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 Grimskul wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

THIS. The number of people who have gawked at me like a mad man for not having read Harry Potter is more than I can count. It's little more than a wish fulfillment bildungsroman story to me, and not a particularly great one at that and which actively gets worse as Rowling doubles down on being woke and retcons things into absurdity. If I want magic in my story, I'd prefer LoTR or Warhammer, none of this magic school stuff.

The only thing they react more strongly to is being told someone in fact has read the books and/or watched the films, and doesn't particularly care for them.

I found them to be, you know, fine. Perfectly serviceable "school, but..." tween-to-YA stories, and the films had some cool visuals, but I physically cringe whenever I hear someone my age(30's) enthuse about how they're "a Ravenclaw", or how much more original it is than [insert whatever objectively superior classic fantasy series you just mentioned], or how some new mindshart Rowling has coiled out on her twitter makes them, like, totally reevaluate the whole story in the context of [insert presently trending Culture War issue here] and that, like, totally just confirms for them how much of a work of genius it is. Vom.

It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

you best not be mocking the bumbling badger of mediocrity that is House Hufflepuff (for "the rest"), the bitter meddlers who in all likelyhood caused the various wizard wars just to get back at everyone the hat thinks are better than them, even managed to throw one of their own under a bus to deflect any suspicions in the most recent set to

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

I have a sudden, desperate need to glue random gears onto a dancing skull.....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

That thread got locked while I was writing a long and in depth response to it... One of the most unnecessary thread lock I can remember.

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Well, no, because what I just described is literally not "pretty much the same" as anything else. Star Wars "fringe superfans" dress up in Stormtrooper armour at events. Star Trek "fringe superfans" argue which captain/series was better. Potterheads take an online "what House am I" quiz and will quite seriously drop the result into a casual conversation as if it sums up their whole IRL personality, view politics in terms of goodies and baddies because everyone they agree with is a Harry and everyone they disagree with is a Voldemort, and will in large part take their views on who fits into either category based on the social media pronouncements of a children's author.

When I start routinely running into Wars fans over the age of 12 who construct their entire personalities around an "are you Jedi or Sith?" online quiz, or Trek fans who're only capable of discussing politics by willfully butchering everybody's arguments in order to crudely map them to Alpha Quadrant species so as to associate negative or positive qualities from the fiction with actual real people, or [insert whatever here] fans who literally parrot [whatever]'s author's points of view and will brook no disagreement with them, then I'll reconsider my view of rabid Potterheads as something uniquely awful in fandom.

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

I think a lot of these are good. I think for me it's anime, dark souls, rpgs or blizzard games. I can see the appeal of each but let me explain their downfalls. Anime has lots of harem animes or slice of life crap anime with cutesy girl singing so high pitched in the intro or outro i have to skip both. Dark souls is fun but i prefer strategy games and if I have to play a hard game I just play xcom. Rpgs have too many fetch quests, 15 mins dialogue scenes or more and you try so hard to make your character look good and then you cover them up and sometimes in mismatched armor. Blizzard games are too grindy and I just get a bit bored. They seem overrated. They are good but starcraft 2 esp. When pro played has so much apm my eyes hurt and I feel like gm players would cause seizures for some with all that mouse movement. I don't have that kind of reaction time jesus.

The last thing I know someone said I'd like is Twitter and maybe once upon a time that'd be true but it is reaching 4chan and Tumblr levels of crap. I've honestly liked people till I realized how uninteresting many people are on Twitter and always so political. I want to be silly between Monty python humor mixed with drawn together humor and maybe a bit of borat mixed in but that'd never fly and then id never hear the end about how offensive and awful i am and id just get banned. Lighten up people life is too short and someone will always be offended somewhere. It's a fruitless endeavor to please everybody.

 Ouze wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

I can't deny that Twitter wasn't so toxic during the OT or prequels.

and of course muddling the other boy wizards background with Harry is a good trigger (also if Harry had Constantine instead of Dumbledore I suspect evil Tom would have been dead by about Chapter 7 of book 1)

 gorgon wrote:

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

I can't deny that Twitter wasn't so toxic during the OT or prequels.

Interesting idea for a thread. Things from the top of my head...

Probably the one I hear most is I have to try out Rick and Morty. So I have. Several times. Multiple episodes. And I just really dislike it. Not fun, not entertaining for me at all.

