Someone mentioned the hierarchy of the Scooby community to me the other day and it made me think…what is the hierarchy of the Scooby community? Who gets to be the leader? Who falls into place down the line? Who gets to make the rules?
The answer to all of these questions is simple…it’s no one. No one is the head of the Scooby community. There is no leader! The Scooby community is not a government, it’s an internet space that allows people to share their love of Scooby-Doo with each other, even though they could be thousands of miles apart. No one runs the Scooby community because there is nothing to run. No one can tell you how to run your pages or your channel. You get to celebrate Scooby in your own way. There are no Scooby Police. No Scooberment! (Scooby Government, in case you weren’t sure what I was talking about.)
There are hundreds of Scooby-Doo groups on social media, each with different admins and moderators. Those people get to run those groups, but that doesn’t make them the head of the community as a whole. Everyone has the right to follow or not follow each of those groups, and while there are “politics” within the groups themselves, that is not a reflection on the community as a whole.
Over the 17 years that I’ve been actively posting as Scooby Addicts, I’ve had people steal my ideas and I have asked them to stop. I try to make content that is different than what other people do, so I don’t want people taking my ideas and using them as their own. Any content creator wouldn’t want someone stealing their ideas. It’s one thing to take inspiration from what someone has done and tweak it to make it your own, it’s another to outright do what someone else is doing. I have a right to speak up for myself to protect what I’ve created, but that doesn’t mean I am in charge of anything. If speaking up for myself makes me mean, then so be it, but I work really hard on my content. It’s like I have a 2nd full time job with everything I do and I do it because I love it, so it’s upsetting when someone takes what I did and tries to use it as their own. I wouldn’t tell anyone to stop creating content, but I have a right to ask them to stop stealing my ideas. But again, it doesn’t mean I am in charge of the community.
Unlike a community where people live, the internet is not a physical location. There are no rules, per se, in the Scooby community, besides the rules set up by the specific platform you are posting on. I do think common courtesy and respect for each other and each other’s opinions is a good thing. Treating the franchise with respect is also good. Making sure you give credit to the people that created anything is important. Those are all just common sense kind of things, not official rules that if you don’t follow them you will be banished forever.
The Scooby community is made up of many people…people who love Scooby and have been life-long fans, people that had watched Scooby as a kid so it’s nostalgic, people that just enjoy seeing someone’s artwork, people that are not necessarily Scooby fans but they like bits and pieces of the Scooby franchise and everything in between. It’s full of so many different personalities and that’s great! If we were all the same, it would get pretty boring. Do you have to like everyone in the community? No! Does everyone have to like you? No! Do you know how many people have hated me for whatever reason over the 17 years I’ve been doing this? I don’t know an exact number or really know if it was that many people, but I’ll never make everyone happy, and I am ok with that. I focus on making content that makes me happy, content that brings fun and positivity to the community, content that I think Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, Iwao Takamoto and all the other people that worked on Scooby would be proud of. I share my love of Scooby with whoever wants to be a part of it with me, and if that isn’t you, that’s ok.
I don’t know about you, but I’m happy without a hierarchy in the Scooby community. No one needs to be the top dog because Scooby-Doo himself already has that role. We can all love Scooby our own way and share that through posts, art, videos…whatever way you want! We are all free to make whatever content we want and follow or not follow whoever we want and we can still be part of the community because that is the magic of the internet! I’m not looking for numbers or fame or celebrity, I’m looking to connect with people that love Scooby-Doo. That’s it! So whether you like me or not, follow me or not, just know all I’m looking for is for the community to be fun. I’m not the best of anything and I don’t want to be. I just want to be me!
The only other thing I want to say is that the community will be a better place if we all work together and support each other. So many people let jealousy or other things get in the way and there is no reason for it. Everyone will be more successful if we support each other and make the community a happy place where everyone is welcome.
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” — Henry Ford
