I loved this video! I very much agree with what you said about the 1% being very loud and can stick with us for too long. They also tend to be highlighted when they should just be ignored. The stuff at the end about being a content creator - I felt that. I've had such incredible experiences with certain fandoms and feel like I've found a home in some of them, then I'll talk to another content creator that says that very same fandom has been the worst to deal with (and the same has been the reverse where I've had bad experiences when others are welcomed!). When it comes down to it, no fandom is good or bad, they're all just masses of people and some people choose to suck on the internet. But some people chose to be welcoming and kind and if you can find a healthy place to chat about the stories you love, you can make lifelong friends there. Great video! Loved the discussion!
YES! I'm always surprised when a fandom I've had really good experiences with has actually been bad for someone else, and vice versa. All we can do id do our best to be examples of the good and hope we can make the good fandom spaces for others to enjoy.
I fully agree. A lot of these toxic comments need to be taken in light of all the positives. It's amazing how quickly we lose perspective when people start being rude or negative. That's one thing I often think about with celebrities who get backlash from some fans. I don't really know because I've never been in that position, but I think if they were able to keep some perspective, the overwhelming majority of feedback for most people is positive. That was even addressed in the video. If we can see the bad in light of all the good, it probably wouldn't seem so bad anymore.
Some adaptations blame "Toxic Fanbase" for their failures, instead of an honest introspective look at their end product. Unfortunately, due to the actual Toxic 1% of the fanbase, they also have plenty of ammunition to prove their points.
YES YES YES. They focus on real tweets or comments - which are terrible - and then extrapolate and say "all fans feel this way" which is just SO FRUSTRATING. It's like, I had zero problem with Moses Ingram, but I DID have a problem with the writing of her character because it was nonsensical and boring. But because of horrible racist people, I didn't really want to talk about it because I didn't want to get lumped in with that. But, it also gives the creators the license to say that anyone who had a problem with the character was racist. It's a bad cycle.
I agree. Kind of like politicians will blame the interviewer instead of answering hard questions. It's easier to enflame the toxic part of the Fandom than to admit you hired untalented writers and ended up with a product that instead of pleasing the majority of the Fandom, the nice and the toxic parts, is trying to preach a message no one asked you to do.
Another phenomena I find strange and harmful in a different way is "toxic positivity"- people who will blindly defend a property or company and assume that all criticism is vitriol. They make it just as hard to voice opinions without being ganged up on. Not to mention the aspect of being branded as hateful for having legitimate issues with something. (e.g. if you don't like a character or their story you are racist or sexist)
Oh absolutely. I think both sides drive me crazy. I don't care if you love a show - honestly that's great! - but let me dislike it in peace as well (as long as I'm not being rude about it, of course)
Great video! I totally buy the 1% theory and I'm also annoyed by the trend of clickbait articles highlighting toxic minorities within fandoms. One very real and scary trend I've seen though is when that 1% turns into a virtual mob. For example, let's say there's a fandom dedicated to a particular author/series. A RUclipsr puts out a negative review for that author/series/book. One fan finds that review and shares it within the fandom (subreddit, Facebook group etc.) and suddenly an unnatural amount of people flock to that RUclipsr's video and troll them. When this 1% is big enough to outnumber that RUclipsr's regular supportive audience, it can really take a toll on them unfortunately :(
Yep! It’s happened to me 🤣😅 it sucks but unfortunately that’s the reality of the internet. I totally agree that clickbait is a huge issue that blows things out of proportions. Just don’t know if there’s any fix on that when those sorts of things are rewarded so heavily monetarily.
There is even a word for that: Pareto Principle. It says 20% of people will contribute 80% to the product. This can be broken down further, as 20% of the 20% will also contribute to 80% of the 80%.
Great analysis and insight. Social media has fomented a tyranny of the extremes that it also constantly reinforces all for the God of Content. Anonymity emboldens and helps to “otherize” those who we perceive as wrong, stupid, etc. and it further gives an excuse to ignore the other side and keep preaching to our own tribal choirs. I hope that those like yourself who promote real discussion and debate are inspiring others.
Yep, and the thing with social media is the "algorithm" thrives on engagement, and people just naturally tend to engage more with inflammatory content, making it seem more prevalent than it probably is.
Hot take from the get-go on these fiery topics: discussions about “toxic fandoms” can be toxic in themselves...it’s almost kinda become the easy reach labeling when it comes to fandoms and what fandoms are or what fanship is. It could be used when people might disagree on a notion that’s out of lore or that doesn’t “get” the gist of what author’s intent was etc etc and folks can just retort with “toxic” label. And it saddens to attach the evocative imagery to indicate fandoms as toxic. And fandoms are hardly monolithic of one mind rejecting all others. That’s not a healthy back and forth. The posters in thumbnail are some of the most gorgeous even the one where there is a ton of disagreement and even almost schism, there’s still hope...I would just hate for those posters to signify discussions about “toxic fandoms”...
I know I am late to the party as I only discovered your wonderful site while following threads to discussions of "WoT" and "RoP" two weeks ago and I love your content, attitude, fairness, and delivery. As more of a "lurker" than a contributor, I felt compelled to agree with some of the commenters here and state that I have noticed that quite often some of the feedback comes from persons not in the fandom, but only present to interject a virulent political agenda. I have even seen this type of hate speech in comments on "Critical Role" episodes, which should be a bland D&D site. It is scary. I am 75 years old and not perfectly comfortable with social media and simply avoid Twitter and Reddit because I gather from comments that those sites seem to encourage angry and offensive behavior. There is enough nasty stuff in the real news and I don't need it from fantasy discussions. Thank you for your intelligent and fair-minded contributions.
"encourage nasty and offensive behavior" is just SO TRUE. The internet has become exhausting. I also am not on Twitter for the same reasons, and I'm trying to avoid Reddit more and more. Thanks for being here!
I think you make a lot of good points. Another thing about large fandoms is that those with toxic views and behaviour are far more likely to find at least a few who share their views, which is an easy way to embolden bad behaviour too.
I have been a Star Wars fan for my whole life (or nearly) my whole life. In my experience, there are some really cool and nice Star Wars fans out there… And then there are other groups of Star Wars fans who are racist, misogynistic, and toxic in other ways.
It also is a general social media problem. The communication is impersonal and people are easily annoyed and angered, things add up und hateposts and trolling appear. Then you have a certain kind of influencer who prey on this and use this by engaging these behaviours, making a profit of it and instrumentalizing angry or frustrated users for their political ambitions. Hatecults form...
You did a video about how producers pretend to be fans of material simply for marketing. That was a real eye opener to me. These show producers would probably label that toxic. For me personally the internet and content producers like you have opened my eyes to alot of things i never thought about before. The lack of control of information has been a good thing for me.
Very well thought out and nuanced video, I appreciate it. A good part of the reason I clicked was because you included LotR on your thumbnail and I was curious what you had to say. Obviously it didn't turn out to specifically be a big point in the video, but I still think it's interesting how what you're saying relates to the current situation the LotR Fandom faces. I know a lot of other people in the comments have brought up the idea of companies or creatives using a small group of overzealous, misguided, or rude individuals as a scapegoat for their product being terrible. I wanted to build on that by saying, from the perspective of a fairly invested LotR fan, that I am also tired of "anger" and "toxicity" being conflated. When you do something genuinely worthy of anger (let's say for example taking a carefully crafted work of art that was made as a mythology for a particular ethnic group of people and with moral themes for a particular faith and world view and ignoring all of that to shove in your own poorly thought out ideology), people being angry about that are not toxic. People need a thicker skin to some degree, I think. Harsh words are not always toxic if they are justified and directed at the right recipient. Obviously that has its limits, but I'm tired of people who are justifiably angry being labeled toxic or bigots or whatever.
Ahhh YES I wish I had covered this more! People also conflate negativity with toxicity which is absolutely not true. Saying you dislike something is NOT toxic. It’s silly and I’m tired of it! I noticed while I was looking for screenshots for the part where I show examples of toxicity that there were many articles claiming toxic fans and the comments they used as examples were…. Totally normal? Yes they were expressing displeasure, but they were neither rude nor profane or anything else. How is that toxic? It’s silly.
@@Bookborn yea, that's exactly it. I guess thats what happens when you don't have the talent or the passion to make good content but you do have the power to label everyone that points that out as evil lol
Wow this was a eye opening and insightful video! It’s honestly terrifying at the impact one bad or negative “fan” can have. Scary the times we live in and the stories media chooses to push for views. Hopefully we can all be more positive!
Totally. I think we forget that media - which *feels* like it should be more neutral - relies on views for money just as much as the trash gossip sites do.
@@Bookborn So many things I hear that I assume a large amount of people believe or follow that really might just be media click bait or radical individuals.
Unfortunately a lot of fandoms I'm in that used to be on the smaller side are now giant and just like...the worst 😭 Us regular fans need to stick together!
I am not sure i am part of 'fandom', i have certainly read everything by Tolkien, Jordan, Sanderson etc many times. Wheel of time the show had issues, timing issues- some poor CGI etc and these are issues worthy of criticism. Ring of power may well have issues as well, its too early to say. But the incredible backlash about things such as skin colour has shocked me to be honest. I think its a perceived culture war (those who lose their minds about black elves or whatever often see 'wokeness' in everything). It has got to the point where i avoid a heck of a lot of content creators now and rarely take part in discussing the show on pages (for book fans) that i have been a member of for decades. On the other hand, i have seen people make valid criticism about actors and be accused of bigotry so i guess it goes both ways?
I think if Amazon came out and said that they wanted to make fan fiction I would have been more open to the changes. Books like LOTR I haven’t read, but when Amazon says they’re making a series based on the book then claim to be huge fans and staying true to the books then butcher it makes me mad. They lie. I don’t care if there’s hobbits in their show it’s how they advertised it that makes it irritating.
Yea i think all the press pre release is what soured it for a lot of people. They pretended to be really into making something super faithful to the books then literally destroyed the worlds lore for a cheap "whos the dragon" story line. I mean they only had Lan use his sword twice haha
Dude I said this SO much. I'm like just name it "The White Tower" or "Aes Sedai" or something and make your little aes sedai political drama. I would've been into it - like just make something set in the world but about something else. But if you're going to adapt, ADAPT IT.
@@Bookborn yea if they had made their own story more people wouldve probably been much more lenient because there wouldnt be something we could look at and say "this doesnt match at all". Ep 5/6 are good if they werent taking away from the main cast
@@Bookborn I’m curious if Amazon is really trying to make shows to to appeal to the fans and just failing or if their intent all along was to appeal to the Prime customer demographic to make more money at their online store and have the tv shows be the catch to get more customers to subscribe. Also they could totally do an Dr. Quinn medicine woman or Outlander style series of the Yellows and they just go around healing people in a WOT spin off. Honestly, they could have a tv series for every color if they played it right. Instead they tried to adapt the book.
Why you don't have more subscribers when you always produce well researched, quality content I will never know. Great video as always. Sometimes I wish we could go back to the internet of 10 years ago where you could like something mediocre and it was ok or criticise something mediocre and it was ok. There has always been toxicity on the internet but it feels like it has skyrocketed the past few years.
I think it has to do with the sheer number of people on the internet now AND the multiple platforms. Like social media has exploded, so now there are multiple formats for people to misbehave on lol
Great video, I'm so glad to see someone take a measured approach to this subject. I agree with all of your points, the only relevant thing I would add is that there exist people who are very invested in the culture war narrative that hijack geek fandoms to try and radicalize them against a perceived "wokification" of nerd culture. These people are often not actually fans of "propery xyz", but will often get cited in articles as "xyz fans" to prove that fandom's toxicity. Examples of that here on youtube would be The Quartering, Geeks and Gamers, Nerdrotic, Doomcock and Midnight's Edge.
Well done video, thank you for this. Somewhat appropriately, I discovered your channel while looking for people discussing the WoT TV series in a non-vitriolic manner, and was immediately won over by you expressing your thoughts and feelings in a genuine and non-toxic manner.
I just love how well thought out and researched your videos are. I always feel like I'm taking a quick class on the subjects you talk on and gain so much interesting insight!
Sorry for any negativity you get on the channel. I hope you know you have way more supporters on here than you have negative people! Love your content!!!
I took comfort in following your critiques of the WoT series. You watched it with an open mind and gave the showrunners time to tell their story. You approached the series in good faith, and when you finally concluded it wasn't for you, and cited examples, it was always with respect, and focused on the content. I really admired that. I feel like a defining characteristic of toxic fandoms is that they don't do this. They don't argue in good faith. It isn't *really* about the quality of the show. It's about how the show is perceived to be pushing a political ideology at odds with whatever. They use the show out of context as an example of what's good/bad right/wrong about America/culture/entertainment/etc. It becomes a battleground over political signalling rather than a discussion about the art. Keep doing what you do! It's always a great watch
Ahhh such a good point. Someone else also talked about how sometimes other people - not even a part of a fandom - will use something going on in the fandom to further their political/cultural/whatever opinion, making the fandom look even worse.
A really good discussion. I think the encouragement of certain social norms in online fandom spaces is a good point and IMO the biggest factor at play. Perhaps as low as 1% of people in "fandoms" (however we choose to define that, as you mention at the start) are toxic. Unfortunately, from my experience online fan spaces such as as forums and subreddits can become full of bad eggs very quickly when under poor or non-present moderation. Negativity breeds, certain opinions become the "correct" opinions, and it devolves into insulting creators/fans/dissenters personally rather than criticism of the works themselves. And the people in those spaces have the option of converting, keeping quiet or jumping ship, often feeling like they've been pushed out in the process. So I personally think that while "fans" may not be mostly toxic, the groups that are seen to represent them really can be, and a lot of fans don't like to call that out. They'll usually be like "that's not okay behaviour but that's not me, don't characterise me like that", but not actually call out the behaviour of these groups head on. And that's why I think outsiders, not unreasonably, see this as fans downplaying or dismissing behaviour of those within their "group". Edit: And to that last point, it's not helped by people within these fan groups behaving as though (and perhaps even believing that) their collective opinion, stance and/or attitude is representative of the whole fandom.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. Also, to your second point, negativity can breed because it gets the most attention. If someone puts something really horrible and outlandish, it's probably going to get more dislikes and comments - but that's ALL considered engagement, and thus it'll be pushed to the top. Whereas reasonable arguments that people agree with, but don't make them angry enough to act by commenting - get lost.
great discussion! It's fascinating to me since I'm so removed from any major fandom as someone who just loves jumping into as many different authors/series as I can. Variety is the spice of life!
I definitly didn't experience it until I got into online fandoms more recently. Before, I just sort of fangirled by myself or with a few friends who shared interests. I've met some amazing people through the internet, but it does get...less fun in some ways.
Well, I'd like to adress some issues mentioned here. 1. Internet anonimousity is in most cases a myth. In most cases with enough effort You or the Police can trace the person posting. The problem in question is the feeling of "beeing anonymous and unaccountable for anything U post". 2. I think the case is people don't usually consider (or reconsider) what they are posting. BEFORE POSTING IT. I'd never post anything I wouldn't sign with my surname, annonymous or not. For me it's just common sense. 3. I agree that some "toxic individuals" might/do exist in any fandom and when fandom grows bigger there may be more of them (but they're still a tiny minority; i think that "the 1%" mentioned there was used in a figurative meaning to show the clue of the problem). Things like deaththreats and ad personam attacks are unacceptable (and in some cases can be solved in court). 4. There are creators (showrunners, writers etc.) use "toxic fandom" argument as a shield against legit criticism. I may or may not like what they did with SW movies 1-3 or 7-9, The WoT, The Witcher, LotR etc.; I might not put my opinion "as eloquently" as some youtubers or people in comments, but that doesn't mean some of them don't make a (/some) point just because they used "harsher language". The important thing there are the arguments used. If there are no arguments, it might be just hatespeach or just hype (if the statement is overpositive), but if arguments for a point of view are provided... that may be just an overeggzagerated criticism, but still a legit one nethertheless. If someone tells me literally "U frakked it up!" (yep, BSG die-hard fan here), and its true that I did, the only thing I can do then is to make some amends... 5. There is an saying that states "it's good if people speak of [something]. It does not matter if they are saying it's good or bad. It's important that they speak of it" (regarding to marketing). Controversy sells (and showrunners, directors and whole marketing team knows well of this fact). 6. Word limits encourage strong expression and clickbaiting. That's most of Twitter for me.
This is such a fantastic topic. There are so many subtleties to this whole issue, and I think you catch quite a few. I have just recently found your channel and love it. Intellectual conversation (and conversation is the key) is fantastic. I'll detail a few ideas of my own on this topic: 1) Fanatics are fanatics. Fandoms are still fanatics. This has its own connotations :-). Just like in sports, these fandoms can do crazy things and can become rabid. So definitely plenty of blame to fall on their shoulders. 2) You completely nailed the anonymity of the internet. As we become more reliant on social media and internet communication, we lose the ability to interact with social norms. We can hide behind user names and screens and spew vitriol back and forth and people no longer converse. We yell at each other with little to no repercussions. You are spot on with the curating of sites and choosing your "dueling" grounds. 3) There are also trolls on the internet. Sadly, many people find it fun to go off an pretend to be one way or the other to create vitriol. I have a sinking suspicion that some of the horrid comments and commenters are not necessarily members of any fandom... but they like getting the pot stirred and laughing about it. Add in your accurate point about the news cycle and the need for click bait, and you have a horrible recipe for mislabeling and bashing from both directions. I would also say that a lot of the current social media cycle is not even news or journalism. They are op-eds that are taken as gospel... creating their own issues. 4) Series also have used smoke screens to cover horrible decisions and writing by labeling ALL negative comments racist, misogynistic, etc. Pick your favorite -ist and they will find a way to label a disagreement with it. Society is in love with echo chambers because they are far easier to deal with and satisfy the need for pats on the back (and money ;-) ). Add all of these together and you create a complex convoluted cesspool. You have bad actors, actors being bad, bad being scripted to be acted. In all of this, I am glad to find places with common sense and good conversations where debates can be had respectfully. Thank you for providing that!!
This was a great topic. With social media and perceived anonymity, some people are just malicious and hurtful. There are people who will call others names just because others don’t agree with them. I don’t see very many forums for books/authors I like, but I do see a lot on the general Star Wars social media pages. I hate that I can’t give my opinion (Reva in the Obi-Wan show had so much potential, yet was not interesting and was underwhelming for the first 4 episodes. Eventually the writers finally gave us some interesting character development, and now I want more). I made a comment about the writers and everyone attacks me for personally attacking the actress, then they call me or anyone that doesn’t praise her a racist sexist bigot. I still have my VCR recordings of the Star Wars trilogy from childhood, I have read 100+ Star Wars books, 500+ Star Wars comics, and I have a Star Wars number 1 comic from ‘77. I am a Star Wars fan, not a poser, why can’t I respectfully share an opinion? I hate the toxic fandom. That’s why I stay away now, but it makes me sad because I want to talk about the things I like.
Yeah it's simply silly. Unfortunately there WERE people being racist to the actress, which was horrendous, but there were a lot of people (me included) who had zero issue with the actress but DID have issue with the sloppy writing. It's annoying we can't voice that without either a) people claiming something we are not, or b) the horrendous people thinking we agree with them when we don't.
@@Bookborn oh yeah, the people who were saying racist stuff are trash and need to be kick to the curb. I want to go back to the day where we can debate and disagree without resorting to name calling. Thank you for taking the time to make your videos and creating a fun place to discuss books and such. I just go back to finishing The First Law trilogy while I wait for book 3 of the Kingkiller Chronicles (come on Patrick!) 😂.
I found your channel because of WoT. Thanks for that Content. The video about book vs amazon series helped my non-book friends understand the difference. Keep up the good work!
Awesome video!! I appreciate your perspectives and your channel very much. Sorry that the Wheel of Time videos brought you so much negative energy, I really loved all of those videos that you made and the perspectives you brought to the show.
