I liked Undertale when it came out, but the fandom really has made me not want to return to it. I feel that just as you can’t separate the artist from the work,you can’t separate the work from the fandom.
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As a fan of Sonic I have to agree.
In the same way that I don’t necessarily sit square with the first statement, I think I wholly disagree with the latter.
This is because I, in general, think that there’s no such thing as a good big fandom.
Once a fandom gets past a certain size, it is wholly out of the hands of the original creator and there’s very little that can be done to put any kind of control on them. In many ways, works don’t get the fandoms they deserve – great works get no attention, awful works get adoring fanbases (Detroit: Become Human, anyone?), and good games receive obnoxious fanbases.
Indeed, the shape and contour of a fandom often depends more on the structure of discourse than anything else; the difference between fandoms that one finds on Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit (or anywhere else) are pretty stark because each of those breeds a different kind of fan, who might cross-pollinate elsewhere but often with less success.
I think there’s a way in which we can discoursively assume “oh, this fandom is bad” without necessarily thinking through if it may be for no fault of the work, but simply the time, place, and fortune of its success.
It might be easy to lump a work in with its fandom, but I’d say it’s almost never a good call. If we judged every work by its worst fans, we’d be in a bad spot.
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While fandoms are not necessarily the responsibility of the work or its creator, I can definitely see one’s opinion of a work being colored by a fandom. Like, I don’t have any interest in watching Rick & Morty simply because everything I’ve seen about the fandom has been awful. Is that fair to the show? Probably not, but I don’t think my reason for dismissal is invalid.
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I disagree with you there if what you mean by dismissal is a dismissal of the work itself. A fandom can definitely put you off of a work to the point where you don’t want to interact with it. You aren’t obligated to watch, read, or play anything. But I don’t think that means you should outright dismiss the original work, especially if it isn’t indicative of the fandom that grew up around it.
These days with niche obsessive internet culture it seems like toxic fandoms are springing up around totally benign works like Undertale, one of the most positive games around (unless I missed some questionable secret area or hateful tirade by Toby Fox). It seems more and more important to not let the internet ruin good things for you. Sometimes you just need to isolate yourself from the discussion and enjoy it on your own.
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Hot take: the culture around hot takes is bad and we should all read less of other people’s takes.
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Hate to be the truth-in-the-middle jerk, but while it’s best to try and look past a lot of fandom bullshit (especially under late capitalism where everything, even explicitly leftist stuff, is appropriated and expected to grow absolute in-group/out-group dynamics), there is value in observing ideological thrulines in the audience/praise that any piece of art garners, and why a category or single piece might attract a certain audience consistently. Dismissing looking at fandoms because everything has a bad fandom of some sort can be as unhealthy/unrealistic of an approach as cancelling anything that has a bad fandom can be. It’s like how everything’s problematic to some degree; there’s rarely an unambiguous judgement to cast on it, but it’s always an aspect to take into consideration.
I mean, nowadays fans literally fund certain works, focus on niche markets based on common fan demands is becoming more en vogue, there is a feedback loop of culture here and it’s arguably growing. It’s not always bad, but it is influential (and uh, it is usually bad. Deltarune is actually good though so Undertale’s okay IMO)
I ain’t here to dictate why someone shouldn’t be uninterested in a game, tho, even if I still dig it. You can see gross enough things happen in a fandom that the mental association can just yuck any potential yum, regardless of the thing in a vacuum. It happens.
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We 100% can separate a work from its creator’s intent, because knowing a creator’s intent always requires further research than just experiencing the work. The question should instead be whether or not we should, and I think that kind of formalism can sometimes (even often) be useful in considering how people who aren’t as familiar with an author or a canon might experience a work. Obviously there are limits, but there are also limits to how useful marinating a work in its authorial or historical context will be. Authors don’t always write what they intend to write.
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master chief is solid snake’s dad
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I think it’s a case by case basis. I haven’t hung around the places where toxic Rick and Morty fans congregate so I’ve only heard of their horribleness second hand. Consequently I don’t have any deep negative associations with the show itself and if I ever choose to watch more than the first season I’ll be much more free to judge it with my own eyes.
As someone who spent most of their teen years at the dawn of the internet when you weren’t bombarded by social media, Tumblr, Twitter etc it seems easier to freely enjoy things you might like when they get to stand on their own and aren’t as associated with the most vocal parts of an anonymous fandom.
I agree with this. I think I was in a mood of sweeping generalizations this morning.
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Fallout 76 still looks pretty good imo, and I firmly believe that game uses wide spaces really well. Its towns are a really good step forward. They feel like big spaces with different areas - Morgantown isn’t just a few houses and an airport, it’s an entire fuckin airport next to a small town, with a university. The tutorial area similarly has a scale that actually makes it feel like a town. That’s the main thing I really like about that game.
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In-game ranking systems aren’t a useful measure of your actual skill level and should probably be relegated to a score mode so that you’re not pelted with conflicting information while you’re playing for the first time.
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I mean, you would know I guess.
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what do you mean
Uh, do you mean that you’re not actually famed gameman Hideo Kojima?
i am famed gamesman hideo kojima yes
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tell us of your love for Mads
Okay, so, obviously you would know, because of your work on noted Halo prequel, Policenauts
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i am a huge fan of steven guttenberg but i had nothing to do with that movie
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