Ohhhhhh Firefly. The never-ending funeral dirge of the Internet. The fandom that died twenty years ago and still somehow haunts the digital wallpaper like a mould stain shaped vaguely like Nathan Fillion. Pull up a chair, babes — I'm about to get cancelled by Reddit circa 2009.

So. Full disclosure: I’ve never watched Firefly. Not because I “never got around to it,” or because I “missed the window,” or because I “didn’t have a crush on Mal like everyone else,” but because THE FANS WOULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT. Every recommendation wasn’t a casual “oh it’s good!” — it was a cult initiation ceremony. There was chanting. There were testimonies. There was a vibe like: “Have you accepted Joss Whedon’s prematurely-cancelled space western as your personal Lord and Galactic Saviour?”

Any time I said “uhh maybe later,” three Browncoats would manifest behind me like Victorian ghosts whispering, it was cancelled too soon. Yes, Karen, lots of things were cancelled too soon — Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, my sanity — but you don’t see me turning every brunch conversation into a TED Talk titled “The Great Tragic Loss of 2002.”

Firefly fans had this energy where the show wasn’t just a show. It was a personality trait. A creed. A lifestyle. Like a religion but with more weaponised beige. And the evangelism? MY GOD the evangelism. People acted like watching Firefly was some kind of moral obligation, like recycling or not stabbing your coworkers. If I confessed I hadn’t seen it, they’d react like I’d admitted to drowning puppies. “You’ve NEVER seen Firefly???” No, Brenda, I’ve also never been knighted. Doesn’t mean I’m spiritually incomplete.

And the look. You know the look. That glazed, beatific Firefly Fan Expression™ — the wistful, far-off stare of someone who has seen the face of god and it was wearing a brown coat from a 2003 Hot Topic clearance bin. They’d quote “shiny” at you like it was a secret handshake that would unlock the mysteries of the universe. It just made me want to lie down in traffic.

Then came the inevitable, “OKAY, but you HAVE to watch Serenity.” Babe, the movie is a 119-minute grief-counselling session dressed up as a space opera. The entire aesthetic is “2005 Sad Beige.” I don’t have to do anything except drink water and die eventually.

And the fandom is still out there, still proclaiming from the mountaintops: “It was ahead of its time!” “It was stolen from us!” “If Firefly had survived, world peace would’ve been achieved and all mental illness cured!” Like… maybe? Or maybe it was a cool show that got cancelled because television executives are allergic to joy. But we will never know, because the fandom trauma-bombed the rest of us into avoidance.

Maybe the show is actually great. Maybe the writing is clever and the characters are wonderful and I’m missing out on a modern classic. But the mid-2000s Firefly fandom acted like multi-level marketers for cowboy space nihilism, and now every time someone says “shiny” I get war flashbacks.

So am I ever going to watch it? No. At this point it’s a matter of principle. Firefly can stay in that dusty corner of pop-culture purgatory where it belongs. Let the shiny remain unshined.