Good thread, I've been meaning to start a topic similar to this one for a while. I'm an overcritical asshole, and when I discuss media with people, they always take an antagonistic approach to arguing back. I never really understood why, because I'm criticizing something that someone else made, and yet the people who like it respond with personal attacks against me, as if I've personally insulted them. Or they dismiss me as a troll if I don't like what they like. Then, I read some game reviewer's blog, I forget whose it was now, but apparently he has a strong anti-fan following, with the shit-huskers of the gaming community following his posts solely to condemn him in the comments section, and I had a hate-epiphany: these imbeciles actually are devoted to the entertainment they consume. They think it's a part of who they are, that it's a part of them, and take every nasty word said about something that isn't them, personally. Which is hilariously pathetic, of course. I'm beginning to sympathize with developers who misuse the word "entitled" when describing their fans.
Identity.
Have we forgotten Fight Club already? ?You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. I agree wholeheartedly, but maybe for different reasons as the author--I am not a gamer. I am not a cinema nerd. I am not a comic geek. Rather, I am an amalgamation of all of these things, and more, with these subculture designators being relegated to hashtag keywords on the twitter post of my persona. Look, world, I'm Dick Wig Sixty-Nine, #gamer #archer #lover #hater #goodwithanimals #greatcook #masterdebaterslashmastermasturbator. While they do describe things I like, or little fragments of me, I'm not just those things; those things are those things, separate and distinct, from me. Moreover, your opinion of them has absolutely no bearing over my ability to enjoy them except, of course, if they really aren't very good, and I simply didn't notice it until someone pointed it out to me. Which, unless I'm overly concerned with external opinions of me, shouldn't really matter.
Is that it, then? Were they willing participants in blissful ignorance, and now that I've robbed them of their ignorance, the seen will never be unseen? Or are they so worried with about what other, random people think of them that it overpowers their own ability to think for themselves? Is it some bizarre(to me) emotional reaction to an attack on an inanimate object with which they've bonded emotionally, and when I insult it it's tantamount to spitting on their wife? I still don't know all the particulars, just that they actually do take it seriously, a phenomenon with which I simply cannot relate on any level.
For the sake of this thread's poll, I chose to argue with them, because I like arguing. It's a very productive pastime, actually. You learn a little more about them, they learn a little more about you. Maybe they have good reasons for liking or disliking something that you're missing--I'm always open to that possibility, simply by virtue of different people responding differently to the same stimuli due to various deviations in personality. Echo chamber cranks are one step removed from the Unibomber, so I do my best to be a well-rounded crank. So, for that reason alone, I chose "argue with them." But, at the end of the day, I really don't care whether or not they like what I like. Unless it somehow deprives me of it, then it's fightin' time.
