Crap in a different shape is still crap

I would like to now take the time to distinguish this blog from the rest of the Blogspot mess of emo and failure by actually taking the time to write a second post. Critics don't deserve attention for simply announcing their intentions to the world, because anyone can do that. It takes someone with more than 7 functioning brain cells to actually do what they have declared. If all the people who said that they were going to quit inhaling tar and rat poison (this is smoking cigarettes for all those who didn't read the label) actually did so, the entire American economy would collapse and we'd all be homeless. So, next time you see a smoker, pat them on the back and thank them for helping the tobacco farming, cigarette, medical and mortuary industries keep afloat.

But I digress, I'm here to actually produce something of what I promised and insult a fandom bit by bit.

Fandoms are best divided into three catagories:

1. Fetishes

These are where the furries, transformationalists, vore, yaoi, yuri, loli and every other imagianble sexual diversion comes from. They turn a fetish into an entire community and insulate themselves with other nitwits like themselves who make them think that their crazed obsession is actually normal. So when they go into the real world, they are shocked to find that looking at drawings of naked animal babies having sex whilst eating each other is actually found to be offensive. So, naturally, instead of getting a clue, they start declaring that the world is being intolerant. This is known as the "fursecution" defense, and it is fairly humorous to watch in action. Why normal heterosexual relationships have gone out of style so quickly, I have no idea. I blame television

2. "True" fandoms

These are the communities to devote their entire existence to the exaltation of a media form and declare it the greatest gift to all of humanity. They include otaku, Narutards, Whedonites, moonies (Sailor Moon fans, not the cult, although they aren't much different) and all the other supposed "art" forms available to worship. This is where something perhaps mildly interesting such as a TV show, music genre or culture becomes so important to someone's life that it takes the place of a religion and leads to the endless whining of how when Captain Picard jettisoned the plasma manifold to vent the warp reactor, it violated the continuity of a previous episode or how Buffy's outfit changed slightly over a scene or some other piddling detail people with lives could actually ignore. Or the music scenes, where one genre becomes the only thing these people will listen to and they start to emulate every aspect of the musicians that play the ear garbage that churns from their stolen speakers. All in all, its just a giant mountain of failure.

3. Political fandoms

While it could be argued that this is not a true fandom technically, the characteristics it presents are not far off from them. Republicans, Hyper-conservative religions (Scientology especially. Hail Xenu.), Feminazis, PETA and all the other groups infecting the "internets" are not far off from the basement-dwellers that have long since made it their home. It is somehow impossible to go anywhere in Second Life or some other online game and to not see some political agenda being promoted. PETA e-protests, Republican e-propaganda or Feminazi e-bra burnings or some other political statement filling the putrid quagmire that is already seeping through the bandwidth and breadth of the internet. These sad people have a tendency to be the most violent and rabid, as anyone who has ever seen the protests these people have might see. It isn't the Narutards who are rioting (at least not yet, and lord help us if that happens) it's the people who are angry how a political comic has insulted their god and they want to blow things up.

Let me make it clear that a fandom only becomes truly stupid when it starts to consume the life of the fan and influence their thinking entirely through the frame of their fandom. It doesn't matter if someone likes some anime or music or some TV show or wants to vote for people who take away their money, by all means they may go ahead and do so. But when the collective view becomes their own, then they are basically checking their brains out the door and becoming the collective thickies that we have all seen in RL and AOL. If a Christian wants to read the Bible and do what it says, thats fine, as long as they are actually using their brains and interpreting what they are reading and making intelligent choices . However, if some Texan minister in a cowboy hat tells you to burn Harry Potter books (fanfics are fine) and you do so without even thinking of reading the freaking things or asking why, then congratulations: YOU ARE AN IDIOT!

Glad I could set down some standards here. So, for the next post, I am starting with the first category (I shudder to think of the research I might have to undertake). I'm likely to throw up the biggest fetishes on the net, either the transformationalists or the furries. (TFs won the coin flip, but furries do have some lulz potential, I dunno yet. I'm open to suggestion.)

Either way, until next time, keep using that squishy thing between your ears and don't be an idiot.