Does anybody else find fan communities kind of weird?

[Drathnoxis]

Like that people take a work of fiction, and obsessively re-read and re-interpret it like it's the freaking bible. It's weird right? Like, I just popped into the King Killer Chronicles subreddit, because I was wondering how active a subreddit for a trash tier novel that's been waiting 10 years for a sequel could be, and it's crazy active. Just fan theories for days.

Now I like fiction, I spend most of my spare time engaging with it in it in some way, but I've never felt the compulsion to study it. It's just a book/show/game/etc. Any connection you can draw for *blank* character's true motives for doing *blank* after your 5th re-read is most likely some completely incidental interpretation that the author didn't even consider let alone consciously weave into the complex masterwork you think you are reading.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Like that people take a work of fiction, and obsessively re-read and re-interpret it like it's the freaking bible. It's weird right? Like, I just popped into the King Killer Chronicles subreddit, because I was wondering how active a subreddit for a trash tier novel that's been waiting 10 years for a sequel could be, and it's crazy active. Just fan theories for days.

Now I like fiction, I spend most of my spare time engaging with it in it in some way, but I've never felt the compulsion to study it. It's just a book/show/game/etc. Any connection you can draw for *blank* character's true motives for doing *blank* after your 5th re-read is most likely some completely incidental interpretation that the author didn't even consider let alone consciously weave into the complex masterwork you think you are reading.

What were you expecting when you "popped into the King Killer Chronicles subreddit, because [you were] wondering how active a subreddit for a trash tier novel that's been waiting 10 years for a sequel could be"? You find it weird that a thing might have an active fan base that's found a level of engagement beyond what you feel should be cursory interest? Let me tell you, there's very little difference between people with weird fetishes, and the people who Google "weird fetishes" out of curiosity...

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Isn't that kind of the point? Part of the fun of a fan community is the in-jokes, speculation and expressing the creativity something has inspired in you. It's a bunch of nerds geeking out over something they all enjoy. Sometimes these things can be cringey but sometimes being cringey is also part of the fun with self-mocking jokes.

 

[Drathnoxis]

What were you expecting when you "popped into the King Killer Chronicles subreddit, because [you were] wondering how active a subreddit for a trash tier novel that's been waiting 10 years for a sequel could be"? You find it weird that a thing might have an active fan base that's found a level of engagement beyond what you feel should be cursory interest? Let me tell you, there's very little difference between people with weird fetishes, and the people who Google "weird fetishes" out of curiosity...

Look, I was only Googling it because I'm re-reading a 50 000 word play-by-play hit piece on the KKC, and feel a completely rational level of hate toward the series that isn't obsessive at all. It's entirely reasonable, I swear!

Ok, maybe I'm just not creative enough to appreciate theorycrafting. I find it strange in fandoms of things I like as well as hate.

 

[Worgen]

Fan communities can be really fun, but fans can get super weird too. When fans start sending hate to the creators then that is over the line.

 

[Fallen Soldier]

After wasting my time at TFW2005, yes. Someone there got really pissed off that Mirage from the upcoming Transformers movie was a Porsche and not Jazz. It was really insane!

 

[evilneko]

Some are weird. Some are fun. Some are toxic. I mostly avoid them, to be honest, even though it can be interesting to discuss and analyze a show, or simply get someone else's analysis. Look at youtubers like Lore Reloaded or Spacedock.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Like that people take a work of fiction, and obsessively re-read and re-interpret it like it's the freaking bible. It's weird right?

I don't know, there's a lot of works of fiction that are better written than the bible and which you can get more out of.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I mean, just remember that "fan" is short for "fanatic".

 

[Dalisclock]

I don't know, there's a lot of works of fiction that are better written than the bible and which you can get more out of.

Dante got famous from writing bible fan fiction.

 

[davidmc1158]

Dante got famous from writing bible fan fiction.

Fanfiction that effectively became cannon in the community.

Also, just because I can, here's this:

 

[Dreiko]

I've been a member of a ton of fan communities but almost never rewatch or reread anything. I love analyzing and discussing stuff I'm a fan of but I don't limit myself to just one thing. So it's less fan communities that's weird and more just being a fan of one thing, like how star trek people are just into that one thing and not into all science fiction stuff. Now of course you can have favorites, and a couple super special things I can see revisiting, but it isn't my experience of fan communities to exclusively revisit a couple of things. Even things named after a specific IP like the old Narutofan forums were basically general anime and manga and videogame forums, and were only exclusively about naruto insofar as names go.

