“Fan” is a short form of “fanatic”. I don’t know if this is true or just one of these popculture myths like “Beam me up, Scotty”, but it sounds pretty plausible. Everybody is a fan of someone or -thing and we all know the urge to defend our favourite stuff. And depending on who we are defending it against, it can turn into a heated, even seriously angry war of words. Every fan has not just been in such a situation more than just once, but also on both sides. Sometimes we are the defendors, sometimes we are the trolls. And it’s a fact that every fandom has its nasty side.
What is really interesting, is that some fandoms seem to be more troll infested than others. And no, I’m not talking about fandoms, that are full of 10 year old girls. They are 10 year old girls, after all! I don’t expect Justin Bieber fans to behave like reasonable adults and I definitely won’t start a fight with them. I’m not that kind of asshole, y’know. But have you ever tried to talk with APPLE fans about why you think that iPod, Macbook and co are overpriced and not worth the hype? And in this case we are just talking about brain washed design fetishists. As soon as you bring pop culture into play and discuss films, TV shows or comic books, things can get really nasty. I’m not trying to diss the nerds again, but we all know how passionate we…uhm, I mean they can get.
Well, to make it short, this blog entry is about my five most hated fandoms. I’m not talking about the property they are fans of, I’m talking about the fans alone. And while I know that even the worst fandom has its good share of nice people, these Top 5 are the worst of them all. They are the ones who annoy the shit out of me, because they are the ones who always attack first, can’t stand one bad word about their favourite franchise and are absolutely impossible to reason with. They are the five fandoms that I try to avoid at every cost. Not because I’m scared of them (otherwise I wouldn’t write this here), but because they are not worth it.
5.) Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT
In the fans’ eyes, this well-intended, but very flawed movie is absolutely perfect, the best one ever made and they usually try to “prove” it (= yell at and insult you until you believe them) at every cost. Even if that means to start a silly war with fans of THE GODFATHER and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION over the #1 spot at the IMDB Top 250. Since its initial release, the fans of TDK lightened up a little. Maybe it’s because the film isn’t on everybody’s mind anymore or they realized that it doesn’t hold up well on repeated viewings, but because they either are either more open towards criticism these days or the trolls have already lost interest, this fandom gets just the #5 spot
4.) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (Remake)
I’ve never been a fan of this ham fisted, poorly written, acted (except Edward James Olmos!) and filmed 9/11-in-space show and gave up viewing somewhere in season 2, but BSG fans don’t wanna hear any bad word about it. They are very similar to the TDK fans, especially when they always try to point out how the everything but subtle 9/11 references are supposed to be a smart comment on the war on terrorism, but the main difference between them is that they never learned to lighten up. Okay, they lost some followers after the apparently pretty bad series finale, but the people who stayed still think that ending an insult with “So say we all” counts as a valid argument.
3.) QUENTIN TARANTINO
They are without a doubt the most violent and illiterate on the list. Every slight piece of criticsm towards the man or his movies is answered with badly spelled treats of violence! At least they don’t try to spill out pseudo-cool pieces of dialogue like their idol. Most of the time they leave it by something like: „Shutt da f00k up or i kill u stoopid peace of shit or i kill you royal with cheese was da bomb and jackey brown was his most matire film.“ They once have been my least favourite fandom, but then I encountered two even worse groups of fans.
2.) BLADE RUNNER
One would think that the fans of Ridley Scott’s classic would be happy, that their favourite movie gained during the last 28 years its reputation of a masterpiece, but apparently that doesn’t satisfy them. What all fandoms on this list have in common, is their inability to recognize the flaws of their favourites and discuss them. And the fans of BLADE RUNNER are no exception. They might even be the worst offenders in this area! They go so far to declare war on critics who write positive reviews of that movie, if the review isn’t positive enough to them. And that means they have to flood lots of message boards and comment sections, because underneath the still breathtaking art direction, the interesting story, that lets you think about the philosophical aspects for weeks after you watched it and the brillant performances of Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah, the movie drags a lot. And I’m not the only one who thinks that way and is not afraid of pointing that out.
1.) FIREFLY
I know that some people would love see all fans of Joss Whedon at the #1 spot of this list, but that’s in my opinion unfair. I never had any real trouble with lovers of BUFFY, ANGEL or even DOLLHOUSE. But the FIREFLY fans, the so-called “Browncoats”, are a whole different beast. They are the most obnoxious fans I know! Pretty much every negative cliche you know about Star Trek fans, applies to them! They even bring up FIREFLY when nobody else talks about it. You are discussing any other TV show? Some browncoat suddenly mentions FIREFLY. You are discussing your favourite music albums? Some browncoat will bring up FIREFLY. You are talking about how much you miss your dead cat? POW! Someone brings up FIREFLY and how fucking great it is! Come on, we get it, you love that show. That’s cool, but please stop annoying everybody else with it! Find a nice hotel, take a room and then you can do with your favourite show whatever you want, but it doesn’t matter how much you are in love with it, nobody asked you to hump* it over and over in public! Go, find a nice swinger club, where you can find lots of like-minded persons who maybe even join in. But we! Don’t! Care! Otherwise we would ask you to tell us about it, while we are not talking about it! There is no reason to invade non-FIREFLY territory!
Oh, and P.S.: We all lost at one point TV shows that we loved, to premature cancellation, so you don’t have to explain to us over and over how FOX never gave the show a chance. We know that shit like that happens and how this feels, because FIREFLY was neither the first or the last show that got sabotaged by its channel. But none of the shows we’ve lost got a re-birth as a theatrical movie, so why are you complaining? At least you got a big, fat 2nd chance!
P.P.S.: SERENITY bombed at the box office, despite heavy pimping from Universal! I think that’s a pretty good proof that FIREFLY never was as popular as you think it was.
Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. There are maybe some other fandoms, who deserve more to be on that list, than the five that are on it now, but then I just don’t have anything to do with them. Like I said before, this is just a personal list. And I apologize to the few good people, who as I’m sure are even to find among the browncoats. I know how frustrating it is when a small bunch of assholes ruins the reputation of the whole group. (After all, I was a member or rs.net! Oh, and I’m German too.) So don’t take this list as a diss towards all of you, but more as an agreement, that some of your fellows just go way too far. I even know one or two fans of Tarantino, who are okay.
But Browncoats shouldn’t cross my path anyway.
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*They say that on the show instead of „fucking“, right?
