A gatekeeper is someone who controls — or thinks they control — who gets to belong to a fandom, scene, or subculture. They quiz newcomers on obscure trivia, dismiss casual fans as fake, and treat their personal taste as the entry requirement for loving something. On the internet, calling someone a gatekeeper is almost always an accusation: you're more interested in exclusivity than in the thing itself. A true gatekeeper has forgotten that the whole point of loving something is wanting more people to love it too.
He spent the whole night quizzing her on B-sides — total gatekeeper behavior.
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Viral internet speak — memes, ratios, main-character moments, and the algospeak of every platform from Twitter to Reddit to TikTok comment sections.
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