What a great video!! Specially now that I’m in the One Piece fandom and while there are some GREAT and amazing people there’s also A TON of toxicity and just a lot of spamming of dumb comments, so it’s nice to see this video. I would also like to comment something I consider to be very important and that’s the importance that each individual gives to something. I think there’s an actual psychological term for what I’m talking about but I don’t remember now so I will just explain. The thing is, when we have something we like, something we really really like (a character, a series etc) we tend to include that into our own psyche. So, when someone criticizes that or makes a valid argument against that, sometimes it can be interpreted as if they were criticizing you. It’s not a rational thought, and a lot of people can realize that that’s not true, the people making the comment don’t have anything against you, but the emotional response can be interpreted as if they were attacking something that defines who you are, some of your core. This leads people to defend pretty aggressively against an argument. It’s not that they just disagree but they feel as if someone were attacking them. Again, I’m pretty sure there’s a psychological base for this but I’m no psychologist and no expert in the topic so it’s everything I can say. Also, I’m a bit scared for the Cosmere fandom. We are usually pretty chill with a lot of respectful people and I think that overall it’s an amazing fandom to be in, but it’s growing very VERY rapidly, and with movies and adaptations coming sooner than later, this won’t do anything but continue and increase. I hope everything remains ok and toxic comments don’t get to be a daily reality, but I don’t know, everything is uncertain. Even though I think we don’t have much to worry about yet I still think that the thought can be scary nonetheless. Anyway cool video :)
YES!! I’ve actually talked about that psychological phenomenon in another video but I don’t know the name for it either! I’ve had to tell myself multiple times that just because someone doesn’t like my fav book/show/what have you, doesn’t mean they don’t like *me*. It can be hard to separate when something is really dear to us, and I’ve for sure gotten defensive. I’m scared for Cosmere too lol. I agree that we are still pretty cool but yeah I’ve been in the fandom for a decade and it’s grown CRAZY amounts already. I’m nervous. It’ll probably get bad but we can just stay in the good parts of it 😅
Great analysis. Toxicity is really something that took the fun out of a few of my favorites fandoms. I had to leave a few of the major subreddits I previously liked because of this and now I am only invested in smaller communities. I would also like to add that the amount of toxicity is probably dependent on the emotional connection we have to these properties. Most of these connections were formed in our childhood. When the Prequels came out, most of the toxic people grew up with the OG trilogy and now, the prequel generation is being toxic against the Sequels. I would argue that this is also true for LotR, WoT, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, et cetera. We all are nostalgic to these properties but some of us are sometimes disappointed that new adaptations aren't the same as in our memory. Instead of discussing this in a civil and respectful manner, some of them become toxic. I guess, racists and sexists were also children once. Tbh I don't know what one can do to stop toxicity. Sometime, I tried to have a discussion with them but most of the time I was talking to a wall. Nowadays, I'm just ignoring them. I really don't want to lose my interest in these kinds of things just because of a few toxic people.
The emotional investment is key, and beyond that I think it's when people can't separate the thing they love from themselves. So, when someone criticizes a property they love, they defend it as if someone was criticizing who they were as a person. I've even reminded myself sometimes: just because someone doesn't like my favorite book, it doesn't mean they don't like me lol
@@Bookborn Yeah, I also have to remind this myself all the time. Currently, it always stings a bit when someone says that Better Call Saul is boring and not so awesome as Breaking Bad. :D
I totally agree it is important to distinguish between fans and fandoms. I hate toxic fans and do my best to not interact with them. On the other hand I don’t believe there is such a thing as a toxic fandom. The 1% thing was very interesting to me that makes so much sense and I can’t believe the whole fandom of a property could be toxic. Wheel of Time for me was the first time I had intense contact with toxic fans and I had the same reaction as you. I just didn’t wanted to talk with anyone about it anymore. I’m glad there is such a big gap until season two. Hopefully until then I don’t have the negativity on my mind as much and I can just enjoy the show again. I’m curious why I got sucked so much into it with WoT. Only with Star Wars I had a similar experience. Maybe I don’t interact as much in the other fandoms. I don’t remember any such negative interactions about the MCU which must have it’s share of toxic fans considering how big it is.
I think MCU has gotten bad too, but I think it just depends on how much you interact with it. I like the MCU, but not enough to talk about it online really; so I haven't experienced negativity surrounding it. However, I'm really active in many spaces with WOT and Star Wars, which I think why that one has been worse. Maybe it's the same for you.
Great video! I always find the whole "anonymity" phenomenon fascinating. Just like the person who would hold the door open for you at the store would be the same person to honk and give the middle finger to you on the road; so would the faceless commenter give you a bunch of crap over an opinion you have, but will apologize and recant if you respond to them. The internet is wild, and honestly, I feel that this mob-mentality behind social media is quite destructive. I don't engage with fandoms as much as one would as a content creator. But Wheel of Time is a good example of good fans gone bad. I've seen some of these comments myself, and it's horrifying that someone would say such vile things because they are angered by a show. By fiction... I know it's disappointing to have a favorite book/series adapted unfavorably. Look at The Dark Tower movie. BUT, like they all say: the books will always remain the same, and no one will take them from you. Overall, I don't think it's all that bad. I don't think fandoms are as bad as they seem. As humans, who doesn't get their rocks off talking smack about something now and then? Sometimes it's fun to make fun, and sometimes people make say something a little more extreme than intended. Maybe for dramatic effect, or maybe just to grab attention. But unfortunately you always have those handful of folks who take it too far, and it's no longer fun.
Agreed on absolutely all counts. I also think tone is hard on the internet. You might say to your friend "This is the worst show ever and everyone involved needs to die" and it's obviously a huge joke and you're being dramatic or whatever. But you say it on the internet, divorced of meaning, and others agree and make serious threats, and here you are.
The best part of this video is how you're taking a proactive approach to try and counter the negativity people encounter in fandoms or online. I agree with most of your discussion but would add that much of the "toxicity" also comes from the hyper-politicization of almost all topics, which has helped destroy almost any nuance from just about all social discourse.
Oh absolutely. It's shocking to me how the most benign subjects have somehow become ultra-politicized. Like how are we making THIS big a deal over something that's ultimately...fantasy??
I love love your content. Wonderfully put. I was thinking about similar topics a lot recently, but you articulated it so well. Thank you ! The only thing I'd add is that sometimes people perceive disagreement or disliking something as part of "toxicity", however it does not help that people do not always explain their complaint very well. For example, when a person says something like: "This show sucks" , or "This is so bad" without elaborating, it can be seen as something toxic. Would it be toxic for you ? I personally cannot decide. On the one hand I would not want to restrict people of proclaiming their negative opinion no matter how short. On the other, it would be nicer it people were a tad more constructive giving feedback. The truth is that any negative response can be damaging to the receiver. I observe that mostly in relationships, when one person, for example, creates an art and shows to another, even a constructive criticism can lead to motivation loss. It's quite nuanced. There also another philosophy, which Brandon Sanderson himself tries to adhere to. It goes something like: "When you have nothing good to say, don't say anything". This principle appeals to me, but I am not sure. Would the world be a better place when we say positives only ? Or do we allow criticism, accepting that it can be damaging no matter how carefully put ?
Couldn't agree more. While I was looking for articles to put in that portion where I flash a bunch of stuff up on screen, I found some people complaining about "toxic comments" that were just...very normal disagreement comments? Like they didn't use language, or aggression, they were just like "I don't like this". And it's like babes, that isn't toxic, that's called *discussion*. So the label is so overused, imo.
The thing I hate worse than toxic fandoms are creators who attribute all criticism and failure to 'toxic fans.' This is not only a slimy way to try to escape critiques, but it actually amplifies the toxicity of a fanbase by making fans feel like they are being dismissed. They then become angrier, and intensify the cycle of angry feedback.
At least in the fandoms I’ve been in, I’ll be frank, Idk if I’ve seen that as much. At least not intentionally to blatantly say “all criticism is toxic.” The main ones I’ve seen are The Last Jedi, Kenobi, and Rings of Power…which 2 of those at least did have a fair share of stuff pushing toward toxic, if not there. In each case, something like racism toward an actor hits the news. How? Can be a variety of factors, but it’s unclear if those moments are intended to just shut down criticism. The fellow cast and crew then jump to show their support for their coworker publicly as it blows up. The problem then gets taken even further by articles on both sides warping the text. And then this riles up both sides, battle lines get drawn, and…yeah, we can look at the state of Star Wars and Tolkien fandoms after all that 👀 (I mean, I’ve seen people go on to say that the harassment the actors reported received was entirely faked for publicity) Around when Kelly Marie Tran was reportedly getting harassment after the Last Jedi, Rian made a post on his twitter, the infamous “manbabies” tweet. This then got twisted out of the context, despite him expressing other times that he had great discussions with people that didn’t enjoy his film, to basically say that he calls all fans that disliked the film that. Which he didn’t. But it got the clicks, it got the views. Rage clickbait sells, it seems.
I can't help but wonder if there's a "performance" effect. When there's more people to listen I think there are some that will double down and even exaggerate their opinions for the sake of attention. But also yeah the reddit hivemind is a very real thing. People are frighteningly suggestible to a long post or comment that is well presented, even if it's completely off base. And that's to say nothing about the title reactors.
YES I absolutely agree there is a "performance" effect. I got into this a little on my other fandom video, but it can also be used to gain "cred". Some fans can be worried that if they like an adaptation, but don't immediately call out everything thats different or wrong from the source material, that they will no longer be considered as "good" of a fan.
@@Bookborn I definitely see this with the Star Wars sequels. For people who genuinely like the trilogy, they usually preface things by "I know the sequels are flawed, but" or "I know the sequels aren't perfect, but" before proceeding to say something positive. It's like they're afraid of the "backlash" they'll get for liking them, so they have to let all the "real fans" know that they're a "real fan" too for acknowledging the problems first. EDIT: Oh, and yep, it definitely does something for people to get approval for the "performance effect." That's why you see a lot of overexaggerated positive or negative opinions. I know I'm guilty of having done it in the past.
Another great longform video, thanks! Hopefully that period when season 1 Wheel of Time aired won't be repeated. It was like everyone was high - either loving it or loathing it - or was tempted by both emotions at the same time. Being on Reddit at that time was really really weird. Before episode 8, on r/WotShow and r/WoT any negative voices were downvoted to oblivion. Then since episode 8 aired, on r/WoT at least all positive voices are downvoted and piled on. Like you say, you just need a few percent of people in a fandom to create this kind of dynamic on a platform like Reddit, but it makes discussion basically impossible. Twitter is a much better community which less tolerant of toxicity, but again veers into shuting down criticism, and only hype is possible if you really want to be in that community. I admit I loved the show for whatever reasons, but I appreciated your videos about what was different from the books because that shit is engaging! It's a shame that crowd behaviour means most people don't seem able to find a balance between loving something and discussing flaws, and accepting we come from different points of view.
It's like the internet forces people to be on either extreme. And the people who were like "Well I liked some of it and disliked some of it" were drowned out. On places like Reddit, I think this often happens because people just naturally engage the most with polarizing or inflaming comments. People are more likely to comment when they are angry, then when they see something and go "yeah that's a cool comment!" It's taught me that I need to be better about taking the time to comment on the actual discussion topics and don't get fooled into engaging with the inflammatory ones.
That was a really insightful video. This is something I have never thought about in depths before. But the correlation between size and toxicity was something I had seen noticed myself. It was interesting to hear your take on this. And I'm sorry to hear about the negativity you have gotten yourself. As someone who actually liked the Wheel of Time Show significantly more than books, seeing so many people I had thought were well-meaning and nice shit on it relentlessly was pretty disheartening. But something that was eye-opening to me, in regards to the 1% Theory of toxicity was when I went to actually look into the WoT show numbers. Despite so many fans decrying it as garbage that would flop immediately, the actual viewership numbers were really high. And not just 'lot of people saw the first episode' or 'fans hate-watching' high. But numbers in the vein of Hawkeye and Arcane, at perhaps ~15 million global viewers, with high retention rates of people watching the whole season. And that the numbers were good enough that a season two was greenlit almost immediately. Which made it look to me like a lot of the hate came from a pretty small minority of fans, while a lot of people (fans or casual viewers alike) had a more positive reception. I'll link that post about the number here. www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/rgmpl9/how_well_is_the_wheel_of_time_actually_doing_an/
For some reason it cracks me up that those numbers also include pirated streams. Thorough! The criticism involving WOT just got SO out of hand, and I say that as someone who was disappointed with the show overall (although to be fair it wasn't really until episode 8 that it lost me). That showed me how fandoms sometimes *force* polarization because they don't like when someone takes a middle stance. You either HATE the show or you LOVE the show. I noticed that when I made my video - which both had things I liked and disliked about the show - that it made people angry that I wasn't one way or the other. That polarization is definitely hurting conversations. And like you said, pretending that the WoT show wasn't successful is simply fantasy.
@@Bookborn Let's see this, Amazon's WoT managed to get out of the fan niche towards casual or general audiences? If we limit ourselves to the published numbers, a few months later Reacher exceeded Amazon's WoT numbers with much more modesty, I must add. Where is Amazon's WoT in popular culture right now? Compared to other shows from last year that went completely viral.
@@Bookborn Agreed. Not liking something - whether because it wasn't what you hoped for, or just didn't care for it period - is perfectly fine. And there should always be room for conversation and critique. Even our favourite shows, movies, and books aren't without flaws. But to angry at other people for liking it, or even just taking a middle stance it only going to cause problems.
What about the show makes you like it significantly more than the books? Just curious cause ive only ever seen fans of the show say that it was at best about as good as the book but never better
@@im1085 It comes down to a few different things. Actors - I think that all of the actors were excellently cast and did a lot to make me connect more with many of the characters than in the books. Lan and Moiraine were the big standouts for me. But I also found Rand and Nynaeve much less frustrating than I did in the books. While the actors of Padan Fain, Logain, and Child Valda brought something really engaging and interesting to their characters that I had not at all expected and made the show really stand out for me. Atmosphere - While Robert Jordan is an excellent writer, actually seeing the places visually (including costumes, scenery, landscapes etc.) and having a great score to set the scene and the mood did a lot to make my really feel and enjoy the world in a way the books didn't for me. Pacing - There were times where I felt that the book dragged, and felt slow, especially in the parts where the group was split up before they reconvene. Which felt much faster and more engaging in the show. There were times in the first books where I would put it down, and go days before picking it up again. Where in the show I was constantly engaged, and wanted to watch on. Storyline - Many of my favourite scenes and moments in the season were those that were not in the book, such as the confrontation with Logain and the White Tower politics. How Moiraine and Lan are much more prominent characters here, and the greater focus on the warders and the Aes Sadai as a whole, and their respective dynamics. Which I know the books go into later, but was something I was missing in Eye of the World. Casual - Not so much a specific thing that the show did better, but the fact that I'm only casually engaged in the books meant that a lot of the faux pas, and 'mistakes' that the show did by deviating from the plot, characters, or lore of the book were much less of an issue to me. And even some of the glaring things like Egwene healing Nynaeve or the 'who is the dragon' mystery were things that I either didn't mind, or only considered minor issues for my enjoyment. Ending - While I do agree with a lot of the general statement that the ending was probably the weakest part of the first season. I thought that book ending was actually worse, especially given how odd and disjointed it felt from the rest of the story. So while I didn't find the show flawless in any way, I had a lot of fun watching. Certainly more than I did reading the first book, and am excited for the next season.
Awesome video as always! I think this is a very interesting topic. I wonder if some longer established fandoms seem more toxic because of fans who want to have genuine discussions about the fandom just don’t engage because they have had toxicity in the past, so the most active fans who will engage in discussion are the most critical ones or ones who are out to simply spew toxicity. It’s a small but very vocal group that has stifled discussion.
I absolutely think that's a factor. I also think people with "regular" or "in the middle" opinions often just dont' feel the need to comment. OR, if they DO comment, it's lost because the more inflammatory comments get the most engagement, and engagement drives what we see.
Your discussion was great, and I think highlighting the internet as a way that opinions and discussion gets amplified is a good one. However, I think another factor is how companies have come to embrace fandoms and controversy as a way to stir up discussion about their product. The main example I can think of is in the video game space where, in the 90s, the identity of "gamer" was cultivated by game companies to increase sales. You had people on the early internet being vitriolic about video game series and game consoles. As you point out, fandom goes back to at least Tolkien, but I think that other media companies have taken their cues from the video game space. To me, identifying as a "gamer" makes about as much sense as identifying as a "reader". But some people pour themselves into what they consume, and as you said that can lead to a sense of community or conflict. I just think how the internet as a platform is used by media companies is as important to consider as how individual fans use it. Great video as always!
I really loved your wheel of time videos, it sucks that people can be so mean. I think a lot of "toxicity" can come from the passion for something, really loving that piece of entertainment because it hit you as an individual a certain way. Each of us can feel different things as fans of something. That emotional attachment can come out as negative or positive, but can also be taken in a different way than intended, or it can be perfectly intended negatively (like your WoT comments) but that passion the person feels is what drives it, add anonymity and its easy for that passion to erupt without a second thought.
This is a good psychological analysis. IMO (and everything below is just my opinion), the internet definitely encourages rapid aggressive comments by offering anonymity. Also social media has created the need to be agreed with. Once someone says something controversial and gets support from others, it picks up steam very rapidly. And I agree that if you could find those individuals and ask them why they feel that way, their confidence would crumble. It's the mob mentality creating mass movements that the individuals are unlikely to agree with if they could be identified and didn't have the mob backing them up. We all experience moments of anger (eg. road rage) and we all have triggers. The problem with commenting on the internet is that it's mostly text based and it's very hard to communicate properly. Sarcasm or layered meanings are especially often lost in translation in text but would be more apparent when face to face. The internet is hampered by this and often leads to angry reactions where people feel they are under attack, and the anonymous nature gives them the confidence to attack back. Hard. In its purest sense, a fandom is a great place to be where people can openly discuss their opinions without fear of being attacked (like a traditional book club). I love discussions where I might say something that turns out to be flawed and someone explains to me in a fair and reasonable way why it's wrong - I often end up agreeing with them once I think about it. Unfortunately that is becoming a very rare experience online. More often, anything you say gets a strong and instant negative reaction and you're forced to just walk away for your own sanity. I feel for you as a RUclipsr trying to build an online reputation and maybe even a business, where it's hard to walk away. I have no advice other than try not to provoke the various mobs who see the internet as their personal bullying playgrounds. I fully believe it's the anonymous nature of the internet and social media that is the first reason for the toxicity. It's too easy to go berserk on someone and when the mood turns against you, just delete your account or rename it and carry on with no consequences. If we all had to be identified by our real names, there would be a lot less anger online. But I'm not sure I want to go that way either where our real lives and mental health (and employment or financial status) could be affected by a slip-up online. The second reason for the toxicity is that there is good money to be made in creating mobs and inciting hatred and division online. Entire YT channels become successful by feeding that division. I'm not active on other sites but I presume it's the same there too (Twitter?). Views and subscribers = ad revenue and sponsorships and patreon subscriptions. Any YT channel that can attract a large well-established mob and feed it is going to get rich quick. I'd like to believe that if reasonable people band together, we can crush the toxicity and encourage people to get along. Perhaps that can be done in small groups but we haven't a chance with the mainstream mobs because it's not just the mob of individuals, it's also the money-making instigators in the background who will fight to keep their cash cows alive.
You have so much good to say and I agree with all of it. I wanted to address one of your comments though about how negativity is rewarded - SO TRUE. I wish I had talked about that in this video! Unfortunately, because outrageous and aggressive commentary gets the most views and the most engagement, places like YT, Instagram, Twitter, et al, REWARD that negativity. And then news sources pick up on it, and the cycle starts all again. It can be very frustrating that well-reasoned arguments - that are not clickbait so generally don't get as much attention - tend to fall under the radar. That's why I try VERY HARD not to engage with likes or comments on things that I think are gross or bad. Engaging only helps it.
@@Bookborn Thank you. I am slowly learning not to get triggered and to just walk away. I've learned that it's bad for my mental health to get sucked into the arguments which I have often done in the past. Live and learn :)
i think that everything you pointed out was spot on and well researched but I also feel like that some fandoms are a bit more toxic than others even considering that 1% rule. i feel like the more a fandom considers what they follow as gospel the more toxic it becomes and there is certainly a hive-mind mentality around it as well. for example Star Wars fans or Tolkien fans who think the respective original works in their fandom are perfect, even though it totally isn't, are generally more negative towards new content and itirations. however, fandoms like WoT that are usually more critical about the works tend to in the end reach a consensus that is not entirely all that toxic. the fact that the Rings of Power's first trailer got that many people commenting the same thing and mocking the show or some of the reaction to SW content that has been so outrageously negative could prove my reasoning a bit more...but then again I may be totally wrong
Yeah that's a very interesting concept. Are certain works more likely to make people feel that they are "gospel truth"? Or, does it naturally progress that way as time goes on in most fandoms if they reach large enough? Does demographic matter? So many things that are hard to define but I wonder if they have an effect.
@@Bookborn yeah you are right. there are so many factors at play here that is hard to quantify. but I am certain no matter how big a fandom is, they are going to act differently and the way that toxic 1% behaves is gonna change slightly or even drastically based on the source material. for example there is this gaming franchise called Mass Effect and it is pretty well inclusive so when the last game in the franchise didn't meet fans' expectations they started attacking the company because they thought they didn't deliver on their promise. the usual racist and homophobic attacks were almost non existent even though the game has one of the biggest fandoms in gaming.
It's also too easy to be labeled as toxic just for having a different opinion. It's perfectly okay to not like an adaptation of something, but some people will take that personally.
Yesss when I was researching this people would claim things were toxic fans and I’m like… they were just disagreeing… kindly 🤣 that’s why I feel like the word is sooo overused
Well... There are people that just want to trigger people. There are people who feel personally attacked by opinions There are people who want to voice their opinions There are people that want to develop their opinions And then there are the vast majority that will not even comment. I sometimes do feel affronted when people voice their opinions acting like it's gospel (of course when it goes against my own beliefs) and it's difficult in those instances to keep civil as it's wasted time to engage. At least most often that is the case. Anyway, you can probably get your phd by thoroughly investigating online human behavior. And you wont have but scratched the surface.
