Alright, I'm not gonna lie,
I'm in a shitty mood cause my last video was the first to bomb
since I changed my algorithm theories after a win streak of...6,
so if I seem mildly more abrasive to
YALL D U M B A S S M O T H E R F U C K E R S
...uh, that's why.
Uh...
Who wants to see me lose my shit for 5 minutes!?
*clears throat*
I...
Wait, should I get rid of the original character?
I feel like people are just going to make fun of me if I talk about cringe when I have, like...
Y-yeah, alright, let's uh...
*oc avatar fucking dies*
Every single fanbase has a toxic element to it, the only reason
you see it in some and not others is due to popularity increasing the chance of coverage.
The use of the phrase "The fanbase is toxic" is also an egregious use of the term,
'cause if you're going to associate a group of people with a term
then that term would only be accurate if it was over 50%.
However, the instances of toxicity that people refer to as examples,
when you look closely, barely make up 5% of the people who refer to themselves as "fans".
Don't believe me? Oh yeah, I guess that's fair,
I mean, look at Bojack Horseman, that's a pretty smart show that has
a lot of similarities with Rick and Morty, I-I mean look at the differences in fanbases,
you'd NEVER see this level of stupid out of Bojack Horseman's fanbase at all-
oh.
ₒₕ
oh noooooo
ｏｈ ｎｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏｏ
"𝒾𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒶 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓅𝓈𝓎𝒸𝒽𝑜𝓁𝑜𝑔𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝓅𝓁𝑒𝓍 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑒𝓂𝑜𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝓃𝓊𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒𝒹 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝓂𝑜𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓃 𝓉𝓋 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 𝒷𝑜𝒿𝒶𝒸𝓀 𝒽𝑜𝓇𝓈𝑒𝓂𝒶𝓃" -peter shwartz
𝓽𝓸𝓲𝓵𝓮𝓽 𝓲𝓭𝓲𝓸𝓽, 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀 𝓸𝓯 𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓭 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽; "trump is a voldemort!"
"𝓶𝓮, 𝓽𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓾𝓪𝓵: 𝓫𝓸𝓳𝓪𝓬𝓴 𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓼𝓮𝓶𝓪𝓷 𝓲𝓼 𝓶𝓮" - a legend
If you think that's a parody, honestly, I don't know.
The twitter account doesn't seem to be a joke,
and this was Febuary 2nd, 2017,
well before THIS comment, which NEED I REMIND YOU,
our earliest instance of this comment appearing is on r/CringeAnarchy.
How can you be self-aware enough about cringe
to go on a cringe subreddit while still being cringy yourself?
This comment was a PARODY.
An IMMENSE exaggeration of people, at most, being somewhat uppity about liking a certain show.
And it's funny and well written, right, but
PLEASE stop using it as an example of toxicity,
IT DOESN'T FUCKING COUNT!
GODAMMIT PEWDIEPIE
(th-this video isn't just pent-up frustration against anything i don't like about pewdiepie, i swear)
Ugh, at least it's mostly in the pursuit of comedy
and rarely attacks the fanbase, so I can't be too hard on it.
But I-I'll get to that in a moment.
Anyway, my point is that if you look for it, you can find this in ANYTHING.
Like, l-let's go really obscure, how about Hunter × Hunter?
We have shipping, (✔)
elitism, (✔)
we have po-
actually, maybe let's not show that on-screen there...
The irony is that in order to find this stuff, you have to wade through pages
of mundane posts and do specific word searches for "superior" and "nuanced".
It takes a LONG time to find this stuff, and you know why?
'Cause I had to filter out THE ACTUAL FANDOM.
More popularity = more crazies and more people to find those crazies.
But there are STILL greater proportions of the mundane stuff,
and they're part of the fandom, too.
They just don't get publicized because y'know...
Why would they?
And that's not even mentioning the beautiful and tasteful works of the fandom
that are never gonna be shown in a hit piece.
I-I shouldn't say hit piece, I'm sure a lot of people just
aren't paying attention when they say this shit, but...
Ugh...
Oh OH, r-ready for me to blow your mind?
Ready?
Deviantart. Search. "Sonic".
Yeah no, I-I'm not really seeing anything here.
Even if I go to new, there's not much,
a bit of shitty art, a couple of edgy, couple-
That one's just generally creepy, what the fuck...
Anyways, let me put this in perspective:
In I Hate Video's-
"𝘪 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘰'𝘴"
In I Hate Everything's video on the subject, he gave a story about some cringy fan
seeing his shirt and without any attempt at good conversation, just obnoxiously shouted:
"𝐖 𝐔 𝐁 𝐁 𝐀 𝐋 𝐔 𝐁 𝐁 𝐀 𝐃 𝐔 𝐁 𝐃 𝐔 𝐁"
My question is this: how many other people have also walked up to you
and been like "Hey, man...nice shirt"?
