I am a Fan Hater.

Vorpy

Never have I ever been infuriated by somebody who dedicates so much brain power and intelligence to making tl;dr blogs and supplemental material to their favorite work, but unfortunately be as misguided and stupid as the people they mock or associate with.

I would think somebody who can look so deeply into the work to realize that hyperbolic obsession tends to annoy some and reflect badly upon them.

Now that I think about it I just might hate fans of everything. It isn't the dumb fans, it isn't the smart dumb fans, it isn't the obsessive ones, or the encyclopedian ones or even the "collect fucking everything" ones.

It's just anyone who enjoys a work I have noticed that don't enjoy a work in a way I am comfortable/familiar with just bug me. I hate Fan Dumb, but I also hate Hate Dumb, and Meta Dumb.

The problem is that I don't know exactly WHAT about it bugs me. Whenever I see another Elfen Lied fan talking about how Yuka is a dumb bitch or how Lucy was justified in everything she did it makes me cringe. Whenever I see a Death Note fan talk about how Light is justice I roll my eyes. Whenever I see a NGE fan talk about how it completely deconstructed the mecha genre makes me scoff at their words. Whenever I see a Lady Gaga fan who uses the term "revolutionary" to describe her makes me almost facepalm. Whenever I see dedicated fans to a movie I am going to (like Tron, Star Trek, Silent Hill, Doom etc.) being around them gives off an aura that makes me uncomfortable and want to move away. Whenever I hear about somebody else's shipping preferences I want to tell them they are stupid. The list goes on.

DonZabu

Examples?

Gelzo

Me?

Vorpy

Check the wikis, check fanblogs.

Perhaps I just hate fans in general. Perhaps I am just a fan hater now that I think about it.

Vorpy

Super Errata

Is it natural to do this? Is it okay in some situations?

Gelzo

Yay! Introspection!

There are fans that bug me, too. The "original characters", fan fictions, and shipping are all things that I dislike. But I tolerate it since it's just another way for people to enjoy something they like.

Maybe it's important to make the distinction between fan stuff and dumb stuff. It's fine to be aggravated at someone because they're being lazy or unreasonable, but getting upset with someone because they have different tastes is silly.

Hell, I can respect someone who can enjoy Twilight if they're at least aware enough to concede that it has fucked up messages and a hack of an author.

CommandoDude

You are not alone Vorpy. IJBM as well.

snowbull

"Meta Dumb"

Well this is a new one.

^^I don't really like OCs at all, but good fanfiction and tongue in cheek shipping I can stand.

Chagen

>calling OCs bad

FUCKING RAEG

I'm starting to get real sick of this.

TheConductor

I agree, original characters are usually utter pants. Unless they serve to fill some niece that the cast members already fill, the just show up to be spotlight stealers.

Look, I want to read the extended adventures of Simon Belmont, not Simon and his unseen best friend Ezikeil. I want to read about Sonic and Tails not Sonic, Tails and Sonic's son Cinos.

Chagen

Because that always happens. -rolls eyes-

OC are a tool like everything else. Hearing about just the main cast is boring. I love adding new characters and writing how they alter and yet support the main cast. The world the canon characters live in is not a static sphere. There are other people/creatures living in it too. Surely the canons must meet some of them.

And what makes an OC different from a canon? The only difference is that the author created one. Why does that give them precedence? Why does the author get to make characters and have it accepted while fans are stupid for doing it?

Death Of The Author, son. It's good sometimes.

Noimporta

Death Of The Author, son. It's good sometimes.

Wait... you... but...

Chagen

I know. I made that thread on the Old IJBM. But, I've changed a little--I see why Death Of The Author can be good (that's why I said "sometimes") in certain situations.

I still believe Authorial Intent is important in analyzing (whether or not the author got their point across....) works, but I can take some DoTA.

All Nines

@ Vorpy: To be fair, most of the examples you listed were pretty decent examples of Fan Dumb, for the most part, so it's understandable that they might bug you.

@ Topic: I'm also a part of the "dislikes fanfiction and OCs" camps, but I like shipping. Though I don't go sharing my views with others, especially since they aren't the commonly preferred pairings some of the time. But I don't hate fans who have different views and aren't dumb about it.

Vorpy

I read the Death Of The Author page and it still is fuzzy to me, even the laconic is a bit cryptic. So essentially it means:

* The authors interpretation of his/her work should have nothing to do with the fan's interpretation of the work.

vacasama

I thought it was "The author interpretation of his/her work is not more important than the fan's interpretation of said work".  Thought point was the both viewpoints are of equal value.

