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 sebster wrote:


I don't know, but it's very strange. It was one thing to see lots of people post that Michael Bay's Transformers completely ruined their childhood, it's something else entirely to see people claim the all woman Ghostbusters was some kind of last cultural stand against feminazi takeover. It was one thing to see people say the Star Wars prequels were bad, it is another thing entirely to see people say TLJ and Solo have killed Star Wars forever.

One thing I find interesting about this is the how marketing campaigns seems to be designed to stir up these sort of reactions. Take the latest Ghostbusters for example, the whole marketing tactic for that movie centred about painting up this picture of a wave of misogynists that boycotted the film because of the female cast, so it was your duty as a good person to buy tickets. This riled up both people interested in seeing the movie and the uninterested, as now it wasn't just a movie, but a political statement. Even though in reality that boycott was just an article on a relatively small blog.

Without this campaign I believe the Ghostbusters 2017 would have passed by quietly as most other mediocre remakes, like the latest Robocop for example did.

Exaggerations and hyperbole are par for the course, overly so on Internet. A pity, because balanced criticism (incl. pointing out good parts in an overall poor production) against popular works is valuable for budding authors. There's a lot of rage and nonsense to sift through if searching for constructive criticism.

The reviews about Last Jedi on the small forum Chaos Dwarfs Online were much more balanced and willing to state that the movie is somewhat enjoyable (with some pieces done right), but is on the whole not a well-crafted piece of cinema since it is riddled with glaring storytelling problems, than those to be found on a large forum such as DakkaDakka. I wonder if this is in a high degree the result of the environment we cultivate daily? Flaming loudmouths tend to encourage others to become flaming loudmouths.

No wonder exaggeration were one of the many damning sins to the ancient Egyptians: Too much, and exaggeration no longer makes clearer the point made, but becomes a lie.

In case anyone who reads this knows himself to commit wild exaggerations and slamming hyperbole when analyzing creative products, then please pause a moment next time and think thoughts along these lines before wading out with the tongue into thrashing waters:

"How would I present this criticism to the author/moviemakers/designers face-to-face in person?"

"How would this hit me if I was the creator of the material receiving this criticism?"

"Would I say it this starkly in real life?" (If online.)

"What were the good parts in this creative production?"

"What can the creators of this product take away to get better for future projects, if they read my review?"

See also: The Fall of the Simpsons for critical analysis done balanced and right. This is HELPFUL criticism to take away as someone aiming at creative work, with the long, hard work hours, layer upon layering of jokes, consistent characters and so on.

 Manchu wrote:
I agree that conflating who you are with whatever media you consume is a mistake and a problem.

But this is how it is marketed to consumers. This is how corporations teach us to see ourselves. I think of marketing in analogy to radiation. If it is constantly beamed at someone, at such an incredible intensity, can we be surprised if cancer results?

One effect of domestication is that the animal retains juvenile traits and behavious into adulthood (for example, dogs - the way dogs behave is similar to how wold pups behave in the wild). Now look at "geek culture"; 30- and 40-year old adults building their identity around media originally written for children.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
We don't idolize Athletes, or Musicians, or Politicians. We idolize actual Heroes even if they are fictional. We know the difference between good and evil. It's a major plot point in most Geek Media.

This is a funny thing to say, posting on a forum that is dominated by a game where the protagonists are genetically-engineered slaughter machines in faithful service to a genocidal totalitarian theocracy, the primary moral question is whether the unimaginable horrors done in the name of survival are worse for the tortured remains of humanity than simply allowing humanity to die, and any "heroes" are only very slightly superior in that they commit genocide as a way to win wars while the villains commit genocide because it's fun. That isn't black and white, good vs. evil, it's black and slightly less black morality.

Doesn't change the fact you know the difference. If you choose to use 40k as an example to live your life, well that's between you and your God.

And probably law enforcement at some point.

Why are people so Hypercritical? Because they can be and because they MUST be. If you opinion is simply.... it was okay.... I guess....NO ONE CARES!

In a world where your value is based on likes, views, re-tweets, and followers the worst thing you can be is "Meh".

Therefore, the reason is..... the Internet.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Just because others act the fool doesn't give us license to do the same. And if anything makes us worse. We don't idolize Athletes, or Musicians, or Politicians. We idolize actual Heroes even if they are fictional. We know the difference between good and evil. It's a major plot point in most Geek Media.

