Hey there! If you dig my video essays, you can always like, subscribe, and share them! Or if you want to financially support their creation for only $4 a month ko-fi.com/filmotter 🥰
New to the channel here, I REALLY appreciate you opening up at the end of the video about loneliness, reality setting in once that laptop is closed, you're very brave to open up about that part of your life to the internet, which as we all know, can be pretty Savage, but I hope you're hanging in there
am glad that you made this video. because i fell like am not alone when i say that the fandom is a little bit hostly or a guess a lot more hostly. but there are some good and nice fandom. i was a playdead inside fan for the longest time and it help me for the longest time. i remember when i ask for art request for the boy from inside and frisk from undertale just to see these two interact with each-other just to coup with reality. author i could be wong and i just saw it in tumbler. etherway am glad. that you bright it up so more people can see more of this video. hope to see more of your videos.
I feel like fandoms over the years changed a lot too. It all became bigger and as someone that's been in fandoms since like 2012 this change is so massive. I don't know if the pandamic had a part in it, but especially younger fans seem to blur the lines between fiction and reality, thinking that the media you consume is a mirror of your own moral compass. Me and some friends recieved death threats from fans that were like 14 for shipping the "wrong characters", they threatened to doxx and call the police on us for fanart lmao. It really feels surreal and like you said, that some are completely out of touch with the real world. I never had these experiences in early fandom days. Still, thankfully the block/mute button and tags exists and you can curate your own online experience pretty good nowadays. You just have to use these tools and find people that enjoy the same type of content :) I found so many talented, creative and kind friends online and it's just a blast to scream at them about my favourite things ^-^
It may be that you just didn’t experience the nasty side of fandom when you were younger. From what I’ve read the “shipping wars” in the Harry Potter fandom could get really toxic, and that was in the early-mid 2000’s.
I've just binged all your video essays, and WOW with the production value and effort you put in I hope your channel grows fast! Your channel deserves way more views for this quality.
Thank you so much!!! I put a lot of hard work and effort into these so it really means a lot of read this comment. 🥰 I hope to not disappoint with my future videos lol
Level 1: this video is making sense Level 2: what is wrong with all this Souls hate? Sekiro bad? What is wrong with this dude? Level 3: T H I S D U D E I S T E R M I N A L L Y I N T E R N E T I L L 💀 Level 4: yeah, good conclusion. Literally how I feel about the P5 fandom actually. While I do not interact with them, what I’ve read about them has been equal to the topic of “ignorant masses” that the game mentions. So saying that Undertale fans suck according to Undertale itself is 10/10 commentary!
The toxicity that can come with passionate fan bases is such a shame sometimes. I think you make an important point to keep in mind that often times it is a very vocal minority that tend to get out of hand. This is an excellent video essay that many hardcore fans could benefit from.. including myself. It sounds like I need to watch Glee as well XD
Oh Glee is not really all that great. Some great memes came out of it, but that's about it. 😅 And thank you Chadley! I'm glad the video resonated with you. Hope my hard work shows through. 😀
Thank you for the generosity in this video and providing a space to talk about the dangers of fandom. It’s been both the best and worst of the internet for me. Another great video! ❤️
Aww thank you Rachael! And yeah, I have to agree. It's definitely some of the best AND worst experiences for me. I guess there's a balance to everything, huh?
i thnk fandoms are only as toxic as you let them be. if you just ignore the loud voices it can be a pleasant thing to enjoy. of course the loudest voices will be the most annoying, but fandoms aren't a monster in a cave, they can't do anything unless you give them the power you don't want them to have
Fanbases can be paradoxic. I find the Souls fanbase to be one of the most gatekeeping out there, and at the same time, weirdly enough, one of the most welcoming too. It is divided by those who go "GeT gOoD" (in a bad way) and those who are not only willing, but thrilled to be of any help to newcomers. There´s those who need to feel special by completing a game, known as hard, to consider themselves some kind of elite (bullshit). Others just love the games so much they want to share them with as many people as posible, reasuring them to not be scared of that famous difficulty. All of these has been exagerated with the success of Elden Ring.
My worst encounter with a fandom was when i tweeted that "Persona is not for me" People was flipping on me for not enjoying this game. I didnt even say anything negative about it, just that it is not the kind of game i enjoy.
Take this from a passionate Persona fan: These games aren't for everyone, not that a game for everyone even exists to begin with, and those people "flipping out" simply because you expressed that fact could really benefit from a life outside of their fandom bubble.
Your content is great, man. Glad I found it! One question on this one (sincerely, no gotchya): what do you consider a death threat? I feel like that word gets overused online. I don’t think “I hope you die” or any variation of that counts; I think a threat has to include a potentially actionable plan. Nobody deserves death threats for tweets, but also calling “kys” a death threat cheapens the seriousness of the term, right?
Looking forward to your channel blowing up down the line- really rare to see such high quality content from a small channel. The positive side of this means that youtube’s recommendation algorithm is working if it pushed your video to my home page. Keep at it! Great insight and appreciate you sharing about your own life as well.
My favorite is when people don’t even play a game and repeat others opinions. Just had a game literally about to come out, and someone was talking it down based on a review-they didn’t even have the chance to play. Games should be fun. Let people have fun with games even if they’re not your vibe. It’s that easy.
I really love thinking deeply and critically about any media I consume. It's a big part of the fun for me, and actually discussing it with other people can be part of that... but I find I usually don't. It comes down to what you were saying about having the 'wrong opinions'. Say anything that's seen as you maligning someone's favourite game, or that doesn't line up with the fandom's consensus, and good luck having a productive discussion! I mean, just try talking about the queerphobia in Persona 4 with a fandom of predominantly straight men.
Exactly! Yeah, I originally started making these videos because I wanted to have discussions about the nuances of games that I noticed (why there are so many fishing mini-games, the design of swimming mechanics, etc.). And I come from a film school background, so my interest in media has a lot to do with analyzing it. The debate side of things has also always been interesting to me, but debating someone who's part of a fandom is almost impossible, which is sad. I've wanted to make a video analyzing the problems with Dark Souls, but I know that I can't do that without being mobbed! And I haven't played Persona 4, but I have thought about making a video about the homophobia of gaming culture... Maybe for June? LOL
@@filmotter I won't spoil too much, but it's an interesting case because it come sooo close to being a good queer narrative on a couple of levels and then says 'Actually, fuck you' and pulls the rug out. It's more complex and involved than P5's blatantly stereotypical gay NPCs, which is what makes it so interesting to talk about... in theory. Anyway, looking forward to more analytical content from you!
Love your content and presentation style. As an elder gay man, I graduated HS in 1976, it's refreshing to see passions and subjects I like being so even handedly and openly addressed. In college I was a Theatre major and was crazy for everything about live Theatre, I acted, directed, read a lot of plays in almost any genre you could think of. I love musical theater but my favorite genre is avant garde/absurdist/surrealism - think Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Sartre, Ionesco, Sam Sheppard, Harold Pinter, Charles Ludlam etc and believe me there are similar fandoms to those of video games, for every genre and individual plays as well. I love the musicals RENT and Hedwig and the Angry Inch while still very much liking Cabaret, The King and I, Godspell, and The Fantasticks but I got death threats from millennials over my love of RENT, go figure. I am also a gaymer with a firm taste for FPS sci/fi titles i.e. Half-life2, Fallout, We Happy Few, the later Doom series, Quake etc. as well as action/exploration/adventure story driven games like Stray, The Dying of the Light, Ni No Kuni etc. so I'm very much acquainted with the rabid fandoms of which you speak. Looking forward to many more of your excellent essays. Ciao bello.
