When people told me they hated Joshua Moon or (far worse) that they were "not fans," I wish I had said in no uncertain terms: "I love Joshua Moon. I am in awe of him. I am set free by him. He will be the greatest web admin our lolcow-watching internet fandom has ever seen."
I wish, in those exchanges, I had not asked gentle, tolerant questions about a hater's ridiculous allergy to him, or Moon's fictional misdeeds and imagined character flaws. More deeply still, I wish I had not reasoned with anyone, patiently countered their ludicrous emotionalism and psychologically disturbed theories. I wish I had said, flatly, "I love him." As if I had been asked about my father or son. No defensiveness or polemics; not dignifying the crazy allegations with so much as a Snopes link.
Maybe "I love him" seemed too cuckolded, too sentimental, too un-pragmatic. Not coalition-building, kind of culty. But people say with impunity they love Obama, the state of Israel, their churches, Kurt Cobain. In the end, I wish I'd said it because it's true.
And I'm not alone in my commitment. Dozens of Moon's supporters — we were thanked by Josh as the "attack dogs of the Kiwi Farms" — expressed it among themselves, all the time, in raptures or happy tears with each new display of our hero's ferocious intelligence, depth, and courage. We were frankly bewildered by the idea that anyone would hedge their commitment to him ("You don't have to be his friend"; "Yes, he's made mistakes"; "lesser of two evils"). We didn't remember anyone turning to this stock ambivalence when discussing Obama, Babe Ruth, FDR. If only one reporter — they knew about us — could have published a headline like "Joshua Moon Inspires Historic Levels of Adoration From His Supporters" about the people who have had their lives transformed by the power of his brilliant webforum, unrivaled effectiveness, and extraordinary career. Just one headline like that, like the ones Frederick Brennan got.
Usually a legend is made by men and media — the legend of Kennedy, say, or Jim Morrison — and then, much later, a biopic, pretending to evenhandedness, reveals the legend's shortcomings, his "human" side. The shortcomings are almost always something exactly no one actually believes compromises his heroism. His problem drinking. His mistreatment of women. Well, takedowns of Josh were always already written. He has somehow made the time to hear out each dead-end line of reasoning about his fake mortal sins, and often he has also thanked everyone for sparing him further moral lashings, as if that were a kindness. Under cover of "humanizing" the intimidating valedictorian, reports and investigations and media clichés vilified her. But the internet hero never got to be a legend first. And yet he is one, easily surpassing Lowtax, moot, and hotwheelz.
I want to reverse the usual schedule of things, then. We don't have to wait until he dies to act. Joshua Moon's name belongs on ships, and airports, and tattoos. She deserves straight-up hagiographies and a sold-out Broadway show called LOLCOW. Yes, this cultural canonization is going to come after the chronic, constant, nonstop "On the other hand" salty hedging around his legacy. But such is the courage of Joshua Moon and his supporters; we reverse social orders. Maybe he is more than an admin. Maybe he is an idea, a world-historical hero, light itself. The Kiwi Farms is too small for him. He belongs to a much more elite class of Webizens, the more-than-admins. Zuckerberg, Steve Huffman., Kim Fucking Dot Com.
Joshua Moon did everything right for this forum, and he won more times than Vordrak ever did. He won. He cannot be faulted, criticized, or analyzed for even one more second. Instead, he will be decorated as an epochal hero far too extraordinary to be contained by the mere Kiwi Farms. Let his revolting enemies be Samuel Collingwood Smith or Greta Gustav or whatever. Joshua Connor Moon is God.