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It's Popular, Now it Sucks
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alt title(s): Its Popular Now It Sucks Do you think that they're too cool now, That being popular is lame? You're the ones who made them popular, All the songs are still the same!
— Five Iron Frenzy, Handbook for the Sellout.
Thou shalt not stop liking a band simply because they've become popular.
I was uncool before uncool was cool.
To modern youth, and to the eternal critic, a wide fanbase does not mean the media in question appeals to a lot of people, but rather that it is low-IQ trash with No Soul that has Sold Out, possibly to the Marketing Machine or even Satan Himself. An extreme form of the Unpleasable Fanbase.
This elitist tendency turns fandom into a speculations market - if you like it before it's popular, only then does your profit margin in coolness points amount to anything when you fling away your shares in the fandom in horror of the masses. (If it never Sells Out, of course, no one will get the name recognition when you say “I liked X before it was popular.”)
What's ironic is how these snobs claim to be X's original and/or true fans - but then drop X like a hot potato, after becoming popular. In actuality, it makes them fair weather fans (or, if you prefer, foul weather fans). If you truly were a fan of X, then you would be supportive of X becoming popular.
This attitude also shows an utter ignorance of simple economics. If more people enjoy the product, then more money goes to the product to support the creation of more material. Bands that “sell out” will be able to devote time to making music if they don't have to go work to support themselves. Licensing companies will purchase the rights to more properties within a genre if consumers are paying to see that genre.
Of course it's not always this black and white. Most of the time, when franchises and such become extremely popular, the executives behind it will occasionally just Pander To The Base and forget about quality because of the overall money it rakes in. This sometimes leads to issues with Jumping The Shark, Wolverine Publicity, Character Derailment, wasted storylines, etc. Any fans will be disgusted of their favorite medium evolving to that. If this happens, fans do have something to complain about.
Differs from Hype Aversion in that it's not so much fear of crazy fans as it is scorn for the proles. Compare with Three Chords And The Truth. For the online person who defines him/her self by this philosophy, see Die Internet. Lowest Common Denominator is related. If this backlash is due to actual deterioration after hitting it big rather than pretentiousness, see Protection From Editors. Often overlaps with They Changed It Now It Sucks. A subsection of Fan Dumb.
Don't worry, though, because The Man Is Sticking It To The Man.
Examples:
Music
- Happened to Pink Floyd after Dark Side of the Moon.
- Green Day fell victim after Dookie, and recorded the song Good Riddance as a response to it (making it a touching ballad instead of their usual pop-punk style as a further Take That). Their renewed popularity in the wake of American Idiot brought with it a renewed bout of Its Popular Now It Sucks.
- Actually, Good Riddance was written before Dookie was released. They did, however, put a song about it (86) on their album Insomnia following Dookie.
- This is extremely common within the punk or pop-punk communities, to the extent that after Against Me! signed to a major label, some old fans slashed the tyres of their cars. Yikes.
- Note to self- never buy a used car from a punk rocker. Especially if he's selling a '95 Neon and there's a new Ferrari next to it in the driveway...
- A lot of people found John Henry, They Might Be Giants's first album with a full band, to be selling out.
- Goth bands are particular targets of this as a band cannot represent the demographic if they go mainstream.
- The most well-known goth examples of this trope are Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. They both got torched by fans after releasing Karmacode and The Silent Force, respectively.
- A relatively true example of "selling out", whatever you think of their music, would be The Goo Goo Dolls after their album A Boy Named Goo, when they drastically changed their sound from high-tempo rock/punk to the mellower soft rock they're famous for today after the success of their single Name. It's good thing they didn't go with the original planned name for the band, The Sex Maggots.
- When Evanescence began to take off, fans were in denial that the band had hit the Lycos 50, even though their only album before Fallen was Origin, a glorified demo tape.
- The band actually wrote more songs before Fallen than were present in the album itself. Most people just don't know about them, which is a pity since many of those who do consider them superior, if less impressive from a technical point of view.
- The hip-hop music genre as a whole is going through this, mostly because the core fanbase (Blacks and Latinos) feel that the artists are pandering to white suburban teens by constantly making popish ringtone songs and club anthems. Not only that, but rappers caused an even further disconnection from their base by being solely money-oriented, or very capitalistic with their subject matter (making songs about cars and money rather than sociopolitical issues and "the struggle" of inner-city life), essentially going from being against the system and establishment to becoming the establishment. This, of course, is a highly contentious and bitterly divisive topic among hip-hop fans.
- Further complaints also stem from the perceived lack of creativity, but when there is creativity it can also lead to "crossing over", thus bringing us to this very trope...cruel irony.