I removed myself from the WoT issue because I found myself starting to lean into the toxic space. So I stepped away from the issue and just stopped discussing it in depth. I didn’t want to be that guy.
I stopped discussing the WoT TV-series because the defenders of the show called me all sorts of nasty things, and while I can be provocative and/or snarky from time to time, there was no reason to go to these extremes.
Yeah I removed myself from the spaces that were getting nasty too, and it's been more enjoyable. It sucks because I honestly believe in my heart that most WOT fans aren't bad.
In my experience, it is not the fandom that is more toxic, it is the generalizing marketing departments, the bait-and-switch producers, and the fake fans. I'm not saying that there aren't some people who write things they shouldn't. Clearly there are. But it isn't 1%. It isn't even 0.1% However, if the marketing departments, the producers and actors didn't start out by calling a fanbase toxic, then set up the premise that if any of them doesn't like the change they've made, it is because they are (insert insult here), we would not see the same level of kickback from fans. Before Charlie's Angels was slated to come out, the director called the original fan base names, and said that if her movie fails, it's because the fandom is (you know the words they use). The movie sucked massive marbles, but the director continued with the vector she was on. It didn't matter if there were actual (insert words here) who hated it, the trigger had already been pulled. Anyone who hated the movie was called it, regardless. Before Harley Quinn came out, the same thing happened. Before Captain Marvel, before Dark Fate, before ... etcetera, etcetera. In fact, look back on all of the massive flopped reboots of the last decade and the way in which the fandom was treated. It's become a trend. They attack the fandom first, then set up a false premise that if complaints about x are made, then y is the reason. I was incredibly disappointed in the way The Last Jedi handled Luke's character, and in defending my position and attempting to explain why it was not in Luke's nature to be the way he was in that movie, I was called some nasty things by fake fans. To be clear, I did not use foul language, did not disparage anyone, did not scream blue murder; I simply explained my position. But because of that, I was called some pretty evil things. This is, I think, how most fans that didn't like that movie felt when they were called names. First shocked, then frustrated, then angry for being mislabeled. No one likes to be mislabeled. But that's what happens when someone describes a fandom as toxic. Sorry, but no. I don't subscribe to the idea that most of the fans of, let's say Lord of the Rings, are toxic people just because they don't like the changes made in Rings of Power. It really shows, in my opinion, a lack of honour to pretend one thing when the reality is something else. Unfortunately, the mainstream opinion is the one that dominates.
I did not expect a Hamilton segway 🤣but I loved it. Excellent video (and excellent shirt!). I think this is such a nuanced topic and you mentioned a lot of good points. The anonymity of the internet is a big thing - I've never seen someone angry enough to call Rafe Judkins horrible names and wish hellfire down on him when discussing WoT adaptation in real life, or any other fandom, but that kinda stuff comes out in droves on the internet. The social conformity of individual niches within the internet plays a role, which is why I think bigger areas like Twitter are hardest to navigate civilly because it's essentially a free for all. Also, ABSOLUTELY regarding clickbait. This one completely kills me. When new sites start citing random people as "everyone is slamming X" or "everybody hates Y" and it's just like four tweets or something. STOP THIS 😭this happens all the time. There was the whole thing where people were "freaking out" about AC Valhalla when really it was just one tweet. But then the stupid article went viral and it seemed like there was a ton of backlash. The only thing I'd disagree with is the 1% theory; I think it's much less. 1/100 is actually a lot of people. Let's say Star Wars has, conservatively, 300 million fans worldwide. That would be THREE MILLION people being extremely toxic and directing lots of hate towards the creators/fans. That is an insane amount of people, I think the toxic fans are just so loud they eat up even more space. You're right though that we can never know the true numbers, and the idea behind the theory makes the most amount of sense, just want to highlight just how small these people are. The more we keep in mind how much they are in the minority, the easier it becomes to brush them off. Gotta get that dirt off ya shoulder.
Tbh I can segue from almost any topic to Hamiliton, it's a gift. Yeah good point, like three million people being bad is a fandom unto itself. Maybe it doesn't quite scale 🤣 But I swear every fandom has the thing where one article has a headline that says "EVERYONE" and then ten other publications pick it up and now everyone IS talking about it when before....nobody was
Thank you again for a well thought out video. So good that I see even Murphy Napier left a great comment. Like everything in this day and age there are bad apples on all sides. I value your vids and the arguments that you bring because it forces me to really think about not only what I am saying but also HOW I am saying it. I may not always agree with some of your conclusions but they can provoke strong feelings in your viewers. I work at a bank and take incoming calls about numerous banking products and it is hard to separate myself sometimes from the comments I get and the tone in which it was given. People are passionate about the things are fans of just like people are passionate about their money. Yes there are some fans out there who just want to troll to get that negative reaction. This is sad as it makes it hard for true fans to express their likes or dislikes with an adaptation. The biggest lately is The Lord of the Rings fans who have VERY strong ideas and can see what they feel as the corruption of what Tolkien wrote. As many of these fans have read most of what has been written about Middle Earth as well as letters that Tolkien wrote. Since there is so much the fans in a way have a better understanding of the world of Middle Earth. Peter Jackson got a lot of criticism because of the changes he had to do but I feel that it was a great adaptation as he wanted to create Tolkien's world and not his own. Denis did the same with Dune and I can't wait to see Dune Part 2. He had to change and leave things out but he sought to only reflect what Frank Herbert wrote. I Love Robert E Howard and many of the Conan books/movies are not quite how he wrote Conan but remained true to his characters. Personally I hate any and all labels as they only seek to tear people apart as apposed to bring people together. There are only people anyone that only seeks to tear something down without trying to understand and seek to grow are truly the Toxic fans. I look forward to the flip side of this argument when you discuss "Toxic Creators".
Ohhh Toxic creators, now that's an interesting subject. When can we draw the line for creators who are truly trying to honor the subject matter they are in charge of, and who are trying to do their own vision? It's hard to tell, tbh, but I do think the end product showcases a lot of it. Then, of course, there are creators who also use the "toxic fandom" label to divulge themselves of any and all blame for why a fandom may not like their show (this is sort of happening with WOT and even the Obi Wan show - claiming that the only people who didn't like the show were the racists. Which, obviously, those people suck and existed, but there were many fans that were upset with the show for vastly different reasons).
Daniel Green has said similar things about moving away from Wheel of Time because of the horrible comments. So sorry you've experienced that and great video!
I myself haven't had a lot of bad experiences with fandoms, but my brother (who isn't a reader, but is very much into anime) has had so many toxic experiences on Reddit that he has a whole list lot of anime that he now refuses to watch because they are "too popular". He wants to be able to discuss what he watches, but he has lost all confidence in larger fandoms. I hate that there are these few people who have completely ruined it for him.
Oh man, I'm not in the anime fandom (I've only watched a few and never had any online discourse about them) but I have heard that those can be some of the most "toxic" ones out there in terms of discussions. That sucks that he feels like he can't participate in those things anymore because of it.
Insightful examination, and a great conversation starter. Speaking of how our human nature tends to amplify the negative stuff, even if it's a tiny fraction of the overall feedback, we have this wonderful tradition at the Writer Unboxed conferences (the WU UnCon). One evening during the conference we do an open mic night where volunteer authors read their one-star book reviews. ala Kimmel's mean tweets segments. Everyone is having a drink or two, and just hearing them together, in a lighthearted and safe environment; how comical and utterly absurd they can be (usually are), from the creator themselves, has become so cathartic and empowering. It really reminds everyone to step back and take a real look, just as you've done here (particularly in regard to your WoT show videos, which I loved). Good job keeping the channel so fresh and relatable and thought-provoking. I know it takes a lot of extra effort, but it's much appreciated.
Thanks for the kind words. It's so true though that dealing with the negativity with others in similar situations can be SUCH catharsis. It's why I'll share the crazy bad comments I get with other creators. Hearing them laugh at it and all of us laugh together helps to not let something small overtake the good stuff.
Love this video. It's one of my favorite topics and I think there are so many spiraling rabbit trails that are fascinating to talk about on tangential subjects related to it as well. I *do* think actually the nerdy community *might* actually be more volatile than some communities because of their sheer passion and association and identification with the hobbies they like... That being said it happens with nerdy sports fans, politically minded nerds, and other "nerd" communities. Excellent breakdown as always. I feel like this could be discussed for hours
I sadly can't pin this comment but I tried. Yeah, really interesting what you say about nerds adopting their property loves into their actual identity. Because that does up the intensity when something goes wrong, it feels personal rather than something that's actually outside yourself. That being said, I feel like sports fans are pretty bad too lmao
Oh that's fascinating. I've only heard of parasocial relationships in relation to celebrities - I didn't know it could happen with fictional entities too.
This was a very interesting discussion. I appreciate the time you took to present such an informative video. We unfortunately live in the era of the "the keyboard hero" and sadly there is nothing heroic about them. 'Agree to disagree' is a concept many people have to cultivate these days, and the small percent with their disgusting unnecessary behavior ends up ruining things for the rest of the us. Thanks again for a great video. I really enjoy watching your videos that dig in deep like this!! 👍👍👏👏👏😃😃
Thanks for watching! We totally live in the "keyboard hero" stage. People don't seem to understand that you can dislike or even hate something and still discuss it calmly on the internet...especially when it's things like FANTASY STORIES that don't affect our real life.
Awesome video. Side note: I like when you have a hard time pronouncing a word, you just embrace it and own it. It’s part of your brand and it’s inspiring to those of us who also struggle with certain words. I never say gesture right. Or conscience. Rock on.
Another great video. I find ppl being too sensitive nowadays, every critic is considered toxicity which isn't a good thing. What happens now the big studios like Amazon, Netflix and their recent lazy projects like Wheel of Time, Rings of Power and Witcher, the fandom toxicity is actually protective reaction. We just want them to remain loyal to authors material and make good adaptation- not the case.
Yeah, I wish I had made this more explicit in the video - I don't think expressing dislike or disappointment or calling out sloppy writing is toxic. Not at all. I only think the over-board behavior: like giving the show a one star rating without watching a moment of it, calling death threats on twitter, making racist comments towards actors - that's the toxic behavior.
@@Bookborn I don't understand when ppl are mean, it is immature. Amazon however is using this as an excuse to silence every possible critic and unfortunately every RUclips content creator like yourself, who questioned their decision. They bribed some critics and stopped user ratio on their official platform as well as in IMdb. I left a comment on their official channel that there is simply no way for Afro-American dwarves or elves to exist because Tolkien took inspiration from nordic mythology. Elves lived before the light of the trees in darkness and dwarves live in caves away from the sun. I pointed that the Easterlings all had dark skin and hair and they could have used them for their diversity intention. I was also labeled racist and got banned. I wanted them to created great Tv series, but how to leave good ratio above 3 star for this, when most of the leads look and acted out of character? See what you're doing in your videos. For the rings of Power you had this beautiful green top and a green elven leaf as ornament, in the Show they used laurel wreath crowns for the elves which screams Roman empire, not to mention the modern printed clothing, which contradicts medieval fantasy adaptations. If you as as small content creator can touch the small details ,why Amazon studios 100 billion project team can't. This is not a hate, just few facts.
Yeah, and I didn't cover this, but it is DEF a thing. These creators will use the small number of fans that ARE being legit horrible, but then claim it's ALL fans, and wash themselves of any blame. "Our show is good, it's just the racist/sexist/whatever fans that are bringing it down". And it's like, yeah, that's happening, but also there is a huge group of the fandom that hasn't engaged in any of those toxic behaviors and we ALSO still think it's sloppy...
I think the fact that they feel the need to defend their product is revealing. There are so many good books/movies/tv shows out there that don’t need this crazy team of PR lawyers to spin things. There were things about Peter Jackson’s LOTR that I didn’t care for but overall it was objectively good. Compare that to the Hobbit…
There are fans that hate V for Vindetted a long with Watchmen movie and TV show. Alen Moore hates them even more. Because they miss what he was saying in the message. For a lot of Fandoms when the message is lost to fill in a race, set, age, religion, what have you it changes the story.
I'm sad you had to deal with so much negativity around the WoT show - your statements are always well thought out, any criticism is leavened with praise, and you *never* make unsupported claims. That any of our fandoms include toxic people, is a sad and tragic truth - and holds true in any large group of supporters. Sport fans of major teams often encounter the same problems - where the highlighted few, give an entire fan base a bad name. It's also a reason why I'm NOT anonymous - I'm prepared to stand by anything I say - and because I'll put my name to it, I have to be aware of what I'm putting 'out there'.
So true, like I live in Seattle and let me tell you Seahawks fans have a BAD REP but I'm sure there are plenty of normal ones 😂 Seems like anytime someone lets something they don't control become too much of their personality; or rather they take it too personally, it can create bad behavior.
I first got introduced to your channel through your Wheel of Time videos and I've been subbed ever since, so I'm thankful for that, but I hate to hear how bad some of your experiences were. It definitely seems like that 1% is always out trying to ruin it for everyone else. On another note, what has often frustrated me is how many show/movie creators will use these 1% toxic fans to create a strawman as a means to invalidate the legitimate criticism that fans have about a show or movie. This way they don't have to take responsibility for mistakes or poor decision-making (i.e., if someone doesn't like a show, then they must be a racist, or a misognynist, etc). It's part of why I think the quality of so many shows/movies lately has been so poor--because creators are no longer acknowledging the valid feedback and instead try to shove it all under the 'toxicity' label.
I think an underappreciated part of the "toxic fandom" problem is that other groups will often flow into the fandoms to make their own external points via that material. What I mean by that, for examples, is we can see gender/race swapping in some adaptations, and so you get the 1% of shitty people in the fandom being racist/sexist, but then you also have an influx of shitty racists/sexists that choose to use that adaptation to make their point (all this aside from how any given reasonable person might feel about race/gender swaps without being racist/sexist over it). This, I believe, is why the WoT adaptation ended up having so many horrible comments showing up. In a way, the 1% are a minority but they still kick off the shit avalanche.
I've been part of the Song of Ice and Fire French Fandom (through internet forums) for years, and one thing that strikes me is the changes in discussions dynamics because of social media. The instantaneous nature of the discourse, and habits of short comments has killed a lot of the nuance on the few remaining forums. And another thing with forums is that it allows discussions on topics dead for months : you find it and interact with the old content,bring a new perspective to the table. It has a memory but you learn from people who already discussed the issue, and build another brick. Now people don't know how to interact like that anymore, the habit is lost, and you rediscover the same discussion over and over again. I kinda feel like a Fandom dinausore but I miss the old days of small forum bubbles xD
Yeah I think in the forum days too I feel like it used to be a smaller community, thus social norms were able to be controlled a little more AND people got to know users/ so there was more of a chance for civil conversation.
@@Bookborn Indeed. And even with big fandoms, people were not afraid to make long comments to explain their thoughts, which helps with nuance, and general politeness. You could disagree without agressivity (which is harder when comments are limited to 100 characters).
I think there can certainly be toxic behaviors that bleed into fandom or that use fandom as an "excuse" &/or motivation or such. But I completely agree you can't rightly fault every individual in a fanbase, nor a fanbase as an entire whole, as being indiscriminately toxic-that's such a bad precedent to set, in my opinion.
*7:30** worry about it when you see them face to face. the rest is nonsense.* ive given a few apologies. but im here under my own name. (tho, if you saw my twtr..>>. nothing matrs)-JC
Not fanfic writer, but have read my fare share. I think fanfiction often gets lots of fan engagement and depending on the size of the fandom the authors may get lots of hate and there's always ship wars and mean comments all around. And also if a fandom is too small, odds are no one would read it, so that's also good to know
Ah, that's a good point. I didn't realize that authors would get hate comments based on ships... I knew there were some people who really really got defensive over their favorite ships but didn't realize it would get back to the author. I thought it was just an inner-fanfic thing haha
So I picked up the first book of the Game of Thrones in the late 90s, I consumed it and the available books... each book of the main story I have read... I also watched the TV series not spoiling the events that were unfolding until the TV series based the books... George RR Martin has said there are at least three books to complete the series... I hope he has notes laid out so Brandon can complete it it (WoT)... George needs to finish the series off BUT I am not disappointed enough to threaten him Patrick Rothfuss... The Name of the Wind released in 2007, the second book released in March 2011... the third book... never likely to be delivered... okay Patrick you painted yourself into too many corners but just admit your University project got away from you... I hope Salmond Rushdie recovers from his horrific attack..
Reddit is such an interesting case study in this because of the community moderation (and also probably the voting). Subreddits with clear rules that are consistently enforced by mods tend to be great places to be. But there's a ton of others that don't have either good rules or good mods (or are just gathered around something that's inherently problematic), which are pretty toxic. It seems like both good moderation and bad moderation tend to have ripple effects into just generally better or worse behavior, independent of moderator attention. TLDR: Moderators are the real MVPs
Oh ABSOLUTELY. Some of the large fandoms I'm in have super strict mods and I'm always shocked at what a nice place they still are to hang out in. I think you nailed it: good moding is going to bring out good discussion, bad moding will have the opposite effect because it'll create that social norm.
Phenomenal video, and ironically this topic has recently been at the forefront on my mind because it's kind of fascinating. The most I've encountered the infamous "toxic fandom" is with the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I used to be very active, in fact, too active, in a Star Wars facebook group following The Force Awakens coming out. It was a mostly fun place to be even following Rogue One and leading up to The Last Jedi. The group ballooned following Last Jedi, and I made a post about how much I loved the film (I have a myriad of problems with the sequels, but I've regained some appreciation for Last Jedi). There were a few comments that were with me, but I got a number of vitriolic, mocking comments about how I wasn't a "true fan" for liking that garbage, or how I was always going to say any new Star Wars film was my favorite yadda yadda yadda. Just absolute garbage interactions, and not because they disagreed with my opinion. I can have great discussions all day with people who disagree with me on something. It was the rudeness and the whole "I'm objectively right about a piece of fictional media, you're wrong" attitude people carried. I got just as irritated with Last Jedi fans making posts mocking the people who disliked it (even for valid reasons); it just led to an endless cycle of name-calling and back-and-forth bickering that was, frankly, infuriating. I left that group shortly thereafter and pretty much the Star Wars online presence entirely, until very recently, and with that, I'm selective. As silly as it sounds, the memory of that experience soured me on the film. It's only after revisiting it and being largely divorced from online opinions that I appreciate the movie again, even with a few issues I have with it. I also noticed some bad interactions within the Wheel of Time fandom following the show. I think your analysis is spot on in that "Toxic" is overused, and applying it to strictly "fandoms" is also a misrepresentation of the bigger picture. The reality is that there are a lot of crappy people in the world who just happen to be fans of these properties. Many of them are people who not many people in real life even want to interact with, hence the amped up bravado behind a computer. Rudeness and snark are often applauded, and echo chambers are an easy trap as well. When recognizing that there are many different individuals within a fandom, many whom don't interact badly or at all online, it's then framed to where you can see that a fandom has toxic individuals whom happen to be very vocal. But calling the entire fandom toxic gives more power to these people. Also, "toxic" should only be reserved for people who are behaving awfully to each other about honest opinions on the work itself, or the "anti-woke" outrage reactionaries; it shouldn't be applied to people giving constructive negative opinions on a product. Sorry for the ramble; just had a lot of thoughts on this 😅
LOVE your thoughts, and I'm sorry the Star Wars fandom ended up being so crappy at the end there. I experienced the same thing with Wheel of Time. At some point I just wanted to be like "Actually the show is AMAZING. SHUT UP!" even though I didn't even like it LOL. I was just so tired of the overblown hatred without even examining why they didn't like it.
@@Bookborn Yeah, your Wheel of Time video was nothing to be offended about. You illustrated your problems with the show perfectly. Even as someone who overall enjoyed it (admittedly I've only read the first two), I could see where you were coming from and had some of the same issues, even. At no point did you shame people who liked it by saying they weren't real WOT fans. If I remember correctly, you got some backlash from your video on adaptations from other WOT fans who didn't like the show, and it was unwarranted then as well. It's frustrating to see people take extremes on either side, including those who act like any honest personal critiques aren't acceptable. On the positive side, it's good to know that there are some more rational-minded people like us still out there and that not everyone behaves like a raging lunatic online 😂.
There is no "Large" toxic fandom. There is definitely a loud vocal minority of fans that can be cruel. "Toxic" gets thrown about when the Show Runners really don't like the criticism they are getting and it's easier to say the fans are to blame than the product they have put out.
