Poll: "They just hate it because it's popular."

[TornadoFive]

I don't hate things purely because they're popular. But that is often the root of the problem.

Example - Justin Bieber

Now, I don't like his music. Not to my tastes. But having said that, I don't mind if YOU like his music. Eveyone has different tastes, that's what makes the world an interesting place.

However, I don't like the guy himself. And I think part of the reason for that is that because he's so popular (unwarrated in my opinion, but that's another story) he attracts a lot of irritating fans. The way they practically worship him really annoys me. And thats part of the reason I don't like him.

I know the same could be said for any well-known artist, but that was the easy example.

 

[cp2u]

I've never hated something strictly because it was popular, but if something is bad AND popular, that means there will be more like it on the way, which makes me hate it more.

 

[elcamino41383]

I have to admit at very first, I started hating NickelBack about the same time they got popular, and that kind of added to it. But after a little time it became because of the fact that they just suck (in my not so humble opinion.) I liked their earlier stuff, but after Silver Side Up they became way too generic. Theory of a Deadman followed the same formula, had a good sound at first, quickly went generic.

The whole "you just hate it because it's popular" is just annoying and I've seen it used far too often on these forums. I don't "hate" Twilight because it's popular. I "hate" it because to me it kind of shits all over the whole mythos of vampires and werewolves (thing I admittedly never cared that much about to begin with.) That and it's fans are generally pretty stupid and annoying. I "hate" Harry Potter (at least the movies) because when I sat down and actually watched the first 4 movies, they bored me to death. I "hate" Call of Duty/Halo/Borderlands/etc because they are first person shooters and I've not been able to really enjoy a FPS since GoldenEye007.

 

[Eisenfaust]

something being popular has caused my attention to be focused on it... at which point i figure out that i do hate it, so popularity has a... transcendental effect, but no, i've never hated anything purely because it's popular

 

[Hoist_that_Rag]

Alright seriously no one listen to this guy he's the king of the cave dwelling reptiles.

Let me just ask you Mr. 1243 forum posts because clearly you know better than all and sundry, what is art? What's that? Seriously? "Rembrandt" who? "Sacred Mirrors" what? Get out of town really? Well Dali, Warhol, Picasso and John Lennon all dabbled in films and even the most stringent of elitist scum can't deny them. Fuck off all of them? At once? On film? Wait and what? You mean that the whole of Citizen Kane is a commercial for peas and that Rashomon was just bacteria from Hiroshima caught in a lens? Fuck I guess you are right.

Sorry mate but you saying that means that the basic, purest concept of what art is must be completely lost on you. Keep looking though seriously, just don't for a minute think you get it because you are so far off. Oh and the only reason you keep seeing average is because that's all you're looking for, I'm guessing it must be so you can spit your popcorn at it constantly as a half-assed weight-loss scheme. Or maybe you just find ALL arthouse & auteur driven cinema to be pretentious crap in which case you're too ignorant to be an elitist and we'll be sending some officials over in the morning to take your gun and badge.

 

[Ren3004]

Well, sort of... Let's say, Twilight. I've never read any of the books, or watched any of the films. It's not marketed towards me, and it just doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy. The reason I want it to be destroyed in a fire is because I have to put up with my female friends going on about how cute Robert Pattinson is. And because when I go to a bookstore I see about 10000 books with covers reminiscent of Twilight that could as well be called "We wrote this in an afternoon and are expecting it to make millions because it has fancy letters." And because they made a freaking TV series that's Twilight in high school. With characters that look the same. And because even freaking ads for an office supplier got a vampire thrown in for no reason during the "Back to school" season.

So yeah, something that I have absolutely no interest in, blown way beyond proportion, to the point where I couldn't go out without getting it shoved in my face can get so annoying that it makes me want to hurt people.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I always have plenty of reasons to hate what I hate. I don't hate popular, I hate what popular can do to an industry. That's why we get more and more cover based shooters in video games, they make money because people will always buy them and all companies care about is the money. Then they just make a game with similar mechanics. It creates stagnation.

 

[BaconPunch]

Only songs. Name one recent song that evrybody has heard of that isn't about love.

Exactly

 

[Slythernite]

Things that are popular and people I don't like seem to go hand in hand. It's not really that I don't like things that are popular, like music or games, it's that I can't STAND the people around them, so I choose to play or listen to different things.

Take Call of Duty, I don't mind the game so much, but I can't STAND the player-base, so I don't play it. It just happens to be popular. So I don't like something that's popular not because of it's popularity but because some of its attributes, that usually gets misconstrued as not liking it because of its popularity.