- This troper would argue that the above tropers only listen to mainstream hip-hop. Pop in an underground hip-hop artist like Del or Blackalicious' albums and tell me where the ringtones and fancy cars are.
- To be fair alot of underground artists usually fall into the same cliched pitfalls that mainstream rap has. So Yeah its in the underground as well. Albeit not as much.
- Nobody mentioned Metallica? This band received an incredible amount of hate for their self titled album, which was the most mainstream of Metallica's album. It provided them a lot of success, but now they get criticized for selling out.
- And those who weren't alienated by the black album were pissed off when they went after Napster...
- Like the previously mentioned Metallica, Megadeth received a lot of hatred because they too made their sound more mainstream in the early nineties with the Countdown to Extinction album. Megadeth has moved back to their traditional style, so they don't receive many accusations of selling out anymore.
- Some peopler believe that Kurt Cobain of Nirvana killed himself as a result of his fear of this trope.
- Norwegian singer Lene Marlin had a huge success in Italy and Japan (of all places!) with her first album, Playing my game. Released with little fanfare, the album was not technically exquisite, but most fans loved it anyway and thought of it as simple yet made with passion - music for the sake of itself, rather than in the pursuit of the holy dollar. As a result it was a surprise hit, and good times were had by all. Then year 2003 came along, and with it the highly anticipated release of the second album, Another day. Cue many of the fans (the most outspoken ones, usually) lamenting sore disappointment that Lene had sold out, that while the quality of the music had improved that of the lyrics had plummeted, that the album had been written to cash in on the success of her name, Blah Blah Blah. The third album, Lost in a moment, was unsurprisingly met with even more bashing.
Literature
- Happened to Harry Potter with the massive turnout for Order of the Phoenix - many “fans” assumed the author could get away with writing absolute crap from then on. However, they didn't so much drop the fandom as stick around to complain about everything, thus proving their worth as True Fans.
- Happened to a lesser extent with the influx of new fans the film brought, but the fact that most of them read the books anyway reassured the original fanbase somewhat.
- As stated below, a lot of long-time Lord of the Rings book fans were unhappy with the calibre of fans introduced to Lo TR by the movie trilogy. Many "old-school" fans consider the movie lovers shallow and frivilous, even if said movie lovers were subsequently turned on to the books by the movies.
- Some - not all, of course - people dislike the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer merely because of how insanely popular the books are between young girls... and much older ones as well. Squick.
- In all honesty, this troper doesn't blame them.
Anime
Comic Books
- Some Watchmen fans (and possibly Alan Moore himself) are now sneering at the thought of someone reading the comic because of the upcoming movie.
- Already happening. The trailer's apparently caused the comic to recently become a top-seller. Which is, say it with us now, a good thing.
- This will make Moore hate it all the more since he gets full rights to everything Watchmen based when the graphic novel is out of print for two years.
Computers
- This is arguably happening to Linux right now, with old-schoolers loathing new desktop-tailored distributions (like Ubuntu) exactly because they are so user-friendly. In their opinion, not using the command line a lot automatically means you're not a "true" Linux user.
- Admit to using a social networking site (especially MySpace) and people will label you as having given in to peer pressure.
Live Action TV
- Some (by no means all) "Classic" Doctor Who fans seem to dislike the upswing in popularity the Doctor Who franchise has received with the new series debut. Some of this is down more to the Classic Series still not being as loved as the New Series.
- There seems to be a substantial backlash of this sort to anything by Monty Python (especially, however, Monty Python And The Holy Grail). To be fair, some people might just be sick of the inevitable quotations, since so many people know the quotes and love them (this editor included). Others have different objections.
- This seems to be happening to The Mighty Boosh - many original fans have complained the latest series is too mainstream and lacking in invention. Whether there's been an actual drop in quality is debatable.
Professional Wrestling
- Pro wrestler C.M. Punk was a Smart Mark darling on the independent scene, with the fans hailing him as quite possibly the best wrestler in America (or at the very least, the best wrestler in Ring of Honor, which is kind of synonymous these days). Then he signed with WWE, and became the centerpiece of its ECW revival, and now all of a sudden you can't go into a wrestling forum without hearing about how Punk is overrated and a sloppy wrestler. Some of this might be spillover anger from the fact that the ECW revival has been the definition of So Bad Its Horrible, but Punk was one of the few bright spots of the show, and yet he seems to get the most criticism. And, now that he's moved away from ECW onto Raw and become world champ, the criticisms have only gotten worse.
- Partially due to Hype Backlash - a lot of SmartMarks kept hearing how great Punk was from ROHbots when he was working long main event matches, against top level opponents, with free reign over his character and promos. Five minute extended squashes over Justin Credible didn't quite match up...