Also, it's really awesome when you go at a convention or a tournament and see people from those groups that you chatted with online, or see people recognize your nickname whom you never interacted with but they remember you. I've had that with gamefaqs and narutofan boards both and it's really cool to revisit those times. Also sometimes you lose touch and then run into eachother again, I had that happen with folks from the old atari boards (back when atari was the publisher of dbz games), including one of them who apparently ran the playasia twitter, who PMd me using the official account XD.

 

[BrawlMan]

Fan communities can be really fun, but fans can get super weird too. When fans start sending hate to the creators then that is over the line.

And that's if it's only the creators. Then you got those that harass and send death, or even rape threats to actors. Those people need to be hauled off to jail immediately.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Gonna expand outside of the spirit of this thread and offer than Formula 1 fans are extremely weird. I've joined quite a few F1 groups online, and must say, they are a very toxic bunch. There's little-to-no fun or earnest conversation to be had with them; they're too busy disparaging drivers they don't like or making others feel bad for liking drivers they don't feel are worthy of a fanbase. And in due if not-to-be-excused irony, the best drivers are the most divisive. After the 2021 season, if you're not dick-riding either Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen, you might as well tattoo "idiot" on your forehead and stop watching their coveted sport. I've never experienced so much hate for a thing from people who claim to enjoy said thing. They take no joy in the sport; they just "know better" than everyone else, and spend their time shitting on each other. I really want to go to an F1 race someday, but if I'm risking someone pissing on my "Bottas" T-shirt because they disagree, I'm more than happy to watch from home.

F1 and its fans are in a loveless relationship; they put on airs for the kids, friends and family, but inexorably, at the most recent dinner party, passive-aggressive barbs get tossed over sips of fine wine while all the hungry people sit uncomfortably waiting for the various courses of the meal to be served. Point in case: my favorite driver is moving to a lesser team from a dominate team in 2022, and I'm actually HAPPY about it because his name will likely fall out of the mouths of all the armchair team principles with "opinions." Win it all and be hated, or lose it all and be hated; there's no "love" anywhere, at least none that last for long. If Verstappen wins again in 2022, he'll become the F1 pariah Hamilton is presently.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

 

[Drathnoxis]

I clicked on the video just to see what point you were making, saw it was over an hour and was only going to watch a couple minutes and ended up watching the entire thing. It was fascinating.

I had no idea that the genre of Garfield Horror was so well developed. I'd heard about Garfield Minus Garfield years ago, and recently I'd seen SuperGreatFriend retweeting a bunch of bizarre Garfield art but I had no idea it was so huge. Frankly, I think I need to delve deeper into the Garfield fandom and see some of this stuff for myself because it seems really interesting.

Despite being really weird, it's definitely not what I was talking about in the OP as this twisting and deforming of Garfield isn't born out of fanaticism and admiration, but out of subtle malice and dislike for the characters, newspaper comics, and just commercialism in general. It is definitely really weird, though.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Despite being really weird, it's definitely not what I was talking about in the OP as this twisting and deforming of Garfield isn't born out of fanaticism and admiration, but out of subtle malice and dislike for the characters, newspaper comics, and just commercialism in general. It is definitely really weird, though.

I don't know that there's really a line that you can draw there. Are you only a fan of a work if you like everything about that work? If you criticize a piece of media does that mean you aren't a fan of it?

A lot of the content shown in that video took people days or weeks to create. That's a huge amount of time spent in their lives thinking about and analyzing Garfield. Just because their works don't end up looking upon Garfield favorably doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't "fans" of the work, given that they're putting in the same level of obsession and enthusiasm as the people who do absolutely unironically love Garfield.

I absolutely adore the Dark Souls series (as you can probably tell by my avatar) but I could spend hours talking about everything wrong with the games in great detail to the point that you may think that I hate them, and then I'd spend the same amount of time explaining why the games are awesome and give you a glowing recommendation as to why you should play them.

I think that's part of makes fandoms weird and interesting. You don't have to enthusiastically love every part of a work in order to be part of the community obsessing over it.