The worst fanbases

[flamepanther]

How do you feel about Trekkies?

For the most part, they're benignly fanatical. WAY too into it, but they usually at least see it as it was meant to be taken. They're like Tolkien nerds from space.

If I harbor any grudges against Trek fandom, it's for inventing slash fiction and Mary Sues.



I love the idea of your taxi scene, BTW.

[brunoafh]

Square Enix fanboys... the ones that stand by any game or product, regardless how bad it is, just because the Sqex logo is slapped on it.

I don't think these guys exist anymore.

[flamepanther]

Square Enix fanboys... the ones that stand by any game or product, regardless how bad it is, just because the Sqex logo is slapped on it.

I don't think these guys exist anymore.

I still meet at few, although it's easier to find people that only treat the Final Fantasy brand that way--and often Kingdom Hearts by extension. Oh, and these "guys" seem to primarily be girls at this point.

[benderx]

I tried to watch Naruto, after a few episodes I thought it was okay series. After a few months go by I see so many fans wearing that stupid belt on their forehead in public or conventions. after that I hated the series for good. Bleach is okay because I enjoy the series and characters. At least in Bleach you get to see tons blood and horror. I hate seeing Disney princesses at conventions its kinda of annoying.

[dsheinem]

Star Wars - Most nit-picky, most biting of "the hand that feeds you," and for missing the entire point of the movies in the first place.

Please elaborate on this.

I still consider the OT my all time favorite movies, I'm definitely not challenging you here though or gonna bite your head off, haha. Kind of curious where you're getting at here though, fans over-analyzing the movies or something? Oh hey that makes me think of something! ...

Aww crap. This one's going to be a TLDR, everyone. Sorry in advance.


Let me preface this by stating that I love all six Star Wars movies, especially the original trilogy. That said, none of them were meant to be more than fun pulp adventure (which is why "hard" sci-fi fans often hate seeing it lumped in the "science fiction genre), with all the cheese that naturally comes along with that genre. Lucas himself has said that it was a nostalgic love letter to the pulp adventure movies he grew up with, especially space operas like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. It's meant to be good popcorn fun, that's what all six movies are, and that's the keystone to everything I'm about to say.

Most nitpicky: Get some Star Wars fans together on the Internet anywhere besides a dedicated Star Wars forum, bring up Star Wars--especially the prequels, and suddenly all they want to do is bitch. Oh, the prequels weren't cast right. The pod race is too long. It contradicts the books. Somewhere between the lines in conversation XYZ there might possibly be a hint of a suggestion of an implied continuity error. Anakin shouldn't build C-3PO. They didn't use enough puppets. They complain about cheesy dialogue, and pretend the lines in the originals weren't just as bad--they most certainly were, laser brain. Goddammit guys, if that's the mentality you're going to bring to watch a campy space adventure, of course you're going to hate the prequels! Just shut up and enjoy it for what it is already. I've seen hardcore SW fanboys even joke amongst themselves that anyone else would think they hate Star Wars. It's a wonder that they don't.

Biting the hand: Star Wars fans hate George Lucas. I can't think of any other group that I've seen relentlessly bash and insult the mastermind behind the object of their fandom like that. "He's a hack! He's lost his talent! He made the originals good by accident!" They wouldn't have Star Wars without Lucas. Lucas knows better than anyone what Star Wars should be like, because it's his! If it didn't turn out to be what you thought you wanted, go be a fan of something else. But no, we're all going to stick around and look the gift horse in the mouth. It's well known that Lucas has never considered any of the films to be finished, and that he has re-edited every single one of the films every single time it has been released. Fans know this, but they act as though Lucas suddenly became a "revisionist" sometime in the 1990s, and they claim he has no right to do it. It is one thing to complain about the films, but personal attacks against their creator defines a sort of low that should shame all fandoms everywhere to see it.

