Back in the day, it used to be harder to be a big fan of anything that wasn’t sports,
or something similar, as people would make fun of you for being a geek.
Today, it is quite accepted to be incredibly obsessive about almost any facet of popular
culture, even if liking it or being into it doesn’t actually require any knowledge,
practice, or constitute an actual hobby with interactive activities.
Unfortunately, while this is nice for people who were once mocked, it has also emboldened
a lot of people to “flaunt their fanboy” in ways that cause trouble for society around
them, and make the other fans of that particular bit of pop culture look rather bad.
10.
Jake Lloyd’s Life Was Ruined By Angry Star Wars Fans
Jake Lloyd is well known for being the guy who played little Anakin Skywalker in The
Phantom Menace, all the way back in 1999.
Many people, nearly two decades later, have wondered what happened to the kid who caused
so much unintentional controversy.
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that Lloyd was bullied so badly over his role in Star
Wars that he came to the conclusion it ruined his life.
He threw out everything he owned related to Star Wars, and refuses to watch any of the
movies anymore.
Apparently, kids are just the worst, and would not let up on him at all.
People constantly made lightsaber noises and other jokes whenever he was around, and he
simply couldn’t live a normal life at school — not to mention at one point he claims
to have been doing about 60 interviews a day.
While Lloyd mostly blames George Lucas for his story and direction, the real blame here
are all the adult Star Wars fans who bullied him online, and convinced all the children
that he had done an awful job and dragged the movie down.
Lucas just made a story, and Lloyd did the best he could to act out the role that he
had been chosen for.
There is never any excuse to bully a child, and those who ruined Jake Lloyd’s career
cannot blame the film’s creator as a defense for their behavior.
9.
Game Of Thrones Fans, Obsessed With Direwolves, Have Created Abandoned Husky Problem
Game of Thrones is one of the most popular things in pop culture right now, period.
Most people have watched it, and even those that haven’t know more about it than they
would probably like, and most assuredly have a strong opinion on the series all the same.
Unfortunately, like any fandom, people almost immediately started taking things too far.
One of the most beloved bits of popular culture in the show are giant beasts called direwolves,
which look a lot like large huskies.
These beasts are often used as a combination of pet and guard dog in the series, and as
such, many fans have decided that they, too, want their very own direwolf.
The problem is that the nearest thing in real life is a husky or other similar breed, and
these dogs are both large and require a lot of space and attention.
Many people get a husky in order to have their own direwolf, and then abandon it at a shelter
when they realize that the responsibility was too great for them.
Pets are not just a novelty, but something you are supposed to keep for the life of the
pet.
Some shelters in the UK even saw the amount of husky breeds abandoned doubled in a couple
years, as the show started to become more popular.
The good news is that recent educational campaigns to convince people not to buy a dog they cannot
take care of appear to be having effect, as the the amount of abandoned huskies is slowly
dropping back down to more regular levels.
8.
The Beatles Stopped Touring Because The Non-Stop Screaming From Fans Was Unbearable
Some people wonder why the Beatles decided it was time to call it quits and stop touring
around, selling out venue after venue.
After all, they were on top of the world, were always surrounded by screaming fans,
and never had to worry about their popularity.
However, as musicians of integrity and people who just plain get tired over time, the entire
thing was starting to tax them.
When the Beatles started out, they could play smaller venues, which allowed them to get
really good sound quality and focus on their live playing.
However, as they became wildly successful, the Beatles now had a serious problem.
They had to book bigger and bigger venues, which usually meant sports stadiums.
Back in their day, this meant horrible sound quality, and the crowd hearing a lot of it
poorly filtered through the PA system.
To make matters worse, their own amplifiers were not strong enough to make themselves
heard over the screaming crowd, so much so that they could not even properly keep time
with each other.
In the end, they decided that their concerts had become fan screaming zones, and that the
fans were not even there to listen to the music anymore, but just to obsess over the
band itself and see them in person.
7.
Adult My Little Pony Fans Made Things Awkward When A MLP Movie Came Out In Theaters
Nearly everyone has heard of the phenomenon surrounding the so called “bronies.”
For the few who are not aware, bronies are male My Little Pony fans who will loudly proclaim
their fandom and bring it up even when there is no need to at all — kind of like vegans
or people who do CrossFit.
These fans usually skew toward the adult side, and have often been looked at by outsiders
with a level of contempt that even furries don’t usually have to contend with.
Now, some of this is with good reason.
