executives began to experience the same thing, with many journalists even reporting that they got death threats. Now I have been a part of the Snyder Fandom since 2018, and have become friends with many of its leaders and high-ranking members, and I can say that the faction I am a part of absolutely and unequivocally condemns these actions of people who claim to be Zack Snyder fans. We also do our best to ban them from groups and report them, however, it can feel at times like a game of whack a mole (anyone remember that game?).
Zack Snyder has always supported and pushed for tolerance, acceptance, and friendship while rejecting toxicity and hate. Anyone who claims to be a Snyder fan yet sends hate or death threats is trampling on the very things the fandom and movement were founded on. Now the movement has had to deal with a lot of toxicity from not only the media but even Warner Bros executives themselves at times, however, it seems that some fans have fallen to the very thing that Batman’s butler Alfried warned about in Zack Snyders film Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, where he said
“That’s how it starts. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men… cruel.”
It is time for the fandom of Zack Snyder to clean house, I know that its founding principles, were freedom, artistic integrity, and acceptance, I was there. However as the years have gone by the movement has allowed in far too many who are tarnishing the good name of the movement I helped build and support, the narrative needs to be reclaimed, and the trolls need to be exercised. I want the Zack Snyder fandom to be seen as the altruistic revolution for artistic freedom it was! The movement literally saved lives by supporting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
So to all my fellow leaders in the fandom, let’s strive to not allow toxicity in our ranks to stain not only our reputation but the reputation of “The Boss” lets clean house and return to what we were.