I really enjoy how you covered this topic! You were making sure to cover how truly horrible some parts of fandoms were, but also made sure that we knew there are good people out in the fandoms. I also like how you talked about your own experience to sympathize and somewhat explain how toxic fans might act because it means that they aren’t mindless rage internet users and they’re humans of course. The quality of your videos are like professional level, and I’ll be making sure to tune into future video essays. Great job on this!
In retrospect I was extremely lucky to experience undertale before the fanbase really exploded and without any preconceived notions about how you're "supposed" to play it. Sorry it was a rougher experience for you...But yeah super cool and thoughtful video on such a shockingly complex topic!
Thank you! I'm glad it resonated with you! I think nowadays it's going to be next to impossible to interact with games in a way that doesn't involve a fanbase due to the whole content creation thing, so it's a bit frustrating in that aspect. (I actually had a whole 5 minutes section written about that, which i cut for time) Just out of curiosity, what was your first experience with Undertale like? Did you go for a specific ending or did you just kind of play however you felt like?
Hey just found your essays through this vid. It’s interesting you shared your Los Angeles experience, since it is as similar to mine. I was miserable and the only thing that gave me comfort and joy was playing kingdom hearts 3. Then I went on the internet and saw the discourse. It almost completely soured my experience but I refused to contribute to the toxicity. To this day, the game is special to me and I can care less about what others think. But I do think people need to reconnect with reality and realize what impact their behavior has on others. Thank you for the video!
I really like this. Fandoms truly can skyrocket a game to a point they never dreamed or absolutely destroy for anyone who wants to jump in. Fans can be some of the best and most toxic people around.
I would also count Genshin Impact as a toxic fandom, especially because of a certain mistranslation. People get literally death threats because of that, regarding the shipping fandom. Oh, and let's add FF7 as well. I noticed in both communities that they reduce my enjoyment of those games, which is honestly a shame, cause I love both games. I just dislike having to deal with toxic people in a fandom. Why can't people accept that different opinions are normal? Just stay respectful, you don't even have to agree with every take. You can even find new appreciation regarding certain topics by discussing them with people that got different views.
Great video, especially as a big fan of Undertale and Kingdom Hearts, especially back in my tumblr days I was big on Undertale role playing. My toxic fandom experience is interesting because it wasn’t exactly all that toxic? Maybe you could argue it was, but to me it was just incredibly off putting. Essentially, I watched the first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure after getting a lot of recommendations and while it admittedly had some charming qualities like the solid animation and great music, I really didn’t like the show itself at all. I thought it was boring, I didn’t like the story, and I had and still have zero interest in watching more of the show. But whenever I explained this to a fan of the show, their response was “Part 1 sucks, you can just skip it. Watch Part 2 I promise you’ll like it.” This happened far too often and just put me off from watching the show even more. To make matters worse I’ve had close friends of mine lash out because of how vocally I disliked the show. Granted, maybe I was being a bit too negative, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy it and more power to them for that. The whole situation has me thinking if theres such a thing as toxic positivity? Of course maybe I’m the toxic one for my strong disliking of the anime, but I wouldn’t feel so strongly if it weren’t for how loud the fan base can be and how sometimes it seems like I’m not allowed to have a different opinion on the internet.
Oh gosh, I completely understand what you mean. I think, honestly, we are all welcome to dislike whatever we dislike as long as we're not making others feel badly for disagreeing. For what it's worth, I watched the first three parts of the anime and still didn't like it! The pacing felt weird, the characters felt hollow, and just.... eh. Not my thing!
I been in both ends of this and let me tell you it's unhealthy and sadly happens we get way into something we don't stop and think is this really helping anyone
For the past two days I have been solely watching your videos. I rarely comment on the internet, but I really wanted to tell you that I love your videos!
About what is going to be your next video-essay? Sorry for my bad english, I only learning it. And your videos is pretty motivating for me to learn it, to understand everything.
Another great video! Your point about escapism hits so hard with me as it's been something I've had an issue with my whole life with books, video games, tv shows, and internet communities as well. So many people out there just want to be part of a community and feel welcomed that they forget what it was like to not be the person already in the community. In regards to my most toxic video game fandom experience: It's probably with World of Warcraft. I've been on both sides of this one too, playing the game from release day, as well as all the previous Warcraft/Blizzard games, there was a point where I was the gatekeeping person telling people to "git gud". As time went on and I became less involved in the game and the community I started to realize it's just a game... Games are meant to be fun and making the game fun for people who are just like I was at one point was the worst thing I could do for a game I loved. It was also interesting to experience being put on the other side of the argument so quickly once I made the shift from being a "ONE OF US" community member, being treated like I knew nothing about the game or my opinion didn't matter because I was no longer no-lifing the game or the way I played the game was "wrong". I spent about 16 years of my life playing WoW and I made life long friends and had experiences I will never forget all along the way but it's not a game I would tell people to play without having a community they already know joining them these days. (Among other reasons not to support Blizzard...)
Yeah I feel you there! This was basically me with Hannibal on Tumblr. I was the Gatekeeper until things got in the way and I couldn't keep up with the show anymore. And the tables turned so quickly! And what you mentioned about your experience with WoW is exactly the reason I won't ever get into an MMO. It's everything I mentioned in the video but to such a heightened degree. And on top of that a lot of games like that have pretty predatory practices in place to keep sucking people back in... Thank you for sharing Machine. I know you're one of like... millions with that experience.
I found this video through my reccomeded section and listened to it. Didnt know it was 2 years old until i opened the comment section, but hey I may as well leave my two cents! I adore Kingdom hearts 3- despite all of it's flaws, it holds such a dear place in my heart (the fact that there's a big hero 6 world helped a lot, but even without it I think I would've had a fantastic time). But despite my love for the game, I rarely said my opinion on it at the time because I was terrified of being bombarded with negative comments telling me I was wrong and that the other games are much better. These days I am less afraid of other internet strangers and am more willing to speak my thoughts on media that I like, but man back then it felt like if you disagreed with what seemed like everyone, youd get thrown into the fires of hell.
I think for the most part it can be a great fandom, honestly! I think the very vocal minority can be really aggressive sometimes, though. But that also isn't anything new in terms of overall fandoms. And oh no, not the avalanche of Mary-Sues! So true!
What a fantastic video. This is definitely a complex topic, yet you managed to cover a lot of ground and a lot of aspects of it in a very clear and concise way. 10/10 essay as usual.