Next up, I quite enjoy One Piece. But it is one of only two animes I enjoy at all. I've had multiple friends recommend me some, but none caught my eye.

Next up, Counterstrike. I quite enjoy FPS, but CS alwways felt incredibly boring to me.

Last, Rammstein. I really enjoy german bands, but Rammstein was always to weird to me.

 Vulcan wrote:

And again, to be fair, I have to admit there was some toxicity going on at the time. Just... not modern levels of toxicity.

Which makes me wonder. Is it something in the respective fandoms that induced the toxicity... or is this just a time where toxicity is more pronounced and common?

A lot of it just has to do with accessibility and entitlement. The Web 2.0 movement allowed a single person to participate (dominate) the conversation worldwide and created a lot of opportunity for vocal minorities to drive the conversation. As companies responded to this feedback rather than ignore it, it planted the seeks for a culture in which fans increasingly felt ownership and control over their favorite properties than the actual creators. What's really pushed things into overdrive is the mainstream acceptance of the formerly niche properties making these fans feel like they're losing the control they thought they had. There's probably a LOT more to say about the matter, but that's the crux of it. A mix of the web allowing outside influence via raw dedication and a huge influx of people buying into properties without really being dedicated enough to care about influencing the web.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

And again, to be fair, I have to admit there was some toxicity going on at the time. Just... not modern levels of toxicity.

Which makes me wonder. Is it something in the respective fandoms that induced the toxicity... or is this just a time where toxicity is more pronounced and common?

A lot of it just has to do with accessibility and entitlement. The Web 2.0 movement allowed a single person to participate (dominate) the conversation worldwide and created a lot of opportunity for vocal minorities to drive the conversation. As companies responded to this feedback rather than ignore it, it planted the seeks for a culture in which fans increasingly felt ownership and control over their favorite properties than the actual creators. What's really pushed things into overdrive is the mainstream acceptance of the formerly niche properties making these fans feel like they're losing the control they thought they had. There's probably a LOT more to say about the matter, but that's the crux of it. A mix of the web allowing outside influence via raw dedication and a huge influx of people buying into properties without really being dedicated enough to care about influencing the web.

I think you're on the money, but I'll go a step or ten farther and say that I believe that social media has influenced how we debate, talk and even think about things. Is it really a coincidence that polarization in society spiked (it had been climbing for years, but it seemed to go next-level IMO) at around the time we started communicating in short, very limited bursts in a semi-anonymous medium that rewards loud, bold statements? Then factor in the echo chamber aspect, and I don't think it's outrageous to say that the nature of the medium drives people into extreme views. Real-life conversations aren't always polite and respectful either, but IME it's much more likely that you can have in-person debate about The Last Jedi/politics/whatever without things going nuclear from the get go. Although I also think that that real-life communication skills are also declining. Look at what's happened on college campuses.

I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

Certainly communicating via tiny, omni-directional pulses is a huge part of it. The "forever" nature of the web has also lead to a lot of the entrenched opinion problem. "If they were wrong 7 years ago, what's to say they aren't wrong now?" is a pretty crippling way to go through life.

I think a big thing is, and i say this having been part of many fandoms, people use them as safe spaces and as a way to escape(Not the shows, the fandoms).
And when things dont go the way they want, whether from the show itself, or the fandom, they panic and think that is being taken away.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Well, no, because what I just described is literally not "pretty much the same" as anything else. Star Wars "fringe superfans" dress up in Stormtrooper armour at events. Star Trek "fringe superfans" argue which captain/series was better. Potterheads take an online "what House am I" quiz and will quite seriously drop the result into a casual conversation as if it sums up their whole IRL personality, view politics in terms of goodies and baddies because everyone they agree with is a Harry and everyone they disagree with is a Voldemort, and will in large part take their views on who fits into either category based on the social media pronouncements of a children's author.

When I start routinely running into Wars fans over the age of 12 who construct their entire personalities around an "are you Jedi or Sith?" online quiz, or Trek fans who're only capable of discussing politics by willfully butchering everybody's arguments in order to crudely map them to Alpha Quadrant species so as to associate negative or positive qualities from the fiction with actual real people, or [insert whatever here] fans who literally parrot [whatever]'s author's points of view and will brook no disagreement with them, then I'll reconsider my view of rabid Potterheads as something uniquely awful in fandom.