It can be worse than that. There are plenty of ACTUALLY toxic people who make the accusation of toxicity to alienate and isolate those they dislike or disagree with. It's common with accusations of "gatekeeping" that are literally used to gatekeep, removing enthusiastic fans who may simply have poor communication skills (fact is, as welcoming and terrific as nerd communities have always been, we've welcomed EVERYONE... and that includes traumatised, cynical or autistic ppl who can be difficult to engage with. Doesn't excuse poor behaviour, and none should be tolerated... but the way to deal with it isn't with social exclusion or what amounts to targeted harassment) I know I tend to be a touchstone in my communities, bc I'm a fairly good communicator. I've had many, many people thank me for making them feel welcome, and that includes normies who I reassured and shielded from the less outwardly friendly members and those less outwardly friendly members who feel accommodated because they aren't being judged. I've had to "tell people off" maybe 6-7 times in almost 20 years, with only 3 bans. 1 for stalking, 1 for threats and 1 for refusing to stop being an edgyboi when asked politely. Out of hundreds of people)
The only reason we even know about these toxic people is because the actors, and writers make a big deal out of it. If I had 500,000 people gathered to see me perform and 3 people called me something racist or sexist I would ignore them, not point them out to the crowd and everyone in the public at large. Why they give them the very platform they are begging for is beyond me.
It's frustrating cause i really like interacting with Wot fans, but i find myself really holding back from commenting the show on places like twitter cause a lot of it now it's either "the show is amazing, Rafe can do no wrong, going to block you for not liking it" or "the show is personally molesting me, Rafe hates the fans, everything is so woke". I just want to calmly talk about the writing and the general feeling of the show, and still be able to chat with other book fans😅 Some time ago Daniel Green got attacked simply for lowering his personal rating of the show, with some people misunderstanding a part of his review and sharing it, with others refusing to check the review out themselves and taking it as fact. Some even took it as a personal attack that he didn't like the show as much as they did, and that he shared the video at the same time new content came out. The whole thing was honestly embarrassing and something i wouldn't have expected from older fans. At the same time i saw a new book reader liking the first book and saying that she understands why book fans were negative toward the show, but that she will still take both, and a couple of people being really obnoxious in trying to make her hate the show despite her telling them to stop. The toxic positivity and negativity is seriously out of control.
SERIOUSLY. And Daniel Green was also taking a ton of flack from the other side about liking it TOO MUCH like oh my gosh if you take a middle stance you just can't win. It's so ridiculous.
I find it very difficult to interact in discussions. When i'm passionae about something, i'm really passionate and i'm scared that because of that i might come off as a toxic fan without intending to. I struggle with social interactions in general and often have difficulties putting my thoughts into words. Add to that that English isn't my native language and it can be hard to be very nuanced. Sometimes i'm so scared to comment because i don't want to be that person and ruin a fandom for others.
I think just acknowledging that you don't want to be "that person" is a HUGE thing. Even just putting that in a comment "I have a hard time saying what I mean, so don't take this wrong, but..." If you aren't calling people names, harassing people, or doing death threats, I don't really think you'll be categorized as toxic :)
Yeah I've said this elsewhere in the comments but toxicity and anger are not at all the same thing. When big companies are taking your Fandom and showing it no respect, you have a right to be angry and to express that anger. As she said, as long as it isn't basic name-calling or death threats or whatever, it's more than okay.
I think the „toxic“ fandoms have risen as a response to the off-the-cliff drop in quality of the work that‘s being made e.g. wheel of time or LOTR the rings of power which the creators use as a shield to deflect any and all criticism. But when they say something completely unhinged, it is presented-by the companies that publish their work- as heroic. Take an actress from the rings of power who said she probably won‘t show the Peter Jackson trilogy because there are no black people in it.
I completely agree. Identity politics have been shoved in our faces, most people just want escapism without being lectured to about diversity, sexism and racism.
I know this of the topic but does it really matter if she has watched the movies. In the end, they are only an adaptation and not source material by Tolkien. Tbh I think that most of the movie cast hadn't read the books when they were making the movies and they are still great. The show is also its own thing and not a prequel to the movies. Just a quick note, there were black people in the movie but they were the bad guys and tbh I kinda see why some people would dislike this kind of decision.
@@Flammewar I mostly agree, however Peter Jackson was faithful to the source material whereas the Amazon series is all over the place a Balrog in the second Age, warrior Queen Galadriel etc. and to your point about the easterlings, You are correct. But then again, saying you will not show the films to your daughter without having seen them yourself is just as bad, if not worse.
@@Flammewar Many people who worked on those movies were fans of the books. Go look at that cast list. That cast list is beyond ridiculous for that type of movie at that time. And that last statement is why we have so many poorly written characters now. All these new age writers are afraid to write any non-white, straight person as a villain or with flaws or anything. It's a bunch of "I don't want to offend anyone" "creators" running entertainment now and people are not taking it anymore. Thus, we get labelled as "toxic"
Modern Hollywood fanfic content breaking lore should be considered toxic. Fans are right to voice their opinion when Hollywood don't care about franchises and what they mean to people. Media gaslighting and defending Hollywood doesn't make a fandom toxic either. When that is said all the (death) threats, bad DMs, and in some cases sexist or racist messages should stop right now. That is never okay.
Yeah, this video isn't about voicing your opinion though; like I said at the end, it sucks to be lumped in with the people being racist, sexist, sending death threats, when we have legitimate complaints about the show. Voicing your opinion is fine - I certainly do a lot of it on this channel - it's when it crosses a line that it gives fandoms a bad name.
@@Bookborn On that we agree. But I think a lot of the extra vitriol comes from feeling "unfairly" treated by both Hollywood and the media. And therefore that angle should be added.
@@donkeysunited that mindset is toxic too, though. It's not yours to protect and it never was - it's a toxic relationship with the lore/property/content, and it ultimately leads to nothing positive. The only time I'd say this kind of 'protection' is warranted is if the original creator comes out against an adaptation etc. It's all good to have an opinion and feel a certain way, but ultimately we are all just consumers of these media, right? The rise of modern franchises has led to media being created by different creators with different visions and different takes, similar to how comic books often had various 'canons'. With these big media corps you are, and have always been as far as motion pictures existed, been lucky if you had a true to 'lore' adaptation. Just think about the hundreds of Dracula and Frankenstein movies that have been shat out throughout the years. It's not a new phenomenon. There's nothing wrong with saying "well, this isn't for me" or "I really like this version". It's ok to be surprised or disappointed. But it really starts to get toxic when you start to get in the mindset of 'attacking' or 'defending' anything and actually start behaving in line with that.
@@sVieira151 I guess the use of the label "toxic" is too vague. It's associated with a group of people, usually the fans. Where it might better be used for the interactions between the various groups. I get your point. And I think most people commenting on trailers are being decent. In the case of LotR, the many comments using the (mis)quote from the books are just funny. Most of the vitriol I'm seeing is coming from YT channels and their click-baity headings. At this stage, I've stopped watching them - I'm just going to wait for the show to be released and will watch it as I already have Prime. If I don't like it, I'll just stop watching it, as I did with Boba Fett after episode 3. If the media studios are not reading the online comments because they are all from "toxic" fans, then hopefully they'll get the message from the viewership numbers.
Aside from the obvious elements where someone is just spouting hate, I feel like the negativity and toxicity mainly comes into play when one side or the other essentially pulls then, "Your fun is wrong!" card. I still consider myself to be a huge Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc. fan, but I'm basically checked out of the big adaptations currently being made because...nah. They just kinda suck. But just because that's my perspective doesn't mean that I should be telling people that they can't be enjoying the new, flashy content. Life is too short to spend it arguing with people on the internet. I do feel like that aspect of it can go both ways, though, as I've had people try to inform me both in the internet and in person that if I'm not consuming the latest content of X fandom, then I'm not a real fan. Ah, no. I'm just exploring it differently, and it can still be fun and rewarding. I'm going back through the Star Wars Legends Universe, enjoying my favorites again and picking up entries I missed before, which are mostly pleasant surprises. I'm checking out different adaptations that are far more faithful to the LotR books. I've started in on the enormous Star Trek Litverse that explores a cohesive story and cares about the characters and continuity. I've listened to dozens of Big Finish adventures of prior Doctors across space and time. I still love these worlds. Star Wars is practically my karkin' second home, as I've also played and run RPGs in it for years. The new stuff being churned out for these properties just wasn't made for me, and that's something I've come to accept. I have other stories and characters that can still be close to my heart, and other gentlebeings can try out the new stuff. Maybe, if we'd all just fan and let fan, we'd realize that there's an embarrassment of riches for each of us to enjoy, if we care to look. It doesn't mean I don't still hold out hope that the Legends saga will continue, just that I've learned to be content with what I have. Anyway, many points well made in the video, as well as by others in the comments. Well said to those who said well and sorry for the rant.
Love the Munson shirt. I also think it's apropos. Eddie Munson represents the outcasts. The people that fall outside of social norms. The nerds, the geeks, the queers, the awkward or ugly. People who tend to be isolated and abused to gain social credit. Eddie was labelled toxic in the worst way. A cult leader on a killing spree. Who was he really? An eccentric chap with a big heart who refused to be cowed. He would be true to himself, always... even while thinking himself a coward. And who WERE the truly toxic people? Those who were hurling the labels. Those who ostracised the "other." Those who labelled themselves virtuous because THEY weren't the weirdos, and all the weirdos have to do not to be abused is to stop being weird. It's for their own good! Great commentary as always. Toxicity is always a problem that should not be ignored. We DO see racism and misogyny (and misandry :P) from awful people. But often these abusers are used to deflect actual criticism. Boyega was done *dirty* in Star Wars. He had (imo) the most compelling story potential and did a great job with the material he was given... but he was squandered horribly. Fact is, the CAST was fantastic... it was the writing, inconsistency and leadership that were at fault. Kathleen Kennedy saying that they didn't have enough source material was a quote DESIGNED to piss off the fandom! A recent example is the reaction to Rings of Power promo. They miscast Sauron. Badly. He's supposed to be the lord of gifts, charismatic and beautiful. He can literally choose his own form and is trying to manipulate the superpowers of the time. He's also a LITTLE bit vain. But the hate heaped on the actor is disgusting. I could not for a single instant blame ANY actor for accepting any role. 1) it's a job. 2) it's a HUGE opportunity. And goodness me the racism. I'm NOT a big fan of inconsistency in world building, so a random black elf with no explanation is just a poor choice... but there were legit people arguing black elves were impossible. I'd be totally down to have ALL of the elves be black as a creative decision. Or all of the elves that return from Valinor. "Colour blind" casting is still racism, even when its in a fantasy setting... unless there's SOME manner of logical explanation. This is ADAPTATION after all, things ONLY need to be internally consistent. (even HIGHLY cosmopolitan settings like the Expanse consider race in casting. Bobby Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, Alex Kamal... race IS part of their character, and that's NOT a bad thing)
AGREED so much on all counts. And yes, Boyega was just done DIRTY. His character was probably my favorite thing of the Force Awakens, and he was just such a cool dude too (My little fan heart couldn't help loving what a legit fan of Star Wars he was!). So for some of the fans to treat him so poorly and then the trilogy as a whole to do just literally nothing with his character was such a crime.
@@Bookborn I'll always stand by my first impressions of each film. Great in isolation, not a trilogy and certainly not "Skywalker saga" TFA gave so many loose plot threads that needed resolution to be satisfying (especially Mary Sue Rey. My fantheory was she was a Palpatine "clone" rescued from becoming a puppet for his spirit. Literally designed to be a perfect Sith vessel. Daisy struggling with internal conflict, denial and finding balance would have been so much better than some force-twin nonsense with Kylo) TLJ was a complete abandonment of the first movie. It was designed *intentionally* to provoke strong reactions, Johnson explicitly admits this when interviewed. And it was a perfectly good SW movie. Cheesy with some great themes... but it belonged in its own trilogy away from the "oldschool fantasy" of Luke's "heroes story." Despite hating his fan interactions, I think he'd do a fantastic job with his own trilogy following a new generation of Jedi. RoS was pure fanservice, great spectacle, some great moments... but was rushed and left so many things unresolved or ignored. Why they didn't just read the Thrawn trilogy and either adapt it with older main characters OR write a 3 movie plot (again with older characters) to lead up to it, I'll never know. More people should experience that trilogy. (sorry for the excessive rants... I'm a loose cannon! ^^)
Getting into your point on the size of fandoms as a characteristic of fandoms that can become toxic and Wheel of Time being an outlier there I think size is less of determining factor than a souring with the quality of the overall content the of source material. Like Star Wars was big before the prequels and the sequels. But I'd warrant if you look at those progressively worsening entries in the series you will note an significant increase in toxicity alongside the increase in poor quality content. Bad content brings out the worst in people who ordinarily would be content... and it brings out the worst in those fans who are just unhinged and have invested themselves so much in a series that they get outright violent and feel personally attacked and start sending death threats. Most of these Unhinged people in a fandom though when things are good don't act up. Unhinged members of a fandom should however not be confused with people who are genuinely passionate fans and produce content like streams or videos offering negative critiques... it is unfortunately a favored tactic by the media mentioned in this video and obsessively positive fans to smear every critical and passionate voice as unginged toxic lunatics based upon the actions and words of the small minority of Unhinged fans. Also when talking about toxicity I think an element of that toxicity alot of people neglect are obsessively positive fans or "stans" who are often as toxic and unhinged as the worst critical fans. These obsessively positive fans will often do anything to defend the show including smearing those critical, insulting them, threatening, and gaslight people that think there is something wrong with something like the adaptation of Wheel of Time. To them the validation of having their hobby represented so well in public eye and seeing a pl art of their identity so thoroughly spread is very important and they get as violent as the critical types when you try to criticize and compromise their validation. In general though I think the Wheel of Time fandom would probably be significantly less toxic if the adaptation was actually good though. Because the negative outliers of the fandom would be mostly happy, and the positive outliers wouldn't feel like their identity is being attacked as much because their identity isn't based on a collapsing pile of sand. They both would still exist on the fringes, but if the content is good there is nothing to stir them up.
"brings out the worst in those fans who are just unhinged and have invested themselves so much in a series that they get outright violent and feel personally attacked and start sending death threats. Most of these Unhinged people in a fandom though when things are good don't act up." 💯 ABSOLUTELY AGREE That's the thing that tests a fandom. It's the negativity. It's why Sanderson fans have had some dicey times recently because of the whole Kickstarter thing. Something to stir up the fandom is when the real claws come out.
This is where I really agree that when a space is highly moderated, it creates a more positive experience. Moderation is not perfect but it’s so much better than the alternative. Let people express their relevant opinions, but stop things like personal attacks and going way off topic.
As a big flamming nerd myself, I've been annoyed by the whole "Toxic Fanbase" thing also. This is a good take on the topic Bookborn. Keep up the good work!
This phenomenon of a small amount (or single) tweet being picked up by one other platform and then escalated by others is basically what happened with the Tide Pod craze. There were actually very few people who ate a tide pod, and then it got blown up (which advertised the act to others) and it became a meme of "Gen Z loves eating Tide Pods LOL" when a miniscule amount of people ate a tide pod as part of a challenge (this, of course, excludes the sad event of toddlers sincerely thinking Tide Pods look like snacks, and is only referring to teenagers and older kids knowingly ingesting the pods for a challenge)
Lets be quite clear but fandoms have always been toxic however the problem has gotten much worst thanks in part to the wider proliferation of the internet.
There is a term for this: Pareto Principle. The Pareto principle says 20% of people produce 80% of the product. This can be broken down even further as 20% of the 20% produce 80% of the 80%. The bigger a fandom is, the further it can be broken down. That means the growth of toxicity in a fandom might not actually be linear to the growth of the fandom.
@@jsbrads1 The number of toxic people grows linearly as well, but their efficiency grows logarithmically. With small groups, you have a few people who write one toxic post per day, but with big ones, you have a few who spend every waking moment shitposting.
Being a Star Wars fan has taught me many things: -some people will just complain about things for the sake of complaining. -some people will recognize what’s objectively good or bad. -some people will know something is bad but still enjoy it, which is okay. -some people will accept anything and just consume for the sake of consumption. -some people are some of the most kind and welcoming people you’ll ever meet. -some people are extremely talented and creative and want to continue the brand for everyone to enjoy. -the brand is not your friend, only an asset for monetary gain.
Malazan was one I had to be extremely careful where I talked about it. I know for me, I didn't watch your Boba videos after the first one or two because of you and Zack having issues and I was trying to preserve the little enjoyment I was having in the show (it was mainly bad). It's with every new big thing that comes around, the Star Wars Prequels, the Chris Pine Star Trek (or literally every new iteration of Star Trek), to even Daniel Craig being James Bond (or heaven forbid the convos around a black or female Bond they've had). It all comes down to expectations being different from the delivered product and most of the flame typically is out in a short period of time. Now that can be fatal in some cases, like the Buzz Lightyear movie, but the mellowing can then allow for the further appreciation of content we have with a bit of time behind it. People love the Prequels (aside from a bit of the writing/acting) and movies like Clue, that failed miserably in the box office are now cult classics. I appreciate this video. Thank you for the time and effort you put in.
Truly hateful and toxic fans are the worst. Hearing what happened to Boyega and others shocked me at first and then just made me sad. I do not understand what makes some people go off the deep end in their raging belittlement of others, but it truly sickens me. This is why I tend to stay away from the more popular forums/sites just because I know the negativity and toxicity will wear me down. Of course - there is a difference between toxicity and negativity, is there not? If someone is trolling or being racist, misogynistic or just hateful, that's one thing. But to be negative or critical towards a creative work, that's something different. I do think that some genre fans can be very passionate and have strong opinions on what "should be" in a given story universe, hence their strong opinions can come across as negative when they are criticizing new stories or adaptations in that universe. Is this in and of itself toxic? I would argue not! But the problem is, the toxic few (or - the 1%!) are the ones whose voices are noticed the most, and so whenever the defenders come out, they will focus on those toxic comments and all who are critical are then painted with the same brush. It's a shame really, as it shuts down intelligent, reasoned discourse and simply becomes a battle of who can shout the loudest. That's why I agree with your point that the larger communities tend to get this problem the most! It is a shame though, truly, as some of the recent discussions about WoT, Star Wars, LotR and others have become all about the toxic few who spew racist and sexist drivel. By no means do I stand with them, but it does make it hard to make my points heard about the genuine issues I have with these new adaptations! (Hint, my problem isn't with the color of their skin or if they're a guy/girl...it's the writing, people!! Make good stories that genuinely respect the source material and we will watch!!) Again to your point, I've enjoyed finding a few small communities where I feel safe and enjoy discussing my thoughts about my favourite fandoms. I don't want to spend my time discussing these things filling up with rage and sadness!! I want to be talking with people that I can respect and feel their respect for me as well, y'know? Also - I can't quite remember anymore, but pretty sure I discovered you through one of your WoT videos. So there's that! =D
The only fandom I really have any direct knowledge about is the Star Wars fandom. It pains me to admit this but I think the portion of the fandom is quite toxic. Gatekeepers all over the freakin place. And if don't like particular pieces of content then you must "not be intelligent enough" to understand it. I do see that people who honestly have things they dislike about content get lumped together with those who seem to just want to hate on everything and that's so unfortunate.
@@Bookborn Yes! And it's always done in such a condescending tone as well. I mean if someone dislikes something I've enjoyed i don't think that person is stupid, come on?!? I do enjoy hearing different takes on things when it leads to cool conversations
I loved this video! I very much agree with what you said about the 1% being very loud and can stick with us for too long. They also tend to be highlighted when they should just be ignored. The stuff at the end about being a content creator - I felt that. I've had such incredible experiences with certain fandoms and feel like I've found a home in some of them, then I'll talk to another content creator that says that very same fandom has been the worst to deal with (and the same has been the reverse where I've had bad experiences when others are welcomed!). When it comes down to it, no fandom is good or bad, they're all just masses of people and some people choose to suck on the internet. But some people chose to be welcoming and kind and if you can find a healthy place to chat about the stories you love, you can make lifelong friends there. Great video! Loved the discussion!
YES! I'm always surprised when a fandom I've had really good experiences with has actually been bad for someone else, and vice versa. All we can do id do our best to be examples of the good and hope we can make the good fandom spaces for others to enjoy.
I fully agree. A lot of these toxic comments need to be taken in light of all the positives. It's amazing how quickly we lose perspective when people start being rude or negative. That's one thing I often think about with celebrities who get backlash from some fans. I don't really know because I've never been in that position, but I think if they were able to keep some perspective, the overwhelming majority of feedback for most people is positive. That was even addressed in the video. If we can see the bad in light of all the good, it probably wouldn't seem so bad anymore.
Some adaptations blame "Toxic Fanbase" for their failures, instead of an honest introspective look at their end product. Unfortunately, due to the actual Toxic 1% of the fanbase, they also have plenty of ammunition to prove their points.
YES YES YES. They focus on real tweets or comments - which are terrible - and then extrapolate and say "all fans feel this way" which is just SO FRUSTRATING. It's like, I had zero problem with Moses Ingram, but I DID have a problem with the writing of her character because it was nonsensical and boring. But because of horrible racist people, I didn't really want to talk about it because I didn't want to get lumped in with that. But, it also gives the creators the license to say that anyone who had a problem with the character was racist. It's a bad cycle.
I agree.
Kind of like politicians will blame the interviewer instead of answering hard questions.
It's easier to enflame the toxic part of the Fandom than to admit you hired untalented writers and ended up with a product that instead of pleasing the majority of the Fandom, the nice and the toxic parts, is trying to preach a message no one asked you to do.
