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+--- Thread: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. (/thread-436.html)
Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Grungie - 04-13-2014
This idea was inspired by this Cracked article (specifically a line in #1). So we all know that humans are social beings, and people enjoy talking about things they like, so naturally they want to talk to others about something they really enjoy.
This is where fandoms come in to play. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's joined in certain fandoms where you want to talk about how awesome the topic is, but then you start feeling disenchanted with some of it, as there's rules to liking said thing, and how doing or not knowing certain things makes you not a real fan. So there's many times where people find that there are people in fandoms who find the exclusive nature of a fandom more important than being a fan. This is the dark side that every fandom has.
So what are your thoughts on these types of people? What about people who are more preoccupied with being a Cubs fan than actually caring about the Cubs, or even supporting them? The never ending hardcore gamer vs casual gamer arguments. Bands being disowned by their original fanbase all because they got popular.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - WCPhils - 04-13-2014
I have to admit I'm a bit like this with sports teams. People would probably find me annoying a lot.
But for an example, I'll use the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. This team was god awful my entire life. Like they were just bad and no one went to games or cared about the team. I watched tons and tons of games though. Pretty much every night of the spring and summer growing up with my family.
Then in 2007 they made the playoffs for the first time in my life and won the World Series in 2008. All of the sudden everyone and their dog was the biggest Phillies fan in the world. People I never heard say one word about the team, and probably couldn't name three players. I found it so annoying.
I guess it's good because it got a lot of people interested in the team and even though they suck again, some of those people are probably now fans. But my god, at the time it pissed me off so much. When they won the World Series was legit one of the happiest I've ever been. And it was like insulting that all these bandwagoners were acting like they had suffered through all the shit before it also
TLDR: I'm an asshole sports fan.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Mr Maps - 04-13-2014
It's like people say they're a fan of band when they've only heard one album or song and "tr00" fans get upset about it. Big deal. Move on. Like stuff in your own way, live and let live. It's crazy when you think about it, because by placing rules on how something should be liked, you're limiting yours and others' enjoyment, which is just pointless and silly.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Grungie - 04-13-2014
I've been guilty of this at times, though after being on the receiving end of elitist fans, I've been disenchanted with fandoms.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - WCPhils - 04-13-2014
Oh yea, I should say I'm not like my first post with anything else. I really hate that mindset in regards to music and stuff.
I think sports are a little different though because there are great times and bad times which makes it perfect for bandwagoners and stuff. I lot of people kind of see it as a badge of honor to stick with teams through the bad so I guess that's where that mindset comes from. Even though it makes me looks like a knob :haha:
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Grungie - 04-13-2014
One thing I really dislike, are the times when the fanbase doesn't bother to support their fandom, not saying you gotta be that fan who buys 3 copies of everything, but I don't get the opposite when you see someone say "I'm a hardcore fan of X but I refuse to buy any of the merchandise"
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - crazysam23 - 04-13-2014
Well, the really stupid thing I've had experience with is the "hardcore vs casual" gamer thing that Grungie brought up. I've had several bad experiences with that, back when I played WoW.
I joined a hardcore raiding guild. A lot of those guilds are basically run by people who have no life. All they do is play WoW. The sad thing is, there's usually a raid leader, and the raid leader tends to be some asshole (there's always assholes in the worse guilds) who yells at everyone -- including the tank.
Now, yelling at the tank is a bad fucking idea. The tank is the guy who sits there and soaks up damage and holds threat. So, he basically keeps the whole raid from dying. Don't make the tank upset. I was usually the tank, because that's what I liked doing. I was trying out for one guild, and the asshole raid leader kept yelling at me, because the dps (read: damagers) couldn't kill the adds (read: extra monsters) fast enough. Yeah, not my fault. Why the hell are you yelling at me?
I did eventually find a decent raiding guild with down-to-earth people who knew what they were doing. But I went through several situations where there were assholes who ruined the experience for me.
So, that's kind of the bad side of the "hardcore raiding guilds". They tend to look down on the "filthy casuals" and tend to get mad at everyone (except themselves) when things go wrong. It's silly and nonproductive. I mean, what's the point of playing a game, if you don't have fun?!
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Grungie - 04-13-2014
Yeah you see some of that shit in the Pokemon community when it comes to battling other players. You have EV training and the whole IV shit (research yourself as it's a pretty extensive subject) anyway all of these things make a big difference in the Pokemon's stats, and all competitive battlers do this, and they also use certain Pokemon, so if you don't train in this fashion, and just use whatever team of Pokemon you like, it's impossible to win.
So while online battling is cool and fun at times, the problem is when you go on forums and stuff to meet people to battle, if you're not a hardcore competitive battler, you're fucked. Let's also not forget there's a site called Smogon who has extensive tips and which moves and shit are highly recommended for which Pokemon. Some people follow this like the fucking Bible. They also created a set of rules to make things "fair" and also made a list of banned Pokemon for being "too strong". While this is fine and dandy for people who are on Smogon'a forums, it's silly when people assume this is the law of the land and every Pokemon player knows these rules. A few times I had people scream at me through the DS mic because I had a Garchomp which was allegedly "illegal" according to Smogon.
Sorry guys, not everybody follows or knows about meta game rules. So basically all this hardcore elitist shit has kind of "ruined" parts of the game that's suppose to be fun, not srs buisiness. I know some people find that fun, but it is silly to assume everyone should follow that, and look down on people who don't take the game as serious as they do.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Danjo - 04-14-2014
I definitely don't do any shit like that, though I probably used to. That article was very good. I think its just because nerds just get shit on by jocks or whatever, so they just take it out on the weaker nerds. I think the only time I'd be made about stuff like that is if one of my friends won front row tickets to the Red Hot Chili Peppers or something. Like "Wtf, can you even name a song by them? I've heard every song they've ever released, and I've listened to By The Way over 200 times. Give me those tickets."
Which would totally be an ass thing to do. But At least thats a little more reasonable than getting mad at someone because they say they like something but don't know everything about it.
Also I probably wouldn't pass the trivia tests of a lot of hardcore Doctor Who fans, despite the fact that I've probably watched more classic episodes than most of them. I just don't take fucking notes on the random trivia they talk about.
RE: Caring more about the fandom than being a fan. - Grungie - 04-14-2014
I do see some of the annoyances when it comes to the newbie or maybe say "temporary" fans and you want to talk about the other stuff, not just the recent or popular aspects. Like meeting someone who says they like the same band as you do, and they only care about their singles or just their most current album.
So while we're all in the same shoes as the newbie fans at one point or another, I can't help but feel some slight nerd rage when you want to talk about the rest of the band's catalog, or the rest of that video game series and you keep running into people who only care about the most recent or popular stuff. Though luckily I haven't gone back to jumping on the hype backlash of the popular thing the newbies are into that a lot of hardcore fans tend to do.
A recent thing I saw was a thread over the Fallout series vs the Elder Scrolls series because they're both made by Bethesda, though technically only Fallout 3 and New Vegas count, as the previous games are made by a different company. Anyway I thought it was kind of silly when the people discussing which series was better, and all the people voting TES had only played Skyrim, and the only Fallout game played was Fallout 3. So while I've never played a Fallout game, and I've only played Morrowind and Oblivion, I did find it kind of "wrong" to debate two video game series and people only played one game from each series.