Gotta agree here. Have a peek at r/readanotherbook on Reddit to see a lot of what Yodhrin is describing above. It's just next level of fandom cringe.


As for myself, I don't really care for modern console gaming (or a lot of computer gaming TBH) at all. Nothing about modern games just clicks with me and a lot of people are surprised by that despite my other geeky leanings.

I don't care for much anime. Maybe I'm just turned off of the genre due to the weebs but I do like a couple of titles, namely Outlaw Star; but that was probably because I was first exposed to it on Cartoon Network in my teens and not had it shoved in my face by some smelly dork in cat ears.

I'll admit I liked The Big Bang Theory. To a point. I'd say this was roughly season 5 when the original premise of the show veered off from what it started out as and now I just don't care for it and stopped watching. It is not something I'll admit to liking, much like Rick and Morty, which is a show that I adore, but the fanbase gets on my tits so much.

Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

What about 'how I met your mother'? I thought that was supposed to be friends part 2.

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

 gorgon wrote:

I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

Or more general theories of technological determinism. Tech tends to dictate the shape of our societies far more than our societies dictate the uses of tech.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

What about 'how I met your mother'? I thought that was supposed to be friends part 2.

I saw half a dozen episodes, and Ireally enjoyed NPH’s Barney character, but never felt any interest in following up on any of them. I guess they were more the Ross and Rachel friends and not so much the Chandler, Joey, Monica and Phoebe friends. Big Bang Theory, for all of its faults, at least kept me (or my wife, really) coming back to find out what happens next.


Also, didn’t How I Met Your Mother totally whiff the ending? I remember people turning on it like it was Lost.

How I Met Your Mother had a really strong first six seasons, which is far more than most sitcoms, but holy crap the last 3 just dive bomb so hard. I think Game of Thrones is the only other show that had anything approaching that level of decline. Weighing in on Big Bang Theory, I absolutely loved the first 2 seasons. After that, I don't know if the quality of the writing went downhill or if I just got burnt out on the premise, but season 3 onwards just dragged. It didn't help that I hated pretty much every character that was added to the cast. Bernadette in particular, her voice makes me want to tear off my ears. Amy was also a character I never cared for, and both became series regulars after fans demanded they return after their guest appearances. I'll never understand how that happened.

As for the topic question itself, I gotta say the show for me that probably most fits that phenomenon is Community. A couple of my closest friends really liked it and referenced it all the time. I watched it and just... didn't understand the appeal. I found it painfully unfunny.

As for myself, I don't really care for modern console gaming (or a lot of computer gaming TBH) at all. Nothing about modern games just clicks with me and a lot of people are surprised by that despite my other geeky leanings.

Same. I haven't been without something to video game on since I first got my ZX Spectrum at aged 9ish.

Yet I've found I'm increasingly left cold with gaming. Some of it I certainly think is explained with my resurgent interest in analogue gaming over the last 8 years or so, one only has so much time after all, I don't think that explains it entirely.

I think what I realised when I made the jump to current gen, which I was already late doing, was that the games haven't really changed for a long time now. Sure, they're infinitely more refined in terms of visuals etc, but there's barely any change in the gaming experience now than the PS2/XBox era.

I keep meaning to make a dive into the Indy sector and look out some stuff that isn't just the latest installment of Franchise X, but just haven't had the enthusiasm.

Zombie films. I get zombies can be unnerving and there's a some immune but wouldn't the military have some serious containment protocols. If I recall in 28 weeks later they wondered off into abandoned homes despite the danger from zombies or crazy people. Also leaving the couple alone in containment together while exchanging fluids with a possibly infected woman. I did oddly enjoy 28 days a whole lot but there are so many questions. How often do zo,bies need to eat. I mean in a swarm they're fearful but you only really need to outlast them with food to win. Ok so they have a strong bite but any form of higher thinking isnt really there and they're slow. Tricking zombies to get away or come to you should be pretty easy in the form of loud noises. That could be perfect for ambushes or for leading them to a new fake threat so you can retreat.Regardless I find zombies not as big a threat. If some scientist told me about 'the thing existing and replacing people I'd crap my pants. Zombies are just less scary to me.

Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.