The Sailor Moon Civil War
Every great country has a great civil war sometime in its history. These civil wars almost always involve two warring factions that are at the opposing ends of an issue. The two parties would then go out on the battlefield to settle their differences. In the end neither party comes out with what could be called a decisive victory. Sometimes however these countries are communities, and the battlefields are their own backyards. The community I speak of is the online Sailor Moon community, the factions are Newbies, and Elitists, the issue is popularity, and the battlefields are the message boards, chat rooms, and guestbooks of every Sailor Moon webpage.
Since the summer of 1998 a silent civil war has brewed deep in the heart of the online Sailor Moon community. It was triggered by a sudden rush of new Sailor Moon pages, and the emergence of some beautiful, well designed pages with great content. The Newbies swarmed such places as the SMWPR, Geocitites, and other previously untainted places. The SMWPR, fell quickly to all of the cheating, and jealousy brought by the Newbies, and so becoming the first victim in June 1998. Around that sametime the webpage provider, Geocities, became over saturated with the sudden influx of poor quality Newbie sites, and quickly became the target of anti-Newbie assaults. Both the SMWPR, and Geocities will forever be tarnished by the vanguard assault of the Newbies from June to August 98.
After the Dark Summer of 98 came the first return of fire from the Elitists. The assault on the Newbies came quickly in the form of well written rants, and articles. The topics ranged from layout theft to the posting of flames from angry Newbies. The Newbies quickly responded with hate tone mail, and flames. Now with the gauntlet laid down the civil war could truly begin.
The online Sailor Moon civil war heated up immensely in November of 98 with the emergence of new Elitists. The surge of what some call the 2nd generation greatly upset the Newbies. Seeing the emergance of a small group of 2nd generation pages into the Elitists caused jealousy among some Newbies, who felt that it was their turn to be in the spotlight. This is the point where the Newbies began calling anyone who had a well designed page, and excellent, original content a Elitist. Sadly the Newbies dragged such people as Mara K, and Apatt through the mud for being what they call Elitist. The last memorable assaults were in December 98, thankfully no serious outbursts have occurred since.
It truly saddens the heart to think that such a thing as popularity could tear apart the online Sailor Moon community. Sailor Moon is about love, and understanding, but it seems that a vast majority of fans have forgotten this. So these people bicker about how the Elitists ignore them, and mock them for watching. The Elitists state that being in their position is not easy, and they don’t have time to answer every e-mail. The Newbies upon hearing this instantly become jealous, for their in-boxes are always empty. The jealous factor is greatly increased by the hitcounter, which some people use as a measure of popularity. The greatest reason for jealousy towards the Elitists is their top quality graphics, design, and original content. All of the jealousy towards the Elitists will constantly be spurred on by the Newbies need to be popular, and to have their day in the spotlight.
The Sailor Moon civil war still rages onto this day, and with the addition of such heated topics like the dubbing of Sailor Moon S, there looks to be no end. However, no matter what happens in this bitter war, no one will come out the victor. For you see both sides will suffer a single great casualty that will affect all Sailor Moon Fans. That casualty will be a lack of respect from the Anime community, and the labeling of all Sailor Moon fans as immature, bickering babies.