Dark Souls has the worst looking waterfall effect I've ever seen. The one in Darkroot Basin that connects back to the Hydra. It's... it's quite something. Oh and if you want more insight on why people complained about the Persona comparison. For a few years the Persona fandom's vocal minority had ended up comparing everything to Persona 5 and making other posts about it that a lot of people found quite annoying on social media, so that IGN review basically ended up hitting all of those points that people had gotten fed up with over the years. It was also a little odd of a choice for an inexperienced player to review an entry in a long running series, which I assume also added to the reaction. I think that's the overall reason as to why people reacted the way they did. And while I'm at it, I might as well talk a bit about invasions in Dark Souls: The invaders cannot be overleveled as the matchmaking is based on player levels, along with the weapon level ever since the release of DS3. The invaders most of the time come across groups of people, which puts them in situations where they can get easily overwhelmed by the opposition due to the co-oppers having no friendly fire. Finding any openings, opportunities to deal damage and preventing others from healing and thus prolonging the conflict is very tricky, which is why they need optimized stats and gear. Without those you won't stand a chance against a group, and even then probably won't because even a 2v1 situation is quite unfair. The invader is almost always at a disadvantage, so they need to plan ahead to give themselves more options and chances. Although there is one exception, which the community refers to as Twink Builds, named after the Twinkling Titanite. These builds are very low level with highly optimized gear which makes them completely unfair towards the starting areas. In these cases the complaints about invaders are completely sound, as it's a more experienced player bullying a newcomer. Assuming that is how they end up playing, as each invader is still a loose cannon with their own sense of fun. Twink builds are appealing as with such one's chances of winning are much higher than normally. But the existence of Twink Builds is also what leads to starting players being more motivated to have overleveled phantoms with them, so even that situation is kinda back and forth. It's a chaotic mess overall, it's better to just shrug at it. You win some you lose some, such is the nature of the game in general.
I was a KH fan but it slowly turned into a love/hate relationship thanks to a mix of me not linking design and story decisions + some very dumb people in the fanbase, to the point that after finishing KH3 I was......... done. I literally detached myself from the franchise, still haven't bought any kind of DLC, game or merchandise after KH3. The only connection I have with KH now are a IRL friend that still follows the series and a couple of twitter mutuals who are also fans to this day.
Another great essay Otter! As someone who is in a lot of fanbases, I always try to remind myself that people are allowed to have opinions... and if they feel one way about something, they're allowed to feel that way. Whether negative, or positive. But if it's aggressive, dismissive or threatening, that shouldn't be allowed and should be discouraged. It's always a shame that the aggressive minority of fanbases are always seen in the limelight. Another game that wasn't mentioned that had some INTENSE opinions was The Last of Us Part II. Oh boy... Outright unacceptable things the negative side of that fanbase have said and done.
Totally agree with you! Differing opinions should be encouraged if you ask me. It's no fun if everyone has to think the same about something. And that scares away so many new people from wonderful media! I haven't played TLOU2 but I saw a lot of discourse about it on Twotter when it came out and ohhhh boy! Some wild stuff was going on there.
@@filmotter ooooh.. yeah... streaming TLOU2 was an experience - spammed by trolls who seemed to think that Joel in part 1 could do no wrong and filling the chat with spoilers and hate, following with usernames full of spoilers, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny? Yeah, I'd forgotten how much fun that was 🤬
@@puzzledmonkeytree OH lord. I remember hearing from some friends how many people tried to ruin their first experience of the game over.... nothing? I know there was a character who got lots of hate for having a little bit more of a toned build or something? Kind of similar energy to how people were so concerned that Aloy had some peach fuzz in the new Horizon game. 😵💫
@@filmotter @Puzzled Monkey Oh yeah it's absolutely screwed up. I personally loved so many aspects of that game. I think it was great. It was however, very heavy and emotional. A little hard to swallow at times, but it had incredible writing!
@@seffinspace I definitely need to give it a shot. I don't think I actually finished the first game because I got distracted by something else. But... hmmm... soon!
I’d honestly just kinda like to defend undertales fandom. I know that there are some lousy people who can taint the games image, but the fandom also has some of the most creative content that I have ever seen, and it is amazing how the fandom keeps itself alive by doing that. Just look at underverse, which is all written and animated by one person! I know this video is meant to criticize fandoms as a whole, but I’d just like to defend one of my favorites, y’know? It kinda hurts to have it always be called out by everyone.
Great video! Very interesting perspective on souls and undertale communities - both games I know about but have little online engagement in outside the memes
Thank you! Yeah, as someone who makes videos and streams on Twitch, I kind of have no choice but to interact with communities on a daily basis and a ton of fandoms are amazing all around. Those two are just a little... prickly I would say!
I was going to comment on my appreciation for the choice of video segment to go with one of the voice-overs, but honestly there were too many and I lost track of which ones I was going to comment on 😂 I was lucky enough that my experiences with Undertale were surface level enough I never directly came across the bad side of that fandom, but Dark Souls is definitely one that's kind of put my off fromsoft games altogether - which is interesting because I know a lot of lovely people who play and love the games too! It's interesting too because there's other quite difficult games that have super supportive communities; I know when I streamed Ori and the Blind Forest I met a couple of really chill speedrunners and the same thing happened with Wings of Vi. Also I think I might be out of pins.
I really wish my Undertale experience could have been more like that, honestly. Like I mentioned, the game was really fun! But it's just... disappointing how many people wanted to ruin it for some reason. I will never understand how people can act that way when claiming to love a piece of media. It feels very backwards in a lot of ways. And I'm still a bit shocked how many lovely people I've met through Dark Souls. I know other people have not been as lucky, which is a shame! I'm so sorry that i used up all your pins, I'll pass out my own next time! :D
I have a friend who has often said "fans ruined it for me". We've discussed it and to this day I just don't get it. I don't play games in a vacuum, but I certainly seem to be very limited in my interactions with the wider fandom. All that said, disregard of other people's opinions is certainly a minor character flaw of mine. But it does let me enjoy things, very care-free. Oh and Sekiro is a fantastic game. Feels like I'm not the target audience for this. But that's a reason to seek these out I think. Cool beard.
I think I agree with that to some extent. In the age of social media, it does get harder to ignore fandoms that feel toxic though, as much as I'd like to!
The reason why undertale attracted a toxic fanfom was because characters like asriel and the game toxic message like forgiving everyone, even serial killers like asriel/flowey who don't deserve it
That's an interesting point, which hadn't come to mind. But I think you're right to an extent. There are definitely a lot of things that are forgivable, but while playing the game, I remember thinking to myself that I would never realistically forgive this character. I only did it to achieve one of the endings LOL
The reason Megaten fans get so irritated at the constant Persona comparisons is because it's reductive and misses the fundmanetally different core appeals. It always boils down to "it's Persona but worse because it focuses on different things" rather than actually disecting why those diffferences are there, it's the equivalent of someone treating a "Not my cup of tea" statement as objective critique. You even kinda do this yourself by using their shared genre and monster collecting to try and lump them together even though their mechanics, tone and methods of storytelling are drastically different. An extra aggravating factor for Megaten vs Persona in particular though is the frankly justified concern that Persona is going to effectively eat Mainline Megaten and the unique appeal of it will be lost to try and trend chase for the lowest common denominator, this almost happened with SMT4 Apocalypse with it borrowing heavily from Persona in terms of theme and tone which clashed drastically with the OG Megaten themes and tone resulting in the most polarizing game in the series. So when 5 is more of a return to form and the only thing the so called "Professionals" can say is, it's "Persona but worse" Megaten fans see history repeating itself. Lastly just in general, comparison is the lowest form of critique.
