Fan base insanity

IOwnTheSpire

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FalloutJack said:
HOWEVER, this man is also a real dick. I feel the more legitimate complaints would therefore be in him being a bad person who writes rather well...when he gets around to it.
I'm curious why you'd say Martin is a dick/bad person. He's always seemed mostly amicable in interviews I've seen.
 

visiblenoise

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I think I must have spent all of my rage when I was 15 getting angry about my mom not letting me play video games, because I don't get angry about anything at all these days. Sometimes I get heated, but then I immediately start to analyze why, and I never have a good reason.
 

sageoftruth

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Queen Michael said:
MiskWisk said:
I'm generally not confident enough to really give people shit unless they start first. That said, I will get rather... tetchy if people start being dicks about something I like without any actual reason to do so other than, "I heard from a friend that it was shit."

I do also have a significant problem with people who legitimately think Draco in leather pants [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DracoInLeatherPants] and Ron the Death Eater [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RonTheDeathEater] are good things. It's disturbing the amount of vitriol they can spew to fictional characters and makes me honestly nervous about their actual character. Well, it would if I didn't have to hold my reaction to effectively shout them down.
I hear you. I once saw a FFVII fan who'd concocted a ridiculously elaborate fan theory in order to make Sephiroth the good guy. I can't stand fans whose mental image of a character clearly differs completely from the actual character. If you only like a distorted Sephiroth who has tea parties with Cloud, and giggles when he gets cream on his nose and lets Cloud lick it off, then you don't like Sephiroth.
That's pretty much why I tend to shy away from fanfiction and limit myself to fiction with original characters. I just get uncomfortable seeing someone take an existing character and re-shape them in the author's own image.
 

FalloutJack

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Nov 20, 2008
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IOwnTheSpire said:
FalloutJack said:
HOWEVER, this man is also a real dick. I feel the more legitimate complaints would therefore be in him being a bad person who writes rather well...when he gets around to it.
I'm curious why you'd say Martin is a dick/bad person. He's always seemed mostly amicable in interviews I've seen.
Ah, a while back, I read a couple of reports (Here, on the site, with links to their sources), about a couple of things that started rubbing me the wrong way about the guy. You see, he has been taking his time with the books, enough that his serial is passing him by and he originally had a very good head start on them, several books, even allowing for compression because shows and books are never the same length. Still, he did two things that I feel any fan of his work (I just watch the show, honestly.) would be mad at. First, and this is in regards to him being an older fella, he has said that if he dies, his book series should go with him, as in not even attempted to be finished. This is unfair. Now granted, you own your own stuff and you have the right to do whatever, but people eat this series up. To not even allow someone to attempt to finish it in a manner to do it justice is rude. The second one is more simple than that. In response to fans asking about the completion of his books in regards to his age and his health, he was shown to give the middle finger. I know fans can be a pain sometimes, but they actually had a point. It was a concern. Think of Douglas Adams' death. So much material that eventually found its way to The Salmon of Doubt. This was going to be a new book or books some day. He had plans. Everyone understands how writers hate deadlines, but the FINAL one worries us all.

So, it's nothing personal, really. Just a couple telling incidents that bugged me.
 

FalloutJack

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Charcharo said:
Cross my lengthier post above with "I didn't say this made his writing bad". Then again, I noted someone referring to the show having better pacing because of the pages-and-pages of characters holding the Idiot Ball while others are engaged heavily in the Thirty Xanatos Pile-Up in a manner that could have been more succinct. I could believe that, assuming I'd read it all. I just watch the show.
 

Fappy

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The Dragon Ball fanbase is a hilariously bizarre cross-section of every kind of crazy fanboy trope out there. It's one of those fanbases that isn't just divided on one or two major things, but on virtually every aspect of the brand.

Examples: GT is shit, Z is shit, DB is shit, Great Saiyaman is shit, Vegeta should be the main character, Broly is overrated, Chi Chi is shit forever, etc. etc.