@@Bookborn Bad writing instead of bad actor
Some -> most
@@Bookborn That's their goal, it's to associate any criticism with those negative labels to stop the criticism
Another phenomena I find strange and harmful in a different way is "toxic positivity"- people who will blindly defend a property or company and assume that all criticism is vitriol. They make it just as hard to voice opinions without being ganged up on. Not to mention the aspect of being branded as hateful for having legitimate issues with something. (e.g. if you don't like a character or their story you are racist or sexist)
Oh absolutely. I think both sides drive me crazy. I don't care if you love a show - honestly that's great! - but let me dislike it in peace as well (as long as I'm not being rude about it, of course)
Great video! I totally buy the 1% theory and I'm also annoyed by the trend of clickbait articles highlighting toxic minorities within fandoms. One very real and scary trend I've seen though is when that 1% turns into a virtual mob. For example, let's say there's a fandom dedicated to a particular author/series. A RUclipsr puts out a negative review for that author/series/book. One fan finds that review and shares it within the fandom (subreddit, Facebook group etc.) and suddenly an unnatural amount of people flock to that RUclipsr's video and troll them. When this 1% is big enough to outnumber that RUclipsr's regular supportive audience, it can really take a toll on them unfortunately :(
Yep! It’s happened to me 🤣😅 it sucks but unfortunately that’s the reality of the internet.
I totally agree that clickbait is a huge issue that blows things out of proportions. Just don’t know if there’s any fix on that when those sorts of things are rewarded so heavily monetarily.
There is even a word for that: Pareto Principle. It says 20% of people will contribute 80% to the product. This can be broken down further, as 20% of the 20% will also contribute to 80% of the 80%.
Great analysis and insight. Social media has fomented a tyranny of the extremes that it also constantly reinforces all for the God of Content. Anonymity emboldens and helps to “otherize” those who we perceive as wrong, stupid, etc. and it further gives an excuse to ignore the other side and keep preaching to our own tribal choirs. I hope that those like yourself who promote real discussion and debate are inspiring others.
Yep, and the thing with social media is the "algorithm" thrives on engagement, and people just naturally tend to engage more with inflammatory content, making it seem more prevalent than it probably is.
Hot take from the get-go on these fiery topics: discussions about “toxic fandoms” can be toxic in themselves...it’s almost kinda become the easy reach labeling when it comes to fandoms and what fandoms are or what fanship is. It could be used when people might disagree on a notion that’s out of lore or that doesn’t “get” the gist of what author’s intent was etc etc and folks can just retort with “toxic” label. And it saddens to attach the evocative imagery to indicate fandoms as toxic. And fandoms are hardly monolithic of one mind rejecting all others. That’s not a healthy back and forth. The posters in thumbnail are some of the most gorgeous even the one where there is a ton of disagreement and even almost schism, there’s still hope...I would just hate for those posters to signify discussions about “toxic fandoms”...
I know I am late to the party as I only discovered your wonderful site while following threads to discussions of "WoT" and "RoP" two weeks ago and I love your content, attitude, fairness, and delivery. As more of a "lurker" than a contributor, I felt compelled to agree with some of the commenters here and state that I have noticed that quite often some of the feedback comes from persons not in the fandom, but only present to interject a virulent political agenda. I have even seen this type of hate speech in comments on "Critical Role" episodes, which should be a bland D&D site. It is scary. I am 75 years old and not perfectly comfortable with social media and simply avoid Twitter and Reddit because I gather from comments that those sites seem to encourage angry and offensive behavior. There is enough nasty stuff in the real news and I don't need it from fantasy discussions. Thank you for your intelligent and fair-minded contributions.
"encourage nasty and offensive behavior" is just SO TRUE. The internet has become exhausting. I also am not on Twitter for the same reasons, and I'm trying to avoid Reddit more and more. Thanks for being here!
I think you make a lot of good points. Another thing about large fandoms is that those with toxic views and behaviour are far more likely to find at least a few who share their views, which is an easy way to embolden bad behaviour too.
Oh absolutely. If someone gives them an inch, they all go a mile.
I have been a Star Wars fan for my whole life (or nearly) my whole life. In my experience, there are some really cool and nice Star Wars fans out there… And then there are other groups of Star Wars fans who are racist, misogynistic, and toxic in other ways.
It also is a general social media problem. The communication is impersonal and people are easily annoyed and angered, things add up und hateposts and trolling appear. Then you have a certain kind of influencer who prey on this and use this by engaging these behaviours, making a profit of it and instrumentalizing angry or frustrated users for their political ambitions. Hatecults form...
You did a video about how producers pretend to be fans of material simply for marketing. That was a real eye opener to me. These show producers would probably label that toxic. For me personally the internet and content producers like you have opened my eyes to alot of things i never thought about before. The lack of control of information has been a good thing for me.
I'd like to watch that video as well, do you remember its title so that I can search?
Very well thought out and nuanced video, I appreciate it.
A good part of the reason I clicked was because you included LotR on your thumbnail and I was curious what you had to say. Obviously it didn't turn out to specifically be a big point in the video, but I still think it's interesting how what you're saying relates to the current situation the LotR Fandom faces.
I know a lot of other people in the comments have brought up the idea of companies or creatives using a small group of overzealous, misguided, or rude individuals as a scapegoat for their product being terrible. I wanted to build on that by saying, from the perspective of a fairly invested LotR fan, that I am also tired of "anger" and "toxicity" being conflated. When you do something genuinely worthy of anger (let's say for example taking a carefully crafted work of art that was made as a mythology for a particular ethnic group of people and with moral themes for a particular faith and world view and ignoring all of that to shove in your own poorly thought out ideology), people being angry about that are not toxic.
People need a thicker skin to some degree, I think. Harsh words are not always toxic if they are justified and directed at the right recipient. Obviously that has its limits, but I'm tired of people who are justifiably angry being labeled toxic or bigots or whatever.
Ahhh YES I wish I had covered this more! People also conflate negativity with toxicity which is absolutely not true. Saying you dislike something is NOT toxic. It’s silly and I’m tired of it!
I noticed while I was looking for screenshots for the part where I show examples of toxicity that there were many articles claiming toxic fans and the comments they used as examples were…. Totally normal? Yes they were expressing displeasure, but they were neither rude nor profane or anything else. How is that toxic? It’s silly.
@@Bookborn yea, that's exactly it. I guess thats what happens when you don't have the talent or the passion to make good content but you do have the power to label everyone that points that out as evil lol
Wow this was a eye opening and insightful video! It’s honestly terrifying at the impact one bad or negative “fan” can have. Scary the times we live in and the stories media chooses to push for views. Hopefully we can all be more positive!
Totally. I think we forget that media - which *feels* like it should be more neutral - relies on views for money just as much as the trash gossip sites do.
@@Bookborn So many things I hear that I assume a large amount of people believe or follow that really might just be media click bait or radical individuals.
As a huge Star Wars fan... It hurts to be a part of what is probably the worst fandom I've ever been involved in
Unfortunately a lot of fandoms I'm in that used to be on the smaller side are now giant and just like...the worst 😭 Us regular fans need to stick together!
I am not sure i am part of 'fandom', i have certainly read everything by Tolkien, Jordan, Sanderson etc many times. Wheel of time the show had issues, timing issues- some poor CGI etc and these are issues worthy of criticism. Ring of power may well have issues as well, its too early to say. But the incredible backlash about things such as skin colour has shocked me to be honest. I think its a perceived culture war (those who lose their minds about black elves or whatever often see 'wokeness' in everything). It has got to the point where i avoid a heck of a lot of content creators now and rarely take part in discussing the show on pages (for book fans) that i have been a member of for decades. On the other hand, i have seen people make valid criticism about actors and be accused of bigotry so i guess it goes both ways?
I think if Amazon came out and said that they wanted to make fan fiction I would have been more open to the changes. Books like LOTR I haven’t read, but when Amazon says they’re making a series based on the book then claim to be huge fans and staying true to the books then butcher it makes me mad. They lie. I don’t care if there’s hobbits in their show it’s how they advertised it that makes it irritating.
Yea i think all the press pre release is what soured it for a lot of people. They pretended to be really into making something super faithful to the books then literally destroyed the worlds lore for a cheap "whos the dragon" story line. I mean they only had Lan use his sword twice haha
Dude I said this SO much. I'm like just name it "The White Tower" or "Aes Sedai" or something and make your little aes sedai political drama. I would've been into it - like just make something set in the world but about something else. But if you're going to adapt, ADAPT IT.
@@Bookborn yea if they had made their own story more people wouldve probably been much more lenient because there wouldnt be something we could look at and say "this doesnt match at all". Ep 5/6 are good if they werent taking away from the main cast
@@Bookborn I’m curious if Amazon is really trying to make shows to to appeal to the fans and just failing or if their intent all along was to appeal to the Prime customer demographic to make more money at their online store and have the tv shows be the catch to get more customers to subscribe.
Also they could totally do an Dr. Quinn medicine woman or Outlander style series of the Yellows and they just go around healing people in a WOT spin off. Honestly, they could have a tv series for every color if they played it right. Instead they tried to adapt the book.
Why you don't have more subscribers when you always produce well researched, quality content I will never know. Great video as always.
Sometimes I wish we could go back to the internet of 10 years ago where you could like something mediocre and it was ok or criticise something mediocre and it was ok. There has always been toxicity on the internet but it feels like it has skyrocketed the past few years.
I think it has to do with the sheer number of people on the internet now AND the multiple platforms. Like social media has exploded, so now there are multiple formats for people to misbehave on lol
Great video, I'm so glad to see someone take a measured approach to this subject.
I agree with all of your points, the only relevant thing I would add is that there exist people who are very invested in the culture war narrative that hijack geek fandoms to try and radicalize them against a perceived "wokification" of nerd culture.
These people are often not actually fans of "propery xyz", but will often get cited in articles as "xyz fans" to prove that fandom's toxicity.
Examples of that here on youtube would be The Quartering, Geeks and Gamers, Nerdrotic, Doomcock and Midnight's Edge.
Well done video, thank you for this. Somewhat appropriately, I discovered your channel while looking for people discussing the WoT TV series in a non-vitriolic manner, and was immediately won over by you expressing your thoughts and feelings in a genuine and non-toxic manner.
I just love how well thought out and researched your videos are. I always feel like I'm taking a quick class on the subjects you talk on and gain so much interesting insight!
Thanks for watching 😊
Sorry for any negativity you get on the channel. I hope you know you have way more supporters on here than you have negative people! Love your content!!!
Thanks for the support 🥰
@@Bookborn Thanks for the great video! Keep them coming!
I took comfort in following your critiques of the WoT series. You watched it with an open mind and gave the showrunners time to tell their story. You approached the series in good faith, and when you finally concluded it wasn't for you, and cited examples, it was always with respect, and focused on the content. I really admired that.
I feel like a defining characteristic of toxic fandoms is that they don't do this. They don't argue in good faith. It isn't *really* about the quality of the show. It's about how the show is perceived to be pushing a political ideology at odds with whatever. They use the show out of context as an example of what's good/bad right/wrong about America/culture/entertainment/etc. It becomes a battleground over political signalling rather than a discussion about the art.
Keep doing what you do! It's always a great watch
Ahhh such a good point. Someone else also talked about how sometimes other people - not even a part of a fandom - will use something going on in the fandom to further their political/cultural/whatever opinion, making the fandom look even worse.
A really good discussion. I think the encouragement of certain social norms in online fandom spaces is a good point and IMO the biggest factor at play.
Perhaps as low as 1% of people in "fandoms" (however we choose to define that, as you mention at the start) are toxic. Unfortunately, from my experience online fan spaces such as as forums and subreddits can become full of bad eggs very quickly when under poor or non-present moderation. Negativity breeds, certain opinions become the "correct" opinions, and it devolves into insulting creators/fans/dissenters personally rather than criticism of the works themselves. And the people in those spaces have the option of converting, keeping quiet or jumping ship, often feeling like they've been pushed out in the process.
So I personally think that while "fans" may not be mostly toxic, the groups that are seen to represent them really can be, and a lot of fans don't like to call that out. They'll usually be like "that's not okay behaviour but that's not me, don't characterise me like that", but not actually call out the behaviour of these groups head on. And that's why I think outsiders, not unreasonably, see this as fans downplaying or dismissing behaviour of those within their "group".
Edit: And to that last point, it's not helped by people within these fan groups behaving as though (and perhaps even believing that) their collective opinion, stance and/or attitude is representative of the whole fandom.
Agreed, agreed, agreed. Also, to your second point, negativity can breed because it gets the most attention. If someone puts something really horrible and outlandish, it's probably going to get more dislikes and comments - but that's ALL considered engagement, and thus it'll be pushed to the top. Whereas reasonable arguments that people agree with, but don't make them angry enough to act by commenting - get lost.
great discussion! It's fascinating to me since I'm so removed from any major fandom as someone who just loves jumping into as many different authors/series as I can. Variety is the spice of life!
I definitly didn't experience it until I got into online fandoms more recently. Before, I just sort of fangirled by myself or with a few friends who shared interests. I've met some amazing people through the internet, but it does get...less fun in some ways.
Well, I'd like to adress some issues mentioned here.
1. Internet anonimousity is in most cases a myth. In most cases with enough effort You or the Police can trace the person posting. The problem in question is the feeling of "beeing anonymous and unaccountable for anything U post".
2. I think the case is people don't usually consider (or reconsider) what they are posting. BEFORE POSTING IT. I'd never post anything I wouldn't sign with my surname, annonymous or not. For me it's just common sense.
3. I agree that some "toxic individuals" might/do exist in any fandom and when fandom grows bigger there may be more of them (but they're still a tiny minority; i think that "the 1%" mentioned there was used in a figurative meaning to show the clue of the problem). Things like deaththreats and ad personam attacks are unacceptable (and in some cases can be solved in court).
4. There are creators (showrunners, writers etc.) use "toxic fandom" argument as a shield against legit criticism. I may or may not like what they did with SW movies 1-3 or 7-9, The WoT, The Witcher, LotR etc.; I might not put my opinion "as eloquently" as some youtubers or people in comments, but that doesn't mean some of them don't make a (/some) point just because they used "harsher language". The important thing there are the arguments used. If there are no arguments, it might be just hatespeach or just hype (if the statement is overpositive), but if arguments for a point of view are provided... that may be just an overeggzagerated criticism, but still a legit one nethertheless. If someone tells me literally "U frakked it up!" (yep, BSG die-hard fan here), and its true that I did, the only thing I can do then is to make some amends...
5. There is an saying that states "it's good if people speak of [something]. It does not matter if they are saying it's good or bad. It's important that they speak of it" (regarding to marketing). Controversy sells (and showrunners, directors and whole marketing team knows well of this fact).
6. Word limits encourage strong expression and clickbaiting. That's most of Twitter for me.
Everyone needs to stop collectivizing blame individuals are responsible for their own actions
Feels unlikely to happen in our current world state 😥
This is such a fantastic topic. There are so many subtleties to this whole issue, and I think you catch quite a few. I have just recently found your channel and love it. Intellectual conversation (and conversation is the key) is fantastic.
I'll detail a few ideas of my own on this topic:
1) Fanatics are fanatics. Fandoms are still fanatics. This has its own connotations :-). Just like in sports, these fandoms can do crazy things and can become rabid. So definitely plenty of blame to fall on their shoulders.
2) You completely nailed the anonymity of the internet. As we become more reliant on social media and internet communication, we lose the ability to interact with social norms. We can hide behind user names and screens and spew vitriol back and forth and people no longer converse. We yell at each other with little to no repercussions. You are spot on with the curating of sites and choosing your "dueling" grounds.
3) There are also trolls on the internet. Sadly, many people find it fun to go off an pretend to be one way or the other to create vitriol. I have a sinking suspicion that some of the horrid comments and commenters are not necessarily members of any fandom... but they like getting the pot stirred and laughing about it. Add in your accurate point about the news cycle and the need for click bait, and you have a horrible recipe for mislabeling and bashing from both directions. I would also say that a lot of the current social media cycle is not even news or journalism. They are op-eds that are taken as gospel... creating their own issues.
4) Series also have used smoke screens to cover horrible decisions and writing by labeling ALL negative comments racist, misogynistic, etc. Pick your favorite -ist and they will find a way to label a disagreement with it. Society is in love with echo chambers because they are far easier to deal with and satisfy the need for pats on the back (and money ;-) ).
Add all of these together and you create a complex convoluted cesspool. You have bad actors, actors being bad, bad being scripted to be acted.
In all of this, I am glad to find places with common sense and good conversations where debates can be had respectfully. Thank you for providing that!!
This was a great topic. With social media and perceived anonymity, some people are just malicious and hurtful. There are people who will call others names just because others don’t agree with them. I don’t see very many forums for books/authors I like, but I do see a lot on the general Star Wars social media pages. I hate that I can’t give my opinion (Reva in the Obi-Wan show had so much potential, yet was not interesting and was underwhelming for the first 4 episodes. Eventually the writers finally gave us some interesting character development, and now I want more). I made a comment about the writers and everyone attacks me for personally attacking the actress, then they call me or anyone that doesn’t praise her a racist sexist bigot. I still have my VCR recordings of the Star Wars trilogy from childhood, I have read 100+ Star Wars books, 500+ Star Wars comics, and I have a Star Wars number 1 comic from ‘77. I am a Star Wars fan, not a poser, why can’t I respectfully share an opinion? I hate the toxic fandom. That’s why I stay away now, but it makes me sad because I want to talk about the things I like.
Yeah it's simply silly. Unfortunately there WERE people being racist to the actress, which was horrendous, but there were a lot of people (me included) who had zero issue with the actress but DID have issue with the sloppy writing. It's annoying we can't voice that without either a) people claiming something we are not, or b) the horrendous people thinking we agree with them when we don't.
@@Bookborn oh yeah, the people who were saying racist stuff are trash and need to be kick to the curb. I want to go back to the day where we can debate and disagree without resorting to name calling. Thank you for taking the time to make your videos and creating a fun place to discuss books and such. I just go back to finishing The First Law trilogy while I wait for book 3 of the Kingkiller Chronicles (come on Patrick!) 😂.
I found your channel because of WoT. Thanks for that Content. The video about book vs amazon series helped my non-book friends understand the difference. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the support!
Awesome video!! I appreciate your perspectives and your channel very much. Sorry that the Wheel of Time videos brought you so much negative energy, I really loved all of those videos that you made and the perspectives you brought to the show.
I still enjoyed making them! Just had to take a step back from the comment sections for a little bit 😂
@@Bookborn thanks for doing what you do. I really appreciate your voice and the perspectives you bring to the channel and to content you cover!!
What a great video!! Specially now that I’m in the One Piece fandom and while there are some GREAT and amazing people there’s also A TON of toxicity and just a lot of spamming of dumb comments, so it’s nice to see this video.
I would also like to comment something I consider to be very important and that’s the importance that each individual gives to something. I think there’s an actual psychological term for what I’m talking about but I don’t remember now so I will just explain. The thing is, when we have something we like, something we really really like (a character, a series etc) we tend to include that into our own psyche. So, when someone criticizes that or makes a valid argument against that, sometimes it can be interpreted as if they were criticizing you. It’s not a rational thought, and a lot of people can realize that that’s not true, the people making the comment don’t have anything against you, but the emotional response can be interpreted as if they were attacking something that defines who you are, some of your core. This leads people to defend pretty aggressively against an argument. It’s not that they just disagree but they feel as if someone were attacking them. Again, I’m pretty sure there’s a psychological base for this but I’m no psychologist and no expert in the topic so it’s everything I can say.
Also, I’m a bit scared for the Cosmere fandom. We are usually pretty chill with a lot of respectful people and I think that overall it’s an amazing fandom to be in, but it’s growing very VERY rapidly, and with movies and adaptations coming sooner than later, this won’t do anything but continue and increase. I hope everything remains ok and toxic comments don’t get to be a daily reality, but I don’t know, everything is uncertain. Even though I think we don’t have much to worry about yet I still think that the thought can be scary nonetheless.
Anyway cool video :)
YES!! I’ve actually talked about that psychological phenomenon in another video but I don’t know the name for it either! I’ve had to tell myself multiple times that just because someone doesn’t like my fav book/show/what have you, doesn’t mean they don’t like *me*. It can be hard to separate when something is really dear to us, and I’ve for sure gotten defensive.
I’m scared for Cosmere too lol. I agree that we are still pretty cool but yeah I’ve been in the fandom for a decade and it’s grown CRAZY amounts already. I’m nervous. It’ll probably get bad but we can just stay in the good parts of it 😅
Great analysis. Toxicity is really something that took the fun out of a few of my favorites fandoms. I had to leave a few of the major subreddits I previously liked because of this and now I am only invested in smaller communities.
I would also like to add that the amount of toxicity is probably dependent on the emotional connection we have to these properties. Most of these connections were formed in our childhood. When the Prequels came out, most of the toxic people grew up with the OG trilogy and now, the prequel generation is being toxic against the Sequels. I would argue that this is also true for LotR, WoT, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, et cetera. We all are nostalgic to these properties but some of us are sometimes disappointed that new adaptations aren't the same as in our memory. Instead of discussing this in a civil and respectful manner, some of them become toxic. I guess, racists and sexists were also children once.