I love smash bros to an unhealthy extent. I think the worse fan I ever saw was one time at a tournament some guy who clearly hadn’t shaved or showered in 8 months (yeah he played aegis how could you tell) threw his controller into the monitor after he lost a stock
Personally, I don't believe the "Git Gud" phrase is a way to gatekeep. I see it as more of an invitation - when new people try Dark Souls for the first time they have a hard time adjusting to the initial difficulty and often quit - yes, it might sound toxic, but it's been a meme on the community since the first Dark Souls. It's a way to tell someone that "No matter what, you can succeed", and in essence I believe it's the same as the "Don't you dare go hollow." But anyways, great video,
I am proud to call myself a deep nerd of the soulsborne, warhammer, halo and many more universes. But at the same time i am scared to tell people about it, i have seen the ugly side of it. IE Warhammer - One side is super open, will talk lore for hours, give you all the deets on the tabletop armies, give you painting tips and so on, the other side - lord forbid you are new to all of this and dont understand the massive mess that is the lore, or even worse a female *gasp* the gatekeeping is so vile and destructive that i have had to dial back my own enthusiasm when teaching newcomers in fear of scaring them away. do i upvote even thou you are at 69? bah it was an amazing vid lets make it 70
I actually see this happening to an extent with souls fandom when it comes to the release of Elden Ring. It seems to have shattered (no pun intended) the fandom in many ways, with some praising it as a masterpiece while recognizing the flaws that it does have, some refusing to see the flaws and getting angry at those that call them out, even those praising it with them. Those that see only the flaws, thus causing them to get angry and those that sing its praises, and still others who are having problems with the game because they are holding it to the standards of what came before, and thus they are rather ironically gatekeeping against the game itself because it isn't playing like the other games that came before it. Its been rather interesting to watch, and it will be interesting to watch further as time goes on.
Solution: simply do not have opinions about anything ever. Oyyyy the number of people who tell me I’ve played DS wrong 🙃 (also, heck yeah to Hannibal - so good)
KH3 hate is still wild to me especially since I still play all the games. I should've seen it coming since KH2 is literally the only game people play out of the series but the way KH fans talk about the series you'd think all the games were just bad and KH2 was the expectation. The community parrots opinions so often they're still saying "It's KHs fault for releasing across other hardware I can't follow the story" when that problem was literally fixed in the PS3 era with the collections. Which is also a lot of peoples first time experiencing Final Mix changes. Like I thought players asking "Do I play release order or chronologically?" were earnest in their endeavors when in actuality they're trying to emulate most peoples experiences in how they think it went down. Playing KH1 but then skipping all of Re:CoM just to get to KH2 or even flatout avoiding everything but KH2. I never thought KH2 fans would such a unique problem in itself. Seeing that girl get so much hate for simply liking another game of the series makes me want to puke especially when the series is all about us connecting with other people and building friendships that transcend space and time. I understand KH2 was good but thinking KH3 was bad because they still prefer 2 let alone thinking that's an excuse to attack others is genuine brainrot.
I've been thinking about the Sonic fandom. I know that no one can agree which of its games is the best one. Everyone likes a different one. But have they been toxic or sending death threats for wrong shippings? I don't think I've heard of any. (Just some of the weird ones) I wonder why is that?
Oh yeah I've heard some things about the Sonic fandom. Honestly, I haven't kept up with the games since Sonic Adventure 2. But they do seem like a passionate fanbase. I can only imagine what it's all like LOL
Glad you mentioned the SMT V review. SMT fans hate it when SMT is compared to Persona...unfavorably. Because they constantly have to say SMT is better than Persona in all aspects to keep the long-con going that "SMT does everything better than Persona". Which it doesn't, not at all. They'll insert themselves into Persona discussions and say "Persona sucks, play SMT" even though the reasons people play Persona games will leave them disappointed with SMT. It's an inferiority complex and they have to make it everyone else's problem. SMT fans are the worst fanbase for my money.
Absolutely, honestly most times, I'm disgusted by the entitlement of fans in many of my favorite things mainly stories because they get it in their head that they have a right to dictate/influence how they (the creators) write.
Tbh I might be completely wrong so don’t take me 100% but I’m pretty sure in the SMT5 ign review she compared it to P5 as a criticism which they’re not trying to be the same game so it doesn’t quite work, then again could be remembering wrong so I’m not saying this as 100% fact
Yes, they honestly can though I know in fact fandoms aka bad ones that are either cringey fandoms or toxic fandoms can cause some people to hate on those games. Because of their bad fandoms which I know I end up hating on games that did have bad fandoms myself like fnaf! aka the game series that did have a fandom that went From being cringey to toxic which I never find that to be a good sign when a game fandom turns from being cancerous to toxic while I even know how the fortnite fandom. Itself even went toxic too! aka the online free to play game that I also hate because of its toxic fandom which I honestly find it sad how this is a problem with are games Seeing how they can have bad fandoms that can ruined those games for most people though.
Worst fandom is prolly DC's. So much DC themselves have even pointed it out in their letters to the editor section. Worst part is their toxicity even predates the Internet. It's an outside gaming example but the essay made me think of them the whole time.
Git Gud isn't dismissive it's telling the person they're capable and should just keep trying as it's more fun that way, it's also shorthand for there's no trick to it just practice because not every obstacle is a knowledge check or has a cheese strat to dealing with it.
Yeah the Souls fandom is so toxic that if you go into each respective game, they will automatically shit on the others. If you want to start a war, say Dark Souls 2 is an objectively good game. 9 years later it will still be argued about. Matter of fact, I think the first boss of Elden Ring, Margit is designed in an artistic way of representing gatekeeping. From Software is truly a great developer, but a lot of the fanbase (not the lore ones, jolly cooperators, or some others) is gatekeepy, annoying, and is part of a geniune cult. And it prevents people from truly seeing the light and thinking critically for themselves. I'm glad we got these games, but they're like Tool or Rick and Morty fans. Where yes, it's all great, but the fanbase (even myself to be honest) will shove it down everyone else's throat. I mean no Souls fan seems to ever appreciate gimmick bosses of any kind, no matter how creative they might be.
16:41 I mean that has nothing to do with being invested in fandom. Many people get hyper invested in fandom that is what encourages them to better their life and mental health. I think you're taking negative experiences and using fandom as a scapegoat in this essay a little too much. This started as an informative well balanced dive and turned into more a hit piece at the end. It's misplaced blame.
Hey there! If you dig my video essays, you can always like, subscribe, and share them! Or if you want to financially support their creation for only $4 a month ko-fi.com/filmotter 🥰
New to the channel here, I REALLY appreciate you opening up at the end of the video about loneliness, reality setting in once that laptop is closed, you're very brave to open up about that part of your life to the internet, which as we all know, can be pretty Savage, but I hope you're hanging in there
am glad that you made this video. because i fell like am not alone when i say that the fandom is a little bit hostly or a guess a lot more hostly. but there are some good and nice fandom. i was a playdead inside fan for the longest time and it help me for the longest time. i remember when i ask for art request for the boy from inside and frisk from undertale just to see these two interact with each-other just to coup with reality. author i could be wong and i just saw it in tumbler. etherway am glad. that you bright it up so more people can see more of this video. hope to see more of your videos.
I feel like fandoms over the years changed a lot too. It all became bigger and as someone that's been in fandoms since like 2012 this change is so massive. I don't know if the pandamic had a part in it, but especially younger fans seem to blur the lines between fiction and reality, thinking that the media you consume is a mirror of your own moral compass. Me and some friends recieved death threats from fans that were like 14 for shipping the "wrong characters", they threatened to doxx and call the police on us for fanart lmao. It really feels surreal and like you said, that some are completely out of touch with the real world. I never had these experiences in early fandom days. Still, thankfully the block/mute button and tags exists and you can curate your own online experience pretty good nowadays. You just have to use these tools and find people that enjoy the same type of content :) I found so many talented, creative and kind friends online and it's just a blast to scream at them about my favourite things ^-^
It may be that you just didn’t experience the nasty side of fandom when you were younger. From what I’ve read the “shipping wars” in the Harry Potter fandom could get really toxic, and that was in the early-mid 2000’s.
