Fandom Update

Story link here.

Oh hey, the Steven Universe fandom is yet again in the news for being a toxic, aggressive and inhumane fandom. Just after I did a blog post about how fandoms really need to stop thinking in this cult like manner or that the world revolves around them.

So in case you're not bothered with reading the whole thing, i'll sum it up. A storyboard artist and writer for Steven Universe shared her thoughts on Twitter on two characters possible relationship and fans who disagreed with that, thought they had the right to insult her, pick on her, tell her how offensive she is.

I can not believe there are people in the world who actually need this to be spoken to them.

ARTISTS DO NOT OWE YOU SHIT.

DISAGREEING WITH PEOPLE OVER SUBJECTIVE AND FICTIONAL WORK IS NO REASON TO INSULT PEOPLE.

DON'T-BE-A-DICK.

Especially for a show that preaches kindness, forgiveness and to see the best in people, how can scum who see themselves as "fans" not practice what is preached to them? Even worse that most of it comes from adults, people who are supposed to be functioning members of society and think because someone, somewhere had a different opinion on a fictional piece of work, they had the right to berate that person...and the fact dozens of people had the same thought pattern is sad and terrifying at the exact same time.

-Danny

What does it mean to be a fan?

'Fandom' has become somewhat of a toxic term these days. It was the 'Fandom' of Ghostbusters that tried to make a movie fail before it even came out. It was the 'Fandom' of Beyonce that doxxed a man's home address simply because he made a joke about her baby. It was the 'Fandom' of Steven Universe that drove a person to depression from the harassment she received simply because she did some fan art where she made a fat character skinny. I mean I guess we shouldn't be surprised, fan is short for fanatic, and boy do some of these people really want to live up to that name...

Now obviously the first thing to address is that not obviously everyone who likes a certain product with an aggressive fanbase is a bad person. Hell, I myself are a fan of plenty of products that have not had the best reputation recently. DC, Video Games and the previously mentioned Ghostbusters and Steven Universe. I'm sure the worst of these fandoms are the vocal minority, but here's the thing, when even 1% of a product with literally millions of fans around the world focus in on harrassing one person, that is still going to feel like an infinite amount of people hating on them. Especially when it's for an incredibly stupid reason like "They did fan art and I don't like it". I think what made it even worse is when we started naming said fandoms. "SuperWhoLockers" "Bronies" "One Directioners". I'm sure the intentions behind them was innocent, trying to give a sense of community of these people brought together by similar interests, but like most things, once it gets too big to control, things get out of hand real quickly.

Eventually we reached a stage where people didn't just appreciate these creations, but started to make it a part of their identity. Started to get so involved that an attack on the work was an attack on them personally. A guy on YouTube made a joke about Beyonce's baby? WE MUST END HIM! When really if they just took a second to think about it and realise...does it really matter? Do you think Beyonce is offended some random guy made a joke at the expense of her baby? She's famous, she knows how to deal with trolls, besides, that kid is already living a better life than any of us, I don't think this'll sway her much.

It goes as far as people to get offended over "shipping". Yeah, we're at the point where people get offended is someone doesn't like their fanfic version of characters. I literally saw someone on Tumblr get upset because someone said it was ridiculous to draw Rey and Kylo from The Force Awakens as a couple...Oh my god who the hell cares!? You're upset that some stranger on the internet things your fictionalised version of a fictional film is stupid!? Really, just for one second think about that. Yes it's rude of them but that doesn't actually mean it's something worth getting upset over. For one thing shipping itself is inherently a dumb concept to take seriously, it's supposed to just be a what if scenario, a fun little "Oh wouldn't it be cute if these two ended up together?" But people get seriously offended if the people who work on the actual series don't make it canon. Oh you want Bucky and Steve to be a couple but they would never do that in the movies? Hey good news, they're not real people! If you want them to be together then write your own story! Of course this goes into the idea of canonical storytelling in multiply adapted stories, so that's a topic i'll save for another time.

Point is people really need to learn to grow the fuck up. Art is an important part of our culture, it always has been, and it makes perfect sense that if something that you're connected to and means something to you is attacked that you'll be offended. But like everything, there needs to be a line drawn. Meaning no doxxing people's personal information, no making stupid petitions because a bunch of critics have opinions you don't agree with, and absolutely no harassing people. Even if someone misrepresents a character or has a different interpretation from the norm, you never have the right to be an asshole to someone. Especially over a fucking piece of fiction.

So okay, that's all of what being a fan shouldn't be. So what should a fan be? Well that's harder to describe. You often hear people online debate about what makes a "true fan". "Oh? You haven't seen every single episode of every single Star Trek series? Then you're not a true fan!" "You didn't play the original Pokemon games? Then you're not a true fan" "You found this band through a different way that i did and at a later date? Then you're not a true fan". So let's just put this to rest. There is no such thing as a true fan. There is no one way to appreciate a product. There is no certain time or criteria you have to meet in order to consider yourself a fan of something. For my personal interpretation, being a fan just means you have a huge liking for something, understand the basic meanings behind it, wish to explore more and like talking about it. It doesn't mean blind love of everything it does even when it's bad, it doesn't mean nitpicking every slight difference or continuity error in a new adaptation. It means liking it, knowing why you like it, and being interested in talking about it, not shouting your opinions at people until they agree with you and assuming everyone different is wrong.