Tbh I don't know what one can do to stop toxicity. Sometime, I tried to have a discussion with them but most of the time I was talking to a wall. Nowadays, I'm just ignoring them. I really don't want to lose my interest in these kinds of things just because of a few toxic people.
The emotional investment is key, and beyond that I think it's when people can't separate the thing they love from themselves. So, when someone criticizes a property they love, they defend it as if someone was criticizing who they were as a person. I've even reminded myself sometimes: just because someone doesn't like my favorite book, it doesn't mean they don't like me lol
@@Bookborn Yeah, I also have to remind this myself all the time. Currently, it always stings a bit when someone says that Better Call Saul is boring and not so awesome as Breaking Bad. :D
I totally agree it is important to distinguish between fans and fandoms. I hate toxic fans and do my best to not interact with them. On the other hand I don’t believe there is such a thing as a toxic fandom. The 1% thing was very interesting to me that makes so much sense and I can’t believe the whole fandom of a property could be toxic.
Wheel of Time for me was the first time I had intense contact with toxic fans and I had the same reaction as you. I just didn’t wanted to talk with anyone about it anymore. I’m glad there is such a big gap until season two. Hopefully until then I don’t have the negativity on my mind as much and I can just enjoy the show again.
I’m curious why I got sucked so much into it with WoT. Only with Star Wars I had a similar experience. Maybe I don’t interact as much in the other fandoms. I don’t remember any such negative interactions about the MCU which must have it’s share of toxic fans considering how big it is.
I think MCU has gotten bad too, but I think it just depends on how much you interact with it. I like the MCU, but not enough to talk about it online really; so I haven't experienced negativity surrounding it. However, I'm really active in many spaces with WOT and Star Wars, which I think why that one has been worse. Maybe it's the same for you.
Great video! I always find the whole "anonymity" phenomenon fascinating. Just like the person who would hold the door open for you at the store would be the same person to honk and give the middle finger to you on the road; so would the faceless commenter give you a bunch of crap over an opinion you have, but will apologize and recant if you respond to them.
The internet is wild, and honestly, I feel that this mob-mentality behind social media is quite destructive. I don't engage with fandoms as much as one would as a content creator. But Wheel of Time is a good example of good fans gone bad. I've seen some of these comments myself, and it's horrifying that someone would say such vile things because they are angered by a show. By fiction... I know it's disappointing to have a favorite book/series adapted unfavorably. Look at The Dark Tower movie. BUT, like they all say: the books will always remain the same, and no one will take them from you.
Overall, I don't think it's all that bad. I don't think fandoms are as bad as they seem. As humans, who doesn't get their rocks off talking smack about something now and then? Sometimes it's fun to make fun, and sometimes people make say something a little more extreme than intended. Maybe for dramatic effect, or maybe just to grab attention. But unfortunately you always have those handful of folks who take it too far, and it's no longer fun.
Agreed on absolutely all counts. I also think tone is hard on the internet. You might say to your friend "This is the worst show ever and everyone involved needs to die" and it's obviously a huge joke and you're being dramatic or whatever. But you say it on the internet, divorced of meaning, and others agree and make serious threats, and here you are.
The best part of this video is how you're taking a proactive approach to try and counter the negativity people encounter in fandoms or online. I agree with most of your discussion but would add that much of the "toxicity" also comes from the hyper-politicization of almost all topics, which has helped destroy almost any nuance from just about all social discourse.
Oh absolutely. It's shocking to me how the most benign subjects have somehow become ultra-politicized. Like how are we making THIS big a deal over something that's ultimately...fantasy??
@@Bookborn Exactly.
I love love your content. Wonderfully put. I was thinking about similar topics a lot recently, but you articulated it so well. Thank you ! The only thing I'd add is that sometimes people perceive disagreement or disliking something as part of "toxicity", however it does not help that people do not always explain their complaint very well. For example, when a person says something like: "This show sucks" , or "This is so bad" without elaborating, it can be seen as something toxic. Would it be toxic for you ? I personally cannot decide. On the one hand I would not want to restrict people of proclaiming their negative opinion no matter how short. On the other, it would be nicer it people were a tad more constructive giving feedback. The truth is that any negative response can be damaging to the receiver. I observe that mostly in relationships, when one person, for example, creates an art and shows to another, even a constructive criticism can lead to motivation loss. It's quite nuanced. There also another philosophy, which Brandon Sanderson himself tries to adhere to. It goes something like: "When you have nothing good to say, don't say anything". This principle appeals to me, but I am not sure. Would the world be a better place when we say positives only ? Or do we allow criticism, accepting that it can be damaging no matter how carefully put ?
Couldn't agree more. While I was looking for articles to put in that portion where I flash a bunch of stuff up on screen, I found some people complaining about "toxic comments" that were just...very normal disagreement comments? Like they didn't use language, or aggression, they were just like "I don't like this". And it's like babes, that isn't toxic, that's called *discussion*. So the label is so overused, imo.
The thing I hate worse than toxic fandoms are creators who attribute all criticism and failure to 'toxic fans.' This is not only a slimy way to try to escape critiques, but it actually amplifies the toxicity of a fanbase by making fans feel like they are being dismissed. They then become angrier, and intensify the cycle of angry feedback.
At least in the fandoms I’ve been in, I’ll be frank, Idk if I’ve seen that as much. At least not intentionally to blatantly say “all criticism is toxic.” The main ones I’ve seen are The Last Jedi, Kenobi, and Rings of Power…which 2 of those at least did have a fair share of stuff pushing toward toxic, if not there.
In each case, something like racism toward an actor hits the news. How? Can be a variety of factors, but it’s unclear if those moments are intended to just shut down criticism. The fellow cast and crew then jump to show their support for their coworker publicly as it blows up. The problem then gets taken even further by articles on both sides warping the text. And then this riles up both sides, battle lines get drawn, and…yeah, we can look at the state of Star Wars and Tolkien fandoms after all that 👀 (I mean, I’ve seen people go on to say that the harassment the actors reported received was entirely faked for publicity)
Around when Kelly Marie Tran was reportedly getting harassment after the Last Jedi, Rian made a post on his twitter, the infamous “manbabies” tweet. This then got twisted out of the context, despite him expressing other times that he had great discussions with people that didn’t enjoy his film, to basically say that he calls all fans that disliked the film that. Which he didn’t. But it got the clicks, it got the views. Rage clickbait sells, it seems.
I can't help but wonder if there's a "performance" effect. When there's more people to listen I think there are some that will double down and even exaggerate their opinions for the sake of attention.
But also yeah the reddit hivemind is a very real thing. People are frighteningly suggestible to a long post or comment that is well presented, even if it's completely off base. And that's to say nothing about the title reactors.
YES I absolutely agree there is a "performance" effect. I got into this a little on my other fandom video, but it can also be used to gain "cred". Some fans can be worried that if they like an adaptation, but don't immediately call out everything thats different or wrong from the source material, that they will no longer be considered as "good" of a fan.
@@Bookborn I definitely see this with the Star Wars sequels. For people who genuinely like the trilogy, they usually preface things by "I know the sequels are flawed, but" or "I know the sequels aren't perfect, but" before proceeding to say something positive. It's like they're afraid of the "backlash" they'll get for liking them, so they have to let all the "real fans" know that they're a "real fan" too for acknowledging the problems first.
EDIT: Oh, and yep, it definitely does something for people to get approval for the "performance effect." That's why you see a lot of overexaggerated positive or negative opinions. I know I'm guilty of having done it in the past.
Another great longform video, thanks!
Hopefully that period when season 1 Wheel of Time aired won't be repeated. It was like everyone was high - either loving it or loathing it - or was tempted by both emotions at the same time. Being on Reddit at that time was really really weird. Before episode 8, on r/WotShow and r/WoT any negative voices were downvoted to oblivion. Then since episode 8 aired, on r/WoT at least all positive voices are downvoted and piled on. Like you say, you just need a few percent of people in a fandom to create this kind of dynamic on a platform like Reddit, but it makes discussion basically impossible. Twitter is a much better community which less tolerant of toxicity, but again veers into shuting down criticism, and only hype is possible if you really want to be in that community.
I admit I loved the show for whatever reasons, but I appreciated your videos about what was different from the books because that shit is engaging! It's a shame that crowd behaviour means most people don't seem able to find a balance between loving something and discussing flaws, and accepting we come from different points of view.
It's like the internet forces people to be on either extreme. And the people who were like "Well I liked some of it and disliked some of it" were drowned out. On places like Reddit, I think this often happens because people just naturally engage the most with polarizing or inflaming comments. People are more likely to comment when they are angry, then when they see something and go "yeah that's a cool comment!" It's taught me that I need to be better about taking the time to comment on the actual discussion topics and don't get fooled into engaging with the inflammatory ones.
That was a really insightful video. This is something I have never thought about in depths before. But the correlation between size and toxicity was something I had seen noticed myself. It was interesting to hear your take on this. And I'm sorry to hear about the negativity you have gotten yourself.
As someone who actually liked the Wheel of Time Show significantly more than books, seeing so many people I had thought were well-meaning and nice shit on it relentlessly was pretty disheartening.
But something that was eye-opening to me, in regards to the 1% Theory of toxicity was when I went to actually look into the WoT show numbers.
Despite so many fans decrying it as garbage that would flop immediately, the actual viewership numbers were really high. And not just 'lot of people saw the first episode' or 'fans hate-watching' high. But numbers in the vein of Hawkeye and Arcane, at perhaps ~15 million global viewers, with high retention rates of people watching the whole season. And that the numbers were good enough that a season two was greenlit almost immediately.
Which made it look to me like a lot of the hate came from a pretty small minority of fans, while a lot of people (fans or casual viewers alike) had a more positive reception.
I'll link that post about the number here.
www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/rgmpl9/how_well_is_the_wheel_of_time_actually_doing_an/
For some reason it cracks me up that those numbers also include pirated streams. Thorough!
The criticism involving WOT just got SO out of hand, and I say that as someone who was disappointed with the show overall (although to be fair it wasn't really until episode 8 that it lost me). That showed me how fandoms sometimes *force* polarization because they don't like when someone takes a middle stance. You either HATE the show or you LOVE the show. I noticed that when I made my video - which both had things I liked and disliked about the show - that it made people angry that I wasn't one way or the other. That polarization is definitely hurting conversations. And like you said, pretending that the WoT show wasn't successful is simply fantasy.
@@Bookborn Let's see this, Amazon's WoT managed to get out of the fan niche towards casual or general audiences? If we limit ourselves to the published numbers, a few months later Reacher exceeded Amazon's WoT numbers with much more modesty, I must add. Where is Amazon's WoT in popular culture right now? Compared to other shows from last year that went completely viral.
@@Bookborn Agreed. Not liking something - whether because it wasn't what you hoped for, or just didn't care for it period - is perfectly fine. And there should always be room for conversation and critique.
Even our favourite shows, movies, and books aren't without flaws. But to angry at other people for liking it, or even just taking a middle stance it only going to cause problems.
What about the show makes you like it significantly more than the books? Just curious cause ive only ever seen fans of the show say that it was at best about as good as the book but never better
@@im1085 It comes down to a few different things.
Actors - I think that all of the actors were excellently cast and did a lot to make me connect more with many of the characters than in the books. Lan and Moiraine were the big standouts for me. But I also found Rand and Nynaeve much less frustrating than I did in the books. While the actors of Padan Fain, Logain, and Child Valda brought something really engaging and interesting to their characters that I had not at all expected and made the show really stand out for me.
Atmosphere - While Robert Jordan is an excellent writer, actually seeing the places visually (including costumes, scenery, landscapes etc.) and having a great score to set the scene and the mood did a lot to make my really feel and enjoy the world in a way the books didn't for me.
Pacing - There were times where I felt that the book dragged, and felt slow, especially in the parts where the group was split up before they reconvene. Which felt much faster and more engaging in the show. There were times in the first books where I would put it down, and go days before picking it up again. Where in the show I was constantly engaged, and wanted to watch on.
Storyline - Many of my favourite scenes and moments in the season were those that were not in the book, such as the confrontation with Logain and the White Tower politics. How Moiraine and Lan are much more prominent characters here, and the greater focus on the warders and the Aes Sadai as a whole, and their respective dynamics. Which I know the books go into later, but was something I was missing in Eye of the World.
Casual - Not so much a specific thing that the show did better, but the fact that I'm only casually engaged in the books meant that a lot of the faux pas, and 'mistakes' that the show did by deviating from the plot, characters, or lore of the book were much less of an issue to me. And even some of the glaring things like Egwene healing Nynaeve or the 'who is the dragon' mystery were things that I either didn't mind, or only considered minor issues for my enjoyment.
Ending - While I do agree with a lot of the general statement that the ending was probably the weakest part of the first season. I thought that book ending was actually worse, especially given how odd and disjointed it felt from the rest of the story.
So while I didn't find the show flawless in any way, I had a lot of fun watching. Certainly more than I did reading the first book, and am excited for the next season.
Awesome video as always! I think this is a very interesting topic.
I wonder if some longer established fandoms seem more toxic because of fans who want to have genuine discussions about the fandom just don’t engage because they have had toxicity in the past, so the most active fans who will engage in discussion are the most critical ones or ones who are out to simply spew toxicity. It’s a small but very vocal group that has stifled discussion.
I absolutely think that's a factor. I also think people with "regular" or "in the middle" opinions often just dont' feel the need to comment. OR, if they DO comment, it's lost because the more inflammatory comments get the most engagement, and engagement drives what we see.
Your discussion was great, and I think highlighting the internet as a way that opinions and discussion gets amplified is a good one. However, I think another factor is how companies have come to embrace fandoms and controversy as a way to stir up discussion about their product.
The main example I can think of is in the video game space where, in the 90s, the identity of "gamer" was cultivated by game companies to increase sales. You had people on the early internet being vitriolic about video game series and game consoles. As you point out, fandom goes back to at least Tolkien, but I think that other media companies have taken their cues from the video game space.
To me, identifying as a "gamer" makes about as much sense as identifying as a "reader". But some people pour themselves into what they consume, and as you said that can lead to a sense of community or conflict. I just think how the internet as a platform is used by media companies is as important to consider as how individual fans use it. Great video as always!
I really loved your wheel of time videos, it sucks that people can be so mean.
I think a lot of "toxicity" can come from the passion for something, really loving that piece of entertainment because it hit you as an individual a certain way. Each of us can feel different things as fans of something. That emotional attachment can come out as negative or positive, but can also be taken in a different way than intended, or it can be perfectly intended negatively (like your WoT comments) but that passion the person feels is what drives it, add anonymity and its easy for that passion to erupt without a second thought.
I would also recommend to mods to not censor people who have genuine criticisms.
This is a good psychological analysis.
IMO (and everything below is just my opinion), the internet definitely encourages rapid aggressive comments by offering anonymity. Also social media has created the need to be agreed with. Once someone says something controversial and gets support from others, it picks up steam very rapidly. And I agree that if you could find those individuals and ask them why they feel that way, their confidence would crumble. It's the mob mentality creating mass movements that the individuals are unlikely to agree with if they could be identified and didn't have the mob backing them up.
We all experience moments of anger (eg. road rage) and we all have triggers. The problem with commenting on the internet is that it's mostly text based and it's very hard to communicate properly. Sarcasm or layered meanings are especially often lost in translation in text but would be more apparent when face to face. The internet is hampered by this and often leads to angry reactions where people feel they are under attack, and the anonymous nature gives them the confidence to attack back. Hard.
In its purest sense, a fandom is a great place to be where people can openly discuss their opinions without fear of being attacked (like a traditional book club). I love discussions where I might say something that turns out to be flawed and someone explains to me in a fair and reasonable way why it's wrong - I often end up agreeing with them once I think about it. Unfortunately that is becoming a very rare experience online. More often, anything you say gets a strong and instant negative reaction and you're forced to just walk away for your own sanity.
I feel for you as a RUclipsr trying to build an online reputation and maybe even a business, where it's hard to walk away. I have no advice other than try not to provoke the various mobs who see the internet as their personal bullying playgrounds.
I fully believe it's the anonymous nature of the internet and social media that is the first reason for the toxicity. It's too easy to go berserk on someone and when the mood turns against you, just delete your account or rename it and carry on with no consequences. If we all had to be identified by our real names, there would be a lot less anger online. But I'm not sure I want to go that way either where our real lives and mental health (and employment or financial status) could be affected by a slip-up online.
The second reason for the toxicity is that there is good money to be made in creating mobs and inciting hatred and division online. Entire YT channels become successful by feeding that division. I'm not active on other sites but I presume it's the same there too (Twitter?). Views and subscribers = ad revenue and sponsorships and patreon subscriptions. Any YT channel that can attract a large well-established mob and feed it is going to get rich quick.
I'd like to believe that if reasonable people band together, we can crush the toxicity and encourage people to get along. Perhaps that can be done in small groups but we haven't a chance with the mainstream mobs because it's not just the mob of individuals, it's also the money-making instigators in the background who will fight to keep their cash cows alive.
You have so much good to say and I agree with all of it. I wanted to address one of your comments though about how negativity is rewarded - SO TRUE. I wish I had talked about that in this video! Unfortunately, because outrageous and aggressive commentary gets the most views and the most engagement, places like YT, Instagram, Twitter, et al, REWARD that negativity. And then news sources pick up on it, and the cycle starts all again. It can be very frustrating that well-reasoned arguments - that are not clickbait so generally don't get as much attention - tend to fall under the radar. That's why I try VERY HARD not to engage with likes or comments on things that I think are gross or bad. Engaging only helps it.
@@Bookborn Thank you.
I am slowly learning not to get triggered and to just walk away. I've learned that it's bad for my mental health to get sucked into the arguments which I have often done in the past.
Live and learn :)
i think that everything you pointed out was spot on and well researched but I also feel like that some fandoms are a bit more toxic than others even considering that 1% rule. i feel like the more a fandom considers what they follow as gospel the more toxic it becomes and there is certainly a hive-mind mentality around it as well. for example Star Wars fans or Tolkien fans who think the respective original works in their fandom are perfect, even though it totally isn't, are generally more negative towards new content and itirations.
however, fandoms like WoT that are usually more critical about the works tend to in the end reach a consensus that is not entirely all that toxic. the fact that the Rings of Power's first trailer got that many people commenting the same thing and mocking the show or some of the reaction to SW content that has been so outrageously negative could prove my reasoning a bit more...but then again I may be totally wrong
Yeah that's a very interesting concept. Are certain works more likely to make people feel that they are "gospel truth"? Or, does it naturally progress that way as time goes on in most fandoms if they reach large enough? Does demographic matter? So many things that are hard to define but I wonder if they have an effect.
@@Bookborn yeah you are right. there are so many factors at play here that is hard to quantify. but I am certain no matter how big a fandom is, they are going to act differently and the way that toxic 1% behaves is gonna change slightly or even drastically based on the source material.
for example there is this gaming franchise called Mass Effect and it is pretty well inclusive so when the last game in the franchise didn't meet fans' expectations they started attacking the company because they thought they didn't deliver on their promise. the usual racist and homophobic attacks were almost non existent even though the game has one of the biggest fandoms in gaming.
It's also too easy to be labeled as toxic just for having a different opinion. It's perfectly okay to not like an adaptation of something, but some people will take that personally.
Yesss when I was researching this people would claim things were toxic fans and I’m like… they were just disagreeing… kindly 🤣 that’s why I feel like the word is sooo overused
Well...
There are people that just want to trigger people.
There are people who feel personally attacked by opinions
There are people who want to voice their opinions
There are people that want to develop their opinions
And then there are the vast majority that will not even comment.
I sometimes do feel affronted when people voice their opinions acting like it's gospel (of course when it goes against my own beliefs) and it's difficult in those instances to keep civil as it's wasted time to engage. At least most often that is the case.
Anyway, you can probably get your phd by thoroughly investigating online human behavior. And you wont have but scratched the surface.
I removed myself from the WoT issue because I found myself starting to lean into the toxic space. So I stepped away from the issue and just stopped discussing it in depth. I didn’t want to be that guy.
I stopped discussing the WoT TV-series because the defenders of the show called me all sorts of nasty things, and while I can be provocative and/or snarky from time to time, there was no reason to go to these extremes.
Yeah I removed myself from the spaces that were getting nasty too, and it's been more enjoyable. It sucks because I honestly believe in my heart that most WOT fans aren't bad.
@@Bookborn On that we agree. I've been on and off part of the Dragonmount community for many, many years, and they are mostly good people.
I won't watch season 2 of WoT unless I hear the season is actually good. Even then, waiting til finale is out.
@@theupperechelon7634 sorry to hear you got treated that way
In my experience, it is not the fandom that is more toxic, it is the generalizing marketing departments, the bait-and-switch producers, and the fake fans. I'm not saying that there aren't some people who write things they shouldn't. Clearly there are. But it isn't 1%. It isn't even 0.1% However, if the marketing departments, the producers and actors didn't start out by calling a fanbase toxic, then set up the premise that if any of them doesn't like the change they've made, it is because they are (insert insult here), we would not see the same level of kickback from fans.