@@JurzGarz you’re right i remember the shipping wars, but they were more about personal taste than any moral superiority
I've just binged all your video essays, and WOW with the production value and effort you put in I hope your channel grows fast! Your channel deserves way more views for this quality.
Thank you so much!!! I put a lot of hard work and effort into these so it really means a lot of read this comment. 🥰
I hope to not disappoint with my future videos lol
Level 1: this video is making sense
Level 2: what is wrong with all this Souls hate? Sekiro bad? What is wrong with this dude?
Level 3: T H I S D U D E I S T E R M I N A L L Y I N T E R N E T I L L 💀
Level 4: yeah, good conclusion. Literally how I feel about the P5 fandom actually. While I do not interact with them, what I’ve read about them has been equal to the topic of “ignorant masses” that the game mentions.
So saying that Undertale fans suck according to Undertale itself is 10/10 commentary!
Truly a roller coaster of a comment. 😅
The huge sigh of relief I got when I didn’t get called out on my video game fandoms in the video haha
I just wait until next month lmaooo
@@filmotter if next months video is about R34 and I get called for an interview on your channel I’m gonna cry
@@OysterMilk I'll make sure Papaya gets you some tissues
The toxicity that can come with passionate fan bases is such a shame sometimes. I think you make an important point to keep in mind that often times it is a very vocal minority that tend to get out of hand. This is an excellent video essay that many hardcore fans could benefit from.. including myself. It sounds like I need to watch Glee as well XD
Oh Glee is not really all that great. Some great memes came out of it, but that's about it. 😅
And thank you Chadley! I'm glad the video resonated with you. Hope my hard work shows through. 😀
Thank you for the generosity in this video and providing a space to talk about the dangers of fandom. It’s been both the best and worst of the internet for me. Another great video! ❤️
Aww thank you Rachael! And yeah, I have to agree. It's definitely some of the best AND worst experiences for me. I guess there's a balance to everything, huh?
i thnk fandoms are only as toxic as you let them be. if you just ignore the loud voices it can be a pleasant thing to enjoy. of course the loudest voices will be the most annoying, but fandoms aren't a monster in a cave, they can't do anything unless you give them the power you don't want them to have
Nah fandom just ruin things just because they can
Wishful thinking but unfortunately reality is much crueler
Fanbases can be paradoxic.
I find the Souls fanbase to be one of the most gatekeeping out there, and at the same time, weirdly enough, one of the most welcoming too. It is divided by those who go "GeT gOoD" (in a bad way) and those who are not only willing, but thrilled to be of any help to newcomers.
There´s those who need to feel special by completing a game, known as hard, to consider themselves some kind of elite (bullshit).
Others just love the games so much they want to share them with as many people as posible, reasuring them to not be scared of that famous difficulty.
All of these has been exagerated with the success of Elden Ring.
My worst encounter with a fandom was when i tweeted that "Persona is not for me"
People was flipping on me for not enjoying this game. I didnt even say anything negative about it, just that it is not the kind of game i enjoy.
Take this from a passionate Persona fan:
These games aren't for everyone, not that a game for everyone even exists to begin with, and those people "flipping out" simply because you expressed that fact could really benefit from a life outside of their fandom bubble.
Your content is great, man. Glad I found it!
One question on this one (sincerely, no gotchya): what do you consider a death threat? I feel like that word gets overused online. I don’t think “I hope you die” or any variation of that counts; I think a threat has to include a potentially actionable plan.
Nobody deserves death threats for tweets, but also calling “kys” a death threat cheapens the seriousness of the term, right?
Looking forward to your channel blowing up down the line- really rare to see such high quality content from a small channel. The positive side of this means that youtube’s recommendation algorithm is working if it pushed your video to my home page. Keep at it! Great insight and appreciate you sharing about your own life as well.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! And it's great to hear that the algorithm is pushing the video out to people!
My favorite is when people don’t even play a game and repeat others opinions. Just had a game literally about to come out, and someone was talking it down based on a review-they didn’t even have the chance to play.
Games should be fun. Let people have fun with games even if they’re not your vibe. It’s that easy.
I really love thinking deeply and critically about any media I consume. It's a big part of the fun for me, and actually discussing it with other people can be part of that... but I find I usually don't. It comes down to what you were saying about having the 'wrong opinions'. Say anything that's seen as you maligning someone's favourite game, or that doesn't line up with the fandom's consensus, and good luck having a productive discussion! I mean, just try talking about the queerphobia in Persona 4 with a fandom of predominantly straight men.
Exactly! Yeah, I originally started making these videos because I wanted to have discussions about the nuances of games that I noticed (why there are so many fishing mini-games, the design of swimming mechanics, etc.). And I come from a film school background, so my interest in media has a lot to do with analyzing it. The debate side of things has also always been interesting to me, but debating someone who's part of a fandom is almost impossible, which is sad.
I've wanted to make a video analyzing the problems with Dark Souls, but I know that I can't do that without being mobbed!
And I haven't played Persona 4, but I have thought about making a video about the homophobia of gaming culture... Maybe for June? LOL
@@filmotter I won't spoil too much, but it's an interesting case because it come sooo close to being a good queer narrative on a couple of levels and then says 'Actually, fuck you' and pulls the rug out. It's more complex and involved than P5's blatantly stereotypical gay NPCs, which is what makes it so interesting to talk about... in theory. Anyway, looking forward to more analytical content from you!
Love your content and presentation style. As an elder gay man, I graduated HS in 1976, it's refreshing to see passions and subjects I like being so even handedly and openly addressed. In college I was a Theatre major and was crazy for everything about live Theatre, I acted, directed, read a lot of plays in almost any genre you could think of. I love musical theater but my favorite genre is avant garde/absurdist/surrealism - think Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Sartre, Ionesco, Sam Sheppard, Harold Pinter, Charles Ludlam etc and believe me there are similar fandoms to those of video games, for every genre and individual plays as well. I love the musicals RENT and Hedwig and the Angry Inch while still very much liking Cabaret, The King and I, Godspell, and The Fantasticks but I got death threats from millennials over my love of RENT, go figure. I am also a gaymer with a firm taste for FPS sci/fi titles i.e. Half-life2, Fallout, We Happy Few, the later Doom series, Quake etc. as well as action/exploration/adventure story driven games like Stray, The Dying of the Light, Ni No Kuni etc. so I'm very much acquainted with the rabid fandoms of which you speak. Looking forward to many more of your excellent essays. Ciao bello.
I really enjoy how you covered this topic! You were making sure to cover how truly horrible some parts of fandoms were, but also made sure that we knew there are good people out in the fandoms. I also like how you talked about your own experience to sympathize and somewhat explain how toxic fans might act because it means that they aren’t mindless rage internet users and they’re humans of course. The quality of your videos are like professional level, and I’ll be making sure to tune into future video essays. Great job on this!
In retrospect I was extremely lucky to experience undertale before the fanbase really exploded and without any preconceived notions about how you're "supposed" to play it. Sorry it was a rougher experience for you...But yeah super cool and thoughtful video on such a shockingly complex topic!
Thank you! I'm glad it resonated with you! I think nowadays it's going to be next to impossible to interact with games in a way that doesn't involve a fanbase due to the whole content creation thing, so it's a bit frustrating in that aspect. (I actually had a whole 5 minutes section written about that, which i cut for time)
Just out of curiosity, what was your first experience with Undertale like? Did you go for a specific ending or did you just kind of play however you felt like?
