This is kind of a response to this: Vision. Fans all have different visions etc. Yeah. Anyway. Rant incoming.
*Well, except for Manchester United, Chris Hemsworth, certain boybands and Simon Baker. And Tom Hardy on the days when he doesn’t annoy the shit out of me (I am pretty sure most of what he says is just pseudo-babble).
Anyway, for the sake of this post I will mostly refer to football/soccer fans because they’ve really captured my disdain for ‘fans’. At least with SPN, there’s the ‘these people have [insert adjective] fantasies about [insert annoying person affiliated with SPN]’ aspect. It’s stupid but whatever. They’re gullible consumers and whatnot.
Either way, sports fans don’t really have that excuse. Man-crushes don’t count.
Anyway, I used to read the Guardian for sports comments. Basically, I’m the kind of football fan that spends two hours POSTING IN CAPS on Twitter and after that, I go into lurk mode. I stopped reading the Guardian Sports section because it was just full of silly opinion pieces in which the writers would argue against points that they had been writing about for weeks. There was also an aggressive campaign to get a manager fired which was distasteful. In the end, the amount of rage said manager (of my team, no less!) generated was hilarious to me (well, not during matches). They also have this annoying habit of not linking sources. I get it, they have a business to run but it is kind of frustrating to read an article that assumes the readers knows what the fuck they’re talking about it despite providing no information. They do it a lot and I am over it.
So I started using r/soccer, which is basically the subreddit for everything soccer related. I actually started off at the sub for my team but it was very all late teens/early males’ ish and kind of hilariously bad so I switched to r/soccer.
It’s even worse.
The only decent thing is that they post the actual sources but maaaaaaaaaaan, those guys do not know how to take a joke. Common sense is apparently frowned upon. They do that douchey thing where they correct grammar. Everything is either a ‘shitpost’ or ‘circle jerking’, otherwise known as ‘personal opinion’. Everyone they don’t like is a c**t. I have never seen the C word posted so many times in my life. It’s like a bunch of pubescent males who reach that stage where swearing is like, really fucking cool, man. It sounds ridiculous.
The worst thing, however, is their quite narrow perception of fans and what a ‘real’ fan is. I will tell you what a ‘real’ fan is.
Someone that likes something and doesn’t give a shit about what other people do. Seriously, being a fan just means that you are a consumer at the end of a very successful marketing strategy. Being more knowledgeable about something is probably a negative quality in terms of being a fan. It’s a lot of pointless information with no prize at the end.
However, this subreddit and people in fandom seem to consider being condescending as their prize. It just reeks of looking for self-validation. If someone not liking something the way you do is an issue then that’s your problem. It’s kind of like a long running argument I used to have with someone about not talking about things I like. For me, if I like something, I like it. That’s the end. If I don’t like something, then yeah, you’ll probably hear about it. Do I care if other people like it? Not really. Do I care how they like it? Nope. Do I care that they don’t like it? Not particularly. The validation might be nice but what do I get out of that? Nothing!
Still, there are some people who…
- Are A Better Fan Than You. This is the worst thing. I hate this. What actually inspired this post was a thread about ‘plastic’ fans on that Reddit page. It was one of many. They are all so concerned about plastic, glory hunting fans, completely ignoring the fact that…some people just aren’t into sports that much. I keep an eye on tennis scores, but I am not a huge fan. By their logic, if I randomly started cheering Nadal on after he won three grand slams in a row, I’d be a plastic fan. Oh, and not living in the area of the team you support makes you a plastic fan as well. It’s somehow not feasible that someone could like a team based somewhere else. It’s also not feasible that people would flock to a successful team. It’s kind of funny because they’re all…’business savvy’ on there but don’t seem to get the notion of people flocking to what’s popular. It happens. Get over it. They act like it’s some kind of crime. One person said it [plastic fans] made him feel physically sick and was annoyed at a comment someone wrote about being a normal fan. The irony.
There’s also the…
- Fan Who Is Always Up To Date And Refuses To Accept That Some People Aren’t
I can use Supernatural for this one. When I say, ‘I no longer watch the show’ that isn’t an invitation for you to tell me that this and that is happening. A. I can find out for myself. B. I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. C. ARE YOU BEING OBTUSE ON PURPOSE? D. Oh, so, you’re Wikipedia in human form? E. So basically I’m just going to have to ignore you for you to stop? F. Okay.
With r/soccer, if you don’t keep up with the 50+ posts per day, you simply do not deserve to live.
- Only Approved Jokes Are Allowed
Sigh.
- Let’s Repeat The Same Thing Over and Over/But Still Keep Paying Money/Watching
I guess I can include myself here. WHATEVER. There’s only so many times you need to post something. Repeating your point doesn’t make it any worthwhile. Plus 90% fan demands are stupid, what with their limited control. Which leads me to…
- Fans Who Don’t Know How To Stay In Their Lane
I will use The 100 fans as an example here. I briefly followed the whole ‘lesbian died after relationship!!!11’ fiasco that was apparently teased by the writers. Queerbaiting on The CW. Who would have thought it? Anyway, the hilarious thing was people saying they felt they were being ‘used for ratings?’
Used for ratings.
Uh. Yeah, that’s how it works! TV shows aren’t on air to entertain you. They are there to make money for networks. Yes, you’re being ‘used’ for ratings. *dead* I laughed at that for longer than I should have done. The football equivalent is fans who complain over and over and keep buying tickets and merchandise. My team has been shit all year, so I bought the shirt when the price was slashed. That was the only reason why I bought it.
- Fans Who Think Everybody Should Be A Fan Of What They Like
GO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.
- FANDOMS
See #6.
- Fans Who Like ‘Better Things’ Than You
I’m a long-standing boyband fan so I am immune to this, but these people are obnoxious as hell. Oh, they don’t like that. They’ve never seen that. They like this better. You should watch/listen to this instead. Blah, blah, blah. This is only acceptable in Justin Bieber’s case, and even then ignoring him is the best method. Examples: Games Of Thrones, Beyoncé, and Rihanna fans. They are to be avoided at all costs.
So yeah, I am done with it all. I am no longer a fan of anything. I’m happy with being a consumer. I like stuff or I don’t like it. People might not be sure about the exact origin of the word ‘fan’ but the combined fanatical behaviour of fans is too much for me.
They’re all fucking exhausting.
supernatural snark 