With the hype for Avengers: Endgame on the rise, people are eager to prepare; they’re scrambling to watch all of the movies and television shows within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, planning their social media hiatuses in order to avoid spoilers, and even calling off work so they can have time to watch the movie they’ve been anticipating since Infinity War. While the hype can enthuse anyone, even people who aren’t going to see the movie, along with it comes the unnecessary judgement and gatekeeping.

On one hand, it’s really not that deep for both the offenders and the offended. Just because someone doesn’t know the MCU lore like the back of their hand doesn’t mean that they can’t call themself a fan of it, but also, people shouldn’t be put down because they don’t reach their standard of what a real MCU fan is.

I’ve always been a DCU fan, so I really didn’t care about watching every single movie in order to watch Infinity War–even though I didn’t have full knowledge of the extensive backstories, it’s not like that stopped me from understanding and enjoying the plot. In the end, it’s an action-packed superhero movie that was meant to be entertaining to its viewers, so what’s the need for gatekeeping?

Gatekeeping is not only unnecessary, but also condescending, and sometimes it can go too far. What’s so serious about the idea of non-superfans that it prevents us from just having fun and watching a move?

Hearing or seeing spoilers ruins the fun and we often get upset when it happens to us, and gatekeeping does the same thing. It’s such a childish yet popular concept that we see today, especially in pop culture.

In the end, it’s just fiction, and it’s not so important that it gives us a pass to be rude to others for not know every little detail about the pieces of media that we love.

Relax, and just have fun.