All Nines

Hmm. Seems I forgot exactly what Death of the Author is. I dunno how I feel about it.

Vorpy

I never knew why some people hated it so much though, like Moe Dantes. Other than the fact that most of the article is just pointless obscure fluff, this was the main thing I noticed:

"Or worse, if the author comes to reject their own work, they may express dissatisfaction with certain parts and not others. Hence, "the perfect is the enemy of the good" (Translation: "coulda, woulda, shoulda"). This is why some auteur filmmakers oppose the notion of a Directors Cut
on the grounds that the "real" film will always be the one people saw
in cinemas in the year of release, not the ideal film in one's head.


In the fan community, this has changed into the idea that something is only canon if it appears in the original source material, and thus any Word Of God has no more weight to it than any piece of fanon cooked up by the fans. Though some fans honestly hold this opinion, many only use this as an excuse to ignore any Word Of God that they don't like. Some fans can even take this further, and use this to ignore parts of original source material they don't like, per the Fiction Identity Postulate. A recent example would be the Harry Potter fans who ignored or even protested J. K. Rowling's comment that she thought of Dumbledore as gay.
"

Gelzo

Death of the Author can get silly. A story isn't text or visuals, it's the world in the author's mind being communicated to the audience. It doesn't make a difference to me whether J.K. Rowling says Albus is gay in a book or orally. 

Of course, it's fair to have different interpretations in other regards. An author can't definitively say that a given character is good or evil (unless it's something like OOTS where good and evil are more rigidly defined and have an effect on the world, and even then there can be debate over whether an "evil" character has a greater moral fiber than "good" characters), whether a certain point in the story makes sense, or if X "should" have happened in the book.

Chagen's staunch defense of OCs is silly, but he has some fair points. It's just that most creators of OCs outside of RPs or something don't bother to make their characters anything you'd care about. Generally, it's not great when there's too much focus on a character. Fan fiction in general (unless as a parody, which by necessity is fan fiction) is a crutch attracts that amateurs who lack the ability to create decent fictional worlds for themselves. This lack of skill generally extends to other parts of their work.

I'm too tired to double check this. I'll look it over again later in case I was talking out of my ass today.

snowbull

So how long until someone makes the Meta Dumb article on tvtropes?

Myrmidon

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm

Read this, Vorpy.

snowbull

Is this actually worth reading? I want to know before I spend the next ten minutes slogging through the scrawlings of some schizophrenic man with a taste for the literary.

Gelzo

Yeah, I looked at it and could tell it would be hard to read. My first impression was that it made use of the hateful kind of academic language that serves to obscure a point rather than clarify it.

RedEyedAbyss

In regards to OC's, Kingdom Hearts somehow worked, or so I heard. Haven't actually played the game.

"It's just anyone who enjoys a work I have noticed that don't enjoy a work in a way I am comfortable/familiar with just bug me."

The "You're enjoying the work wrong" position tends to be why my feelings towards fandom range from revulsion to fear of them. Also why I ended up gravitating towards more abstract works where there are a whole bunch of "correct" ways to enjoy the work.

"Hell, I can respect someone who can enjoy Twilight if they're at least aware enough to concede that it has fucked up messages and a hack of an author."

Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole point of respect? That's like saying I can respect someone who can enjoy Atlas Shrugged if they're at least aware enough to concede that it is horribly written and has an utter egomaniac of an author...wait, that's what I actually think.

Gelzo

Well, I guess you sort of have an idea about where I stand.

Anyway, besides bile fascination, there are people who can legitimately enjoy simple, mindless works. Sort of like... Oh, I dunno. QWOP? It's a fun thing to mess around with, but it really does suck as a game.

snowbull

I don't think you've ever experience the sheer adrenaline rush of getting that asshole to run a full 50 meters before causing him to do a cartwheel.

Chagen

I just tried it, and how the hell are you supposed to get this guy to do anything besides hilariously flop over?

All Nines

Gah. What's the trick to this chump? I don't particularly care to spend the rest of my night getting this little bastard to quit hitting his head off the ground.

EDIT: I got him to do a backwards 180. I'm happy now.

Noimporta

Strangely enough, I just learned of this game today... when my brother called me to brag that he managed to do 100 meters.

DYRE

The majority of people on the internet who say they don't like Death of the Author are self-proclaimed writers themselves, and in particular, they're highly narcissistic writers with an entitlement complex.

Myrmidon