Do fandoms ruin series for you?

[Barbas]

I think that if I was a fan of that Steven Universe show, the fanbase of it would have put me off it pretty successfully.

I remember the old series of Dr Who used to be pretty good. Sometimes you really should not listen to fans; you've got writers for that.

 

[otakon17]

Only if they spoil story stuff for me before I get a chance to experience it for myself, otherwise they are completely separate entities.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I hate to say this because the game and some content made for it is so utterly good but... Garry's Mod. Hands ****ing down. Soooooo many kiddies playing. Way too many. And along with all the kiddies come the, you guessed it, terrible admins everywhere. And the Five Nights at Freddies and MLP content that is just... Flooding the workshop. By the gods, it's bad. XP

Garry's Mod is pretty much the Matrix Construct in game form. Which, needless to say, is super awesome. Buttttt... Thanks to all the douchebags, its name gets unfairly dragged through the mud.

On the other hand, if I had to pick a fandom that actually ADDED to a game or series or whatever... I think I would definitely choose Myst.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

No, and they shouldn't.

I understand and accept why they might and do. I just feel like a group of people that really don't have or need to have anything to do with what you enjoy, at least in your own mind, shouldn't really be breaking any convictions you have. Especially for entertainment of all things.

 

[Toilet]

Doctor Who probably. Doctor Who is in the unique position where the fandom ruined the show which ruined it for me.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Not as much ruin, as want to wait until hype boils down. That was my aproach towards 4th season of GoT. And now it could've been my approach towards 4th Fallout if i'd plan to play it from the get go.

Now i'll usually avoid anything fandom related, til after the watch/playthrough - case in point: Undertale. I got actually intrigued when i've first heard about it. Luckily, i've also seen the early signs of incoming hypetrain, so now i try to limit myself from anything fan related until i play it myself. Which should be as soon as i have time, since the game is dirt cheap.

Also, following the Golden Rule, i try to not oversell things i enjoy myself to other people.

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

Well, I've gone from merely disliking Legend Of Korra to outright hating it, so I guess....?

Out of curiosity what in particular about the fandom drove you to hate the show? (personally I have yet to finish the series but I do feel like it was a good series at heart that had some pretty serious flaws pulling it down)

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

While not specifically an entire series, rabid fans of certain Fate/Stay Night or Tsukihime characters have made me go completely back on my previously good or neutral opinions on them. This includes basically the three main heroines of Fate/Stay Night (particularly Saber, but in general all 3 of them are poorly written, especially in comparison to Kinoku Nasu's best written ones) and Archer, all of whom I was relatively neutral on (and I'll admit to even liking Saber in Fate/Zero, where Urobuchi handled her better in every way), and now I despise them all.

So yeah, it's perfectly possible for other people in a fandom to ruin it or parts of it for me.

Yeesh, that bad huh? I will admit to liking Rin on a superfical level but yeah, she doesn't seem that developed looking back at it, in UBW especially, she flips from being assertive and in control of her relation with Shirou to the point of dragging him on a date to someone embarrassed when told that she and Shirou are a couple and lost a lot of her defiant attitude. I didn't think that the obsession over Rin and Saber was that insane or that the hate of Sakura was so strong (still haven't been given a reason why "Sakura is a *****" as one friend says)

As for the Fate Universe itself, I am probably one of those fans that proclaims Fate/Zero better than the majority of the Fate adaptations so I don't help the situation but I find that the Fate fandom seems awfully forgiving of not great to horrible writing and pretentious dialogue

Hmm, hard to say. Anime can have a pretty toxic fanbase sometimes. I know a ton of people who are casual fans of anime, and their pretty cool. They tend to gravitate toward Cowboy Bebop, Ghibli, or sometimes Eva. I like them pretty good. You also tend to have the film snobs and the more cultured anime fans, who watch Satoshi Kon and Oshii films. I like them best. But a sizable chunk of anime fans? Naruto obsessed, hentai watching, fetishistic fans. Some of these people really weird me out, I've met them in person.

I would say that the sizable chunk of anime fans from my view are more light novel adaptation obsessed folks that seem to have a high tolerance for self-insert characters, overly tropey tsundere female characters, some inclusion of incest for no real reason or the inclusion of overly technical magic systems (Yes, I will admit that I like Index for it but it is getting annoying when it gets in the way of characters).

Also, just out of question, how do you perceive me: one of the cultured fans?

 

[Fox12]

I would say that the sizable chunk of anime fans from my view are more light novel adaptation obsessed folks that seem to have a high tolerance for self-insert characters, overly tropey tsundere female characters, some inclusion of incest for no real reason or the inclusion of overly technical magic systems (Yes, I will admit that I like Index for it but it is getting annoying when it gets in the way of characters).

Also, just out of question, how do you perceive me: one of the cultured fans?

Most of the people on this site, with a few exceptions, tend to fall into the "cultured" category. Obviously, liking Satoshi Kon doesn't mean that they don't also enjoy DBZ or something, but it shows that their more aware of what's out there. All I really mean is that they tend to put more thought into why something is good or bad. Digibro, Goat Jesus, and even Demolition D, on youtube, tend to fall into these categories. So yeah, you definitely come across that way.

