[Jonathan]

This is a fascinating article. It's four years old but I only saw it today after it was posted on Reddit. It might be even more relevant than ever. http://www.rollercoasterphilosophy.com/ ... auga-lake/

It's also a very long one so I don't expect too many people will have much desire to take the time to read it. Specifically the part I was interested in was the second section with the heading "On the Genealogy of Online Coaster Enthusiast Morals." I thought it was a really good commentary on the state of coaster enthusiast communities and it articulated a lot of the frustration I have felt with the online response to Thunder Road closing.

Some particular excerpts I enjoyed:

An argument could probably be made that ACE in the 21st century is out of touch with younger enthusiasts in the digital age, and the organization serves little function besides holding the occasional prosaic events and a dedication to the expansion of waist lines. But back in the 80’s and 90’s when they constituted a pretty sizeable bloc of enthusiasts, ACE was able to organize enthusiast led and funded relocation and/or restoration projects that got results. The top ten ranked Phoenix at Knoebel’s, the beautiful Giant Dipper in San Diego, the 1901-built Leap The Dips at Lakemont Park, and others, would probably not be thrilling riders to this day if coaster enthusiasts never felt empowered in their ability to make a difference in the fate of these rides.

To achieve this, a subtle form of fatalism is promoted as a virtue for Online Enthusiast Morality. The individual can do nothing to affect their favorite park’s policies or the design of the most recent attraction, and so to criticize parks along these lines is not just a waste of productivity (by the time you sit down to talk about coasters online you’ve already said to hell with productivity), it risks various forms of reprimand, even potentially getting banned from all future discourses. There’s an often unstated (and sometimes stated) commandment that a good enthusiast understands and empathizes with the fact that theme parks are a business, and (so the argument goes) businesses are in business only to sustain their own profits. Not only does this justify any decision made by the business as long as it helps their own income, but the interests of the good enthusiasts must align with the interests of the business. (This usually ignores countless counterexamples of businesses and individuals being motivated to act by other sources than immediate monetary gain.) Enthusiasts that openly reject this fatalistic norm, such as the two who tried to independently save the Big Dipper, quickly become labeled as “bad enthusiasts”.

Some people not only demonstrate pride in their ability to show no emotional affliction at the needless demolition of a beloved ride by private interests, but seem pleased when these outcomes actually do happen, because it reinforces the perceived accuracy of their ‘realistic’ worldview. The underlying belief in this behavior seems to be that realism is mutually exclusive to idealism. This fails to make the distinction between discussions on the world as it is versus how it ought to be, while both are extremely valuable discourses that should run independently of each other.

This apparent contradiction between the inherent superiority yet fundamental inefficacy of being an enthusiast is a means of encouraging people to remain involved in the community while simultaneously limiting their belief that anything they say within the community will have any material importance outside the online walled gardens. People only participate as enthusiasts for their own instantaneous gratification, and critical thinking can therefore only be harmful to this objective. Therefore, enthusiast morality states that theme parks should not be grateful for having fans. Rather, fans should be grateful for having theme parks. Unlike the general public, who only owe theme parks their money, fans owe them their money and their continued, uncritical loyalty.

Until the ability to have a free, rigorous, and informed critical discourse about these attractions is achieved on the same level that it has been for other entertainment sectors, this sort of irresponsible behavior towards our valued historic attractions will continue to perpetuate and be deemed acceptable.

If you've got the time and you're interested in this kind of stuff you should check it out.

[arby]

The writer does bring up some valid points.

My complaint about coaster enthusiast clubs in general is that they are mired in the 20th century and stand behind a dialogue of political correctness. I don't feel that a single club out there is fully immersed in the 21st century and has a mission that they strongly stand behind which leads to valid arguments that the author brought up.

Yet. I think there are a lot of good changes coming to the coaster enthusiast community, though. The best way to make improvements is for everybody to get involved. Volunteer!