Before Charlie's Angels was slated to come out, the director called the original fan base names, and said that if her movie fails, it's because the fandom is (you know the words they use). The movie sucked massive marbles, but the director continued with the vector she was on. It didn't matter if there were actual (insert words here) who hated it, the trigger had already been pulled. Anyone who hated the movie was called it, regardless.
Before Harley Quinn came out, the same thing happened. Before Captain Marvel, before Dark Fate, before ... etcetera, etcetera.
In fact, look back on all of the massive flopped reboots of the last decade and the way in which the fandom was treated. It's become a trend. They attack the fandom first, then set up a false premise that if complaints about x are made, then y is the reason.
I was incredibly disappointed in the way The Last Jedi handled Luke's character, and in defending my position and attempting to explain why it was not in Luke's nature to be the way he was in that movie, I was called some nasty things by fake fans. To be clear, I did not use foul language, did not disparage anyone, did not scream blue murder; I simply explained my position. But because of that, I was called some pretty evil things. This is, I think, how most fans that didn't like that movie felt when they were called names. First shocked, then frustrated, then angry for being mislabeled.
No one likes to be mislabeled. But that's what happens when someone describes a fandom as toxic. Sorry, but no. I don't subscribe to the idea that most of the fans of, let's say Lord of the Rings, are toxic people just because they don't like the changes made in Rings of Power. It really shows, in my opinion, a lack of honour to pretend one thing when the reality is something else. Unfortunately, the mainstream opinion is the one that dominates.
I did not expect a Hamilton segway 🤣but I loved it. Excellent video (and excellent shirt!). I think this is such a nuanced topic and you mentioned a lot of good points. The anonymity of the internet is a big thing - I've never seen someone angry enough to call Rafe Judkins horrible names and wish hellfire down on him when discussing WoT adaptation in real life, or any other fandom, but that kinda stuff comes out in droves on the internet. The social conformity of individual niches within the internet plays a role, which is why I think bigger areas like Twitter are hardest to navigate civilly because it's essentially a free for all. Also, ABSOLUTELY regarding clickbait. This one completely kills me. When new sites start citing random people as "everyone is slamming X" or "everybody hates Y" and it's just like four tweets or something. STOP THIS 😭this happens all the time. There was the whole thing where people were "freaking out" about AC Valhalla when really it was just one tweet. But then the stupid article went viral and it seemed like there was a ton of backlash.
The only thing I'd disagree with is the 1% theory; I think it's much less. 1/100 is actually a lot of people. Let's say Star Wars has, conservatively, 300 million fans worldwide. That would be THREE MILLION people being extremely toxic and directing lots of hate towards the creators/fans. That is an insane amount of people, I think the toxic fans are just so loud they eat up even more space. You're right though that we can never know the true numbers, and the idea behind the theory makes the most amount of sense, just want to highlight just how small these people are. The more we keep in mind how much they are in the minority, the easier it becomes to brush them off. Gotta get that dirt off ya shoulder.
Tbh I can segue from almost any topic to Hamiliton, it's a gift.
Yeah good point, like three million people being bad is a fandom unto itself. Maybe it doesn't quite scale 🤣 But I swear every fandom has the thing where one article has a headline that says "EVERYONE" and then ten other publications pick it up and now everyone IS talking about it when before....nobody was
Thank you again for a well thought out video. So good that I see even Murphy Napier left a great comment. Like everything in this day and age there are bad apples on all sides. I value your vids and the arguments that you bring because it forces me to really think about not only what I am saying but also HOW I am saying it. I may not always agree with some of your conclusions but they can provoke strong feelings in your viewers. I work at a bank and take incoming calls about numerous banking products and it is hard to separate myself sometimes from the comments I get and the tone in which it was given. People are passionate about the things are fans of just like people are passionate about their money. Yes there are some fans out there who just want to troll to get that negative reaction. This is sad as it makes it hard for true fans to express their likes or dislikes with an adaptation.
The biggest lately is The Lord of the Rings fans who have VERY strong ideas and can see what they feel as the corruption of what Tolkien wrote. As many of these fans have read most of what has been written about Middle Earth as well as letters that Tolkien wrote. Since there is so much the fans in a way have a better understanding of the world of Middle Earth. Peter Jackson got a lot of criticism because of the changes he had to do but I feel that it was a great adaptation as he wanted to create Tolkien's world and not his own. Denis did the same with Dune and I can't wait to see Dune Part 2. He had to change and leave things out but he sought to only reflect what Frank Herbert wrote. I Love Robert E Howard and many of the Conan books/movies are not quite how he wrote Conan but remained true to his characters.
Personally I hate any and all labels as they only seek to tear people apart as apposed to bring people together. There are only people anyone that only seeks to tear something down without trying to understand and seek to grow are truly the Toxic fans.
I look forward to the flip side of this argument when you discuss "Toxic Creators".
Ohhh Toxic creators, now that's an interesting subject. When can we draw the line for creators who are truly trying to honor the subject matter they are in charge of, and who are trying to do their own vision? It's hard to tell, tbh, but I do think the end product showcases a lot of it. Then, of course, there are creators who also use the "toxic fandom" label to divulge themselves of any and all blame for why a fandom may not like their show (this is sort of happening with WOT and even the Obi Wan show - claiming that the only people who didn't like the show were the racists. Which, obviously, those people suck and existed, but there were many fans that were upset with the show for vastly different reasons).
This was such an intelligent discussion! Gave me a lot to think about tbh
Daniel Green has said similar things about moving away from Wheel of Time because of the horrible comments. So sorry you've experienced that and great video!
Thank you so much for your opinion and for being a lead-by-example leader on how to interact (or not) with toxicity when it rears its ugly head!
🖤🖤🖤
I myself haven't had a lot of bad experiences with fandoms, but my brother (who isn't a reader, but is very much into anime) has had so many toxic experiences on Reddit that he has a whole list lot of anime that he now refuses to watch because they are "too popular". He wants to be able to discuss what he watches, but he has lost all confidence in larger fandoms. I hate that there are these few people who have completely ruined it for him.
Oh man, I'm not in the anime fandom (I've only watched a few and never had any online discourse about them) but I have heard that those can be some of the most "toxic" ones out there in terms of discussions. That sucks that he feels like he can't participate in those things anymore because of it.
Even though I consider myself a fan of a lot of things I never consider myself being part of a "fandom".
Yeah it's sad that the word "fandom" sort of has a negative connotation these days huh
Insightful examination, and a great conversation starter. Speaking of how our human nature tends to amplify the negative stuff, even if it's a tiny fraction of the overall feedback, we have this wonderful tradition at the Writer Unboxed conferences (the WU UnCon). One evening during the conference we do an open mic night where volunteer authors read their one-star book reviews. ala Kimmel's mean tweets segments. Everyone is having a drink or two, and just hearing them together, in a lighthearted and safe environment; how comical and utterly absurd they can be (usually are), from the creator themselves, has become so cathartic and empowering. It really reminds everyone to step back and take a real look, just as you've done here (particularly in regard to your WoT show videos, which I loved).
Good job keeping the channel so fresh and relatable and thought-provoking. I know it takes a lot of extra effort, but it's much appreciated.
Thanks for the kind words. It's so true though that dealing with the negativity with others in similar situations can be SUCH catharsis. It's why I'll share the crazy bad comments I get with other creators. Hearing them laugh at it and all of us laugh together helps to not let something small overtake the good stuff.
Well for a note of kindness and support. I love your content!
Thank you 🥰
Love this video. It's one of my favorite topics and I think there are so many spiraling rabbit trails that are fascinating to talk about on tangential subjects related to it as well.
I *do* think actually the nerdy community *might* actually be more volatile than some communities because of their sheer passion and association and identification with the hobbies they like... That being said it happens with nerdy sports fans, politically minded nerds, and other "nerd" communities.
Excellent breakdown as always. I feel like this could be discussed for hours
Sorry, I should have commented
"FANDOMS ARENT TOXIC YOU HACK"
I sadly can't pin this comment but I tried.
Yeah, really interesting what you say about nerds adopting their property loves into their actual identity. Because that does up the intensity when something goes wrong, it feels personal rather than something that's actually outside yourself. That being said, I feel like sports fans are pretty bad too lmao
There's a TEDx talk on parasocial relationships, including one's with charecters in books and movies.
Oh that's fascinating. I've only heard of parasocial relationships in relation to celebrities - I didn't know it could happen with fictional entities too.
This was a very interesting discussion. I appreciate the time you took to present such an informative video. We unfortunately live in the era of the "the keyboard hero" and sadly there is nothing heroic about them. 'Agree to disagree' is a concept many people have to cultivate these days, and the small percent with their disgusting unnecessary behavior ends up ruining things for the rest of the us. Thanks again for a great video. I really enjoy watching your videos that dig in deep like this!! 👍👍👏👏👏😃😃
Thanks for watching! We totally live in the "keyboard hero" stage. People don't seem to understand that you can dislike or even hate something and still discuss it calmly on the internet...especially when it's things like FANTASY STORIES that don't affect our real life.
Awesome video.
Side note: I like when you have a hard time pronouncing a word, you just embrace it and own it. It’s part of your brand and it’s inspiring to those of us who also struggle with certain words. I never say gesture right. Or conscience. Rock on.
It's been a lifelong thing and I've finally just given up at this point 🤣
Another great video. I find ppl being too sensitive nowadays, every critic is considered toxicity which isn't a good thing. What happens now the big studios like Amazon, Netflix and their recent lazy projects like Wheel of Time, Rings of Power and Witcher, the fandom toxicity is actually protective reaction. We just want them to remain loyal to authors material and make good adaptation- not the case.
Yeah, I wish I had made this more explicit in the video - I don't think expressing dislike or disappointment or calling out sloppy writing is toxic. Not at all. I only think the over-board behavior: like giving the show a one star rating without watching a moment of it, calling death threats on twitter, making racist comments towards actors - that's the toxic behavior.
@@Bookborn I don't understand when ppl are mean, it is immature. Amazon however is using this as an excuse to silence every possible critic and unfortunately every RUclips content creator like yourself, who questioned their decision. They bribed some critics and stopped user ratio on their official platform as well as in IMdb. I left a comment on their official channel that there is simply no way for Afro-American dwarves or elves to exist because Tolkien took inspiration from nordic mythology. Elves lived before the light of the trees in darkness and dwarves live in caves away from the sun. I pointed that the Easterlings all had dark skin and hair and they could have used them for their diversity intention. I was also labeled racist and got banned. I wanted them to created great Tv series, but how to leave good ratio above 3 star for this, when most of the leads look and acted out of character? See what you're doing in your videos. For the rings of Power you had this beautiful green top and a green elven leaf as ornament, in the Show they used laurel wreath crowns for the elves which screams Roman empire, not to mention the modern printed clothing, which contradicts medieval fantasy adaptations. If you as as small content creator can touch the small details ,why Amazon studios 100 billion project team can't. This is not a hate, just few facts.
I'm so tired of Amazon and Disney producing trash and then blaming us for not watching anymore by calling us toxic
Yeah, and I didn't cover this, but it is DEF a thing. These creators will use the small number of fans that ARE being legit horrible, but then claim it's ALL fans, and wash themselves of any blame. "Our show is good, it's just the racist/sexist/whatever fans that are bringing it down". And it's like, yeah, that's happening, but also there is a huge group of the fandom that hasn't engaged in any of those toxic behaviors and we ALSO still think it's sloppy...
I think the fact that they feel the need to defend their product is revealing. There are so many good books/movies/tv shows out there that don’t need this crazy team of PR lawyers to spin things. There were things about Peter Jackson’s LOTR that I didn’t care for but overall it was objectively good. Compare that to the Hobbit…
Lmao, where have these companies called people “toxic” for just not watching a show or movie?
There are fans that hate V for Vindetted a long with Watchmen movie and TV show. Alen Moore hates them even more. Because they miss what he was saying in the message.
For a lot of Fandoms when the message is lost to fill in a race, set, age, religion, what have you it changes the story.
I'm sad you had to deal with so much negativity around the WoT show - your statements are always well thought out, any criticism is leavened with praise, and you *never* make unsupported claims.
That any of our fandoms include toxic people, is a sad and tragic truth - and holds true in any large group of supporters. Sport fans of major teams often encounter the same problems - where the highlighted few, give an entire fan base a bad name.
It's also a reason why I'm NOT anonymous - I'm prepared to stand by anything I say - and because I'll put my name to it, I have to be aware of what I'm putting 'out there'.
So true, like I live in Seattle and let me tell you Seahawks fans have a BAD REP but I'm sure there are plenty of normal ones 😂 Seems like anytime someone lets something they don't control become too much of their personality; or rather they take it too personally, it can create bad behavior.
I first got introduced to your channel through your Wheel of Time videos and I've been subbed ever since, so I'm thankful for that, but I hate to hear how bad some of your experiences were. It definitely seems like that 1% is always out trying to ruin it for everyone else. On another note, what has often frustrated me is how many show/movie creators will use these 1% toxic fans to create a strawman as a means to invalidate the legitimate criticism that fans have about a show or movie. This way they don't have to take responsibility for mistakes or poor decision-making (i.e., if someone doesn't like a show, then they must be a racist, or a misognynist, etc). It's part of why I think the quality of so many shows/movies lately has been so poor--because creators are no longer acknowledging the valid feedback and instead try to shove it all under the 'toxicity' label.
I think an underappreciated part of the "toxic fandom" problem is that other groups will often flow into the fandoms to make their own external points via that material. What I mean by that, for examples, is we can see gender/race swapping in some adaptations, and so you get the 1% of shitty people in the fandom being racist/sexist, but then you also have an influx of shitty racists/sexists that choose to use that adaptation to make their point (all this aside from how any given reasonable person might feel about race/gender swaps without being racist/sexist over it). This, I believe, is why the WoT adaptation ended up having so many horrible comments showing up. In a way, the 1% are a minority but they still kick off the shit avalanche.
Ahhh that's a SUPER interesting and good point. People use it as a beacon to discuss their feelings without even being a part of the fandom.
When I seen the title of the new video come up, I could have sworn this was going to be about Netflix's Persuasion and how they did Jane Austen dirty
lmao I refused to watch it but I've been binge watching other content creators take it down. It looks soooo bad.
I've been part of the Song of Ice and Fire French Fandom (through internet forums) for years, and one thing that strikes me is the changes in discussions dynamics because of social media. The instantaneous nature of the discourse, and habits of short comments has killed a lot of the nuance on the few remaining forums. And another thing with forums is that it allows discussions on topics dead for months : you find it and interact with the old content,bring a new perspective to the table. It has a memory but you learn from people who already discussed the issue, and build another brick. Now people don't know how to interact like that anymore, the habit is lost, and you rediscover the same discussion over and over again. I kinda feel like a Fandom dinausore but I miss the old days of small forum bubbles xD
Yeah I think in the forum days too I feel like it used to be a smaller community, thus social norms were able to be controlled a little more AND people got to know users/ so there was more of a chance for civil conversation.
@@Bookborn Indeed. And even with big fandoms, people were not afraid to make long comments to explain their thoughts, which helps with nuance, and general politeness. You could disagree without agressivity (which is harder when comments are limited to 100 characters).
I think there can certainly be toxic behaviors that bleed into fandom or that use fandom as an "excuse" &/or motivation or such. But I completely agree you can't rightly fault every individual in a fanbase, nor a fanbase as an entire whole, as being indiscriminately toxic-that's such a bad precedent to set, in my opinion.
And I think it negates the absolutely wonderful place that fandoms truly can be
@@Bookborn You're not wrong, at all.
*7:30** worry about it when you see them face to face. the rest is nonsense.* ive given a few apologies. but im here under my own name. (tho, if you saw my twtr..>>. nothing matrs)-JC
Not fanfic writer, but have read my fare share. I think fanfiction often gets lots of fan engagement and depending on the size of the fandom the authors may get lots of hate and there's always ship wars and mean comments all around. And also if a fandom is too small, odds are no one would read it, so that's also good to know
Ah, that's a good point. I didn't realize that authors would get hate comments based on ships... I knew there were some people who really really got defensive over their favorite ships but didn't realize it would get back to the author. I thought it was just an inner-fanfic thing haha
So I picked up the first book of the Game of Thrones in the late 90s, I consumed it and the available books... each book of the main story I have read... I also watched the TV series not spoiling the events that were unfolding until the TV series based the books... George RR Martin has said there are at least three books to complete the series... I hope he has notes laid out so Brandon can complete it it (WoT)... George needs to finish the series off BUT I am not disappointed enough to threaten him
Patrick Rothfuss... The Name of the Wind released in 2007, the second book released in March 2011... the third book... never likely to be delivered... okay Patrick you painted yourself into too many corners but just admit your University project got away from you...
I hope Salmond Rushdie recovers from his horrific attack..
Yes, exactly! It's absolutely ok to express disappointed and discuss things negatively, but like you said, we don't need to threaten anyone.
Reddit is such an interesting case study in this because of the community moderation (and also probably the voting).
Subreddits with clear rules that are consistently enforced by mods tend to be great places to be. But there's a ton of others that don't have either good rules or good mods (or are just gathered around something that's inherently problematic), which are pretty toxic.
It seems like both good moderation and bad moderation tend to have ripple effects into just generally better or worse behavior, independent of moderator attention.
TLDR: Moderators are the real MVPs
Oh ABSOLUTELY. Some of the large fandoms I'm in have super strict mods and I'm always shocked at what a nice place they still are to hang out in. I think you nailed it: good moding is going to bring out good discussion, bad moding will have the opposite effect because it'll create that social norm.
Phenomenal video, and ironically this topic has recently been at the forefront on my mind because it's kind of fascinating. The most I've encountered the infamous "toxic fandom" is with the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.
I used to be very active, in fact, too active, in a Star Wars facebook group following The Force Awakens coming out. It was a mostly fun place to be even following Rogue One and leading up to The Last Jedi. The group ballooned following Last Jedi, and I made a post about how much I loved the film (I have a myriad of problems with the sequels, but I've regained some appreciation for Last Jedi). There were a few comments that were with me, but I got a number of vitriolic, mocking comments about how I wasn't a "true fan" for liking that garbage, or how I was always going to say any new Star Wars film was my favorite yadda yadda yadda. Just absolute garbage interactions, and not because they disagreed with my opinion. I can have great discussions all day with people who disagree with me on something. It was the rudeness and the whole "I'm objectively right about a piece of fictional media, you're wrong" attitude people carried. I got just as irritated with Last Jedi fans making posts mocking the people who disliked it (even for valid reasons); it just led to an endless cycle of name-calling and back-and-forth bickering that was, frankly, infuriating. I left that group shortly thereafter and pretty much the Star Wars online presence entirely, until very recently, and with that, I'm selective. As silly as it sounds, the memory of that experience soured me on the film. It's only after revisiting it and being largely divorced from online opinions that I appreciate the movie again, even with a few issues I have with it.
I also noticed some bad interactions within the Wheel of Time fandom following the show. I think your analysis is spot on in that "Toxic" is overused, and applying it to strictly "fandoms" is also a misrepresentation of the bigger picture. The reality is that there are a lot of crappy people in the world who just happen to be fans of these properties. Many of them are people who not many people in real life even want to interact with, hence the amped up bravado behind a computer. Rudeness and snark are often applauded, and echo chambers are an easy trap as well. When recognizing that there are many different individuals within a fandom, many whom don't interact badly or at all online, it's then framed to where you can see that a fandom has toxic individuals whom happen to be very vocal. But calling the entire fandom toxic gives more power to these people. Also, "toxic" should only be reserved for people who are behaving awfully to each other about honest opinions on the work itself, or the "anti-woke" outrage reactionaries; it shouldn't be applied to people giving constructive negative opinions on a product.
Sorry for the ramble; just had a lot of thoughts on this 😅
LOVE your thoughts, and I'm sorry the Star Wars fandom ended up being so crappy at the end there. I experienced the same thing with Wheel of Time. At some point I just wanted to be like "Actually the show is AMAZING. SHUT UP!" even though I didn't even like it LOL. I was just so tired of the overblown hatred without even examining why they didn't like it.
@@Bookborn Yeah, your Wheel of Time video was nothing to be offended about. You illustrated your problems with the show perfectly. Even as someone who overall enjoyed it (admittedly I've only read the first two), I could see where you were coming from and had some of the same issues, even. At no point did you shame people who liked it by saying they weren't real WOT fans. If I remember correctly, you got some backlash from your video on adaptations from other WOT fans who didn't like the show, and it was unwarranted then as well. It's frustrating to see people take extremes on either side, including those who act like any honest personal critiques aren't acceptable.
On the positive side, it's good to know that there are some more rational-minded people like us still out there and that not everyone behaves like a raging lunatic online 😂.
Thank you for this video. Very interesting. For what it's worth, I actually found your channel from your Wheel of Time content.
