To some people, there is only one thing worse than anything they consider horrible — people liking it.
In a nutshell, a Fan Hater is someone in a Hatedom, who hates not only the work, but also the fans of that work.
The thing is that to these people, art is Serious Business, and they treat their enjoyment of art the way some people take to competitive gaming. If you like anything not up to their standards, they will either mock you, mock that thing in front of your face, or just go on a diatribe about why you shouldn't like that thing. Fan Haters tend to refer to the targets of their hatred as the "Lowest Common Denominator" or "unwashed masses".
As a work becomes more popular, the probability of such a group appearing approaches one. Today's media landscape seems to encourage this somewhat, because In a World where executives and producers seem to believe in Quality By Popular Vote, and because Ratings are so important in determining what keeps getting made and what gets canceled, it's easy for fans of one thing that might be on the verge of getting canned to resent the people who are making another work so popular (and thus keeping it on the air), as they blame those fans for their own favorite work's misfortune.
But others seem to just want to rail against fans simply because they think it makes them superior. This group is comparable to Moral Guardians, only it's their own subjective tastes they are trying to guard. These kinds of people are a big reason for some people's mentality of He Panned It, Now He Sucks: Fan Haters are always waiting for an opportunity to pounce, and even a single negative critical opinion of something is usually enough to "justify" their "this thing is bad and you should feel bad for liking it" rants. It also contributes to Complaining about People Not Liking the Show: because there are quite a few Fan Haters out there, some fans mistake an honest criticism of a work for Fan Hating and get very defensive.
It is a very odd phenomenon, because after all, different people enjoy different things. And maybe they just enjoy it for one reason or another, not because of their sexual orientation, not because of their intelligence, not because they're old or inexperienced, they just happen to like it. But chances are if you like something that's subject to fan haters, expect one of those comments to be thrown at you. It's incredibly rare (at least, on the internet) to see someone who actually acknowledges that maybe you like different things not because you're mentally ill or homosexual or "haven't seen a 'true' something".
Of course actually being familiar with the works people aren't supposed to like is entirely optional.
Contrast the inverse, Complaining about People Not Liking the Show, where fans of a show will lambaste you for not liking it. This activity has also been known to spawn Fan Haters, though in that case, the hate starts with the fans and spreads to the work. Also, when a fan likes the show, but is a Fan Hater toward a certain character on the show, it's a specific type of Fan Dumb known as The Hate Monger.
Be warned some may pretend to be fan haters, but are in fact Trolls, which some find to be worse, depending on who you are.
A Sub Trope of Hatedom, Hate Dumb, and Opinion Myopia.
Due to past messes, please avoid Take That statements, flame bait, "This Troper" blurbs, redundancy and redundancy.
Websites specializing in Fan Hating (and Hatedom):
Hype Backlash - In which they hate a work simply because of the attention it has received or is receiving. A subset hates things that are critically-acclaimed.
And especially Guilty Pleasures, because they'll try to make you feel guilty for it.
Examples here should be from in media.
Anime & Manga
Love Lucky has an in-universe example with Erika, the female lead singer of the rock band "M.I.T.", who is a self-professed hater of "normal people". This apparently arose from the way she was treated by the band's fans after she replaced the previous lead.
Sub/dub debates, too. Some "true" fans love to lambaste fans for loving dubs of Anime, stating that all of them are bad — including well-respected dubs like the Ghibli dubs, Cowboy Bebop.
Hey, in some fan's eyes, you're not even allowed to like the Disney redubs of "Kiki", "Laputa", and "Totoro"—the only versions you should ever like are the non-Disney dubs with "REAL" actors that are all "perfect" for their roles, and that Disney's voice actors are "wrong" and "butcher the movies". Anyone who thinks otherwise has "no right to call themselves a REAL Ghibli fan." Never mind that Miyazaki himself has no problems with them whatsoever.
Dragon Ball Z has an in-universe case of this. In one of the episodes during the Buu arc before the World Martial Arts Tournament begins, Krillin comments on how he's unsure of who is more annoying: Mr. Satan or his fans.
My Immortal is basically set in a world with this as its hat. There are but three sorts of people in My Immortal-land; "goffs", "posers" and "preps". Being a "goff", which entails wearing black clothes from Hot Topic and listening to the emo bands the author likes, is the One True Path and everyone else sucks for existing. "Preps" are the unwashed masses who shop at Abercrombie & Fitch and worship Britney Spears. "Posers" are "preps" who try to be "goffic" but listen to the "wrong" music and are thus evil.