It's also interesting how broad the demographic of hardcore fans is. Like, there are plenty of large hardcore fanbases out there, but I know of very few that are so diverse in their ethnic, economic and racial backgrounds. Not only that, but people are devoted to the franchise for wildly different reasons. There are those who are obsessed with power levels, who is stronger than who, etc. and those that couldn't give a shit and just want to have a laugh/watch some cool fights.

I lurk on the Dragonball subreddit occasionally, which is an interesting blend of perspectives. As far as I can tell, no specific ideology eclipses the others (though GT is widely regarded as shit by 60%+ of the userbase).

Then there is r/Berserk, which has like... two or three decent consistent posters. A lot of the rest of them are man-baby edge lords who can't handle any amount of criticism - or worse, Griffith apologists >.<
 

Imre Csete

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Jul 8, 2010
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I pretty much ended visiting the BioWare forums around a year ago, but I was frequenting the place since the old-old forums, where you could register your BG/NWN games. Even if you put aside the Dragon Age 2 marketing bullcrap and the ME3 ending, there are some legit scary dudes who forced the mods to lock entire subforums up for good.

You can never be so attached and protective of anything like the talimancers who made 10k+ pages long threads in a matter of weeks, making the forum motor unstable, by producing NSFW content so fast the boards were unmoddable. And when you pissed off the waifu guys, you were in for a show. So most fanbase rants are pretty chill. :D
 

CrazyGirl17

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Sep 11, 2009
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I've said it before, I'll say it again, internet needs a taser option. I am so sick and tire of writing that (especially since I'd probably be abused by morons), I wish there was a way to track down people like that.

I mean, I love Steven Universe, but the behavior of some fans makes my blood boil.

And it's not just some Steven Universe fans. There are certain people in certain fandoms, like Sonic the Hedgehog, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and others who I feel should be muzzled. Harsh, yes, but frankly, I think it's about time we start putting our foot down, before things get worse.

...Sorry for ranting, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
 

IOwnTheSpire

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Dr. McD said:
Bioware fans
Just look at the Mass Effect 3 ending, Bioware outright lied about their product, saying they would have more than 3 endings, not only did they lie about that but they lied about the ME being the end of the series, as the "ending" has very little to do with what happens in the games, not really tying up any plot threads and even introducing it's own nonsensical metaphysical plot. Also, according to the fandom I'm supposed to buy into the idea that for millions of years various civilizations have worked on building the Crucible WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT IT IS OR HOW IT WORKS.

The fandom's response was to insult anybody who didn't mindlessly buy into this garbage. Bioware asked their audience to buy THREE games, not one, but THREE games, a rather hefty financial investment for those of who work for a living, and a hefty time investment for anyone still in school, let alone anyone both in school and with a job, for this bullshit, and the fanboys are surprised when anyone with functioning brain dares demand better.
I think you're a bit confused; for the most part, the fans who hated the ending were the ones who acted like a bunch of spoiled and entitled brats, demanding that Bioware change the ending simply because they didn't like it.
 

TakerFoxx

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Jan 27, 2011
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CrazyGirl17 said:
I've said it before, I'll say it again, internet needs a taser option. I am so sick and tire of writing that (especially since I'd probably be abused by morons), I wish there was a way to track down people like that.

I mean, I love Steven Universe, but the behavior of some fans makes my blood boil.

And it's not just some Steven Universe fans. There are certain people in certain fandoms, like Sonic the Hedgehog, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and others who I feel should be muzzled. Harsh, yes, but frankly, I think it's about time we start putting our foot down, before things get worse.

...Sorry for ranting, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
You ever notice that it's usually the optimistic franchises with the colorful, cartoony mascots that tend to attract these sorts of fans? I mean, the more pessimistic franchises like Game of Thrones or Buffy or whatever have fnadoms that are just as large, but don't have nearly the same reputation for drama that the more innocent ones do.
 

EternallyBored

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Jun 17, 2013
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TakerFoxx said:
CrazyGirl17 said:
I've said it before, I'll say it again, internet needs a taser option. I am so sick and tire of writing that (especially since I'd probably be abused by morons), I wish there was a way to track down people like that.

