It's a much shorter list of fandoms I don't hate, and therefore still consider myself a part of them. (Seriously, why would I stay in a community I can't stand...? I can be a fan without being part of the larger fan community.)
Obviously, since I'm still (sometimes) here, Baldur's Gate. This forum in particular is a rare oasis of people just discussing a game in a civil fashion, with a peaceful co-existance of roleplayers and powergamers. Sure, there always some black sheep - I remember the guy who announced he would ragequit if Hexxat would turn out as a "deviant pervert" (by which he meant "lesbian"), for example - but there are so few, they can mostly be brushed off as temporary court jesters. Such people rarely ever got support from the community, and that's what makes the community as a whole the better people. If the entire community is full of homophobe racists and the odd person disagreeing with them gets shunned, you know it's time to find a new community.
Then, the one "fandom" I don't quite understand myself - Falling Skies. Falling Skies started out as a decent post apocalyptic scifi show and steadily declined in quality, reaching critical stupidity mass in season 4, yet still managing to get a 5th season. The show itself sucks balls by now. It's painfully stupid. And every single person in the fandom agrees with that. Boards and blogs are full of ex-fans who still love the idea of what the show could have been, never tire of coming up with realistic ways to "at least make the last season not suck THAT much" and generally watch to laugh/hate. During season 3, the camp was somewhat evenly divided between "I already invested a lot time, can as well see where it goes/maybe it recovers" and "it's like a car crash/I want to see just how hard it can crash and burn". During season 4, it all shifted to the latter. And it's so peaceful, trolls get bored. There are - rarely - trolls showing up on boards with the usual "OMG this show sucks!!!!1"... and get nothing but "yup, agreed" replies. It's considered successful trolling to claim the show doesn't suck, and I haven't seen a believable claim to that end all year. I'm not sure all this still qualifies as "fandom" though.
Everything else, no matter how much I love the work, has fanbases I just don't get.
I agree with the posting (somewhere) above, about Star Trek fans being horrible elitists. In Star Trek Online, you get the usual gamers who rage about everyone else being a bad player, everything being in need of a nerf, this and that new feature being bad, bla. Nothing to do with Star Trek at all. Though, if you stay away from forums and open chats, and talk to individual players, you usually talk to polite, helpful person who is happy to answer whatever question you have, in proper English. There is very little "LV67DPSCrtD w/ ABC, DEF, ROFL" speak. The real idiots linger in roleplay (which is barely existant in STO). For the past... 6, 7 years? I've been trying to get a roleplay together, and while there are large Trek RP communities on the chats, the people in it are horrible. A surprisingly large number has never seen more than a few episodes TNG, is at a loss what all these (well known) species are, have zero grasp on basic lingo, yet consider themselves authorities on "how Trek RP should be done". Now, I'm not saying you need to know the exact starship layout and tech, but you should at least know what a science officer DOES if you PLAY one. I can't play a thief or a bard if I have no idea what thieves or bards generally do. Yet this makes up a LARGE part of the so-called roleplay community: hundreds of people who all want to be captain, with no clue what a captain even does. In my despair, I brought in a few friends who had indeed only watched a few episodes TNG. The "elite veteran players" we spent a single session with instantly considered them super elite veterans due to their vast knowledge. From just paying attention for 2 or 3 episodes. I admit I don't know if Picard captained the Enterprise-C or D. It's been 20 years that I've seen the movies and the Original Series (which I did not find very impressive). But I do have to wonder how people can be "fans" of something they have basically no knowledge of at all, and even claim to be "authorities" on it if they don't recognize species that were prominently featured in at least half of all works. (Yes, I have met Star Trek fans who didn't know what Klingons, Andorians or Cardassians are.) (Edit to clarify, that's not the in game chat - I get that not every gamer is a super fan of the game's lore and it's fine to play something for the combat mechanics, graphics, general gameplay and so on. The "roleplayers" I'm talking about are in general social chats and boards.)
TV/Movie fandoms in general are awful, and the reasons often extend to books/comics/games, too. I do simply not understand the obsession with... well, so many things.
