Mad Nerd Monday

I think I wrote a basedPin about fandoms at some point in the past, but my seething hate for the idea has once again spilled to the forefront.

Probably a confluence of factors has caused this to be fresh in my mind, but one of the big ones has been reading discussions about the trailer for the new Star Trek TV show. The trailer is a huge mess of nonsense and generic scifi action show. Completely not what Star Trek has ever been about in the past, no, not even TOS. Maybe the show won't suck beyond belief, but going by the 2 minutes they chose to show, I highly doubt that.

So, reading discussions from the Star Trek "FANDOM" places, aka the subreddit and crappy articles on Gizomodo or whatever, the trailer was amazing and 'haters' were never truly part of the fandom and should just shut up.

Two major things very wrong with the idea of 'fandom' as it has been applied in this case:

1. The use of the idea of a single community who are fans of things as an excuse to shun anyone who doesn't treat <thing> as some sort of endless hype engine

2. The abuse of number 1 by companies to promote their crappy fandom-bait crash grabs

Actual discussion of anything is pretty much dead anywhere on the internet, but nowhere is it more dead than in any sort of 'fandom'. And since we live in the worst timeline version of the internet, any place where fans of things go to discuss will inevitably be taken over by the hivemind of 'fandom'. Soon enough, the 'haters' (aka anyone critical) will be shunned by enough voices to not even bother and everyone can just get behind being sooooo totally super hyped for things.

As if this wasn't bad enough, it's led to the creation of an entire parasitic industry for generating hype via endless pointless speculation and fandom pandering.

Actual Video of Parasites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdfOl-gU9XY&t=4m40s
"We like it, we're always gonna like it, it's effing Star Wars you dummies!"
-Some guy who pays his bills by stoking unending hype, 2017

How dare people criticize thing that you're getting paid to generate hype for.
Seriously, the sheer number of groups like this that exist, that are able to subsist entirely off hype for unreleased movies and TV shows, is absurd to me. I just wish that there was no market to sustain these people, liking something shouldn't be its own industry. You should get excited due to the quality of the thing, not the quality of the coverage of the trailer of the thing.

Even worse than these leeches is the fact that the companies crapping out endless iterations of FAN FAVORITE IP #8948 have discovered that a source of undying hype can lead to more revenue. So they've started to support and stoke these flames, which was simply inevitable. The way trailers and teasers are parceled out and the 'fandom' nods by 'knowing' creators are all cynical attempts to make sure you talk about <product> and thing about <product> and, god, you better buy <product> and <product>'s toy lines.

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tl;dr

Fandom culture has made me want to never ever read any discussion about things on the internet, even things I really like. Everything is smothered in hype, herd mentality, and loads of free (and paid) marketing.

Endless speculation about the smallest details and all the dumb "headcanon" and theories and AUs and whatever people crap out just makes everything feel equally awful.

I just want it to end. I want to go back to when people were just fans of things they liked and didn't make the latest Star Wars trailer part of their identity.

I'm sooo glad visual novels will never be NERD CHIC™ (though god knows the ""fandom"" is trying), but no one reads them so I won't have anyone to discuss with anyways.

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tl;dr of tl;dr

THE STAR TREK DISCOVERY TRAILER BLOWS, IT'S GENERIC SCIFI ACTION SHOW #848 NOW.