Probably plenty, but that'd never make it into a video on the subject, now would it?
'Cause I know you'd give me that example about the hipster band or something next,
but I highly doubt both this obscure thing and the giant popularity of Rick and Morty
BOTH resulted in only ONE instance of shirt complimenting.
There either had to have been more, or you wore this shirt for 5 minutes.
Extremes are engaging, that's all it boils down to.
It's just like a play when something stands out: it gets the spotlight.
At a certain level of popularity, there's enough publicized cringy shit
to form your ENTIRE association on something.
Suddenly you forgot the mundane, and remember the horrifying.
"The fandom is cringe": That's how you get that phrase.
It sounds accurate when you hear it, but it's just NOT.
Like, fuckin...
Take a second to realize that every other assumedly Rick and Morty
fan in this video is uncomfortably SILENT.
I mean, haven't you ever been to the Big City before and been like
"Wow, there are a lot of crazies here"?
as you struggle to wade through the DENSE CROWDS OF PEOPLE.
It's the same concept, you don't notice that which is not extreme.
It also kinda reminds me of school shooters and the media's reaction 5, 10 years back, whatever...
EVERY TIME a school shooting seemed to happen,
video games were always to blame and the mainstream audience who didn't care for video games lapped it up,
never even considering just how many other gamers were out there who didn't commit such atrocious acts.
Why? 'Cause the extremes got coverage and stood out.
All of a sudden..."Gamers are school shooters."
Now there are seemingly a couple of exceptions to popularity resulting in toxic fandoms,
but all of these are just, again, because they haven't been publicized yet.
In the case of Harry Potter for instance, it was
hyped in the public eye well before this whole fandom fuckin' nonsense thing came about.
But I could ABSOLUTELY make this fandom out to be cringy if I wanted to.
Ever heard of Quidditch? It's like a wierd football-hybrid actual sport
where people run around with brooms between their legs,
IT LOOKS FUCKIN STUPID.
Now just for clarification, I am very much open to weird shit
and as long as you don't actively and directly infringe
on people's human rights then I won't hold it against you, but...
I-I'm just trying to say, it looks cringe, people think it's cringe, and
if a big Youtuber decides to spotlight this as well as other Harry Potter-related cringe,
the fanbase would ABSOLUTELY start to be associated with this.
Same goes for Game of Thrones, take a look at the
book elitists or Game of Thrones-themed weddings,
the cringe and toxicity is out there, you just have to find it.
Y'know how Pickle Rick is a stupid running joke that people say trying to be funny
but use it as just no more than a reference?
"The one thing I've always wanted to ask you for years is, um..."
(time stops)
H O D O R ?
*pained laughter*
"Hodor."
"That's it."
i regret existence
Hodor is the EXACT. SAME. FUCKIN'. THING.
People just say it without any pretense of a joke 'cause they suck at comedy.
NEWSFLASH: THAT'S NOT EXCLUSIVE TO ANY ONE FANDOM
What I'm willing to compromise on is that certain traits bring out certain minorities.
That at the very least is true, and
provided you found better terminology, I'd be ok with people saying that.
Just...just please don't say the FANDOM is bad,
cause that implies over 50% when you're probably talking about 5% AT MOST.
If you simply can't separate your association of a fandom from the minority
and you know that, t-that's fine, you can't help it.
The truth is, every competitive game will have rages but you won't
notice the literal 9 other people in any given League game.
Every kid-friendly game will have cringy kids, but you won't notice the mature ones who don't scream in voice chat.
Every show that has a left-leaning diversity push will bring radical feminists,
but you won't notice that ones that don't try to shove their beliefs down your throat.
And every game with non-human characters will have weird porn,
it's just how this plays out and people interpret it in a dodgy way.
It's just a dumb, pointless argument that makes no sense and shouldn't be taken seriously.
*B I G SIGH*
But I guess I can't be too hard on it.
Honestly, a lot of the jokes are in jest and really funny,
and you know what, I like that part.
But there's a small minority of people that I have some actual gripes with.
To use their own phrasing,
the toxic fandom-fandom "is a toxic fandom".
When I see people denouncing or aggressively condemning whole fandoms,
it just sounds like the VERY elitism you struck out to criticize.
There's just this weird air of cockiness to some people's treatment of this topic.
I-I mean, is this just a power trip?!
Do you think you can feel like you're better than a giant group of people
just 'cause you strawman them with the minority?
PLOT TWIST:
YOU 𝑨𝑹𝑬 THAT MINORITY
*albeit smaller sigh*
As I say, if there's any merit to this fandom nonsense
it's that it creates some fantastic running jokes, so maybe because of that...
I don't really want any of this to change...
...besides, I know better than to try and control the internet.
But...I just want people to KNOW, y'know?
As long as I feel this video has gone out to enough people
and that most are self-aware enough when they make these jokes, honestly...
That's good enough for me.
fruit