Nothing annoys me more than people who assume familiarity with actors or writers - "Brad did a great job in Se7en", "Jessica looks terrific in the new movie", "I wish Steven would focus his writing more on character bla". Most recently, I've seen people being completely outraged about a writer giving hints about his show in interviews - "OMG he spoilers his own show, how dare he, he ruins it for me". Wut? I didn't even know the guy can talk. I've never read any interviews with him, nor would I know where to find them (save putting "name + interview" in Google). It's a mystery to me why people just can't stay away from "behind the scenes" stuff. If I don't want spoilers, I don't go where I might find them. I don't read TV Tropes or Wikis or anything currently airing, I don't go to boards that aren't spoiler tag nazis. Simple solution. Guess it's the celeb worship in general I don't understand. Once upon a time, an actor from Falling Skies reblogged my article about the show and his character (during season 2, before it sucked so much) and later offered interviews to the blog I wrote for. That was the last time said blog heard from me. I do not want to "know" the actors or writers or producers; I do not want "exclusive behind the scenes" information, I just want to watch a show and suspend disbelief in peace.
Then, I don't get the shipping/fan fiction/OMG so hawt stuff. Currently, one of my favorite characters on TV is a beared woman played by Kathy Bates, and I respectfully claim that this is the opposite of "so hawt". I like characters to be interesting and I give a damn how they look as long as it fits the role. Yet every fan forum/blog about every movie, TV show, band, you name it, is full of "OMG person is so hot/sexy/bla". I do not understand how the looks of the person playing a character can be THE most important factor in the popularity of the character. Or how the attractiveness of a musician translates to good music. Why everyone has to be "shipped". Why every story needs to be a goddamn love story. Why the sexual orientation of a character has any relevance if it is - for once - not a love story (see Hexxat example above - what does it matter if she's a lesbian if your party simply needs a thief?). All that seems to be so damn important to people, and no matter how hard I try, I can't relate. And the longer I watch these discussions in any given fandom, the more these people creep me out. Special mention goes to teenage girls obsessing over actors who could be their grandfathers, write torture porn fanfiction or condone sexual harrassment (I forgot which band it was, just that the clearly adult singer had not-so-appropriate relations with minors and the fans didn't mind).
Most recently, I quit reading the American Horror Story boards (as some may have guessed due to "bearded woman played by Kathy Bates") because those people are horrible. A mentally challenged serial killer who kidnaps children (after killing their parents) will be excused as "aww, he didn't know it was wrong to kill people, he just wanted to be liked!", while a mentally challenged innocent person (with less of a "cool" gimmick than "killer clown") getting beaten to death results in "glad that retarded freak is dead". The sociopathic serial killer in warm up phase (so far just 2 victims) is played by a handsome actor, so obviously he only tortured and killed animals and moved up to people now because "he is misunderstood"; clearly not because he's a complete psycho. Transsexual actress playing a woman? Clearly more a "freak" than a guy who has a second face on the back of his head and killed several people. Emma Peters is a stupid bitch who can't act because she dates Evan Roberts who is awww so hawt and I r jelly (or something?), despite her character being perfectly fine and her doing a good job playing her. The latter is a weird mix of the two points above, and is going on for two years now. Really, what is wrong with people?
TL;DR: I hate all fandoms because people apparently leave their common sense at the door. I get along with individual fans, but rarely ever with a whole "fandom". It definitely helps if the entire fandom hates the work with a passion.
It's a much shorter list of fandoms I don't hate, and therefore still consider myself a part of them. (Seriously, why would I stay in a community I can't stand...? I can be a fan without being part of the larger fan community.)
Obviously, since I'm still (sometimes) here, Baldur's Gate. This forum in particular is a rare oasis of people just discussing a game in a civil fashion, with a peaceful co-existance of roleplayers and powergamers. Sure, there always some black sheep - I remember the guy who announced he would ragequit if Hexxat would turn out as a "deviant pervert" (by which he meant "lesbian"), for example - but there are so few, they can mostly be brushed off as temporary court jesters. Such people rarely ever got support from the community, and that's what makes the community as a whole the better people. If the entire community is full of homophobe racists and the odd person disagreeing with them gets shunned, you know it's time to find a new community.
Then, the one "fandom" I don't quite understand myself - Falling Skies. Falling Skies started out as a decent post apocalyptic scifi show and steadily declined in quality, reaching critical stupidity mass in season 4, yet still managing to get a 5th season. The show itself sucks balls by now. It's painfully stupid. And every single person in the fandom agrees with that. Boards and blogs are full of ex-fans who still love the idea of what the show could have been, never tire of coming up with realistic ways to "at least make the last season not suck THAT much" and generally watch to laugh/hate. During season 3, the camp was somewhat evenly divided between "I already invested a lot time, can as well see where it goes/maybe it recovers" and "it's like a car crash/I want to see just how hard it can crash and burn". During season 4, it all shifted to the latter. And it's so peaceful, trolls get bored. There are - rarely - trolls showing up on boards with the usual "OMG this show sucks!!!!1"... and get nothing but "yup, agreed" replies. It's considered successful trolling to claim the show doesn't suck, and I haven't seen a believable claim to that end all year. I'm not sure all this still qualifies as "fandom" though.