There isn't an arbitrary 'others' divide here, that is the point. This behavior is largely universal and ancient. And people absolutely idolize athletes, musicians and yes, politicians. See, for example, Pele, Curt Cobain (sadly) and any number of cult of personality politicians, from Stalin to Gandhi. Medieval kingship even had the healing hands thing, and divine right nonsense.

The claim that people don't idolize (and often turn on) folks in non-geek areas of interest is absolutely wrong. I'd say its more accurate that modern people don't idolize heroes, for the complete lack of any. We just idolize the famous, instead, and work to tear them down when they disappoint (or when they aren't interesting anymore).

You can go back to Suetonius ranting about how horrible Julius and Augustus Caesar were in a terrible, yet boring precusor to modern online interaction- his major criticism was that they were homosexual. Nothing new under the sun.

You're arguing against a point I didn't make. The "We" was for Geek Media fans, not humans in general.

While Tom Brady has a large fan base, since he was never Dr Who many Geeks have no idea who he is.

 Easy E wrote:


In a world where your value is based on likes, views, re-tweets, and followers the worst thing you can be is "Meh".

Meh.

 Scrabb wrote:

 Easy E wrote:


In a world where your value is based on likes, views, re-tweets, and followers the worst thing you can be is "Meh".

Meh.

Needs more CAPS!


...am I being hypercritical enough?

Easy E, your post has ruined my childhood. Now get off of social media!

Hypercriticism has been a thing forever. At least since I first started interacting with geeks and realized I can't tolerate most of them. People like to be contrarians, and since Youtube has convinced everyone with a few hours and a webcam that their opinions are relevant... it's only gotten worse.

Harsh criticism for laughs can be fun. Cracked used to do that quite a bit, and I know they weren't the first- but the super-harsh criticism of everything became a trend.

40k isn't even immune to it. How many people do you know that bought Dawn of War as an introduction to 40k, but they go on about how great the Squats were and how third edition is better than all this crap nowadays? It's almost like some 20 year old talking about how hard we had it in 'Nam and how this new Iraq and Afghan war generation is a bunch of wimps. Sure, they'r entitled to their opinions but it seems like they're being contrarians for the sake of being contrary.

Fun fact, used to collect figures- Transformers, mostly. You want to talk about a Hyper-critical group of Geeks? Go to a Transformers message board. They could make an Optimus Prime figure that acts as your wingman at the bar, pays your tab for you, makes you breakfast, cleans your house, and drives you to work every day and there are dudes that would still whine because the headlights are in a weird position and it's "not as good as the first one ever made".

I'm being hyper-critical of hyper-critics now, but I actually saw some guy complaining that the Masterpiece Prime was 'inferior' to the Takara-Tomy original from the 1980's, because 'nostalgia' and then the guy couldn't even show his own figure because he 'never bothered collecting since the line died' (at a time he couldn't pinpoint).

People have their opinions. The thing is, just because it's their opinion doesn't make it important and a lot of people don't realize that. I think some folks join into 'geek' discussions just to be contrarians or try to flex their 'Geek Cred' when most of us are usually on the same level.

Yeah, some years back I started reading TF collector forums and it was ... really something. OTOH there were some good jokes. I especially like the Transformers wiki.

 Manchu wrote:
Easy E, your post has ruined my childhood. Now get off of social media!

I am glad that was not in red MOD text!

In the "old days" criticism was the past time of an educated elite for other fellow educated elites. Therefore, the rules of proper conduct between educated and social equals required a certain backhanded, subtle, and oblique form of criticism. Even the rise of the printing press, radio, or television still had gatekeepers in the form of publishing houses, licensing, or just the cash to get the proper equipment for it.

In the "modern" age, their are very few gatekeepers. Therefore, criticism has become "vulgar" (as in for the masses) and no longer the realm of the elite. As a result, it is not between social or educated equals, but between anonymous masses. It is practically the classic difinition of "Vulgarity" as any of the Volk can go online and interact with other Volk, Elites, Bourgeious, without distinction or filters. This is leads to the rise of hypercriticism.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, some years back I started reading TF collector forums and it was ... really something. OTOH there were some good jokes. I especially like the Transformers wiki.

Quite possibly the most fun thing about the 'culture' of Transformers is that Wiki. There's been a LOT of effort put into it, and I especially love how the references are there and named. I just wish they were a bit better at showing what comics are found in collected editions.

The collector forums makes Dakka seem like a bunch of hippies sniffing flowers and kissing each other.

