5 Reasons That Fans Annoy Me

I’ve been a fan of many dif­fer­ent things over the years and there are pat­terns to fan­dom that occur regard­less of whether it’s com­put­ers or tv shows. The pat­terns are a sim­ple com­bi­na­tion of human nature and the close knit nature of most fandoms.

We Think We’re Special

One of the most irri­tat­ing habits that fans have is a ten­dency towards self con­grat­u­la­tion. Since we all like this spe­cial show and other peo­ple don’t we must be spe­cial, right? No, not really, we just hap­pen to be a lit­tle obses­sive about a tv show. It’s harm­less, but it hardly makes us special.

The prob­lem is it’s a very short trip from pat­ting your­self on the back to look­ing down on every­one else and then it’s all down­hill from there.

We Think They Owe Us

I see this one a lot. The assump­tion that since we watch the show and buy the mer­chan­dise, the cre­ators and actors are some­how beholden to us. That they owe us their time and that they should do what we want. Nope. It’s a very sim­ple exchange. If you like the prod­uct buy it. If you don’t like it don’t buy it. Really it is that simple.

It’s nice that between the inter­net and con­ven­tions we have more direct access to the writ­ers and actors, and it’s nice that they often do take time to lis­ten to what we have to say, but that doesn’t mean we are enti­tled to it.

Obses­sive Con­ti­nu­ity Disorder

As they get more invested in a show, fans have an unfor­tu­nate ten­dency to get obses­sive about the details. Stuff that really doesn’t mat­ter very much. Comics fans are some of the worst. Hon­estly is it really sig­nif­i­cant if the lat­est Spider-man story con­tra­dicts some­thing writ­ten in 1972?

Yes those lit­tle nods to the fans are nice to see in movies, but lit­tle nods is all they should be. As soon as they start to dom­i­nate the sto­ry­telling every­thing falls apart.

Guardian of the Character

I’ve lost count of the num­ber of times I’ve read com­plaints that a char­ac­ter wouldn’t do that or wouldn’t say that. The fan sets him­self up as the guardian of the char­ac­ter. The prob­lem with this even a most cur­sory explo­ration into how peo­ple react in real life will show you that there is no way you can make these state­ments with absolute cer­tainty. His­tory is full of exam­ples of peo­ple act­ing “out of char­ac­ter” in unusual circumstances.

Zero Busi­ness Experience

I’ve lost count of the num­ber of times I’ve heard argu­ments from fans about how they would do things bet­ter if they were in charge. Doesn’t mat­ter if it’s comic books, tv or movies. Every­one is a back­seat driver.

The prob­lem is that nine times out of ten they don’t know what they’re talk about. Crit­i­ciz­ing the Edi­tor in Chief for a busi­ness deci­sion doesn’t make sense, that’s not some­thing they have con­trol over. Expect­ing a net­work to keep show­ing a tv show that has low rat­ings isn’t rea­son­able. Want­ing a show’s run­ning time to be increased when it’s bud­get has been cut isn’t reasonable.