- Joined
- Jan 16, 2017
The whole "fandom" idea is horrible and weird, and says a lot about the people who participate.
I'm not talking about liking a thing, I'm talking about making liking that thing part of your "identity" and creating or joining communities purely on liking that thing and nothing else. Choosing your friends based on solely a shared enjoyment of a piece of media is insane. As the horror stories show, people who like a certain IP may be any sort of person and like it for any reason, and you're throwing yourself in there with all the psychos, political extremist, autists etc. if you put what shows you watch or what music you listen to above whether you have similar values when choosing your friends and associates.
A healthy person chooses friends on shared values and enjoying that person's company. Chances are that someone from a similar background to you, who shares your outlook on the world and whose company you are comfortable in will share your taste in media - but that compatibility comes first and it isn't even necessary. Some of my best friends don't like the same music I like or the same films I like and that's fine. It's a secondary thing.
Also, there's a certain pathetic quality to devoting yourself to something that someone else made. You're getting someone else's creation to fill a void in your personality. And "loyalty" to commercial products is inherently stupid. The marketing people for these things are dining out on your emotional connection to something they just see as a product to sell. Show some individuality ffs. I used to like Radiohead, in fact I absolutely fucking loved Radiohead, when they were a guitar band. But then they started making electronic beepy boopy noises and I didn't enjoy that at all. So I stopped listening to Radiohead and listened to other music that I liked more. What I didn't do was send death threats to Thom Yorke for not writing music that he apparently "owes" his fans, or spend hours every day on the internet fighting with other people who did like the new sound and trying to get them fired from their jobs.
Most of these "fandom" people have weird parasocial relationships with the creators of their favourite media or even fictional characters within that media, and that's not something that can ever end well. I liked Attack on Titan. I thought some of the characters were well-written, but I didn't look up to them or write love letters to them, or write stories about my self-insert interacting with them. They're not fucking real. Eren or Leon aren't "inspiring". They are portrayed as doing brave and significant things, but it's a fucking cartoon. Nobody really bravely faced impossible odds and certain death while creating them. That's not to say you can't like the way they are written or look at the themes of their writing, but "fandom" goes beyond that. Treating fictional characters as if they are real is the sign of a broken brain.
To answer OP's question, therefore, it has to be Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic is one of the most cynical marketing mascots ever created. There's no artistry or creative inspiration behind him - he was created by a corporation to create an "edgier" 90's mascot to rival Mario and sell Sega consoles, and everything Sonic related started from there. At least Attack on Titan wanted to tell a story first and foremost. Being a "fan" of Sonic is a bit like being a "fan" of Ronald McDonald. It's a real lowest-common-denominator thing, so that's why people who take Sonic seriously are the biggest autists on the planet.
I'm not talking about liking a thing, I'm talking about making liking that thing part of your "identity" and creating or joining communities purely on liking that thing and nothing else. Choosing your friends based on solely a shared enjoyment of a piece of media is insane. As the horror stories show, people who like a certain IP may be any sort of person and like it for any reason, and you're throwing yourself in there with all the psychos, political extremist, autists etc. if you put what shows you watch or what music you listen to above whether you have similar values when choosing your friends and associates.
A healthy person chooses friends on shared values and enjoying that person's company. Chances are that someone from a similar background to you, who shares your outlook on the world and whose company you are comfortable in will share your taste in media - but that compatibility comes first and it isn't even necessary. Some of my best friends don't like the same music I like or the same films I like and that's fine. It's a secondary thing.
Also, there's a certain pathetic quality to devoting yourself to something that someone else made. You're getting someone else's creation to fill a void in your personality. And "loyalty" to commercial products is inherently stupid. The marketing people for these things are dining out on your emotional connection to something they just see as a product to sell. Show some individuality ffs. I used to like Radiohead, in fact I absolutely fucking loved Radiohead, when they were a guitar band. But then they started making electronic beepy boopy noises and I didn't enjoy that at all. So I stopped listening to Radiohead and listened to other music that I liked more. What I didn't do was send death threats to Thom Yorke for not writing music that he apparently "owes" his fans, or spend hours every day on the internet fighting with other people who did like the new sound and trying to get them fired from their jobs.
Most of these "fandom" people have weird parasocial relationships with the creators of their favourite media or even fictional characters within that media, and that's not something that can ever end well. I liked Attack on Titan. I thought some of the characters were well-written, but I didn't look up to them or write love letters to them, or write stories about my self-insert interacting with them. They're not fucking real. Eren or Leon aren't "inspiring". They are portrayed as doing brave and significant things, but it's a fucking cartoon. Nobody really bravely faced impossible odds and certain death while creating them. That's not to say you can't like the way they are written or look at the themes of their writing, but "fandom" goes beyond that. Treating fictional characters as if they are real is the sign of a broken brain.
To answer OP's question, therefore, it has to be Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic is one of the most cynical marketing mascots ever created. There's no artistry or creative inspiration behind him - he was created by a corporation to create an "edgier" 90's mascot to rival Mario and sell Sega consoles, and everything Sonic related started from there. At least Attack on Titan wanted to tell a story first and foremost. Being a "fan" of Sonic is a bit like being a "fan" of Ronald McDonald. It's a real lowest-common-denominator thing, so that's why people who take Sonic seriously are the biggest autists on the planet.