TL;DR: Enjoy what you like but don't be a dick about it.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Chandler Bing

In my life I have described my sense of humour-hell most of my personality-is a mixture between Homer Simpson and Chandler Bing. Most of the time my general sarcastic, flamboyant and (If I do say so myself) witty sense of humour is basically an imitation of Chandler and his sense of humour. His tone, his pacing, his body language, all stuff that has influenced me and how I behave when trying to be funny. Because it's no question that Chandler is the funniest character in Friends, hence why he's always referred too as the funny one (Not the best title to give a character in a comedy but whatever). In fact when I look back at some of my favourite episodes, The One With The Black Out, The One With Chandler In A Box, they're often episodes that give Chandler a fair amount to do, and very little of it is plot heavy, it's just Chandler in a funny situation. After all who would have thought they could get an entire episode worth of material out of just Chandler sat in a box for half the episode? And we don't even see him in the box! We just get dialogue, that is a great example of a really talented comedic actor.

Now that being said there is a recurring joke with Chandler that I just don't get...when he randomly blerts out gibberish. "Nice to meet you I'm blaghbuh". It's just...even as a kid I didn't see the humour in these, he's just shouting random vowels, it's not funny, it's not clever, it's just literal gibberish. Also then there are points to be made about how emotionally stinted he is, very insecure in his own sexuality and just general incompetence in lots of parts of life...So yeah maybe don't look to Chandler as a role model considering how many issues he has, just look at him for comedy and nothing much else. Yes he does develop and grow as the show goes on, even gets married and has kids, but not all the way, even in the very last episode he's panicking over the idea of too much responsibility even though so, maybe not the best improvements.

But none of this changes the fact that he is one of my comedic icons, has influenced me to no end, even to this day I can still burst out laughing at one of his jokes, everything about it is perfect, he's one of the funniest characters in all of comedy, and is another one to write down as one of my all time favourite characters.

-Danny

My Favourite Characters - Nightwing

When it comes to my top 3 favourite DC characters I always list Superman, Wonder Woman and Nightwing; and people are always surprised by that last one. "Why Nightwing and not Batman?". Simple, Nightwing is all of the best parts of Batman with none of the bad stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I love Batman, I think he is such a fascinating character to read and analyse, but Nightwing is superior for me, the answer of why is simple. A while ago I did a post that briefly touched upon this, when you boil Batman down to his most simple reasoning, why is Batman, Batman? To make sure no other eight year old boy will ever have to go through what he went through.

Bruce Wayne was destroyed by the death of his parents and it's something that he never fully recovered from, he's psychologically scarred from the event and is what made him into the man he is today, someone that fights crime and makes his city a better place, but personally his life is a constant wreck. When Dick Grayson's parents were killed by criminals, Batman thought he failed his mission, that's why he took him in, he could relate to him better than anyone and hopefully steer him into the right direction. Make the world a better place but also hopefully turn out a better person than Bruce because he doesn't have to go through it alone. Which is exactly what happened.

Dick Grayson grew up to be a crime fighter and detective like Batman and has saved countless lives. But he also has a sense of humour, he has friends, he has a girlfriend, he still has a life outside of fighting crime. Dick Grayson didn't lose his humanity the night his parents died and the darkness never took control of him like it did Bruce Wayne. True he's not as tough or as smart as Batman but he's a happy medium. Nightwing has all of the great skills of Batman, but with none of the baggage to come with it. That's what makes me love him and makes him one of my favourite DC characters.

-Danny

Thoughts On The Female Iron Man

That's it. This is sort of a non-story for me. In case you aren't aware, a little context: Marvel has announced they are introducing a new Iron Man into the Marvel comic universe, a 15 year old black woman, Riri Williams. The internet of course erupted in both cheers and boos and honestly...I don't think it deserves it. Marvel is in such a big state of diversifying its roster of characters to be more inclusive, sometimes this has worked great (Kamala Khan as Ms Marvel) sometimes it has gone terribly (She-Thor) and sometimes it hasn't really made an impact (Sam Wilson as Captain America). This is just the next step in Marvel trying to have a larger variety of characters. Here's the thing, I think it's good that Marvel is trying so hard to be more diverse and hell, characters like Kamala Khan or Miles Morales are some of the best characters that Marvel has created in over 20 years. Hell i'd say they're more interesting than their elder counterparts. So far we don't know the alias of the new character (I mean Iron Man is clearly no longer applicable) but 'Fe' is the symbol for Iron, so Fe-Male=Iron Man. But honestly the best suggestion i've heard so far is Iron Maiden.

But then there are the people that are complaining about this, and most of the time they try to cover up their whiney fanboyisms with "I'd just rather they make original characters instead of ripping off classic characters". These people have apparently never heard of Legacy characters, so I guess that also means they won't ever be reading any stories involving The Flash, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Robin, Blue Beetle, Wolverine, Hulk or Supergirl, because literally all of these characters are legacy characters, meaning the mantels are currently (And for some of them, have been for decades now) being held by someone who was not the original version of that superhero. So stop whining nerds, it looks pathetic.

