What Fandoms do you HATE

Oh god, those "fans" who go on and on about how they "liked it first" before all the "normies" got to it.

Or "they played/watched/read/etc. it BEFORE the remake/reboot/original version/etc. came out."

And that's it, that's their whole personality.

There's nothing in shameful in wanting to try out a product because of new attention paid to a franchise/series through a reboot, remake, rerelease, or even sequel. It doesn't mean you're a "fake fan" or something like that. If you're discovering Tomb Raider for the first time through the brand new updated collection that came out in 2024 OR you enjoyed it wayyyyy back on the Sega Saturn or PS1 in the 90s, you can consider yourself a fan. 

All that said, I can think of one explanation for some of these people's behavior-namely, people who were horrifically bullied for said interest watching all these people stream in to their interest as if they were into it the whole time. That can be a bit aggravating, since they never had to endure social stigma for something they liked. I'll use anime as an example. I was an "otaku" way back in the late 90s and early-mid 00s when that stuff was considered very weird and taboo once you were past like age 11 (at least in my neck of the woods). Sure, there were mainstream exceptions like DBZ (and even that was kinda dicey), but say, Rozen Maiden? "WTCrap is that _____??!!!" was a lot of people's reactions. They didn't "get it." If you didn't have solid internet access, and heck even if you did, back in the day, being a secret otaku was borderline impossible because so much stuff was still just physical media. Lots of modern individuals have gotten into the genre/medium by simple virtue that they could hide it all better online. And culture alone has grown to accommodate much more foreign media than was possible even a decade or 2 ago. Just recently, 2 extremely "normal individuals" who are friends of mine were just sporting clear anime decorations on their car and proudly showing them off. But when I feel condescending, I remind myself that wishing that sort of pain I went through on someone in of itself the sort of behavior bullies in the 90s/00s tormented me with. And no way I want to be a bully myself!

That reminds me; the first time I got to play the original Sonic 1 & 2 as well as Golden Axe 1 were as downloadable PS3 titles. Most first party Genesis games I didn't play until I got my first AtGames Genesis. I'm on like, my 4th one now lmao. I wouldn't play Space Harrier, Zaxxon, Fantasy Zone, the Phantasy Star original quadology, Dynamite Headdy, Super Thunder Blade, Shining Force 1 & 2, Shining in the Darkness & Congo Bongo until I got Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection on PS3. I really liked a lot of the games, even though I kinda sucked at them. I even liked the RPGs a bit, even if I wasn't really an RPG person, probably because my neurodivergent mind found the worlds & setting to be interesting.

EDIT: Oh & by the time I got Ultimate Genesis Collection on PS3, it was already 6 years after it had came out & the PS4 had almost 2 years on the market by that point. No joke. And that's like the LATEST console I have, except for the Retron 3 which came out in 2009 & I got it last year IIRC. Or maybe late 2022. So yeah, I was THREE GENERATIONS BEHIND when I first played some of them, FOUR generations behind when I got my first AtGames Genesis in like, December 2012 & I have played Stunt Race FX about FIVE generations behind, or better yet I played the original Blaster Master SIX generations behind.

Yeah, for "cash in" franchises/series that are just made to cash in on a trend (like Garten of BanBan), you can definitely criticize those IMO. And if that's all you play and consider yourself a gamer, well, of course you're entitled to what you like, but couldn't you like...try to play to play something else? My partner has spoke about this too-he would find "gamers" on dating sites who hadn't actually played a game casually in like 10 years but still use the tag. Literal fake fans IMO. He invited one over who claimed to be a "major" Super Mario World fan and she played the game for all of like 10 minutes max and then complained she was "bored." Okay?

And no shame in trying to find more obscure stuff, I used to peruse AnimeNfo (or TV Tropes or Wikipedia or anime blogs or other sites) for hours (if not days and weeks) just finding weird shows that either never made it to the USA, or were just not talked about widely. The first "major" anime I watched that sticks out in my mind (outside of like Digimon) was actually Uta Kata, which like no one has heard of or discussed, and while it is flawed, it's a favorite of mine. But I can say that WHILE also saying that I enjoy Naruto (to some extent) and not feel like a sellout. 

This is me and the anime fandom, as someone in their 30s. Like some of the fan attitudes, from the over-obsessive worship of Japan, the creepy "conservative/traditional" weirdos who haven't even BEEN to Japan, the overposting of the exact same anime everywhere on every social media and out in public, acting like everything out of Japan is a 5 star masterpiece and superior to all Western media, etc. I just don't jive with the anime fandom much or heck, the anime medium, as much as I did back in the 00s. I dunno. I too have distanced myself to an extent. I can't say I've outgrown it, I still enjoy certain anime greatly, but maybe it was more of a "youth thing" for me that simply meant more to me at that stage of life. or something. 

For furries, I've long enjoyed a lot of the art and some other fan creations, but the community, I've just never gotten into them. II would rather say I'm an "Anthro" rather than furry though, I'm the first to defend the furry community when it comes up in conversations haha. I do wonder if the trends of both anime and the furry fandom will come and go, and circle back around, or be co-opted by newer people in the future. I saw a video where someone talked about this in regards to book fans-Harry Potter is hot so we all want fantasy now, oh, now it's Twilight so supernatural romance, now it's Hunger Games so dystopia, Fault in Our Stars so super weepy/emotional/slice of life romances are the thing, etc. All of these book trends brought out annoying and irritable and weird and (sadly) creepy people and everywhere in between. So maybe "this too, shall pass."

EDIT: Also interesting to see how fan background changes for fandoms over time. The anime fan scene of the early-mid 90s was dominated by Caucasian college aged people (mostly men) who would share bootlegged fansub videotapes in their college clubs/dorms and purchase merch from obscure catalogs. While this demographic still is there obviously, you see a community that skews much younger than before. A younger group has brought about both positive and negative changes for the anime fandom IMO. 

Ah, 2000s fan as well. I enjoyed a lot of "anthro" media but was never really in the fandom so to speak. Very cool to hear from the ground floor what the scene was like then.

Oh yeah, I hate it when people let their fandom become their whole personality. I don't feel it's necessarily weird to obsess over a piece of media for a long while, it should just be a "while" and you move on to different interests eventually.

And it becomes tricky when "bigger fan" just equates to: "I can afford more ____ than you." Even if they actually can't.

It's too bad to see the (offline) social scene die for a lot of fandoms outside of conventions and adjacent events (like swap meets). Online groups exist but it's not the same. Maybe it's just a "growing older" thing too-it seems harder to find people outside of a school setting who are in a fandom now. At least in my area. 

I saw far too much of that in the anime communities with elitists looking down on anyone who dares to enjoy say Funimation's original dub of Dragon Ball Z(and there's still a few elitists like that on the Kanzenshuu forums sadly and I ended up getting banned from there just for calling out one of those pathetic losers)and anything 4Kids related.