"Fans ruin everything"

[Koelath 445]

So three bronies walk into a bar...

Brony #1 attempts to pretend he looks cool despite wearing a fedora with an orange-stained wifebeater and khakis.

 

Brony #2 tried to tell everyone in the bar about how great ponies are, and compares everyone to racists and dictators when they demand to be given space.

 

Brony #3 starts chatting up the bartender about the history of the My Little Pony franchise and how he's oh-so-super-special for defying gender stereotypes as if it's never been done before.

 

Then, suddenly all the chatter dies down...The music from the jukebox trails off into silence...The three bronies exchange meaningful looks, nodding to one another...And then, in unison, they declare "OH MAN, THIS BAR IS AWESOME, WE SHOULD TOTALLY MAKE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT IT BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL REALLY TOTALLY CARE AND SEE HOW SPECIAL WE ALL ARE!"

 

 

Some days, I find myself wondering "Is this even a fandom, or just a really big self-sustaining meme?"

 

And that makes me very very sad. Vocal minority, just a few bad apples, whatever the case may be, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the self-victimizing, look-at-me-i'm-special cesspool that gathers at the bottom of the metaphorical dish that is this fandom. And it only gets more painful as people actually involved with the show seem to solely encourage the worst elements of the fandom, whether it's Tara Strong degenerating into little more than a staff-sanctioned softcore clop dispenser or Q (yes, his name is Q, non-negotiable) performing an animated musical number in that ridiculous documentary...

 

Now, when something is popular, fandoms appear around those things, especially in the age of the internet. And that's great and all...But there is a limit. Half the time it seems like it's less about sharing a common enjoyment and more about a cultish self-important meme-infested (any fandom has them but there's a point where it's just obnoxious to the entire internet, and that point was crossed about two memes prior to the whole Twilight scepter thing) supervirus calling itself a fandom.

 

What happened to people just...You know, liking what they like? No screaming it from rooftops to everyone who doesn't care, no "documentaries" (speaking as someone who watched it, twice, 'documentary' here should be read thusly: fandom-circlejerking tripe), no "look at me, I break the rules by being a guy who likes a girly thing, aren't I unique!" rambling, no *asinine comparisons of liking a TV show to actual persecuted groups in history. None of that nonsense, none of the obnoxious overblown garbage and victimized rambling of 'persecuted' bronies. People used to just enjoy things. Was enjoyment just too simple? Did people get bored of enjoying things? Did just enjoying something seem too logical for the average human being? What happened?

* In recent news, a Neo-Nazi white supremacist who failed to take over a town accused people of violating his freedom of religion. Said they were persecuting his "religion of racial awareness". Building up "I like a cartoon" as if it's coming out of the closet or revealing yourself as an atheist in the extremist Bible belt or being black during segregation...Well, the Neo-Nazi is less ridiculous.