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[JABEE]

Also, there will always be someone who says I listened to this band or artist before it was cool.

 

[Sparkedglory]

I don't know if I'd call it a rise, but I have been noticing it a bit more recently. Some of the examples that I hate the most include.

A). Asshole fans that will go out of their way to attack cosplayers for daring to not look exactly like the character they're dressed as. Whether it be they weigh too much or too little for that persons liking, or god forbid, they're a different race or gender. Cosplaying should just be fun.

B.) In the same vain as my first point. The people that get pissed at people who draw characters in ways that don't make them look exactly how they would in the show. To the point where the freaking creator of whatever they're a fan of has to tell them that it's ok for people to draw a character the way they'd like. Which leads me to...

C.) The people that attack the creators of the content that they enjoy. Seriously! I absolutely hate it. Whether it be because of a scene in a story or how two characters didn't date or whatever stupid reason. These idiots that send death threats and other idiotic things

Honestly I know gaf is very familiar with all of this and ther there's no reason to mention all this to you guys. I guess I just wanted to vent.

 

[JABEE]

John Lennon was prescient when he said "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus" in the lives of children.

Pop culture has just as much zealotry and obsession as religion. It's just another, more palatable conduit for the youth of the world.

 

[JABEE]

Nothing has changed regarding toxicity levels, just that before the internet if you were an arsehole then you had no group to voice your interest with because they wouldn't group with you. Was easy to gatekeep that shit.

Now everyone no matter how vile has a voice with no good way to keep it out.

Before, the guy or girl would shout at their television or if they were dedicated enough write a letter which could be easily ignored.

Now they can post their first reaction to your Twitter feed. Anger manifested in 140 characters that would surely be mitigated if you would allow yourself 30 minutes to stew over your disappointment.

But Social Media gives you court-side seats to every movie, play, album, game you consume. Every assholish drunk fan can abuse public figures without fear of physical or verbal reprisal. I believe that is a major reason. The dedication needed to be a dick to a celebrity is much lower than in the past.

 

[Lum1n3s]

Toxicity has reached peak levels ever since people wishing the death of that one person in the Steven Universe fandom and the whole Szechuan sauce debacle for Rick and Morty’s fandom.

The thing that gets me though is the fan made comics or shirts that people create that people treat as canon. I remember seeing one comic a R&M fan made and treated it as such with someone saying it wasn’t and well they received a pretty negative backlash.

 

[Acerac]

There's a difference between a casual viewer like you and someone that is super hardcore into the show and obsessed with it.

You said it was the fault of the normal fans for not calling out the obsessives. Now you say it is ok for normal fans to not worry about it?

You really don't put much thought in to your communication, do you?

 

[Admiral Woofington]

toxic fanbases suck, but it won't stop me from liking rick and morty or wearing my rick and morty shirts.

 

[AlexFlame116]

"Are you mad that she's gay?"

"NO, I'M MAD THAT SHE ISN'T HOOKED UP WITH MERCY!"

Shippers, it's either their ship or none at all sometimes.

I remember reading somewhere that fans got so passionate about ships (with a few fans of certain ships blaming everything on Michael Chu cause they think that Genji is his self insert character stealing all the spotlight) that Overwatch took a step back on lore building so that fans were free to characterize the heroes the way they wanted to.

My first exposure to Overwatch shippers was certain Pharamercy shippers upset that Mercy had Valentines dialogue with Genji. After seeing how intense some shippers were about it imagine my suprise to find out there is literally NOTHING that as of now canonically supports Pharamercy. But Mercy getting vaguely romantic dialogue with someone else was a betrayal.

Shippers can be nuts.

While there are many different ships in Overwatch, Pharmercy is the most popular (for some reason) so people are more exposed to that side of the shipping fandom. I mean look at our Overwatch fan art thread here in GAF. Half to a lot of the Mercy fan art is Pharmercy with Widowmercy a close second. I do wonder though why those ships are popular though. Especially on Tumblr.

 

[Tye The Czar]

From what I learned in Social Psychology recently, this can be attributed to at least a couple of factors:

• Deindividuation - "Immersion in a group to the point that one loses a sense of self-awareness and feels lessened responsibility for one’s actions."
• Groupthink - "The act or practice of reasoning or decision-making by a group, especially when characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view."
• Group Polarization - "A phenomenon wherein the decisions and opinions of people in a group setting become more extreme than their actual, privately held beliefs."

Ways to prevent toxicity is to encourage self-awareness and lobby for better online moderation and enforcement.

 

[NoMoreTrolls]

You're just not smart enough to understand the nuance of the fandom.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realize that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick and Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existencial catchphrase "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon's genius unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have a Rick and Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.

 

[Jezan]

Well, I think most toxicity comes from people that are frustrated in an aspect in their lives where they probably have no control or little control unlike their online persona, so that's why they vent all the toxicity there and this is what we get.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

You said it was the fault of the normal fans for not calling out the obsessives. Now you say it is ok for normal fans to not worry about it?

You really don't put much thought in to your communication, do you?

I'm saying normal fans should call them out more, not be so passive about it. That includes me as well. I said It before but that day Family Guy fans were looking better than us.

 

[bionic77]

The internet has really become a focusing lens for shitheads and negativity. That is the easiest way you get attention.

And it is not just limited to nerds. We just elected the first troll to POTUS. This behavior has become normalized which is insane and more than a little frightening.

 

[MysteryQuesadilla]

Base your identity around consumption of media packaged by corporate overlords and this is what you get

So much this. There was also a sort of camaraderie when things like comics, anime, and other things that are part of the nerd zeitgeist prior to being big business were limited to maybe a single comic shop in town and an occasional con. I feel like that's pretty much lost now unless you're in a super rural area.

 

[Catchpenny]

While sports fandom can be awful and violent, it should be pointed out that many of its worst moments are caused by people being drunk in large public gatherings.

Most of the awfulness of nerd fandom is created by people who are stone-cold sober. For some reason that bothers me more...maybe because it's pretty easy to avoid drunk people if I choose to.

 

[Pie and Beans]

Article not mentioning Steven Universe or the entire mess that is the YA fandom. Found space for Ghostbusters again. How curious!

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

So much this. There was also a sort of camaraderie when things like comics, anime, and other things that are part of the nerd zeitgeist prior to being big business were limited to maybe a single comic shop in town and an occasional con. I feel like that's pretty much lost now unless you're in a super rural area.

The Internet happened. Now you got forums to spread out your nerd hobby to everyone.

 

[RPG_Fanatic]

The people who go ape shit over video game character relationship\cartoon character relationships just boggle my mind. Weird shit.

I try to avoid shipping like the plague when it comes to fan discussion. It is scary how serious some people are about ships. 'How dare you not like the fictional romantic pairing I like.' I have one pairing I like enough to say I ship it, but that came long after the show itself ended so I missed most of the potential fan wars for it and I don't care if it is considered canon or anything like that..

 

[thepenguin55]

Base your identity around consumption of media packaged by corporate overlords and this is what you get

^^^This. Also:

There's always going to be people who ruin something for everyone

Truer words were never spoken. This is just true of everything in life.

In reading the op, I feel we need to have an open and frank discussion about the difference between geeks, nerds, and dweebs.

Which ones eat chicken heads?

 

[Classicblunder]

In reading the op, I feel we need to have an open and frank discussion about the difference between geeks, nerds, and dweebs.