Newspaper Comics
- Parodied in Fox Trot. Jason's sister, an Orlando Bloom fan, gets tickets to the Lord Of The Rings movies before he does, and Jason reacts in horror to the idea that he's become mainstream. "I guess I can always go back to Star Wars."
Webcomics
- Indie Pete of Diesel Sweeties is the extreme version of this trope - indeed, he goes so far as to that he only liked bands "before they released any music".
- Playing on this theme, Richard Stevens also released a t-shirt design using a Venn diagram. On the left: "Music I Like". On the right: "Music You Like". In the overlap: "Music I Used To Like."
- Venn diagrams don't work that way!
- Questionable Content discusses this as it relates to Indie bands, resulting in the Theory of Hipster Relativity
 .
- And as it relates to tattoos. At least Dora recognizes when she gets caught in it.
- This xkcd strip places an interesting spin on the trope; apparently, there's more than one reason why Somewhere A Palaeontologist Is Crying.
Video Games
- Some argue that, with the additional installments to the story, the Final Fantasy VII franchise is starting to plummet. They argue that the fun factor of the game is relinquished for the sake of pleasing the fanboys and fangirls, sacrificing the deep integrated storyline that made the original RPG such an amazing game for the sake of indulging in characters such as Sephiroth and Zack.
- Ever since Final Fantasy VII came out, the fanbase appears to have gone from being mildly cult to borderline psychotic, hanging around to bash each and every successive entry that wasn't the identical twin of their favorite game in the series.
- This is not really an example of [1] as Final Fantasy VII was never unpopular. Even prior to release it was heavily anticipated.
- You do realize that there were Final Fantasy games before 7, right?
- Many RPG fans just plain hate Final Fantasy because their perfered series isn't selling as much. The stupidest argument being a Diseaga(which is by all means a good RPG series) fanboy talking about how much better Diseaga III(released this year) was than Final Fantasy Tactics(a game released a whooping 13 years ago).
- This seems to have happened within the Elder Scrolls fanbase with the release of Oblivion.
- Possibly aided by spilled bile from a certain violently gun-shy fandom Bethesda reluctantly bought the attention of in a package deal.
- It goes back further than that. Prior to Oblivion coming out, it was Morrowind that was the symbol of all the bad trends in the industry. And mostly for the same alleged-reason: "dumbing down" for console players.
- At least Morrowind wasn't hampered by idiotic design choices. Levelled enemies? No clothes under armour? Idiots.
- The Nintendo Wii went from internet darling to antichrist when it occured to gamers that Nintendo was actually popular again. Conversely, the PS3 did the reverse when it quickly became the apparent underdog of the current generation. Telltale signs of a complete and total assha- er, fan like this are usage of the phrases "Casual Gamers" and "Hard Core Gamers".
- Most of the antagonism among Wii fans comes from fears about it being propped up solely by 1st/2nd-party titles and falling to the same fate as its predecessors. 3rd-party developers so far have ignored the system's capacity for innovation in lieu of simply flooding its library with minigame collections and gimmicky ports. Of course, people who mock it on this basis would do well to realize that Sturgeons Law applies equally to Wii and their own favorite horse in the race.
- Not to mention that third parties weren't that important anyway until Sony started using them wisely to make the Playstation the number one.
- But it truly fits this trope when the hate is the thought of all the non gamers flooding in due to the Wii.
- Defying typical industry behavior, Macintosh game developer Bungie Software's next title after their hit PID was Marathon instead of a PID sequel, but after Marathon, they made Marathon 2. "Oh no, they've sold out!", said the fans. "No we haven't," said Bungie, later revealing work on the genre-founding RTT game Myth. Next, Marathon 2 was ported to become Bungie's first non-Mac release. "Oh no, they've sold out!", the fans said again. "No we haven't," said Bungie, "We're still doing our own thing making innovative work" pointing to pioneering Beat Em Up/shooter Oni and Sandbox guerilla warfare game Halo. After that, Bungie sold out to Microsoft and slashed Halo into a dumbed down Marathon clone. "Holy @#$!, they've sold out!". "No we haven't," said Bungie.
- They're not lying. While they did get Microsoft to publish Halo, that didn't make the game's quality suffer.
- Plus, they re-bought rights to future I Ps, splitting from Microsoft. They are DEDICATED to messing up any and all selling out related discussions (pro and con), it seems.
- The System Shock series was beloved but never commercially successful. In 2007, Bio Shock, a Spiritual Successor, was released, and actually managed to become successful, becoming a commercial success even while competing with giants like Halo 3. Bio Shock was basically System Shock 2, but with significantly improved graphics, better developed setting, stronger characterization, some actual literary merit, a revamped system of RPG Elements that is streamlined but arguably just as deep and, unfortunately, a very similar plot and a relatively clunky interface for the PC version. Guess what the System Shock 2 fans focused on.
