Actual rage and loathing...
Things should never reach hype-status. Hype changes things and what might have started out as something you dislike, for instance, Twilight, becomes a source of loathing and anger - so much so that every time you come across blog posts, articles, TV spots or just people gushing about it, you want to yell STFU.
When things become so hyped, peeps get turned off by it. Or they expect it to be amazing (eg. the korean drama Coffee Prince), only to discover it to be just better than average. And you realise that if they hadn't heard the hype they might have enjoyed it a lot more.
In some cases, fandom does make everything better. I'm sure I'd have lost interest in HP after so much public mania, (like my sister who has yet to read books 6 and 7) if not for the sporking, crack and awesome fanworks that showed that even juvenile epilogues can be a source of entertainment and in some cases, oddly interesting fic :)
Hype means that everyone and anyone is talking about the thing and we have comparisons where "The Twilight series is the next Harry Potter series" and then all the Twilight fanmoms girls jump out yelling, "Guyz, it's SO MUCH BETTER than Harry Potter, like DUH" and all you want to do is facepalm cause that is JUST NOT ON.
Fandom means the fangirling/fanboying occurs in less public groups where one can go crazy over the subject matter, make badges and cookies and scarves all about your OTP - while not trying to convince random people that yes Zuko and Katara are MEANT for each other and who is this Aang person anyway? Nevermind that all those people care about is someone called Toph...wait, oh yeah, that short girl. Pfft, she came in during Season 2 and is obviously not a main character. Zuko/Katara FTW
*headesk*
Long story short, these two posts and more specifically this thread made me wonder if there was a place on LJ where peeps can share their dismay over Twilight mania. A place of refuge from the sparkles of vampire glitter that leave you cringing. Please tell me there is a community, please.
When things become so hyped, peeps get turned off by it. Or they expect it to be amazing (eg. the korean drama Coffee Prince), only to discover it to be just better than average. And you realise that if they hadn't heard the hype they might have enjoyed it a lot more.
In some cases, fandom does make everything better. I'm sure I'd have lost interest in HP after so much public mania, (like my sister who has yet to read books 6 and 7) if not for the sporking, crack and awesome fanworks that showed that even juvenile epilogues can be a source of entertainment and in some cases, oddly interesting fic :)
Hype means that everyone and anyone is talking about the thing and we have comparisons where "The Twilight series is the next Harry Potter series" and then all the Twilight fan
Fandom means the fangirling/fanboying occurs in less public groups where one can go crazy over the subject matter, make badges and cookies and scarves all about your OTP - while not trying to convince random people that yes Zuko and Katara are MEANT for each other and who is this Aang person anyway? Nevermind that all those people care about is someone called Toph...wait, oh yeah, that short girl. Pfft, she came in during Season 2 and is obviously not a main character. Zuko/Katara FTW
*headesk*
Long story short, these two posts and more specifically this thread made me wonder if there was a place on LJ where peeps can share their dismay over Twilight mania. A place of refuge from the sparkles of vampire glitter that leave you cringing. Please tell me there is a community, please.
fartssays they love it. Then I start despairing about the whole human race and come over all cynicalish and genocidal.Enjoy! =]
"J K Rowling showed that some Young Adult books can be over 500 pages. Stephenie Meyer showed that some shouldn't be"
and...
"Edward can't read Bella's mind because she's a speshul little snowflake"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/Kaynobi/DSCF2572.jpg
Seeing the book get good reviews and awards (however dubious) and get on lists makes me whimper.
ETA: Er... the second sentence came out sounding wrong. I meant rambling in front of me. Not making love to Edward in front of me.
Edited at 2008-07-11 05:31 am (UTC)
The saddest thing is that Edward usually means Edward Elric which means Fullmetal Alchemist which is LOVE. Now my mind is making associations where Edward means Edward the vamp and NOOOOOOOO.
If I had friends who yammered on about Twilight, I wouldn't be able to help complain about it whenever they started up. It's not something I can contain :(
I cracked up with the Avatar analogy XD
On overhype, I can understand the feeling. For me, it wasn't Twilight but the anime series, Guren Lagaan and Code Geass, both of which were so hyped up by everyone and praised to the high heavens and AJKSHJSHJA. The worse is when these fans insisted on shoving how 'Guren and CG are teh best anime evah!' in all of anime. Psh. It's due to those hype that I have no interest or intention of ever watching these two series. Pity as I probably would have liked them some way or other.
Anyway the book makes a good door stop as far as I am concerned and it blew my mind when I saw a trailer for the movie recently when I went to the theater, I couldn't believe some one was dumb enough to pay a screenwriter to make a script, let alone green light the project.
anyway, I just wanted to say ditto to everything you said earlier.
Edited at 2008-07-11 11:15 am (UTC)
Then there's Twilight. It's one thing to pass these off if you haven't read them, to say they're crap because of the subject matter or the age of the characters or the setting. But for the life of me I cannot understand anyone - even people who love nothing better than vampires in the ENTIRE WORLD - still liking these after reading them. A lot of people's excuses are that they would have loved them when they were younger. Not good enough. Roald Dahl, Meg Cabot, Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgeson Burnett, LM Montgomery - they all wrote kids books that are eminently readable no matter what age you are.
Someone said in that thread that there was crack in the ink. I'm inclined to believe that. However, my copy was crack-free, just full of shit writing.
Edited at 2008-07-11 11:51 am (UTC)