This one is based in reality. During the late 1970s there was a very real rivalry between rock fans and disco fans. The rivalry came to a head on July 12, 1979 (sometimes referred to as "the night disco died") during a baseball promotion called Disco Demolition Night, which resulted in thousands of rock fans storming the field at Chicago's Comiskey Park to express their hatred of disco. The event made news worldwide and less than a year later disco was effectively dead in the United States and Canada (although it would remain popular in Europe for another few years). See also: Deader than Disco
Even Roger Ebert did this once, saying: "Those who think "Transformers" (Revenge of the Fallen) is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve. Those people contain multitudes. They deserve films that refresh the parts others do not reach. They don't need to spend a lifetime with the water only up to their toes."
There's a line in American Psycho where Patrick mentions that no one should feel sympathy for the woman he's forcing into getting an abortion due to the fact that her favorite movie is Pretty In Pink and "she thinks Sting is cool."
Rob Fleming from High Fidelity (Rob Gordon in The Movie) questions how one can be friends with people whose favorite band are Simple Minds. One of the reasons why he dislikes Ian is because of that weird ethno music he listens to. And Barry chases a potential customer out of Rob's record store because he wanted to acquire I Just Called To Say I Love You, a song from Stevie Wonder's 80s pop period.
If you like Final Fantasy or any JRPGs, then there is a 100% chance you will be hated by Adam and Morgan of X-Play. They're part of the reason there's a taboo against saying anything positive about JRPGs. Also consider yourself hated if you like anime—which they in particular love to trash, most of their Fullmetal Alchemist and Dragon Ball Z game reviews are trashing the people who will flame them.
Adam and Morgan (less and less as of late, as we might get two reviews in a week now) flame them because, as they've stated repeatedly, they get hate mail every time they review a JRPG or anime-licensed game, regardless of the actual score they give. Note the lack of backlash from fans of other components of X-Play'sBias Steamroller (Dynasty Warrior games, World War II-based franchises, movie tie-ins).
In Friends, it's mentioned that Chandler once broke up with a girl because she didn't hate Yanni.
Fox News does not like Bronies, stating they're a bunch of manchildren who quit their jobs to watch the show. Of course, this only adds to their already notorious reputation.
On BZ Power, there is a very small (and not very vocal) minority of people who absolutely despise people who like Hero Factory, and would like them all to move to another site.
And there have been plenty of old-school LEGO fanatics that developed a deep hatred for BIONICLE and its fans on various forums, purely because the line mostly avoided using the classic Bricks and were more action figures than mere models. Thankfully, their vocal presence has decreased once the series became huge and its fans started defending themselves.
Calling the movie crap and one of the worst films of 2010 and insulting anyone who liked it by saying they have low standards and are easily entertained
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He also said that if you like Final Fantasy XIII, you are lying to yourself.
Random DCE was known for this, especially in his early years. While he softened up in recent years, he still thinks [liking anime is beneath him.
Yahtzee is prone to doing this and he doesn't just hate one kind of gamer - he's hated on people who like Eastern RPGs, Western RPGs, Silent Hill fans (even he admits to doing so himself - he said his Silent Hill Origins review was mostly him crying) people who like Halo, people who played Psychonauts, people who didn't play Psychonauts, console gamers, PC gamers, fans of point and click adventure games, people who own a Wii, fans of MMORPGs, Korean gamers, fans of sprite comics, fans of Control Alt Delete, fans of The Sims, Retro gamers, Indie gamers, people who hate retro, people who hate indies, Joss Whedon, anyone who likes Joss Whedon, etc. In general, it's safe to assume that Yahtzee hates everyone, and the sensitive souls who take it to heart aren't in for a good time. Unfortunately, people on The Escapisthave somehow taken this mindset seriously and adopted it, and will sadly probably never ever enjoy a video game again.
The biggest example is his Super Smash Bros review. At least 60% of the review itself was saying "I do not like fighting games so I will not show any interest in it" or hating on fans, then the following up video was fan hatred.
Rule of Funny is firmly in play here, he's admitted several times during reviews that 'you don't watch me to like things', and occasionally makes jokes about scrambling to make a joke about something he has arbitrarily decided to hate because he has to hate something.
Particularly evident in his Portal2 review. He barely had anything bad to say, so he ended up spending the entire video complaining that the environments were too expansive in single player.
Distressed Watcher. Full stop. He made nine videos complaining about the Star Wars prequels. You can argue about the quality, but he outright insults people who liked those movies, calling them stupid.
Black Pawn Movement is made up of a group of fans and anti-fans of the series Twilight, dealing with the most obnoxious fans on Youtube. Since the Twilight hype has died down, they have been switching to music, such as Lady Gaga, Insane Clown Posse, and Justin Bieber.