Classic example: There was a guy who spent a LOT of time working on Fanfiction, and made one of the most interesting 'origin stories' for Transformers I've ever seen. He put a LOT of effort into it, and he deserved to be working on the comics because his ideas were brilliant.

This fellow criticized some of the behaviors and writing choices of IDW staff and was promptly scolded. Publicly so, by members and Admins alike. It was brutal. His critique wasn't even that harsh, it was just "We should keep real-world politics out of a comic book about robotic civil wars in another part of the Galaxy" and "Creators shouldn't be mocking or insulting their fanbase, it hurts the community AND the company" (A look at IDW right now shows he was kinda right). After his scolding, he carefully and discretely edited all of his fiction posts to "Removed By Author".

He was permanently banned, and an Admin re-posted all of his work.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, some years back I started reading TF collector forums and it was ... really something. OTOH there were some good jokes. I especially like the Transformers wiki.

Quite possibly the most fun thing about the 'culture' of Transformers is that Wiki. There's been a LOT of effort put into it, and I especially love how the references are there and named. I just wish they were a bit better at showing what comics are found in collected editions.

The collector forums makes Dakka seem like a bunch of hippies sniffing flowers and kissing each other.

Classic example: There was a guy who spent a LOT of time working on Fanfiction, and made one of the most interesting 'origin stories' for Transformers I've ever seen. He put a LOT of effort into it, and he deserved to be working on the comics because his ideas were brilliant.

This fellow criticized some of the behaviors and writing choices of IDW staff and was promptly scolded. Publicly so, by members and Admins alike. It was brutal. His critique wasn't even that harsh, it was just "We should keep real-world politics out of a comic book about robotic civil wars in another part of the Galaxy" and "Creators shouldn't be mocking or insulting their fanbase, it hurts the community AND the company" (A look at IDW right now shows he was kinda right). After his scolding, he carefully and discretely edited all of his fiction posts to "Removed By Author".

He was permanently banned, and an Admin re-posted all of his work.

Wow. That is some serious BS. Couldn’t he take them to court over that? I mean, that’s basically theft.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Wow. That is some serious BS. Couldn’t he take them to court over that? I mean, that’s basically theft.

After scouring the net for a while for this guy, and just accidentally stumbling across him in another area- no. He can't. Basically, anything you put on a message board is kind of open to the public. The best he could do, as I understand, was to go through some kind of creative commons license. But the entire attitude of the nerd culture drove him away from wanting to do it at all.

I can't say I blame him.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, some years back I started reading TF collector forums and it was ... really something. OTOH there were some good jokes. I especially like the Transformers wiki.

Even years later, I still really enjoy "things that ruined transformers forever".

dyndraig wrote:
One thing I find interesting about this is the how marketing campaigns seems to be designed to stir up these sort of reactions. Take the latest Ghostbusters for example, the whole marketing tactic for that movie centred about painting up this picture of a wave of misogynists that boycotted the film because of the female cast, so it was your duty as a good person to buy tickets. This riled up both people interested in seeing the movie and the uninterested, as now it wasn't just a movie, but a political statement. Even though in reality that boycott was just an article on a relatively small blog.

Without this campaign I believe the Ghostbusters 2017 would have passed by quietly as most other mediocre remakes, like the latest Robocop for example did.

I think you might be applying to marketing a lot of things that were not actually part of the Ghostbusters marketing plan. There was a lot of commentary about what some MRA dudes wrote about the movie, but it was coming from the same set of social commentators who always talk about whatever the MRA dudes are moaning about at any given time.

No-one at Sony put a line item in the film's advertising for exploiting misogynist tears, but I think it's interesting that a lot of people, yourself included, have assumed that's how it happened.

I think it is interesting that you assume it didn't happen and even go so far as to declare that it did not. Sony deleted YT comments on the infamous trailer but apparently distinguished between criticism of the film generally (these comments were deleted) and overtly sexist and racist comments (which were left up), the latter of which were in turn re-broadcast by various social media influencers, including celebrities.

I've stopped going to watch films and stopped gaming.
£15 to watch 2 hours of crap and £60 to play 2 hours of crap.
No thanks.
I stick to reading books and watching old films I can buy for 50p

 Ouze wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, some years back I started reading TF collector forums and it was ... really something. OTOH there were some good jokes. I especially like the Transformers wiki.

Even years later, I still really enjoy "things that ruined transformers forever".

Agreed - still love the first film

nvm.