While there are those who claim to simply like the show because it is cute, and they
want to get in touch with their “cute” side, there are some people who simply make
it weird.
These fans tend to be those who actually find a sexual component to their love of MLP, and
will draw or seek erotic fanart and fanfiction.
These men are usually very full grown adults, and some people feel that there is almost
a pedophiliac element to some of the creepier adult male fans of MLP.
For this reason, when a MLP movie came out not that long ago, many people were extremely
concerned about how weird MLP fans might make it for children, who wouldn’t understand
why a bunch of grown men were at a movie for little girls.
Many movie theaters even offered special showings much later at night, in the hopes it would
attract the bronies away from the earlier showings, so parents wouldn’t have to answer
awkward questions from their little girls.
6.
New Beanie Baby Releases Were Almost Always Messy
For those too young to remember, Beanie Babies were a craze during the ’90s that the adults
seemed to get way more into than the kids.
The creator of the toys deliberately designed them with limited availability in order to
make different ones collectors items, and create a false sense of rarity even though
they were mass produced toys and there was nothing particularly special, expensive, or
high-quality about them.
People fell for the same psychological trick so many sellers of various goods have used
in the past, and one of the most insane fads ever kicked off with a bang.
Unfortunately, it was more than just a mostly harmless fad like fidgets spinners.
While the fidget spinner fad may have annoyed people, there was no worry about availability
or patents — every company was selling them with whatever branding or designs they wanted.
But with such limited amounts available, anytime new Beanie Babies were coming to a store,
it became an event and people would line up outside and behave horribly to each other.
People were sometimes injured or trampled by the crowd — usually children — and
United States customs had to start specially looking out for Beanie Baby smuggling.
The release of a new Beanie Baby nearly always showed some of the worst of humanity.
5.
Rick And Morty Fans “Ironically” Camp Out And “Ironically” Protest For Szechuan
Sauce
Rick And Morty has gained an enormous cult following, and its fans are a loud and rather
expressive bunch.
On one episode of the show, one of the characters makes a big deal about a limited time promo
sauce from McDonald’s called Szechuan sauce — obviously it’s really one of the show’s
creators speaking through the character here.
This quickly became a meme even though most of the fans likely either didn’t remember
the sauce, never knew about it before, or had forgotten about it.
It’s not like there were petitions for it before the show.
Unfortunately, McDonald’s thought they would actually try to show goodwill to these fans,
and released it for just one day, as it had just been a promo originally and they really
didn’t expect it to be all that popular.
Sadly, McDonald’s simply couldn’t have predicted how many people would show up at
each location, or just how crazy internet fandoms can be in real life.
People camped out for it, simply because it was designed to cater to the show.
When it turned out that most locations didn’t have enough, people went nuts.
They crowded into the stores, some people jumped the counters trying to steal sauce,
they disrupted business, and loudly protested outside that “they wanted sauce” even
though the employees obviously had no control over how much was delivered there.
Throughout all of this bratty, childish behavior, they tried to claim that their unruly near
mini-riots were just being “ironic” and that McDonald’s was really to blame for
not stocking enough.
The fact of the matter is that acting like children over some sauce for chicken nuggets
is simply never acceptable and it isn’t ironic when you actually cause public disruptions
or camp out for a sauce.
It’s just idiotic.
4.
One Direction Fans Start A Small Riot Over A One Direction Movie
One Direction is the latest teen boy band that all the teenage and preteen girls have
swooned, screamed, and rioted over.
A few years ago One Direction released a movie called This Is Us, a documentary feature about
the boy band and their meteoric rise to the top of the teeny bopper food chain.
The premiere was to be held in Los Angeles, and in order to be fair, since there were
only a limited number of tickets, you had to go through a sort of lottery system to
see who would be allowed to have tickets.
This was generally a good idea to prevent scalpers.
However, the problem was that they didn’t properly estimate the ticket count.
The company that was in charge of giving away the tickets gave away hundreds more tickets
than there were actual seats in the theater.
Many people lined up the night before, and those behind in line were still optimistic
that their ticket might work and they might be able to go in to see the movie.
Well, the time came to let people in and about 100 people were let through, with the rest
waiting outside.
This angered the young preteens lined up to see the movie, and hundreds of them rushed
into the theater, knocking things over in their way and generally making a big, screaming
mess of everything.
Eventually police managed to properly calm people down and disperse the crowd, and the
showing finally began for those lucky few allowed into the theater.
3.