The film snobs (I mean that lovingly) tend to be people who watch The Godfather, Citizen Kane, or Stanley Kubrick films, and often want to work in film. They don't really watch a lot of anime, but when they do they tend watch people like Kon, and they respect him just as much as any other director. Someone like Roger Ebert would fall into this category.

The group I criticize tends to be the hardcore otaku fanbase. Most of the ones I've met have left a pretty bad impression on me, though that may simply be bad experiences talking. All they tend to watch is the latest shonen series, and they tend to dress up and act like their favorite characters. Which is fine, I'm totally cool with that. My problem is that I ran into a lot of sexism, racism, and homophobia. They couldn't really care less for the story, so long as there was a lot of fanservice, and they they'd talk at length about hentai. I know this isn't all, or even most, anime fans, but I do think it's a sizable chunk. I can sort of see why Miyazazki would have an issue with this subset of people, and while I think he was a little harsh, I do think they sometimes hurt the medium.

 

[Illesdan]

Star Trek fandom is pretty surreal. I don't even know if that's really a thing anymore since its been out of the public eye for awhile now, but seriously, I used to question the mental stability of some of the people I met through the fandom. Do you remember Barbara Adams, the juror that wore a Starfleet costume to the Whitewater hearings? Yeah, I used to write to her through the mail, but dropped out of touch shortly before the whole fiasco kicked off. Thankfully, not everyone in the fandom is coo-coo for coco puffs, but about 1 in five take it a little too seriously.

 

[HoneyVision]

The worst are the ones that don't know the difference between 'criticism' and "HATERZ!!!!!!1!!"

 

[Plucky]

not a fandom hate, but the sterotypical hate towards Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire. yes, retroactively they may have been a let down in comparison to the Fandom's common fondness of GSC. however even after drawing back from using fully animated sprites, 8bit noises into using soundfonts and upgrading color was a start, however it felt like a slight reboot of the franchise since so few old Pokemon appeared, and this was just after Pokemon started to drift down in popularity in the west. eventually you'd have to buy 3 lots of games to get a lot of pokemon, maybe there's a slight bit of crossing over with Emerald.

It's a single generation in the franchise, i get it. but traditionally Pokemon is one of those franchises that looks more archaic the further you look back the generations as you play more modern generations. it isn't something easy like Mario or Zelda can do. stuff like Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's pokemon selection may be a slight justification as hate, but it did bring back individual days of the week, internet and pseudo-3D graphics, it does lack in the story department to a degree however that and the Pokemon issue was neatened up with Platinum. the issue with the whole looking backwards thing is that GSC was pretty refined and made as much use as they can on the aging gameboy, even if they had to snip a few things like Viridian Forest and the Seafoam Islands which were eventually restored in HGSS along with music and a bunch of other things.


Another fandom? probably getting too close to a flame here. but Touhou. a franchise that's made out to be much more massive than its supposed to be, it has lots of fan art, doujinshi, music videos, flash cartoons and so on, it proliferates countless forums and possibly crosses over fandoms. but as a newer person, im only aware of a few characters, you'd probably have to go through lots of hurdles into actually playing the games themselves only to die a couple of stages into normal mode. trying to figure out the plot? good luck, the creator put a moratorium on talking about full games' plots in detail; so databases puts the plot into the character profiles themselves which would be hard considering how far a part character links were. even worse, this is a videogame series not a four-thousand-page flash cartoon series, it should be easy to get into....but it just isn't. you'd probably get looked down and would likely not get the full story/ending if you played on easier modes to boot.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Add another one in for My Little Pony.
I'm not a fan anymore, not that the fanbase has anything to do with that, I just lost interest, but even while I was still a fan, I couldn't deny that our online presence was extremely toxic.
The funny thing is that back when I was a fan, a friend and I went to a convention (cosplaying the FlimFlam brothers, it was awesome) and you know somethin'? The nicest people I ever met were at that con. Seriously, it was an extremely nice and friendly place. Then I went home and went online and it was like "Where did all those nice people go?" You know how sometimes (or most of the time) it's better just to stay out of the fire online? That's probably what it was.

And in my own way, I think I'm ruining comic books for my friends. They don't read a ton of comics and I'm constantly trying to shove them down their throats (already a bad move) and act like a hipster because I'm the only person in my friends-circle who reads them.
I should probably change my attitude.

 

[Loethlin]

I KNEW it's about SU the second I read "tumblr". A while ago, it would've been about Welcome to Night Vale. Or Legend of Korra. I just fucking knew.