However, I also find myself enjoying things that are different, simply because I like new things. Popular things are the kinds of thing I see every day, they get old, I move to something new and generally less popular.

 

[Thaliur]

You're talking to a guy who thought the first Transformers movie was awesome, and who prefers The Chronicles of Riddick over Pitch Black.

I am, I suppose, easily seduced by shiny graphics. It's a character flaw.

I don't know the Chronicles of Riddick, but I have to agree about the first Transformers movie being awesome. I wouldn't call its graphics "shiny" though. Still, the story was way better than any of the recent ones. Then again, maybe I am slightly blinded by nostalgia. Unicron would still eat the Fallen for breakfast. Literally, probably.

Not purely because of the popularity, but as one of the first posters said, the hate can be easily multiplied when it's popular.
Example: I loathe the acting in Big Bang Theory. It is simply beyond me how anyone anywhere could find it funny. Yet people constantly ask me if I'm following the series. I rage, they say I just hate it because it's popular.

I've more or less accepted bad acting as being a stilistic element in US-produced sitcoms. I can't tell the exact purpose, but it seems to be a common element in pretty much all of them, with some that manage to pull themselves slightly above the average US sitcom mud (Frasier, it was actually quite good.).

A British remake of Big Bang Theory might be great, if whatever happened when the US decided to make their own "Coupling" also works in reverse.
Probably wouldn't happen though, the UK has its own (fantastic and mostly original) sitcom concepts, and there's already the IT Crowd for science-related jokes.

 

[Verlander]

No, but somethings popularity generally draws attention from people who immediately question if it deserves such celebration. This high level of critique often shows up the holes in things that don't deserve the respect that they get.

Things that are truly brilliant needn't worry. Like classic films or literature

 

[nuba km]

no, my hatred of call of duty is because it is average most of the time, has some good moments in singleplayer, but a terrible multiplayer a lot of the time and that it is popular BECAUSE of those things. I don't hate legendary, which is a worse game, because I can ignore it (also at least it tried something different) and isn't called the best game ever by people who have nothing to compare it to.

 

[SideSmash]

Somewhere in the video game world, Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2 and GTA IV are crying in a corner for being "too popular." Seriously, if you don't like something simply because it's popular, you need to smash your head into a wall and realize why you hate it.

 

[Tyzamar]

A friend of mine says he hates the beatles all the damn time. But we all know he's just saying he doesn't like them because everyone else does.

 

[LadyMint]

That and other things. I'm anti-hype, which just means that when something is noticeably praised by nearly everyone whose job it is to have an opinion about it (critics, reviewers, newspapers, etc.), my knee-jerk reaction is to be suspicious. Popularity can be subjective, anyway, and to get you to show financial interest in a product, companies will usually only show the most positive reviews they can gain. There's nothing wrong with this practice but I have seen people who will blindly shovel their hard-earned cash in the direction of something without doing more research, and I just don't want to do that.

So yeah. Sometimes when I hear, "Everyone loves X so you're a fool not to love it, too," my response tends to be, "We'll see about that."

 

[Tourmeta]

No, but some kind of fans can make it harder to like.

 

[Thespian]

I saw avatar, thought it was okay. Too long, lacked heart, but fun. I didn't like it.

That dislike was aggravated into hate by all the god-damn fans who told me I had misinterpreted my own opinion and that avatar was, in fact, the best movie ever.

>_>

 

[KiraTaureLor]

Since you're reading this on an internet forum, it's probably safe to assume you've all encountered this particular phrase or some variation thereof.

It inevitably emerges when someone who enjoys a popular and/or successful product encounters someone who does not. Common examples include Avatar, Call of Duty and Harry Potter. The accusation is generally accompanied by the suggestion that the 'hater' is motivated by the desire to be an independently minded person who does not simply follow the crowd.

...

Really? I mean... really?

Does anyone actually do this? Because I find it a bit hard to swallow.

Seriously, I'm curious. Have you - yes, you - ever decided to hate something purely because other people like it?

I don't hate something because it's purely popular, but a lot of games, movies, and books I dislike are popular. I have a unique taste.

However I do resent certain things for being popular because other things deserve it better.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

I used to do that all the time when i was a kid. Fortunately, i grew out of it around 20. Now i try to be sure that i judge things on their own merits, rather than knee-jerk anti-populism. Thus, i don't dislike Twilight because it's popular, but rather 'cause it's frakkin' stupid.

 

[Weskerbot3000]

i like things that are good
i hate things that are shit
simple enough
don't care about how popular or obscure it is