This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
This appears to be an unattributed quote:
- Happens all the time in the world of sports, thanks largely to sportswriters. Sportswriters, despite their cynicism (or perhaps because of it), desperately want to believe in the concept of athletes as heroes, and will project that image onto anyone who offers a blank slate — namely, young players, who haven't been in the league long enough to make their real personalities known. So you'll get people who didn't know Doc Gooden from Jack the Ripper six months ago and have never talked to him closer than six feet from his locker writing very earnestly about what a fine young man he is. Rickey Henderson was routinely described, from 1980 to 1982, as "a Jack Armstrong type kid". Then, when the player reveals himself to have real failings — to be human, in other words — those same writers feel betrayed and tear apart their former heroes, even though the player did nothing to deserve either the initial adulation or the later disappointment.
Andrew: As I noted on the Ask The Tropers page, it's taken from The New Bill James Historical Abstract, written in 2000. Some of it is re-arranged, and there are some original sentences spliced in, but as a whole it pretty much completely rips off the Dwight Gooden comment in the pitchers section of the book.
Tanto: Hmm. Let me take a hack at it — it's a salient point, I think, but plagiarism is a no-no.
Andrew: That change works for me.
Zeke: Adjusted:
- Also subverted, because Mike decided that he liked the author despite his controversial views and decided to focus on his writings, not the author's personality.
Rebochan: Wow. This is a terrible trope. I'm pretty sure it's already covered in the various other tropes related to fandom too. It's just a giant page of Complaining About Shows You Dont Like and its so damn broad that I could list anything I have a beef with and claim acceptance by the "fandom" so long as I can claim I am disillusioned. That intro is a myriad mess, as well. An intro that's longer than the page? Seriously? Is there any reason I shouldn't send this for cut list discussion?
Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Depends. Do you want the trope cut?... It is too broad and too vague, and the current description does take too long to define it. We ought to define it in contrast to Artist Disillusionment, which is well-defined. If we did, then the basic definition would look something like "Fan Disillusionment is when most of the fans of a work cease to be fans or become an Unpleasable Fanbase." Problem is, that first option should be covered thoroughly by Deader Than Disco, and the second is not clearly definable.
Rebochan: Only reason I didn't cutlist was in case there really were people that were invested in making this work. The laconic wiki definition seems to be suggesting your second case, which is impossible. Deader Than Disco seems to cover a work that is pretty measurably not popular anymore, which makes it easier to define than a nebulous "The fans don't like it anymore". This page has a few examples of "The fanbase is unlikeable", but that's not really tropeworthy in and of itself since anyone could claim that. I'd like to offer it to the Cutlist God, but I figured I'd toss it out here first.
Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: The Laconic definition does appear to be the intended definition; if it were on this page, there might be less trouble. It is a valid definition - but again, it is covered by Deader Than Disco. (The thing about disco is, it was popular at the time; but not only is it unpopular now, but no one will admit to ever liking it.) We do not want to list examples on a troper by troper basis here anymore than we would on Discontinuity, which could be seen as the partial version of this - in Dis Continuity, the fans have rejected something that, strictly speaking, should be part of their fandom.... Dis Continuity and So Bad Its Horrible have tests of plurality: Discontinuity tests that a significant group of fans all reject that item listed, and the Horrible indexes test that there is no true fandom for a given work. We'd need a similar test here - that the fanbase did an Abandon Ship on the entire fandom - and it would be even more difficult with this than with those...
- The Horrible indexes indicate that, if this could be made into a legit trope (regular or Darth Wiki), the Spider Man comics might qualify. Works rejected from there because of past-tense fanbases could also be listed.
Fanti Sci: Fan Disillusionment is the fraternal twin of Artist Disillusionment - they were launched at the same time (hence A.D.'s YKTTW is also F.D.'s YKTTW). It specifically refers to a personal response to a work - feeling "betrayed", rightly or wrongly, by the people who make the series, just as A.D. deals with artists who feel betrayed by the fans/their job. The "Incredibles" and "Misery" entries sum it up best. Deader Than Disco is when a work has zero (or at least, pretty close to zero) fans - they are not the same tropes, as evidenced by the fact that the examples all state popular entertainment, not dead ones.
Incidentally, I've read through the article again, and I really don't see all that much whining/comlaining/Fan Dumb. Most of the examples are entirely legitimate and most refer to the fictional application. Perhaps you could outline where you see evidence of over-complaining? And someone's already been good enough to break out the hedge-clippers on the article, but if it's still too long more revision can be done.
Rebochan: This is my problem with the article, and I'll break it down by example.
- Pokémon has this in spades. Being one of the longest running animes in recent times, it's accumulated its fair number of strong, intense camps, who may or may not ruin it for everyone else. Shippers are particularly bad offenders. For the casual fan, the sheer intensity can quickly turn them away. It gets creepy when someone is flaming you for not believing that Ash and Brock are together, or that Pikachu is a guy/girl.
Hatedom.
- Going on your average Neon Genesis Evangelion forum is akin to putting your nose next to someone's anus and breathing deeply. This troper imagines that the fans are quite a bit of the reason why the series is seen as overrated and So Okay Its Average, at best.
One guy complaining that he hates Evangelion boards.
- Many fans of Twilight quickly became disillusioned once "Breaking Dawn" came out. Unfortunately, there are still millions of zealous fans.
- Square Enix sent a cease and desist order to the 5-years in development ROM hack Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, on the eve of its release. (As of May 2009, it was 98% complete, and planned to be released on May 31st). Several people who were eagerly awaiting the hack have resolved to boycott Square Enix.
- Valve is dealing with this with the recent announcement of Left 4 Dead 2. Fans put them on a pedestal, then they release a sequel a year later, like Call of Duty and sports games. Cue cries of anger (albeit ones based in having to pay for content Valve initially announced would be free.)
- Many Halo fans are currently expressing disillusionment about Halo 3: ODST's price.
Three examples of Ruined Forever. And yes, I know I added something to the Square entry, but looking it over, it's still just another form of Ruined Forever.
- This seems to be happening in the Avatar fandom as every piece of news about the live action movie seems to be designed specifically to strip away all the unique things that made the show interesting, beginning with a race lift of the entire cast.
- A huge portion of the fandom has felt that way ever since the creators made it obvious they had it in for Zutara shippers. Welcome to the club.
- Now that they've released a trailer for the live-action movie a new mindset is evolving, the "Looks okay, but don't screw it up!!!" people.
Ruined Forever with a little whining from the Die for Our Ship crowd that's still not happy their non-canon shipping wasn't made canon just to please them.
Looking over the page, there's probably room for examples of this happening in fiction where it's easily able to verify, which might be a better direction to take the trope in the first place.
Fanti Sci: Valid point. I can trim this later on to comprise of the fictional examples (which, after all, make up the majority of the article) and shunt the rest to the appropriate page. Meaning that the solution is "trim the examples" rather than the above "nuke the entire trope" I take it? Since that would be the equivalent of using a firebomb to clear a few weeds.
Rebochan: Yea, I was a bit hasty. The Ruined Forever stuff was drowning out the good stuff.
Rebochan: Since I had some time, I went ahead and drastically rewrote the page to only focus on fictional examples. I'm thinking that if people really want to vent their fan rage, we could spin off a Darth Wiki page, but that could possibly have issues. Anyone have anything else to offer?