Everything else, no matter how much I love the work, has fanbases I just don't get.
I agree with the posting (somewhere) above, about Star Trek fans being horrible elitists. In Star Trek Online, you get the usual gamers who rage about everyone else being a bad player, everything being in need of a nerf, this and that new feature being bad, bla. Nothing to do with Star Trek at all. Though, if you stay away from forums and open chats, and talk to individual players, you usually talk to polite, helpful person who is happy to answer whatever question you have, in proper English. There is very little "LV67DPSCrtD w/ ABC, DEF, ROFL" speak. The real idiots linger in roleplay (which is barely existant in STO). For the past... 6, 7 years? I've been trying to get a roleplay together, and while there are large Trek RP communities on the chats, the people in it are horrible. A surprisingly large number has never seen more than a few episodes TNG, is at a loss what all these (well known) species are, have zero grasp on basic lingo, yet consider themselves authorities on "how Trek RP should be done". Now, I'm not saying you need to know the exact starship layout and tech, but you should at least know what a science officer DOES if you PLAY one. I can't play a thief or a bard if I have no idea what thieves or bards generally do. Yet this makes up a LARGE part of the so-called roleplay community: hundreds of people who all want to be captain, with no clue what a captain even does. In my despair, I brought in a few friends who had indeed only watched a few episodes TNG. The "elite veteran players" we spent a single session with instantly considered them super elite veterans due to their vast knowledge. From just paying attention for 2 or 3 episodes. I admit I don't know if Picard captained the Enterprise-C or D. It's been 20 years that I've seen the movies and the Original Series (which I did not find very impressive). But I do have to wonder how people can be "fans" of something they have basically no knowledge of at all, and even claim to be "authorities" on it if they don't recognize species that were prominently featured in at least half of all works. (Yes, I have met Star Trek fans who didn't know what Klingons, Andorians or Cardassians are.) (Edit to clarify, that's not the in game chat - I get that not every gamer is a super fan of the game's lore and it's fine to play something for the combat mechanics, graphics, general gameplay and so on. The "roleplayers" I'm talking about are in general social chats and boards.)
TV/Movie fandoms in general are awful, and the reasons often extend to books/comics/games, too. I do simply not understand the obsession with... well, so many things.
Nothing annoys me more than people who assume familiarity with actors or writers - "Brad did a great job in Se7en", "Jessica looks terrific in the new movie", "I wish Steven would focus his writing more on character bla". Most recently, I've seen people being completely outraged about a writer giving hints about his show in interviews - "OMG he spoilers his own show, how dare he, he ruins it for me". Wut? I didn't even know the guy can talk. I've never read any interviews with him, nor would I know where to find them (save putting "name + interview" in Google). It's a mystery to me why people just can't stay away from "behind the scenes" stuff. If I don't want spoilers, I don't go where I might find them. I don't read TV Tropes or Wikis or anything currently airing, I don't go to boards that aren't spoiler tag nazis. Simple solution. Guess it's the celeb worship in general I don't understand. Once upon a time, an actor from Falling Skies reblogged my article about the show and his character (during season 2, before it sucked so much) and later offered interviews to the blog I wrote for. That was the last time said blog heard from me. I do not want to "know" the actors or writers or producers; I do not want "exclusive behind the scenes" information, I just want to watch a show and suspend disbelief in peace.
Then, I don't get the shipping/fan fiction/OMG so hawt stuff. Currently, one of my favorite characters on TV is a beared woman played by Kathy Bates, and I respectfully claim that this is the opposite of "so hawt". I like characters to be interesting and I give a damn how they look as long as it fits the role. Yet every fan forum/blog about every movie, TV show, band, you name it, is full of "OMG person is so hot/sexy/bla". I do not understand how the looks of the person playing a character can be THE most important factor in the popularity of the character. Or how the attractiveness of a musician translates to good music. Why everyone has to be "shipped". Why every story needs to be a goddamn love story. Why the sexual orientation of a character has any relevance if it is - for once - not a love story (see Hexxat example above - what does it matter if she's a lesbian if your party simply needs a thief?). All that seems to be so damn important to people, and no matter how hard I try, I can't relate. And the longer I watch these discussions in any given fandom, the more these people creep me out. Special mention goes to teenage girls obsessing over actors who could be their grandfathers, write torture porn fanfiction or condone sexual harrassment (I forgot which band it was, just that the clearly adult singer had not-so-appropriate relations with minors and the fans didn't mind).