I mean, I love Steven Universe, but the behavior of some fans makes my blood boil.

And it's not just some Steven Universe fans. There are certain people in certain fandoms, like Sonic the Hedgehog, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and others who I feel should be muzzled. Harsh, yes, but frankly, I think it's about time we start putting our foot down, before things get worse.

...Sorry for ranting, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
You ever notice that it's usually the optimistic franchises with the colorful, cartoony mascots that tend to attract these sorts of fans? I mean, the more pessimistic franchises like Game of Thrones or Buffy or whatever have fnadoms that are just as large, but don't have nearly the same reputation for drama that the more innocent ones do.
Dunno about you, but I hear plenty about the drama in adult fandoms, seriously, Supernatural, Twilight, and Pro Wrestling fans have some seriously messed up drama in their fandoms, and that's just scratching the surface. X-Files fandom practically popularized the concept of Shipping drama in the 90's, and Star Trek fans may have faded from the spotlight, but Trek conventions have had all out fist fights in the past over petty fandom drama. Supernatural fan drama has gotten so loud that the actual show writers have poked fun of their fans in episodes. The differences tend to stem from the nature of the property rather than the fandoms themselves.

On one end, no one gives a shit if you draw Danerys porn because the show and books are adult and thus already full of sexual themes. On the flipside, you draw pictures of Sonic porn and you have instant drama in the form of people trying calling about "think of the children" or equating it to pedophilia if the characters are underage (Steven Universe) or of ambiguous age (MLP), the more "innocent" the show, the more you attract people that view defiling that innocence as something worth fighting over, no one wants to protect the innocence of Breaking bad, because none of the characters really had any innocence to begin with. The "innocence" also tends to draw in people that talk about the innocence and family-friendly nature of the property and try to enforce it within the fandom in other ways beyond just porn.

You also have an increased insularity and defensiveness because wider society tends to look down on more niche fandoms, especially something like children's shows, as it once again draws accusations of immaturity, autism, and pedophilia, regardless of the size or drama the fandom has caused. You can see similar defensiveness in other fandoms like Twilight, the increased negative perception from outside causes, usually already somewhat socially isolated fans, to withdraw further and defend themselves in increasingly pleading and irrational ways. I remember trek and D&D fans reacting similarly in the 80's when popular media had a tendency to pick on them.

Finally, you've got size, Nobody has more drama than sports fans, no sonic fans have ever rioted, to the tune of millions of dollars in damages, over their fandom, or actually killed people over it, but because sports is part of the mainstream culture, the insane fans are drowned out of popular perception by the ocean that is mainstream appeal. I've seen hysterical drama take place in forums discussing the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, but the sheer number of people usually quickly drowns that drama in a sea of voices. MLP is considered a fairly large fandom on some corners of the internet, but they might as well be non-existent compared to most mainstream shows and adult properties, even moderately popular adult properties will become much larger than kids properties by orders of magnitude.

There's also the issue of "innocent" properties also tend to draw in their actual target audience, which means you are mixing adults with pre-teens and teenagers. Look at the ages of the Steven Universe fans on Tumblr propagating most of the drama, a few young adults, but also a crap ton of 13-18 year olds, same for Sonic fandom, some of the most notorious fans may be older, but there are still a lot of young kids drawing their shitty self insert OCs, or Harry Potter with its legion of teenage girls fighting over which male characters should be shipped together, meanwhile Breaking Bad is mostly going to be composed of people 20 and older. When you get a lot of 30+ year olds together, the level of patience for petty ass pre-teen drama tends to drop drastically, although it can easily be replaced by other types of drama, older people tend not to have the free time to embark on online harassment campaigns the same way 14-25 year olds do.

Although individual circumstances can also be contributing factors, like age of the property, or its attachment to related fandoms, like MLP and Sonic to furries, or Steven Universe to Tumblr's gender debates, which carries its own history and set of baggage. There really is no one single reason, I doubt I've even scratched the surface, and I've been in a ton of fandoms for over 20 years at this point, and was raised by relatives who went to trek conventions in the 70's and LOTR roleplaying groups in college in the 60's.
 

