GEEWUN

Being able to bring Bayformer impurities into the G1 world... within your own imagination?! Transformers is Ruined FOREVER!

GEEWUN is a snarky fan term for people who seem to have knee-jerk negative reactions to, and continuing difficulty in tolerating any of the post-Generation 1 (aka "G1") incarnations of the Transformers property (keeping in mind that for some, "post-G1" means "anything after 1985").

History

The earliest recorded use of the term "Geewun" (spelled as a normal word, not in all caps) originated with a TFArchive.com user named Cliffjumper, who first used it in January 2003. Since he has a tendency of coming up with mocking puns based on existing names and fandom terms, it's possible that he did indeed coin the term. The term didn't see widespread use until 2004, when it was apparently spread to other parts of the fandom (including alt.toys.transformers) by Nevermore, himself a regular member of TF Archive. Mark Bristow (aka "Bodycount") presumably also helped popularize the term.

Later usage

While the phenomenon of placing Generation 1 above everything else is nothing new, when the 2007 live-action movie was in production, the fandom experienced an ongoing influx of mindlessly angry "Generation X" members who seemed to regard Transformers not as a still-evolving cultural institution and business property, but as a sacred relic of their halcyon, Reagan-era childhoods. These bitter young people made their voices heard by preemptively denouncing the movie because it would ruin Transformers forever. GEEWUNners have most often been stereotyped as hating the live-action film series and treating it like the ultimate heresy against humanity; however, this has gone away over time after the movies started falling more and more out of favor with the general public too, and with the release of Bumblebee, which was able to win over many of the previous naysayers (GEEWUNNER or otherwise).

For some reason, many GEEWUNNERS were particularly incensed by the fact that Optimus Prime (the truck guy, not the tape guy) had flames painted on him, a detail that Michael Bay claims to have received death threats over. It probably would have been okay if the flames were burning down some forests, though.

Misconceptions

The term is not intended as a catch-all nickname for anybody who likes Generation 1, only those who refuse to accept anything other than it (or at least how they remember it, correctly or not). It is, alas, often used in this way by those who do not like Generation 1 and are seeking to insult those who do. Additionally, "Geewunners" themselves sometimes trot the term around as evidence of "persecution", in the process misconstruing the term to make it appear worse (i.e., claiming that people that use the term hate Generation 1 and everyone who likes it).

Specific subsets and variations

• Cartoon purists aka "Tooners", who often start FIRRIB debates, insist that modern toys should adhere to show-accuracy (or what they perceive as such), and still keep arguing about Cyclonus's original identity and how Hot Rod is to blame for Optimus Prime's death, over three decades after the fact
• 1984 purists who argue that "non-standard alternate modes" (the "standard" being set by the 1984 line-up, with car Autobots versus airplane and object Decepticons) used by characters such as Powerglide, Cosmos, the Aerialbots and Stunticons were "blurring the faction lines"
• Trukk not munky, a specific rejection of Beast Wars and its use of animal alternate modes

External spread

Much like how Ruined FOREVER spread to other fandoms, the Pokémon fandom uses the term "GENWUN" to describe fans who only like the original set of games (commonly known by them as Generation I or "Gen 1" but not as "G1", hence the single letter difference).

See also

• True fan

External links

• Allegedly humorous review of the movie, written by a GEEWUNNER