Most recently, I quit reading the American Horror Story boards (as some may have guessed due to "bearded woman played by Kathy Bates") because those people are horrible. A mentally challenged serial killer who kidnaps children (after killing their parents) will be excused as "aww, he didn't know it was wrong to kill people, he just wanted to be liked!", while a mentally challenged innocent person (with less of a "cool" gimmick than "killer clown") getting beaten to death results in "glad that retarded freak is dead". The sociopathic serial killer in warm up phase (so far just 2 victims) is played by a handsome actor, so obviously he only tortured and killed animals and moved up to people now because "he is misunderstood"; clearly not because he's a complete psycho. Transsexual actress playing a woman? Clearly more a "freak" than a guy who has a second face on the back of his head and killed several people. Emma Peters is a stupid bitch who can't act because she dates Evan Roberts who is awww so hawt and I r jelly (or something?), despite her character being perfectly fine and her doing a good job playing her. The latter is a weird mix of the two points above, and is going on for two years now. Really, what is wrong with people?
TL;DR: I hate all fandoms because people apparently leave their common sense at the door. I get along with individual fans, but rarely ever with a whole "fandom". It definitely helps if the entire fandom hates the work with a passion.
Comments
Obviously, since I'm still (sometimes) here, Baldur's Gate. This forum in particular is a rare oasis of people just discussing a game in a civil fashion, with a peaceful co-existance of roleplayers and powergamers. Sure, there always some black sheep - I remember the guy who announced he would ragequit if Hexxat would turn out as a "deviant pervert" (by which he meant "lesbian"), for example - but there are so few, they can mostly be brushed off as temporary court jesters. Such people rarely ever got support from the community, and that's what makes the community as a whole the better people. If the entire community is full of homophobe racists and the odd person disagreeing with them gets shunned, you know it's time to find a new community.
Then, the one "fandom" I don't quite understand myself - Falling Skies. Falling Skies started out as a decent post apocalyptic scifi show and steadily declined in quality, reaching critical stupidity mass in season 4, yet still managing to get a 5th season. The show itself sucks balls by now. It's painfully stupid. And every single person in the fandom agrees with that. Boards and blogs are full of ex-fans who still love the idea of what the show could have been, never tire of coming up with realistic ways to "at least make the last season not suck THAT much" and generally watch to laugh/hate. During season 3, the camp was somewhat evenly divided between "I already invested a lot time, can as well see where it goes/maybe it recovers" and "it's like a car crash/I want to see just how hard it can crash and burn". During season 4, it all shifted to the latter. And it's so peaceful, trolls get bored. There are - rarely - trolls showing up on boards with the usual "OMG this show sucks!!!!1"... and get nothing but "yup, agreed" replies. It's considered successful trolling to claim the show doesn't suck, and I haven't seen a believable claim to that end all year. I'm not sure all this still qualifies as "fandom" though.
Everything else, no matter how much I love the work, has fanbases I just don't get.
I agree with the posting (somewhere) above, about Star Trek fans being horrible elitists. In Star Trek Online, you get the usual gamers who rage about everyone else being a bad player, everything being in need of a nerf, this and that new feature being bad, bla. Nothing to do with Star Trek at all. Though, if you stay away from forums and open chats, and talk to individual players, you usually talk to polite, helpful person who is happy to answer whatever question you have, in proper English. There is very little "LV67DPSCrtD w/ ABC, DEF, ROFL" speak.
The real idiots linger in roleplay (which is barely existant in STO). For the past... 6, 7 years? I've been trying to get a roleplay together, and while there are large Trek RP communities on the chats, the people in it are horrible. A surprisingly large number has never seen more than a few episodes TNG, is at a loss what all these (well known) species are, have zero grasp on basic lingo, yet consider themselves authorities on "how Trek RP should be done". Now, I'm not saying you need to know the exact starship layout and tech, but you should at least know what a science officer DOES if you PLAY one. I can't play a thief or a bard if I have no idea what thieves or bards generally do. Yet this makes up a LARGE part of the so-called roleplay community: hundreds of people who all want to be captain, with no clue what a captain even does. In my despair, I brought in a few friends who had indeed only watched a few episodes TNG. The "elite veteran players" we spent a single session with instantly considered them super elite veterans due to their vast knowledge. From just paying attention for 2 or 3 episodes.