Hey just found your essays through this vid. It’s interesting you shared your Los Angeles experience, since it is as similar to mine. I was miserable and the only thing that gave me comfort and joy was playing kingdom hearts 3. Then I went on the internet and saw the discourse. It almost completely soured my experience but I refused to contribute to the toxicity. To this day, the game is special to me and I can care less about what others think. But I do think people need to reconnect with reality and realize what impact their behavior has on others. Thank you for the video!
I'm glad I'm not alone in that feeling! And I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Crazy that people are still seeing this one from so long ago lol
I really like this. Fandoms truly can skyrocket a game to a point they never dreamed or absolutely destroy for anyone who wants to jump in. Fans can be some of the best and most toxic people around.
I would also count Genshin Impact as a toxic fandom, especially because of a certain mistranslation. People get literally death threats because of that, regarding the shipping fandom. Oh, and let's add FF7 as well. I noticed in both communities that they reduce my enjoyment of those games, which is honestly a shame, cause I love both games. I just dislike having to deal with toxic people in a fandom. Why can't people accept that different opinions are normal? Just stay respectful, you don't even have to agree with every take. You can even find new appreciation regarding certain topics by discussing them with people that got different views.
Great video, especially as a big fan of Undertale and Kingdom Hearts, especially back in my tumblr days I was big on Undertale role playing. My toxic fandom experience is interesting because it wasn’t exactly all that toxic? Maybe you could argue it was, but to me it was just incredibly off putting. Essentially, I watched the first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure after getting a lot of recommendations and while it admittedly had some charming qualities like the solid animation and great music, I really didn’t like the show itself at all. I thought it was boring, I didn’t like the story, and I had and still have zero interest in watching more of the show. But whenever I explained this to a fan of the show, their response was “Part 1 sucks, you can just skip it. Watch Part 2 I promise you’ll like it.” This happened far too often and just put me off from watching the show even more. To make matters worse I’ve had close friends of mine lash out because of how vocally I disliked the show. Granted, maybe I was being a bit too negative, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy it and more power to them for that. The whole situation has me thinking if theres such a thing as toxic positivity? Of course maybe I’m the toxic one for my strong disliking of the anime, but I wouldn’t feel so strongly if it weren’t for how loud the fan base can be and how sometimes it seems like I’m not allowed to have a different opinion on the internet.
Oh gosh, I completely understand what you mean. I think, honestly, we are all welcome to dislike whatever we dislike as long as we're not making others feel badly for disagreeing. For what it's worth, I watched the first three parts of the anime and still didn't like it! The pacing felt weird, the characters felt hollow, and just.... eh. Not my thing!
I been in both ends of this and let me tell you it's unhealthy and sadly happens we get way into something we don't stop and think is this really helping anyone
For the past two days I have been solely watching your videos. I rarely comment on the internet, but I really wanted to tell you that I love your videos!
Thank you so much. I also rarely comment on things, so I totally understand. I'm glad you dig the videos!
I really hope to watch you getting the attention you deserve. Keep up the amazing work you have been putting on RUclips so far! 🥰
About what is going to be your next video-essay? Sorry for my bad english, I only learning it. And your videos is pretty motivating for me to learn it, to understand everything.
Another great video! Your point about escapism hits so hard with me as it's been something I've had an issue with my whole life with books, video games, tv shows, and internet communities as well. So many people out there just want to be part of a community and feel welcomed that they forget what it was like to not be the person already in the community.
In regards to my most toxic video game fandom experience: It's probably with World of Warcraft. I've been on both sides of this one too, playing the game from release day, as well as all the previous Warcraft/Blizzard games, there was a point where I was the gatekeeping person telling people to "git gud". As time went on and I became less involved in the game and the community I started to realize it's just a game... Games are meant to be fun and making the game fun for people who are just like I was at one point was the worst thing I could do for a game I loved.
It was also interesting to experience being put on the other side of the argument so quickly once I made the shift from being a "ONE OF US" community member, being treated like I knew nothing about the game or my opinion didn't matter because I was no longer no-lifing the game or the way I played the game was "wrong". I spent about 16 years of my life playing WoW and I made life long friends and had experiences I will never forget all along the way but it's not a game I would tell people to play without having a community they already know joining them these days. (Among other reasons not to support Blizzard...)
Yeah I feel you there! This was basically me with Hannibal on Tumblr. I was the Gatekeeper until things got in the way and I couldn't keep up with the show anymore. And the tables turned so quickly!
And what you mentioned about your experience with WoW is exactly the reason I won't ever get into an MMO. It's everything I mentioned in the video but to such a heightened degree. And on top of that a lot of games like that have pretty predatory practices in place to keep sucking people back in...
Thank you for sharing Machine. I know you're one of like... millions with that experience.
I found this video through my reccomeded section and listened to it. Didnt know it was 2 years old until i opened the comment section, but hey I may as well leave my two cents!
I adore Kingdom hearts 3- despite all of it's flaws, it holds such a dear place in my heart (the fact that there's a big hero 6 world helped a lot, but even without it I think I would've had a fantastic time). But despite my love for the game, I rarely said my opinion on it at the time because I was terrified of being bombarded with negative comments telling me I was wrong and that the other games are much better. These days I am less afraid of other internet strangers and am more willing to speak my thoughts on media that I like, but man back then it felt like if you disagreed with what seemed like everyone, youd get thrown into the fires of hell.
Kingdom Hearts has a toxic fandom??? I guess I’ve just been lucky on the nice side of it! Worse I’ve encountered is Mary-Sue OCs lol
I think for the most part it can be a great fandom, honestly! I think the very vocal minority can be really aggressive sometimes, though. But that also isn't anything new in terms of overall fandoms.
And oh no, not the avalanche of Mary-Sues! So true!
What a fantastic video. This is definitely a complex topic, yet you managed to cover a lot of ground and a lot of aspects of it in a very clear and concise way. 10/10 essay as usual.
Aww thank you! I'm glad you think so. When the idea popped into my head I was a little scared to tackle something this sprawling
Dark Souls has the worst looking waterfall effect I've ever seen. The one in Darkroot Basin that connects back to the Hydra. It's... it's quite something.
Oh and if you want more insight on why people complained about the Persona comparison. For a few years the Persona fandom's vocal minority had ended up comparing everything to Persona 5 and making other posts about it that a lot of people found quite annoying on social media, so that IGN review basically ended up hitting all of those points that people had gotten fed up with over the years. It was also a little odd of a choice for an inexperienced player to review an entry in a long running series, which I assume also added to the reaction. I think that's the overall reason as to why people reacted the way they did.
And while I'm at it, I might as well talk a bit about invasions in Dark Souls:
The invaders cannot be overleveled as the matchmaking is based on player levels, along with the weapon level ever since the release of DS3. The invaders most of the time come across groups of people, which puts them in situations where they can get easily overwhelmed by the opposition due to the co-oppers having no friendly fire. Finding any openings, opportunities to deal damage and preventing others from healing and thus prolonging the conflict is very tricky, which is why they need optimized stats and gear. Without those you won't stand a chance against a group, and even then probably won't because even a 2v1 situation is quite unfair. The invader is almost always at a disadvantage, so they need to plan ahead to give themselves more options and chances. Although there is one exception, which the community refers to as Twink Builds, named after the Twinkling Titanite. These builds are very low level with highly optimized gear which makes them completely unfair towards the starting areas. In these cases the complaints about invaders are completely sound, as it's a more experienced player bullying a newcomer. Assuming that is how they end up playing, as each invader is still a loose cannon with their own sense of fun. Twink builds are appealing as with such one's chances of winning are much higher than normally. But the existence of Twink Builds is also what leads to starting players being more motivated to have overleveled phantoms with them, so even that situation is kinda back and forth. It's a chaotic mess overall, it's better to just shrug at it. You win some you lose some, such is the nature of the game in general.
