"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
Sometimes, fanbases are, or appear to be, perennially complaining not just about minute details of the
Canon, but about
everything. This sometimes relates to fake fannishness: some people just don't like a piece of fiction, yet insist on consuming it. It's not just
Snark Bait, it's just some people who call themselves fans but think, "Well, those new additions aren't very good. But, then again, it wasn't very good in the beginning either."
A possible sign of an
Unpleasable Fanbase is a
Catch-22: if they complain about one thing, and the
people behind the franchise listen and fix it, only to have other parts of the fanbase complain about the change. This is because, in extremely large fandoms,
different portions of the fandom complain about distinctly different things, so that
any change (and in particularly bad cases,
any lack of change) will inevitably anger someone.
Basically, this is about a fanbase which is so varied and divided in opinion that it's impossible to give everyone in it what they want.
While
Unpleasable Fanbase has been a problem for any media with a sufficiently large fanbase (you simply cannot please all of the people all of the time), in the Internet Age it takes on a new dimension when even a small minority can
make their opinions heard. It's enough to make an author
want to give up.
See also
Accentuate the Negative,
Contested Sequel,
The Law of Fan Jackassery,
Ruined FOREVER,
Hypocritical Fandom,
Fan Dumb,
They Changed It, Now It Sucks,
It's The Same Now It Sucks,
Complaining about Complaining and
Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things. When the creators announce something that actually
does get the fandom in line with them, it's
And the Fandom Rejoiced.
No examples needed. The specifics of fan complaints really don't matter, here. It's always something.