Super Cyborg

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There are two fan bases I find hilarious many of the times, one which I belong to (I?ll let you make the guess).

Bleach
I?ve seen on sites where people write thesis length posts on just one chapter. They take every little symbol and use the meanings of characters names to go into detail about what the chapter was conveying. There was a certain kind of tree in a chapter, and because a character?s name meant that kind of tree they assumed that character was going to become relevant, which said character didn?t. Using the symbols, they assume a character is based on a different character from a religion or something. They go into detail about how one small detail must mean they be like other said character. With that, they claim that said Bleach character is now fully developed and has motivation. The people who post these chapter thesis than get others saying how great Kubo is, and how deep the series is.

This is the funniest thing I?ve seen from a fan base.

One Piece
Ever since the time skip, people complain about pacing and how things were better before. Fans don?t realize that things are much different reading a chapter every week and finishing an arc over the span of a few years is very different from reading an arc in the span of a day or two. Fans are quick to call anything and everything pointless because anything brought up wasn?t wrapped up right away.

For a slow paced series that has been going on for so long, this fan base can be really impatient.
 

Rip Van Rabbit

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I tend not to get too heavily involved with fandoms. My experiences with them is mostly for information about details that I may have missed/reading them funny internetwebz memez. If things start go the drama route, I tend to steer clear and pull away from that particular group -- not the thing that I'm showing an interest in.

There are many shows/games/stories that I love and adore. It's only natural that one will encounter an individual/group or community that runs counter to what I enjoy for various subjective and perfectly valid reasons. Debate is fine, the exploration of different views is great! But that is rarely the case in an online setting. I find that people devolve into arguing and pedantic nitpicking in order to put someone else down for what they like. Hell, it is much more difficult to be openly positive about something without strapping a few disclaimers to every statement without being accused of being blinded by hype or willful ignorance. It's easy to be cynical & jaded and tear down something that someone else actually loves, I mean, that makes it all the more difficult for someone to legitimately express excitement without getting backlash --- and that's sad.

I strongly dislike elitism.
I haven't seen anything positive come from those that try to prop themselves above others with their superior taste.
By all means, if you are passionate about something, that is fantastic! If you have fair criticism for something, that's fine!
But don't celebrate your taste or tear something down at the expense of others.
 

NPC009

Don't mind me, I'm just a NPC
Aug 23, 2010
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Back when I was a teen, I was one of the few within my year who had a N64 instead of PlayStation. I remember getting pretty defensive over it. Fortunately, I mellowed out soon after, because I realised two things:

1. The main reason I was so defensive, was because I spend my own money on that N64. If I wasn't happy with it, it would have been a waste. I didn't want it to be a mistake. And despite the greatness of games like Super Mario 64, there were months I didn't have anything new to look forward to. So I had to convince myself I bought the right console. Meanwhile, the PlayStation owners did the exact same thing, because it's not as if you can plan GoldenEye on your Sony console. The result was a lot of stupidity.

2. I have no control over books, movies and games and other entertainment I consume. These things were made by other people, people I don't even know. Some stories or characters resonate with me, but I don't think they could truly represent me. They are not my creations nor where they created for me specifically, so I should not take them personally. Besides, even if I really liked one installment, the next one may be vastly different. I might love it, I might hate, I may be indifferent - and that's all fine, as long as I'm not feeling anything out of some false obligation or misguided loyalty.

I figure most teens will come to similar conclusions eventually and will grow up into adults who can just enjoy things for what they are, instead of tying their identity to them.

Well, maybe not... If sports fans are any indication... Or that group of nearly elderly Tolkien fans I keep seeing at certain events...

Oh well. There's another thing I realised: making new fans is more fun than just being a fan. Introducing someone to a series or game they come to love is rewarding, as it's proof you have a good understanding of what that person likes (instead of just blindly shoving things you like in their face). Plus, you get a new fan to fangirl with and that's always fun. Elitist gatekeepers will never experience that joy.