Harry Potter Fans Buy Owls And Then Abandon Them En Masse
Harry Potter fans are generally known for being one of the more well behaved fandoms.
Despite lining up outside to buy limited amounts of books, you don’t really hear about Harry
Potter fans beating each other with fake wands while trying to get a copy of J.K.
Rowling’s latest novel.
In fact, most of the time they float under the radar as an obsessive, but utterly innocent
fandom.
However, while Harry Potter fans aren’t necessarily malicious, there are things they
have done that were definitely negligent, irresponsible, and caused unnecessary suffering
in the world.
When Harry Potter started to become popular, kids started asking their parents to buy them
an owl as a pet, and Rowling herself immediately sounded the alarm.
She told fans not to buy an owl, but to get a better pet, or donate to causes that help
owls instead.
She explained that they do not make good pets and generally require a ton of upkeep and
space — ideally they should have an aviary that is at least 20 feet square.
Unfortunately, most people were doing a poor job of taking care of these difficult animals,
and as Harry Potter’s popularity waned a bit, they started abandoning them en masse.
According to a woman in the UK who runs a sanctuary for owls, she had originally had
about 5-to-6 per year.
After Harry Potter fever started to die down, she went to over 100 owls being taken care
of in her sanctuary in just one year.
2.
Juggalos Started A Riot Against Tila Tequila And Got Put On The FBI’s List As A Gang
Pretty much no one remembers or cares about Tila Tequila — she was a reality TV star
who briefly flirted with a largely unsuccessful music career.
Oh, and she’s maybe kind of a Nazi?
Huh.
Weird.
Anyway, while she was never really a very respected figure in terms of celebrities,
and often widely mocked, the behavior displayed towards her at the annual gathering of the
Juggalos one year was absolutely unacceptable (remember, this is before all the Nazi stuff).
She had been invited to perform at the event, in a move that left a lot of the world and
most of the Juggalos very confused.
She is hardly the type of artist who would be of interest to fans of “horrorcore,”
so it seemed like an odd choice.
One explanation is man’s desire to get laid, as at one point, Shaggy 2 Dope tried to get
the crowd to be kind to Tequila’s future performance, by explaining that he wanted
to have sex with her.
Unfortunately, Shaggy 2 Dope’s desire to get laid backfired rather tremendously, because
things went about as well as you can expect.
An artist with no real understanding of the genre (Tequila) shows up on stage to perform
at a music festival full of drunk people, and the crowd immediately hated her.
The crowd threw whatever they could, and jeered her incessentally.
Rumors say actual human feces and plastic water bottles full of urine were thrown at
her, and at one point the crowd started yelling at her to show her breasts.
Perhaps thinking it would make them calmer or make them like her, she did take her top
off, but that seemed to only make them angrier, as if they just wanted to be mad.
When she left the stage, she was followed to her trailer, where her windows were smashed
up before she was able to make her escape.
She later attempted to sue to shut down future gatherings of the Juggalos, although she does
not seem to have been successful.
While the Juggalos tried to defend their behavior, they have been classified as a gang by the
FBI in later years for various different antics including that situation, and the band’s
attempts to fight it in court have, thus far, totally failed.
1.
Chris Brown Fans Have Gone To Great Lengths To Defend A Domestic Abuser
Chris Brown is known by most people for that time he beat up his then-girlfriend Rihanna.
The world was very very angry with him, he gave a rather forced public apology, and managed
to get away without any jail-time.
Chris Brown, for his part, felt that the whole thing should have blown over after he apologized
and took his “punishment,” but many people felt that he still deserved a lot of grief
for his actions.
Plenty of folks felt that his apology was not particularly sincere, and that his behavior
didn’t really seem to show any positive change or improvement.
For this reason, some people in the past have taken to razzing him on Twitter pretty hardcore.
Well, a few years back a comedian named Jenny Johnson decided to call out Brown on Twitter,
and he decided to take the time to get into a personal tussle with a random woman he had
never met before.
After an incredibly vulgar exchange that made him look very bad, he eventually temporarily
locked his Twitter account so no one could see his shame.
However, not to be outdone by the horribleness of their favorite celebrity, his fans went
absolutely nuts.
They went after Johnson, excoriating her on Twitter and even going so far as making death
threats as revenge for her making fun of Brown.
These fans, knowns as breezies, have also been known to defend Brown and stick up for
him, doing whatever they can to justify his actions, whenever his violent past is brought
up — to them, he can do nothing wrong.