- This troper argues that Bioshock HAD undergone some decay. The stories were roughly equal and graphics were obviously better, but character customization was minimized (You didn't so much choose what you could and couldn't do, as what order you became slightly better at several different things), enemies were fewer and less varied, and an abundance of healing and ease of recovery from death lowered the quality. Of course, this troper still believes Bioshock was an excellent game. Being worse than System Shock is hardly a bad thing.
- SS2's other Spiritual Successor, Deus Ex, was lauded with universal acclaim. Its sequel had what was widely viewed as excessive consolization. Combined with the game's lessened scope, it created such a tidal wave of pure bile and hatred toward Warren Spector that he hasn't been seen since the next year's (much better recieved) Thief 3.
- A sequel has been announced, involving none of the original team. Time to get out your asbestos keycaps.
- Parodied in The World Ends With You's bonus chapter. "I'll be off listening to bands you kids have never even heard of! And then... when they go major... I'll be there to complain about how they sold out!"
- Would you believe that Shin Megami Tensei is starting to show signs of this? Persona 3 was well-received, bringing in newcomers to the series. Which of course leads to people complaining that Atlus has "sold out", leaning more towards making their games tailored to the mainstream.
- Of course, complaints like this are tinged with a hint of irony, as the whole reason the Persona spinoff series was created in the first place was to make a Shin Megami Tensei game that was tailored to the mainstream.
- Now that the Mother 3 translation has finally been released and is receiving attention, there seem to be a lot of people who want to make clear to everyone that they always thought that the entire Mother series was overrated tripe. At the time of this edit, the translation was released yesterday. New record?
Film
- Certain parts of Transformers fandom, over the year or so before the release of the 2007 live-action movie, preemptively expressed the sentiment that "It's going to be popular! That sucks!" Everyone else was rather confused.
- Some fans have accused Kevin Smith of being a sell out, a label he has no problem with.
- The Dark Knight has suffered this recently. Considering it's the second highest grossing movie of all time, it seems that the higher the popularity, the higher the suck.
Fan Fic
- One Fritz Fraundorf Fan Fic parodies this tendency in music, with a music store clerk who only likes unpopular bands. The instant one band he's been promoting is talked about on the radio in the store, he begins to trash them.
Web Animation
- Mocked in the Red Vs Blue PSA about "Ten Things We've Never Seen Posted on an Internet Forum." The first being someone that liked a band before they were popular and being happy about it.
Sarge: Now they've gotten so popular, we get to see them in huge arenas all over the Country, and their songs are on the radio all the time. It's great! I'm really happy for them, and for all their success.
Musicals
- Sweeney Todd, when it was made into a movie (by Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, of all people), succumbed to this trope (although it certainly didn't help that many people didn't know there was a musical to begin with).
- This troper has actually been made fun of for being Emo when she said that it was he favorite musical. Now she tells people that she likes Assassins, another Sondheim musical that's pretty much impossible to make into a movie.
Other
- The TV Tropes Wiki.
Recursive trope!
- Almost any stand-up comedian who makes the transition from relative obscurity on the stand-up circuit to increased fame and public profile (most usually through the television) will lose part of her / his fanbase who will be quick to bemoan the fact that s/he is now a 'sell-out'. Apparently, some jokes become less funny the more people who are laughing at them.
- Polish Demoscene. When the Polish videogame agazine, CD-Action, began publishing a series about hitherto rather hermetic demoscene, many old sceners claimed that it ruined the demoscene forever, caused an influx of talentless newbies, and were angry that while they had to go to great lenghts to learn about the community in the first place, all those new youngsters know everything by just reading a magazine.
- This editor sort of feels this way about the way Synchro Monsters are treated in Yu-Gi-Oh! online game Duel Monsters Unlimited; before Synchros were actually released, the cards existed and were playable on this game with translated effects from a particular news site, and this editor was literally the first person to have a working dedicated Synchro deck (that focused on Synchro monsters as a type in and of themselves, rather than splashing them into other decktypes). Now Synchros are considered overpowered [[Status Quo Is Good(by people who play Dark-Armed Dragon and Light Sworns)]] or crap depending on who you talk to and every other idiot is running one and this editor catches ten tons of flak for being unoriginal. Thank god for the Roleplaying Server.
- Facebook became a victim of this when it opened up to high schools and pretty much anyone who wasn't enrolled in a university, driving angry college students to create many groups protesting this change. This troper, who made a Facebook account while he was still in high school, personally welcomed the change, as his university, up until recently, didn't automatically give out email addresses, leading to Facebook being hardly used by its students.
- One of the recurring mottoes of The Dreaded 4chan, for a surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) long time.
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