Are there certain kinds of entertainment you enjoy while keeping a significant distance from the general population of its fandom?
Are there certain kinds of entertainment you enjoy while keeping a significant distance from the general population of its fandom?
Warhammer and 40k in general is that to me.
I found Bruva Alfabusa's "If the Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device" series to be a treasure, along with his other videos. I believed they were in the spirit of satire and absurdism which is where 40k started and should have stayed.
Unfortunately, the cultural overlap between online "purge the xeno, purge the mutant" :le-pol-face: and "deus vult" :le-pol-face: is almost a circle when I see it and that sucks.
Games Workshop consumer culture, especially in stores, is especially toxic in my area and I assume that isn't a one time anomaly. I brought my wife once. Never again.
I also used to be a big Star Wars fan (still enjoyed The Mandalorian for what it's worth, marketing cringe aside), and that's one fandom I'm glad I left far behind when its loudest elements became especially reactionary.
Also, I really can't look at space exploration the same way anymore when there's so many :melon-musk: worshipping bazinga brains polluting any and all discussion of it online.
I wish I could watch military history videos on youtube, but that whole subculture is so reactionary that typical bona fides for being "one of the good ones" is acknowledging that the wehrmacht is bad actually.
Oh, I can relate to that so much.
Rommel fanboys/apologists are on a whole new level of bad fandom there, too.
Opera fandom, though there's a split between singers and crew (who are basically a secret Vanguard Party) and the audience, who leans so far right they think the Black Hundreds weren't monarchist enough.
Are we the same person? For me add "Roman and Medieval technology and history" to the list. I watch a lot of youtube videos about castles and swords, and at one point met up with a local HEMA chapter - but I stopped going after a couple months because half the people were fash.
Damn, that's a good question, because I was particularly fascinated by medieval and Roman technology at the same time and both fandoms disappointed and disturbed me when I reached out to share my enthusiasm.
I wanted to talk about Republic-era aqueduct technology and the wonders of Caeserian-era concrete, but instead I got "Carthage delenda est" chuddery.
I wanted to talk about the stirrup, about trade secrets of stained glass, and the ongoing state of the art of castle building century by century, but instead I got "Deus vult" chuddery.
:desolate:
I refuse to play any video game online.
I really like tactical shooters, you can imagine what the fandom around them is like.
Oh, I know VERY well what the fandom around them is like because I play them too. :desolate:
I've thought about it'd be cool if I had money coming in and a nice PC and could get games going online for everyone to engage in. I was just talking to someone about Project Reality today.
Paradox games
Aka: now your country is red! and Your country is red! and YOUR country is..
Iol playing Stellaris at the moment and through sheer fleet power, espionage and diplomatic arm twisting I've forced the members of the galactic community to institute shared burdens or utopian abundance, outlaw slavery and tie their political power to the working class or suffer extreme punitive sanctions. The games are fun but the fanbase is not.