There is no "Large" toxic fandom. There is definitely a loud vocal minority of fans that can be cruel. "Toxic" gets thrown about when the Show Runners really don't like the criticism they are getting and it's easier to say the fans are to blame than the product they have put out.
It can be worse than that.
There are plenty of ACTUALLY toxic people who make the accusation of toxicity to alienate and isolate those they dislike or disagree with.
It's common with accusations of "gatekeeping" that are literally used to gatekeep, removing enthusiastic fans who may simply have poor communication skills (fact is, as welcoming and terrific as nerd communities have always been, we've welcomed EVERYONE... and that includes traumatised, cynical or autistic ppl who can be difficult to engage with. Doesn't excuse poor behaviour, and none should be tolerated... but the way to deal with it isn't with social exclusion or what amounts to targeted harassment)
I know I tend to be a touchstone in my communities, bc I'm a fairly good communicator.
I've had many, many people thank me for making them feel welcome, and that includes normies who I reassured and shielded from the less outwardly friendly members and those less outwardly friendly members who feel accommodated because they aren't being judged. I've had to "tell people off" maybe 6-7 times in almost 20 years, with only 3 bans. 1 for stalking, 1 for threats and 1 for refusing to stop being an edgyboi when asked politely. Out of hundreds of people)
The only reason we even know about these toxic people is because the actors, and writers make a big deal out of it. If I had 500,000 people gathered to see me perform and 3 people called me something racist or sexist I would ignore them, not point them out to the crowd and everyone in the public at large. Why they give them the very platform they are begging for is beyond me.
It's frustrating cause i really like interacting with Wot fans, but i find myself really holding back from commenting the show on places like twitter cause a lot of it now it's either "the show is amazing, Rafe can do no wrong, going to block you for not liking it" or "the show is personally molesting me, Rafe hates the fans, everything is so woke".
I just want to calmly talk about the writing and the general feeling of the show, and still be able to chat with other book fans😅
Some time ago Daniel Green got attacked simply for lowering his personal rating of the show, with some people misunderstanding a part of his review and sharing it, with others refusing to check the review out themselves and taking it as fact. Some even took it as a personal attack that he didn't like the show as much as they did, and that he shared the video at the same time new content came out. The whole thing was honestly embarrassing and something i wouldn't have expected from older fans.
At the same time i saw a new book reader liking the first book and saying that she understands why book fans were negative toward the show, but that she will still take both, and a couple of people being really obnoxious in trying to make her hate the show despite her telling them to stop.
The toxic positivity and negativity is seriously out of control.
SERIOUSLY. And Daniel Green was also taking a ton of flack from the other side about liking it TOO MUCH like oh my gosh if you take a middle stance you just can't win. It's so ridiculous.
@@Bookborn for real, it's ridiculous and makes interacting with other fans exhausting instead of fun.
All great points that unfortunately apply to modern politics too 😞
Civility is a fundament of civilization. We, as a society, seem to be forgetting that.
I find it very difficult to interact in discussions. When i'm passionae about something, i'm really passionate and i'm scared that because of that i might come off as a toxic fan without intending to. I struggle with social interactions in general and often have difficulties putting my thoughts into words. Add to that that English isn't my native language and it can be hard to be very nuanced. Sometimes i'm so scared to comment because i don't want to be that person and ruin a fandom for others.
I think just acknowledging that you don't want to be "that person" is a HUGE thing. Even just putting that in a comment "I have a hard time saying what I mean, so don't take this wrong, but..." If you aren't calling people names, harassing people, or doing death threats, I don't really think you'll be categorized as toxic :)
Yeah I've said this elsewhere in the comments but toxicity and anger are not at all the same thing. When big companies are taking your Fandom and showing it no respect, you have a right to be angry and to express that anger. As she said, as long as it isn't basic name-calling or death threats or whatever, it's more than okay.
I think the „toxic“ fandoms have risen as a response to the off-the-cliff drop in quality of the work that‘s being made e.g. wheel of time or LOTR the rings of power which the creators use as a shield to deflect any and all criticism. But when they say something completely unhinged, it is presented-by the companies that publish their work- as heroic. Take an actress from the rings of power who said she probably won‘t show the Peter Jackson trilogy because there are no black people in it.
I completely agree. Identity politics have been shoved in our faces, most people just want escapism without being lectured to about diversity, sexism and racism.
I know this of the topic but does it really matter if she has watched the movies. In the end, they are only an adaptation and not source material by Tolkien. Tbh I think that most of the movie cast hadn't read the books when they were making the movies and they are still great. The show is also its own thing and not a prequel to the movies.
Just a quick note, there were black people in the movie but they were the bad guys and tbh I kinda see why some people would dislike this kind of decision.
@@Flammewar I mostly agree, however Peter Jackson was faithful to the source material whereas the Amazon series is all over the place a Balrog in the second Age, warrior Queen Galadriel etc. and to your point about the easterlings, You are correct. But then again, saying you will not show the films to your daughter without having seen them yourself is just as bad, if not worse.
@@Flammewar
Who cares what skin pigmentation a hero or villain has???
@@Flammewar Many people who worked on those movies were fans of the books. Go look at that cast list. That cast list is beyond ridiculous for that type of movie at that time.
And that last statement is why we have so many poorly written characters now. All these new age writers are afraid to write any non-white, straight person as a villain or with flaws or anything. It's a bunch of "I don't want to offend anyone" "creators" running entertainment now and people are not taking it anymore. Thus, we get labelled as "toxic"
Modern Hollywood fanfic content breaking lore should be considered toxic. Fans are right to voice their opinion when Hollywood don't care about franchises and what they mean to people. Media gaslighting and defending Hollywood doesn't make a fandom toxic either.
When that is said all the (death) threats, bad DMs, and in some cases sexist or racist messages should stop right now. That is never okay.
Yeah, this video isn't about voicing your opinion though; like I said at the end, it sucks to be lumped in with the people being racist, sexist, sending death threats, when we have legitimate complaints about the show. Voicing your opinion is fine - I certainly do a lot of it on this channel - it's when it crosses a line that it gives fandoms a bad name.
@@Bookborn On that we agree. But I think a lot of the extra vitriol comes from feeling "unfairly" treated by both Hollywood and the media. And therefore that angle should be added.
I never thought about it that way - that the lore breaking adaptations are what are toxic.
The fans are just trying to protect the lore.
@@donkeysunited that mindset is toxic too, though. It's not yours to protect and it never was - it's a toxic relationship with the lore/property/content, and it ultimately leads to nothing positive. The only time I'd say this kind of 'protection' is warranted is if the original creator comes out against an adaptation etc. It's all good to have an opinion and feel a certain way, but ultimately we are all just consumers of these media, right?
The rise of modern franchises has led to media being created by different creators with different visions and different takes, similar to how comic books often had various 'canons'. With these big media corps you are, and have always been as far as motion pictures existed, been lucky if you had a true to 'lore' adaptation. Just think about the hundreds of Dracula and Frankenstein movies that have been shat out throughout the years. It's not a new phenomenon.
There's nothing wrong with saying "well, this isn't for me" or "I really like this version". It's ok to be surprised or disappointed. But it really starts to get toxic when you start to get in the mindset of 'attacking' or 'defending' anything and actually start behaving in line with that.
@@sVieira151 I guess the use of the label "toxic" is too vague. It's associated with a group of people, usually the fans. Where it might better be used for the interactions between the various groups.
I get your point. And I think most people commenting on trailers are being decent. In the case of LotR, the many comments using the (mis)quote from the books are just funny.
Most of the vitriol I'm seeing is coming from YT channels and their click-baity headings. At this stage, I've stopped watching them - I'm just going to wait for the show to be released and will watch it as I already have Prime. If I don't like it, I'll just stop watching it, as I did with Boba Fett after episode 3.
If the media studios are not reading the online comments because they are all from "toxic" fans, then hopefully they'll get the message from the viewership numbers.
'Those who smelt it dealt it' applies.
Aside from the obvious elements where someone is just spouting hate, I feel like the negativity and toxicity mainly comes into play when one side or the other essentially pulls then, "Your fun is wrong!" card. I still consider myself to be a huge Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc. fan, but I'm basically checked out of the big adaptations currently being made because...nah. They just kinda suck. But just because that's my perspective doesn't mean that I should be telling people that they can't be enjoying the new, flashy content. Life is too short to spend it arguing with people on the internet.
I do feel like that aspect of it can go both ways, though, as I've had people try to inform me both in the internet and in person that if I'm not consuming the latest content of X fandom, then I'm not a real fan. Ah, no. I'm just exploring it differently, and it can still be fun and rewarding. I'm going back through the Star Wars Legends Universe, enjoying my favorites again and picking up entries I missed before, which are mostly pleasant surprises. I'm checking out different adaptations that are far more faithful to the LotR books. I've started in on the enormous Star Trek Litverse that explores a cohesive story and cares about the characters and continuity. I've listened to dozens of Big Finish adventures of prior Doctors across space and time.
I still love these worlds. Star Wars is practically my karkin' second home, as I've also played and run RPGs in it for years. The new stuff being churned out for these properties just wasn't made for me, and that's something I've come to accept. I have other stories and characters that can still be close to my heart, and other gentlebeings can try out the new stuff. Maybe, if we'd all just fan and let fan, we'd realize that there's an embarrassment of riches for each of us to enjoy, if we care to look. It doesn't mean I don't still hold out hope that the Legends saga will continue, just that I've learned to be content with what I have.
Anyway, many points well made in the video, as well as by others in the comments. Well said to those who said well and sorry for the rant.
Love the Munson shirt.
I also think it's apropos.
Eddie Munson represents the outcasts. The people that fall outside of social norms. The nerds, the geeks, the queers, the awkward or ugly. People who tend to be isolated and abused to gain social credit.
Eddie was labelled toxic in the worst way. A cult leader on a killing spree.
Who was he really? An eccentric chap with a big heart who refused to be cowed. He would be true to himself, always... even while thinking himself a coward.
And who WERE the truly toxic people? Those who were hurling the labels. Those who ostracised the "other." Those who labelled themselves virtuous because THEY weren't the weirdos, and all the weirdos have to do not to be abused is to stop being weird. It's for their own good!
Great commentary as always.
Toxicity is always a problem that should not be ignored. We DO see racism and misogyny (and misandry :P) from awful people. But often these abusers are used to deflect actual criticism. Boyega was done *dirty* in Star Wars. He had (imo) the most compelling story potential and did a great job with the material he was given... but he was squandered horribly. Fact is, the CAST was fantastic... it was the writing, inconsistency and leadership that were at fault. Kathleen Kennedy saying that they didn't have enough source material was a quote DESIGNED to piss off the fandom!
A recent example is the reaction to Rings of Power promo.
They miscast Sauron. Badly. He's supposed to be the lord of gifts, charismatic and beautiful. He can literally choose his own form and is trying to manipulate the superpowers of the time. He's also a LITTLE bit vain. But the hate heaped on the actor is disgusting. I could not for a single instant blame ANY actor for accepting any role. 1) it's a job. 2) it's a HUGE opportunity.
And goodness me the racism. I'm NOT a big fan of inconsistency in world building, so a random black elf with no explanation is just a poor choice... but there were legit people arguing black elves were impossible. I'd be totally down to have ALL of the elves be black as a creative decision. Or all of the elves that return from Valinor. "Colour blind" casting is still racism, even when its in a fantasy setting... unless there's SOME manner of logical explanation. This is ADAPTATION after all, things ONLY need to be internally consistent. (even HIGHLY cosmopolitan settings like the Expanse consider race in casting. Bobby Draper, Chrisjen Avasarala, Alex Kamal... race IS part of their character, and that's NOT a bad thing)
AGREED so much on all counts. And yes, Boyega was just done DIRTY. His character was probably my favorite thing of the Force Awakens, and he was just such a cool dude too (My little fan heart couldn't help loving what a legit fan of Star Wars he was!). So for some of the fans to treat him so poorly and then the trilogy as a whole to do just literally nothing with his character was such a crime.
@@Bookborn
I'll always stand by my first impressions of each film.
Great in isolation, not a trilogy and certainly not "Skywalker saga"
TFA gave so many loose plot threads that needed resolution to be satisfying (especially Mary Sue Rey. My fantheory was she was a Palpatine "clone" rescued from becoming a puppet for his spirit. Literally designed to be a perfect Sith vessel. Daisy struggling with internal conflict, denial and finding balance would have been so much better than some force-twin nonsense with Kylo)
TLJ was a complete abandonment of the first movie. It was designed *intentionally* to provoke strong reactions, Johnson explicitly admits this when interviewed. And it was a perfectly good SW movie. Cheesy with some great themes... but it belonged in its own trilogy away from the "oldschool fantasy" of Luke's "heroes story."
Despite hating his fan interactions, I think he'd do a fantastic job with his own trilogy following a new generation of Jedi.
RoS was pure fanservice, great spectacle, some great moments... but was rushed and left so many things unresolved or ignored.
Why they didn't just read the Thrawn trilogy and either adapt it with older main characters OR write a 3 movie plot (again with older characters) to lead up to it, I'll never know.
More people should experience that trilogy.
(sorry for the excessive rants... I'm a loose cannon! ^^)
Hyperbolic , for attention . Yup can be an issue . On the other side people can be vicious
and purposely hurtful .
Oh for sure! The sad thing is on the internet everyone can misbehave no matter where you stand on the issue.
Getting into your point on the size of fandoms as a characteristic of fandoms that can become toxic and Wheel of Time being an outlier there I think size is less of determining factor than a souring with the quality of the overall content the of source material.
Like Star Wars was big before the prequels and the sequels. But I'd warrant if you look at those progressively worsening entries in the series you will note an significant increase in toxicity alongside the increase in poor quality content. Bad content brings out the worst in people who ordinarily would be content... and it brings out the worst in those fans who are just unhinged and have invested themselves so much in a series that they get outright violent and feel personally attacked and start sending death threats. Most of these Unhinged people in a fandom though when things are good don't act up.
Unhinged members of a fandom should however not be confused with people who are genuinely passionate fans and produce content like streams or videos offering negative critiques... it is unfortunately a favored tactic by the media mentioned in this video and obsessively positive fans to smear every critical and passionate voice as unginged toxic lunatics based upon the actions and words of the small minority of Unhinged fans.
Also when talking about toxicity I think an element of that toxicity alot of people neglect are obsessively positive fans or "stans" who are often as toxic and unhinged as the worst critical fans. These obsessively positive fans will often do anything to defend the show including smearing those critical, insulting them, threatening, and gaslight people that think there is something wrong with something like the adaptation of Wheel of Time. To them the validation of having their hobby represented so well in public eye and seeing a pl art of their identity so thoroughly spread is very important and they get as violent as the critical types when you try to criticize and compromise their validation.
In general though I think the Wheel of Time fandom would probably be significantly less toxic if the adaptation was actually good though. Because the negative outliers of the fandom would be mostly happy, and the positive outliers wouldn't feel like their identity is being attacked as much because their identity isn't based on a collapsing pile of sand. They both would still exist on the fringes, but if the content is good there is nothing to stir them up.
"brings out the worst in those fans who are just unhinged and have invested themselves so much in a series that they get outright violent and feel personally attacked and start sending death threats. Most of these Unhinged people in a fandom though when things are good don't act up." 💯 ABSOLUTELY AGREE
That's the thing that tests a fandom. It's the negativity. It's why Sanderson fans have had some dicey times recently because of the whole Kickstarter thing. Something to stir up the fandom is when the real claws come out.
This is where I really agree that when a space is highly moderated, it creates a more positive experience. Moderation is not perfect but it’s so much better than the alternative. Let people express their relevant opinions, but stop things like personal attacks and going way off topic.
As a big flamming nerd myself, I've been annoyed by the whole "Toxic Fanbase" thing also. This is a good take on the topic Bookborn. Keep up the good work!
This phenomenon of a small amount (or single) tweet being picked up by one other platform and then escalated by others is basically what happened with the Tide Pod craze. There were actually very few people who ate a tide pod, and then it got blown up (which advertised the act to others) and it became a meme of "Gen Z loves eating Tide Pods LOL" when a miniscule amount of people ate a tide pod as part of a challenge (this, of course, excludes the sad event of toddlers sincerely thinking Tide Pods look like snacks, and is only referring to teenagers and older kids knowingly ingesting the pods for a challenge)
That makes...a lot of sense. I bet this happens more often than we think.
Lets be quite clear but fandoms have always been toxic however the problem has gotten much worst thanks in part to the wider proliferation of the internet.
There is a term for this: Pareto Principle.
The Pareto principle says 20% of people produce 80% of the product. This can be broken down even further as 20% of the 20% produce 80% of the 80%. The bigger a fandom is, the further it can be broken down. That means the growth of toxicity in a fandom might not actually be linear to the growth of the fandom.
So as the fandom grows on a linear trend, the number of toxic people might grow logarithmically
100 fans:1 toxic
500 fans:3 toxic
2000:5 10,000:7…
@@jsbrads1 The number of toxic people grows linearly as well, but their efficiency grows logarithmically.
With small groups, you have a few people who write one toxic post per day, but with big ones, you have a few who spend every waking moment shitposting.
@@schwarzerritter5724 that is a phd paper… the Pareto principle of toxic people.
Being a Star Wars fan has taught me many things:
-some people will just complain about things for the sake of complaining.
-some people will recognize what’s objectively good or bad.
-some people will know something is bad but still enjoy it, which is okay.
-some people will accept anything and just consume for the sake of consumption.
-some people are some of the most kind and welcoming people you’ll ever meet.
-some people are extremely talented and creative and want to continue the brand for everyone to enjoy.
-the brand is not your friend, only an asset for monetary gain.
Malazan was one I had to be extremely careful where I talked about it. I know for me, I didn't watch your Boba videos after the first one or two because of you and Zack having issues and I was trying to preserve the little enjoyment I was having in the show (it was mainly bad). It's with every new big thing that comes around, the Star Wars Prequels, the Chris Pine Star Trek (or literally every new iteration of Star Trek), to even Daniel Craig being James Bond (or heaven forbid the convos around a black or female Bond they've had). It all comes down to expectations being different from the delivered product and most of the flame typically is out in a short period of time. Now that can be fatal in some cases, like the Buzz Lightyear movie, but the mellowing can then allow for the further appreciation of content we have with a bit of time behind it. People love the Prequels (aside from a bit of the writing/acting) and movies like Clue, that failed miserably in the box office are now cult classics. I appreciate this video. Thank you for the time and effort you put in.
Truly hateful and toxic fans are the worst. Hearing what happened to Boyega and others shocked me at first and then just made me sad. I do not understand what makes some people go off the deep end in their raging belittlement of others, but it truly sickens me. This is why I tend to stay away from the more popular forums/sites just because I know the negativity and toxicity will wear me down.
Of course - there is a difference between toxicity and negativity, is there not? If someone is trolling or being racist, misogynistic or just hateful, that's one thing. But to be negative or critical towards a creative work, that's something different. I do think that some genre fans can be very passionate and have strong opinions on what "should be" in a given story universe, hence their strong opinions can come across as negative when they are criticizing new stories or adaptations in that universe. Is this in and of itself toxic? I would argue not! But the problem is, the toxic few (or - the 1%!) are the ones whose voices are noticed the most, and so whenever the defenders come out, they will focus on those toxic comments and all who are critical are then painted with the same brush. It's a shame really, as it shuts down intelligent, reasoned discourse and simply becomes a battle of who can shout the loudest. That's why I agree with your point that the larger communities tend to get this problem the most!
It is a shame though, truly, as some of the recent discussions about WoT, Star Wars, LotR and others have become all about the toxic few who spew racist and sexist drivel. By no means do I stand with them, but it does make it hard to make my points heard about the genuine issues I have with these new adaptations! (Hint, my problem isn't with the color of their skin or if they're a guy/girl...it's the writing, people!! Make good stories that genuinely respect the source material and we will watch!!)
Again to your point, I've enjoyed finding a few small communities where I feel safe and enjoy discussing my thoughts about my favourite fandoms. I don't want to spend my time discussing these things filling up with rage and sadness!! I want to be talking with people that I can respect and feel their respect for me as well, y'know?
Also - I can't quite remember anymore, but pretty sure I discovered you through one of your WoT videos. So there's that! =D
the theory could be applied to everything , when you think about it ( example; politics)
Love your channel.. and your opinions and thank you for book recommendations.
The only fandom I really have any direct knowledge about is the Star Wars fandom. It pains me to admit this but I think the portion of the fandom is quite toxic. Gatekeepers all over the freakin place. And if don't like particular pieces of content then you must "not be intelligent enough" to understand it. I do see that people who honestly have things they dislike about content get lumped together with those who seem to just want to hate on everything and that's so unfortunate.
Oh my gosh the "you just didn't get it" argument is the WORST. Like No, we got it, we just didn't' like it 😂
@@Bookborn Yes! And it's always done in such a condescending tone as well. I mean if someone dislikes something I've enjoyed i don't think that person is stupid, come on?!? I do enjoy hearing different takes on things when it leads to cool conversations
@@BookbornAnd for whatever reason I get "you're just not smart enough" nearly as much as my lady nerd friends. Which is curious.