I was a KH fan but it slowly turned into a love/hate relationship thanks to a mix of me not linking design and story decisions + some very dumb people in the fanbase, to the point that after finishing KH3 I was......... done.
I literally detached myself from the franchise, still haven't bought any kind of DLC, game or merchandise after KH3.
The only connection I have with KH now are a IRL friend that still follows the series and a couple of twitter mutuals who are also fans to this day.
Another great essay Otter! As someone who is in a lot of fanbases, I always try to remind myself that people are allowed to have opinions... and if they feel one way about something, they're allowed to feel that way. Whether negative, or positive. But if it's aggressive, dismissive or threatening, that shouldn't be allowed and should be discouraged. It's always a shame that the aggressive minority of fanbases are always seen in the limelight.
Another game that wasn't mentioned that had some INTENSE opinions was The Last of Us Part II. Oh boy... Outright unacceptable things the negative side of that fanbase have said and done.
Totally agree with you! Differing opinions should be encouraged if you ask me. It's no fun if everyone has to think the same about something. And that scares away so many new people from wonderful media!
I haven't played TLOU2 but I saw a lot of discourse about it on Twotter when it came out and ohhhh boy! Some wild stuff was going on there.
@@filmotter ooooh.. yeah... streaming TLOU2 was an experience - spammed by trolls who seemed to think that Joel in part 1 could do no wrong and filling the chat with spoilers and hate, following with usernames full of spoilers, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny? Yeah, I'd forgotten how much fun that was 🤬
@@puzzledmonkeytree OH lord. I remember hearing from some friends how many people tried to ruin their first experience of the game over.... nothing? I know there was a character who got lots of hate for having a little bit more of a toned build or something?
Kind of similar energy to how people were so concerned that Aloy had some peach fuzz in the new Horizon game. 😵💫
@@filmotter @Puzzled Monkey Oh yeah it's absolutely screwed up. I personally loved so many aspects of that game. I think it was great. It was however, very heavy and emotional. A little hard to swallow at times, but it had incredible writing!
@@seffinspace I definitely need to give it a shot. I don't think I actually finished the first game because I got distracted by something else. But... hmmm... soon!
The very moment that Sekiro punch line hit, I slammed the sub button.
I’d honestly just kinda like to defend undertales fandom. I know that there are some lousy people who can taint the games image, but the fandom also has some of the most creative content that I have ever seen, and it is amazing how the fandom keeps itself alive by doing that. Just look at underverse, which is all written and animated by one person! I know this video is meant to criticize fandoms as a whole, but I’d just like to defend one of my favorites, y’know? It kinda hurts to have it always be called out by everyone.
Great video! Very interesting perspective on souls and undertale communities - both games I know about but have little online engagement in outside the memes
Thank you! Yeah, as someone who makes videos and streams on Twitch, I kind of have no choice but to interact with communities on a daily basis and a ton of fandoms are amazing all around. Those two are just a little... prickly I would say!
I was going to comment on my appreciation for the choice of video segment to go with one of the voice-overs, but honestly there were too many and I lost track of which ones I was going to comment on 😂 I was lucky enough that my experiences with Undertale were surface level enough I never directly came across the bad side of that fandom, but Dark Souls is definitely one that's kind of put my off fromsoft games altogether - which is interesting because I know a lot of lovely people who play and love the games too!
It's interesting too because there's other quite difficult games that have super supportive communities; I know when I streamed Ori and the Blind Forest I met a couple of really chill speedrunners and the same thing happened with Wings of Vi.
Also I think I might be out of pins.
I really wish my Undertale experience could have been more like that, honestly. Like I mentioned, the game was really fun! But it's just... disappointing how many people wanted to ruin it for some reason. I will never understand how people can act that way when claiming to love a piece of media. It feels very backwards in a lot of ways.
And I'm still a bit shocked how many lovely people I've met through Dark Souls. I know other people have not been as lucky, which is a shame!
I'm so sorry that i used up all your pins, I'll pass out my own next time! :D
I have a friend who has often said "fans ruined it for me". We've discussed it and to this day I just don't get it. I don't play games in a vacuum, but I certainly seem to be very limited in my interactions with the wider fandom. All that said, disregard of other people's opinions is certainly a minor character flaw of mine. But it does let me enjoy things, very care-free.
Oh and Sekiro is a fantastic game.
Feels like I'm not the target audience for this. But that's a reason to seek these out I think. Cool beard.
Haha thank you, I grew the beard all on my own. 🤣
Short answer, only if you let them
I think I agree with that to some extent. In the age of social media, it does get harder to ignore fandoms that feel toxic though, as much as I'd like to!
If this channel doesn't blow up soon there is literally no justice in the universe
Lol thanks! I'm getting there slowly buy surely!
The reason why undertale attracted a toxic fanfom was because characters like asriel and the game toxic message like forgiving everyone, even serial killers like asriel/flowey who don't deserve it
That's an interesting point, which hadn't come to mind. But I think you're right to an extent. There are definitely a lot of things that are forgivable, but while playing the game, I remember thinking to myself that I would never realistically forgive this character. I only did it to achieve one of the endings LOL
The reason Megaten fans get so irritated at the constant Persona comparisons is because it's reductive and misses the fundmanetally different core appeals. It always boils down to "it's Persona but worse because it focuses on different things" rather than actually disecting why those diffferences are there, it's the equivalent of someone treating a "Not my cup of tea" statement as objective critique. You even kinda do this yourself by using their shared genre and monster collecting to try and lump them together even though their mechanics, tone and methods of storytelling are drastically different. An extra aggravating factor for Megaten vs Persona in particular though is the frankly justified concern that Persona is going to effectively eat Mainline Megaten and the unique appeal of it will be lost to try and trend chase for the lowest common denominator, this almost happened with SMT4 Apocalypse with it borrowing heavily from Persona in terms of theme and tone which clashed drastically with the OG Megaten themes and tone resulting in the most polarizing game in the series. So when 5 is more of a return to form and the only thing the so called "Professionals" can say is, it's "Persona but worse" Megaten fans see history repeating itself. Lastly just in general, comparison is the lowest form of critique.
I love smash bros to an unhealthy extent. I think the worse fan I ever saw was one time at a tournament some guy who clearly hadn’t shaved or showered in 8 months (yeah he played aegis how could you tell) threw his controller into the monitor after he lost a stock
Personally, I don't believe the "Git Gud" phrase is a way to gatekeep. I see it as more of an invitation - when new people try Dark Souls for the first time they have a hard time adjusting to the initial difficulty and often quit - yes, it might sound toxic, but it's been a meme on the community since the first Dark Souls. It's a way to tell someone that "No matter what, you can succeed", and in essence I believe it's the same as the "Don't you dare go hollow."