I admit I don't know if Picard captained the Enterprise-C or D. It's been 20 years that I've seen the movies and the Original Series (which I did not find very impressive). But I do have to wonder how people can be "fans" of something they have basically no knowledge of at all, and even claim to be "authorities" on it if they don't recognize species that were prominently featured in at least half of all works. (Yes, I have met Star Trek fans who didn't know what Klingons, Andorians or Cardassians are.)
(Edit to clarify, that's not the in game chat - I get that not every gamer is a super fan of the game's lore and it's fine to play something for the combat mechanics, graphics, general gameplay and so on. The "roleplayers" I'm talking about are in general social chats and boards.)
TV/Movie fandoms in general are awful, and the reasons often extend to books/comics/games, too. I do simply not understand the obsession with... well, so many things.
Nothing annoys me more than people who assume familiarity with actors or writers - "Brad did a great job in Se7en", "Jessica looks terrific in the new movie", "I wish Steven would focus his writing more on character bla". Most recently, I've seen people being completely outraged about a writer giving hints about his show in interviews - "OMG he spoilers his own show, how dare he, he ruins it for me". Wut? I didn't even know the guy can talk. I've never read any interviews with him, nor would I know where to find them (save putting "name + interview" in Google). It's a mystery to me why people just can't stay away from "behind the scenes" stuff. If I don't want spoilers, I don't go where I might find them. I don't read TV Tropes or Wikis or anything currently airing, I don't go to boards that aren't spoiler tag nazis. Simple solution. Guess it's the celeb worship in general I don't understand. Once upon a time, an actor from Falling Skies reblogged my article about the show and his character (during season 2, before it sucked so much) and later offered interviews to the blog I wrote for. That was the last time said blog heard from me. I do not want to "know" the actors or writers or producers; I do not want "exclusive behind the scenes" information, I just want to watch a show and suspend disbelief in peace.
Then, I don't get the shipping/fan fiction/OMG so hawt stuff. Currently, one of my favorite characters on TV is a beared woman played by Kathy Bates, and I respectfully claim that this is the opposite of "so hawt". I like characters to be interesting and I give a damn how they look as long as it fits the role. Yet every fan forum/blog about every movie, TV show, band, you name it, is full of "OMG person is so hot/sexy/bla". I do not understand how the looks of the person playing a character can be THE most important factor in the popularity of the character. Or how the attractiveness of a musician translates to good music. Why everyone has to be "shipped". Why every story needs to be a goddamn love story. Why the sexual orientation of a character has any relevance if it is - for once - not a love story (see Hexxat example above - what does it matter if she's a lesbian if your party simply needs a thief?). All that seems to be so damn important to people, and no matter how hard I try, I can't relate. And the longer I watch these discussions in any given fandom, the more these people creep me out. Special mention goes to teenage girls obsessing over actors who could be their grandfathers, write torture porn fanfiction or condone sexual harrassment (I forgot which band it was, just that the clearly adult singer had not-so-appropriate relations with minors and the fans didn't mind).
Most recently, I quit reading the American Horror Story boards (as some may have guessed due to "bearded woman played by Kathy Bates") because those people are horrible. A mentally challenged serial killer who kidnaps children (after killing their parents) will be excused as "aww, he didn't know it was wrong to kill people, he just wanted to be liked!", while a mentally challenged innocent person (with less of a "cool" gimmick than "killer clown") getting beaten to death results in "glad that retarded freak is dead". The sociopathic serial killer in warm up phase (so far just 2 victims) is played by a handsome actor, so obviously he only tortured and killed animals and moved up to people now because "he is misunderstood"; clearly not because he's a complete psycho. Transsexual actress playing a woman? Clearly more a "freak" than a guy who has a second face on the back of his head and killed several people. Emma Peters is a stupid bitch who can't act because she dates Evan Roberts who is awww so hawt and I r jelly (or something?), despite her character being perfectly fine and her doing a good job playing her. The latter is a weird mix of the two points above, and is going on for two years now. Really, what is wrong with people?
TL;DR: I hate all fandoms because people apparently leave their common sense at the door. I get along with individual fans, but rarely ever with a whole "fandom". It definitely helps if the entire fandom hates the work with a passion.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/37308/character-sexualization-in-fan-fiction/