These first two issues, I think, are directly related to two separate factors. One is simply the worst ever case of rose-colored-glasses. All six films are written in more or less the same campy pulp space opera style, including absurdly cheesy dialogue and entirely improbable plot twists. The originals might have pulled them off slightly better, but only because Lucas lucked into some amazing undiscovered actors--and Mark Hamil hadn't even become an amazing actor yet. "Oh, but Luke was never a whining, stiffly-acted, obnoxious emo bitch like Anakin!" Dude, I thought you actually watched "A New Hope" at some point. Listen to Luke whine and snivel about those power converters! Training aboard the Millennium Falcon? "Whine whine blast sheild, moan whine!" Yeah. And Anakin's tearful, screaming, lunatic "I HATE YOU" rant in episode III as Obi-Wan chops his limbs off? A perfect counterpart to Luke's "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!" and "I'LL NEVER JOIN YOU!!!!!!!" You don't see it? "Nope, I've got my nostalgia blinkers on. The originals were perfect. --but only before the Special Editions. --and except for the Ewoks." Yeah.

The other contributing factor, I think, is the enormous Expanded Universe. Some of the stuff is quite good, some of it not so much, but by and large it is as Lucas once said, a different Star Wars. While the films are all a fun pulp adventure, the Expanded Universe material often tries to put a more serious spin on things, writing histories so detailed and vast that Tolkien's head would spin, and just generally putting way too much thought into things. However, this take was the only new content Star Wars fans had for many years. The industrial strength rose glasses combined with prolonged exposure to the much more dry, much more serious Expanded Universe to cause my third, final, and largest complaint against the general Star Wars fandom, and the one that brings the other two into focus...

Missing the damn point: Too many Star Wars fans have brainwashed themselves into believing that the original trilogy was supposed to be "serious." It wasn't. Watch any of the six films without rose glasses and without the books and RPGs in your head, and you'll plainly see that. But these guys don't get it. They want Star Wars to be some other thing that isn't really Star Wars, and wonder why Lucas can't get it right. They go in to the prequels expecting War and Peace, or Dune, or at least The Wrath of Khan, when what they went to see was fucking Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe--and then they wonder how things went so horribly wrong! Most epic fandom fail ever, folks. That's all I've got. Good night.

You've nailed this pretty well - very nicely written and stated.

I will say that I consider myself a huge SW fan that is also critical of the films but in different ways than in those you mentioned above. Some are better than others, usually due to some having a stronger plot, better pacing, acting, or direction (this is why Empire is the best and why I'd rate Revenge of the Sith over Jedi). But yes - of course all are campy love letters to pulp stuff like Flash Gordon. Folks who miss that are, as you say, evaluating the films from the wrong starting point.

I will take issue with one thing you say, though, and that is the stuff about revisionism. You don't think fans have a right to be critical of Lucas for adding/changing things 15-20 years after the film was released, often making the "enhanced" version the only one available to buy?

[Droid party]

Chevrolet (GM in general) fanboys. They think the Corvette is the most badass machine ever built by man. They also just lie in wait to pounce on any opportunity to tear down another car. They feel they get extra points for insulting foreign makes. Sometimes it gets to the point of being borderline racist. I've got nothing against GM's halo car, but there are some other great cars out there that cannot be ignored.

Whenever a foreign brand or even a Ford or Chrysler is recalled, GM fanboys are the first ones to point and laugh. If a GM product is recalled or defective they have a whole cache of excuses they recycle over and over again. From blaming Obama to the fact that a lot of GM parts are foreign-made. Autoblog's comment section is infected with these imbeciles.

Here in Australia the GM badge is Holden and we see the exact same thing. Fucking pointless, judge a car(or game console,or any product for that matter) for it's strengths vs it's weaknesses and nothing else. Brand loyalty is ok but telling someone that they are wrong for owning or liking something else pisses me off.

I've owned more Holdens than any other brand but I wouldn't call someone stupid for having a Ford or Mitsubishi or any other manufacturer.

[ZeroAX]

Xbox fanboys. They insult EVERYONE. PC games for being too complex. Nintendo games for being kiddy and not complex enough. Playstation games for being something other than what is their demographic. Not all things are for all people. Simple as that.

[wootcube]

Portal fans.

I love portal, but I hate hearing it quoted over and over and over and over...

[Anayo]

I think the best fanbase is racketboy for being able to sustain this topic without going south.

[AmericanMuffin]

I know it was mentioned, but Call of Duty and Halo Fans. Whenever I hear my friends tell me to play something after 2005 and do that, they tell me I should only play Halo and CoD. I want to puch my ears until I go deaf when that's all they can talk about. They can be fans but they stuff the game down our throats if we don't want to play it. My friend calls himself a hardcore gamer when all he can play is Halo and CoD, WTF?!