But anyways, great video,
I am proud to call myself a deep nerd of the soulsborne, warhammer, halo and many more universes. But at the same time i am scared to tell people about it, i have seen the ugly side of it. IE Warhammer - One side is super open, will talk lore for hours, give you all the deets on the tabletop armies, give you painting tips and so on, the other side - lord forbid you are new to all of this and dont understand the massive mess that is the lore, or even worse a female *gasp* the gatekeeping is so vile and destructive that i have had to dial back my own enthusiasm when teaching newcomers in fear of scaring them away. do i upvote even thou you are at 69? bah it was an amazing vid lets make it 70
Not the sacred 69! 🤣 Thank you! And I completely agree with you about the gatekeeping. It's one of the worst feelings.
I actually see this happening to an extent with souls fandom when it comes to the release of Elden Ring. It seems to have shattered (no pun intended) the fandom in many ways, with some praising it as a masterpiece while recognizing the flaws that it does have, some refusing to see the flaws and getting angry at those that call them out, even those praising it with them. Those that see only the flaws, thus causing them to get angry and those that sing its praises, and still others who are having problems with the game because they are holding it to the standards of what came before, and thus they are rather ironically gatekeeping against the game itself because it isn't playing like the other games that came before it.
Its been rather interesting to watch, and it will be interesting to watch further as time goes on.
how do you have 559 subscribers, thats some high quality stuff right there
Lol thank you! I will say I've been reaching a lot more people lately, which is pretty cool. People seem to be sharing the videos, which helps a lot
As a fan of kingdom harts this hurts to see this because I’ve see the good side of that fandom and its the first game and fandom I ever gotten in to 😔
Same here! The series has a special place in my heart, but the Fandom has been wild lately.
@@filmotter Same here too. Sadly every fandom has its toxic fans that's a sad fact.
Solution: simply do not have opinions about anything ever. Oyyyy the number of people who tell me I’ve played DS wrong 🙃 (also, heck yeah to Hannibal - so good)
Heya, Bean! And yeah I've been told I'm playing a million different games wrong on stream. It's just so exhausting! LOL. Hope you've been doing well!
KH3 hate is still wild to me especially since I still play all the games. I should've seen it coming since KH2 is literally the only game people play out of the series but the way KH fans talk about the series you'd think all the games were just bad and KH2 was the expectation. The community parrots opinions so often they're still saying "It's KHs fault for releasing across other hardware I can't follow the story" when that problem was literally fixed in the PS3 era with the collections. Which is also a lot of peoples first time experiencing Final Mix changes. Like I thought players asking "Do I play release order or chronologically?" were earnest in their endeavors when in actuality they're trying to emulate most peoples experiences in how they think it went down. Playing KH1 but then skipping all of Re:CoM just to get to KH2 or even flatout avoiding everything but KH2. I never thought KH2 fans would such a unique problem in itself. Seeing that girl get so much hate for simply liking another game of the series makes me want to puke especially when the series is all about us connecting with other people and building friendships that transcend space and time. I understand KH2 was good but thinking KH3 was bad because they still prefer 2 let alone thinking that's an excuse to attack others is genuine brainrot.
I've been thinking about the Sonic fandom. I know that no one can agree which of its games is the best one. Everyone likes a different one.
But have they been toxic or sending death threats for wrong shippings? I don't think I've heard of any. (Just some of the weird ones)
I wonder why is that?
Oh yeah I've heard some things about the Sonic fandom. Honestly, I haven't kept up with the games since Sonic Adventure 2. But they do seem like a passionate fanbase. I can only imagine what it's all like LOL
@@filmotter Any thoughts on how some fandoms aren't so toxic, even though they can be divided?
Glad you mentioned the SMT V review. SMT fans hate it when SMT is compared to Persona...unfavorably. Because they constantly have to say SMT is better than Persona in all aspects to keep the long-con going that "SMT does everything better than Persona". Which it doesn't, not at all. They'll insert themselves into Persona discussions and say "Persona sucks, play SMT" even though the reasons people play Persona games will leave them disappointed with SMT. It's an inferiority complex and they have to make it everyone else's problem. SMT fans are the worst fanbase for my money.
Absolutely, honestly most times, I'm disgusted by the entitlement of fans in many of my favorite things mainly stories because they get it in their head that they have a right to dictate/influence how they (the creators) write.
Another great video. Alright subscribing.
Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoy it!
Your channel is absolutely great!
Thank you so much!
really enjoyed the sekrio hot take
Thank you thank you! I've got all the hot takes apparently!
Tbh I might be completely wrong so don’t take me 100% but I’m pretty sure in the SMT5 ign review she compared it to P5 as a criticism which they’re not trying to be the same game so it doesn’t quite work, then again could be remembering wrong so I’m not saying this as 100% fact
Amazing, insightful video essay!
Thank you! I do what I can!
Yes, they honestly can though I know in fact fandoms aka bad ones that are either cringey fandoms or toxic fandoms can cause some people to hate on those games.
Because of their bad fandoms which I know I end up hating on games that did have bad fandoms myself like fnaf! aka the game series that did have a fandom that went
From being cringey to toxic which I never find that to be a good sign when a game fandom turns from being cancerous to toxic while I even know how the fortnite fandom.
Itself even went toxic too! aka the online free to play game that I also hate because of its toxic fandom which I honestly find it sad how this is a problem with are games
Seeing how they can have bad fandoms that can ruined those games for most people though.
Worst fandom is prolly DC's. So much DC themselves have even pointed it out in their letters to the editor section. Worst part is their toxicity even predates the Internet. It's an outside gaming example but the essay made me think of them the whole time.
Is the Kingdom Hearts fandom that toxic?
I really wish the little nightmares fandom wasn’t toxic…
tfw its Turkey Lurkey Time
It's ALWAYS Turkey Lurkey Time duhhh
13:03 I mean, ds2 would've been more apt for that punchline. Sekiro is great, and not really a souls game anyway.
Git Gud isn't dismissive it's telling the person they're capable and should just keep trying as it's more fun that way, it's also shorthand for there's no trick to it just practice because not every obstacle is a knowledge check or has a cheese strat to dealing with it.
Fantastic video! I am now you're fan... mwuhahahahahahahahaha!
Just kidding, but i did subscribe, you're doing great content, thanks !
LMAO! Thank you, though. And I hope I can live up to your kind praise in the future haha.
Undertale fandom ruined undertale tbh
Yeah the Souls fandom is so toxic that if you go into each respective game, they will automatically shit on the others.
If you want to start a war, say Dark Souls 2 is an objectively good game. 9 years later it will still be argued about. Matter of fact, I think the first boss of Elden Ring, Margit is designed in an artistic way of representing gatekeeping. From Software is truly a great developer, but a lot of the fanbase (not the lore ones, jolly cooperators, or some others) is gatekeepy, annoying, and is part of a geniune cult. And it prevents people from truly seeing the light and thinking critically for themselves.
I'm glad we got these games, but they're like Tool or Rick and Morty fans. Where yes, it's all great, but the fanbase (even myself to be honest) will shove it down everyone else's throat.
I mean no Souls fan seems to ever appreciate gimmick bosses of any kind, no matter how creative they might be.
x)) how could u say somethin so controversial yet so brave
So controversial! So brave! lmao
No. Next question.
You're fun at parties lmao
Hi I’m here to fight.
Your Sekiro take is bad.
16:41 I mean that has nothing to do with being invested in fandom. Many people get hyper invested in fandom that is what encourages them to better their life and mental health.
I think you're taking negative experiences and using fandom as a scapegoat in this essay a little too much. This started as an informative well balanced dive and turned into more a hit piece at the end. It's misplaced blame.