Will Riri Williams be good as Iron Maiden (That's such a cool name)? Who knows. I haven't read any comics with her, we don't know what this means for Tony Stark, we don't know how this character will interact with everyone else or what her stories are, all we know is...there's a new people putting on the Iron suit...so I repeat...ehh.

-Danny

James Rolfe On Ghostbusters

So yesterday James Rolfe, aka The Angry Videogame Nerd posted a video talking about how he's not going to see the new Ghostbusters movie because he believes it'll be bad and this has caused quite a backlash. Not from fans, but from fellow critics. Dan Murrell, Leon Thomas, Bob Chipman Lindsey Ellis have all commented saying it's unfair and unprofessional of him to simply blacklist this movie because it's based on a nostalgic franchise. Now while I semi-agree with them I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say what Rolfe says isn't bad, just misworded.

Now look the important thing to remember here is that James Rolfe is an independent critic, he doesn't represent a news outlet or company, he reviews whatever he wants to review, and if he doesn't want to see a movie because he thinks the trailers look bad, he's perfectly allowed to do that. If anything I think it's a good thing he won't see the movie, he says himself in the video that he's biased, he's nostalgic for the original film and considers it one of his all time favourite films, and with the onslaught of bad remakes of 80s classics we get these days, plus the bad marketing of the film, it's not surprise he would assume the movie is going to be bad.

With that being said I think Bob Chipman put it best, it's going to be impossible to actually judge this movie without comparisons to the original, debates about feminism in movies, yadayadayada and really it'll be about 5 years (I'd say 10) until we actually find out what people think of this movie. Me personally I didn't grow up with Ghostbusters, I saw it when I was 13 and thought it was fine, I didn't see it again until I was 18 and liked it a lot more but it's not something I'm nostalgic about or love all that much. But with that being said I'm not looking forward to the new movie at all, I'm not a fan of Paul Feig or Melissa McCarthy and I thought the trailer was piss poor. Will I see the movie? Probably not, even if it does get good reviews because I quite simply do not care. But at the same time I'm not gonna do a melodramatic video talking about how this movie is destroying a classic film.

-Danny

Uncharted 4's Bad Review

Oh hey, been a while...cool now that we got that outta the way.



Let's talk about this shit storm that is forming around The Washington Post's review of Uncharted 4, if you don't know this story, Michael Thomsen wrote up a very negative review for Uncharted 4 which brought the Metacritic score down from a 94 to a SHOCKING 93...oh boohoo. So now there is a petition for his review to be removed from Metacritic...Now look I read his review and I very much disagree with what he said, hell I just think it's a badly written review that barely discusses the game but more so his feelings on Uncharted as a concept. But Jesus Christ people's reactions just shows how fragile people's egos are and if their opinions are ever challenged they turn into crying brats.

Let's take a look at what the creator of the petition has to say and why they felt this petition was needed. “It harms the Flawless reputation of the game for absolutely no reason. A review is not about what you think a game is , its about what a game is. Objective measures are applied.”...Okay where to begin. First of all "flawless reputation" listen kid-and I assume this is a kid because only 12 year olds act this way-no videogame is flawless, no art piece is flawless, and to suggest it has a flawless reputation would suggest that every single person who played it thinks it's the greatest thing ever, if even one person left that game not thinking that, then it ain't a flawless reputation. But what really gets me is that second part, "A review is not about what you think a game is , its about what a game is. Objective measures are applied" and yes, that bad grammar is exactly how they word it. So let's talk about this "Objective measures are applied". Here's a lesson everyone needs to learn: There is no such thing as an objective review. A review is saying what you like or dislike about a game with a decent enough selection of evidence to back up your points. People aren't robots, everyone has had different experiences, likes & dislikes in their life that shape who they are as people and what their preferences are.

But even more so, how unconfident in yourself do you have to be that some stranger's opinion has affected you so damn much that you start a petition. If this critic doesn't like the game then what did you think was going to happen? Your copy of the game was going to magically disappear? You see this type of mentality form all the time, if something is widely beloved and one critic or several critics doesn't love it then people will swarm on them like a witch hunt. Uncharted, Mad Max: Fury Road, Game of Thrones, audiences are so unsure of their own opinions because as much as people like to bash the critics, it's surprising how many people let them affect their own opinions, because if this person apparently knows the medium so well that they get paid to give their opinion, and it doesn't match your opinion then that must mean there's is more valid right? No! It doesn't matter who says what, if you enjoy a piece of art or hate a piece of art, no one has the right to change that! I don't care how many times people tell me 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece, I think it's shit. The same with Pirates of the Carribean franchise, everyone thinks 2 & 3 are awful, I love them to death.

So let this be a lesson to you, your opinion is not always going to mesh with particular critics, or even the majority. As long as you're not trying to take away from other people's experiences then why should you let someone do the same to you? Like what you like and if someone doesn't like it then good news, that's something that's bringing you joy that someone else doesn't have, why let that bother you?

-Danny