OT: Oh man, the fandom I'm most active in right now, they almost did it for me 2 years ago. Let's just say that the fandom in question is... Intense. And it looks like there's no such thing as vocal minority. Everyone with a little interest in the show is vocal. I'm pretty sure OP can figure out what show I'm talking about, because "tumblr" and my avatar. Anyway, the fandom is divided into two large camps, and then there are some minor breaks within each camp. Every little scene gets dissected and there's a whole lot meta written about it, from every angle, right down to analysis of lighting choices, wardrobe, little signs (such as NO U TURN) that happened to be on the street it was filmed on, etc. And everyone's attitude is "my way or highway". But the big divide? That concerns SHIPS of all things. You either ship those two characters, or these two characters. No exceptions. Top it with the fact that some fans actually have a pull on people associated with the show, serve it with a nice gastrique of other fans DEMANDING a ship being made official (ok, I kind of get why they want it, bur demanding? really?) and as a side dish, have some tinfoil hatters trying to get the wives of the actors actually killed (nothing came out of it luckily, everyone's safe). Oh, oh, also, I forgot: Ship still not official, therefore QUEERBAITING!
Isn't this just so much fun?!
A "handful" doesn't even begin to cover it. It looks like no none can just enjoy the fucking show.
Well, I just want to enjoy the fucking show. I got into it bc of a nice car, nice music, and World of Darkness kind of feel. It's nice. I like it. But the fandom. Jesus H Christ.
But no. It got so bad after s8 that I really considered just flouncing, like so many other people did. But it dawned on me, that I can like the thing and you know. Not give a shit about what others think about the way I enjoy it, and no one can tell me how to enjoy it.
So I unfollowed most people associated with the grief, because who needs this bile spilled all over your fan activities all the time?
Now, I'm finally left alone to enjoy the show again, leave shipping where it's supposed to stay (in fanon, not canon), and I just shit out one or two fics a year, for Christmas and Halloween challenges.

Other of my franchises (long running, many shows, space opera) used to be the same but now with recent films, it calmed down a bit and now it's just the "get off my lawn" crowd vs the influx of new people.

 

[Drakmorg]

Nope. But that's because I've realized they're all extremely terrible and always do my best to keep away from groups of fans of anything.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Depends. On occasion, I am forced to interact with certain fanbases I would rather ignore, which means I either put up with them or I make sure to avoid them. In either case, that's being 'made to deal with them.' Like if I want to attend a midnight release for something, no matter how much I may like the game, I avoid certain ones; particularly anything Nintendo, Kingdom Hearts, or anything like that. It isn't an entire fandom though; it's the RABID fans. The squeeling, obnoxious people with mentalities ten years younger than their actual age, the kind that can't handle any sort of criticism about something they happen to love. Those are the kind of people I quickly get annoyed with, and they're often the loudest of their community. Conventions of any kind are almost completely out of the question for me now.

I don't let it stop me from enjoying a series in my own way, but I do have to go out of my way to avoid those types, because I don't mind having intelligent discussions about the pros and cons of various Final Fantasy titles, but I know that's never what I'm going to get. Like if I tell someone I didn't like Final Fantasy XII or XIII, I only get the two extremes - total agreement that both games were lacking or someone that flips out and tells me I only didn't like them because I 'didn't understand.' Which I guess isn't untrue, I really DON'T understand why someone would like them, but that's up to them, not me. Shit, my favorite Final Fantasy is FFVIII, but just because it's my favorite I don't delude myself into thinking it has no flaws. Objectively speaking, it's one of the weaker titles in the franchise. I just like it.

So no, fandoms don't ruin a series for me, but they do make enjoying it a bit more difficult if I'm ever forced to share the same space with them. When those communities start to blur the line between 'fandom' and 'fanatacism', I'd take standing in line with Call of Duty Dude-Bros over them any day of the week.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

To answer the main question - no, not really. I like what I like based on my own observations. I hold no fanons as being sacred and tend not to react to certain characters the way Tumblr's denizens might.

Take Ultron. I loved James Spader's take on the character and am saddened that he turned out to be a one-shot deal, but I'm not mentally erasing the circumstances of his demise or imagining that one of his drones got rescued by a kindly farmgirl.

"Protect this seven feet-tall smol* child!" says the fandom.

"Eh, there's comics where he's less of a dick, others where he's more of a dick and some where he's helpful. Continuity, schmontinuity. Take your pick," is my response.

* = small and possessed of sickeningly endearing qualities. Yes, that's a Tumblrism for you. Awful, isn't it?

 

[Saetha]

Add one more to the Souls series tally. I used to be really susceptible the to "If the fandom is terrible, it's grounds for hating the work," but I've been trying to overcome it and see things as they are. Just... haven't managed it yet with the Souls series. Holy shit, did their "This game is a ~true game~ because of it's ~incredible difficulty~ and all other games are snore-fests that could never hope to compare," schtick get old fast. Doesn't help that I had a really evangelical friend who wouldn't shut up about it.

Although I still really like Steven Universe, the fandom's maybe knocked my opinion down a few notches. Same with Legend of Korra, although by then my opinion was soured by the show itself, the fandom just ruined it further.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

When it gets to a point of influencing the show, like Supernatural, then fandoms can do a good series some real damage.

 

[infohippie]

I've been playing FF since Nintendo, and I don't do any of that shit you just described. Just because you do it, doesn't make it typical. You are not the metric by which "average" or "normalcy" is measured.

The guy's talking about the Japanese fanbase, they do that. The western fanbase is pretty much an afterthought, just as they are for all Japanese media. The marketing angle is always how to present this to Japanese fans in Japan, and the rest of the world just gets whatever scraps they can be bothered to translate and release. The western audience is never a consideration in any Japanese media.