Dark side of Star Wars fandom: toxic trolls and racist attacks take toll on Asian-American actress Kelly Marie Tran

The dark side of Star Wars fandom recently reared its head when Kelly Marie Tran, the actress who plays Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was run off Instagram by misogynistic and racist messages from fans who didn’t like her character in the movie.

The episode was not an uncommon one. Daisy Ridley, who stars as the heroine Rey, quit social media last year for similar reasons.

They are far from the first women to be hounded by bitter, mostly male fans who didn’t approve of their entry into a fictional pop-culture world that some fans feel a misguided sense of ownership of.

Such toxic abuse has long been a staple of darker social-media realms, fan-group message boards and internet comments pages.

Obsession – loving or poisonous – has helped fuel the most dedicated fan bases, whose fervour is craved and cultivated by billion-dollar brands.

But the scorn heaped on Tran – a 29-year-old Vietnamese-American actress who has been overjoyed at her induction into Star Wars – sparked a backlash of its own.

Several days after the film’s release in December, for instance, the fan-run encyclopaedia site “Wookieepedia” was edited to contain racist comments about her, according to multiple outlets.