Fan Fiction Writers As Acceptable Targets

I have a love-hate relationship with Cracked. When they do articles on real life stuff, personal stuff and interviews with people on various issues, they're great. But once they step into articles about media, particularly video games and movies, that's when I usually can't stand it. They use words like, "shocking" or "horrifying" or "creepy" or "stuff you never noticed about X" and it just bugs me. I understand they're trying for comedy, but that's no excuse to make themselves look like idiots who've not done their research and sometimes telling us stuff that the readers most likely already knows, or bringing up arguments and theories on things that shouldn't ever be discussed unless you want to get mobbed by angry people for suggesting it (NEVER bring up the question "Why can't they just take the Eagles to Mordor?" to a LOTR fan). You can be funny, but you shouldn't be stupid or think your audience is stupid. Or think that all fans are the same, like for example, there's an article that talks about "All the weird stuff that Pokemon has done since you stopped playing" which implies that everyone stopped to begin with. Some have, most haven't. Most don't consider it weird either.

Cracked has made many many many mistakes in regards to handling there video games audiences. They also aren't too well regarded by furries, bronies, and of course fanfiction writers either.

I still am not forgetting that one stupid article that tried to say Ellie breaking down after killing someone who was trying to rape and cannibalize her is sexist. Her seeking comfort in Joel has nothing to do with it....anyone at that age no matter which gender would find that traumatizing on multiple fronts.

edited 14th Nov '15 4:07:51 PM by Bleddyn

I find them pretty much bad all-around when they try to act like feminists by complaining about pop culture. They, for the most part, are a bunch of men, so when they whine that "X-female character isn't strong enough or real enough or meet our expectations and therefore is sexist" really irks me. I mean... I find Katniss fairly realistic in how she's dealt with and...psst! Her books were written by an actual woman! And I haven't played enough Metroid to know enough about Samus.... and I haven't played The Last of Us, but that bit about the character "needing a man" pissed me off just reading the article because of the circumstances laid out of what the character was in. It's like, if a woman in a film or game or book isn't a lady Rambo, they want to label her "secretly sexist" - and if a woman is a lady Rambo, she's complained over for not being realistic... arrgh!

But I digress. This is a fanfiction thread, not a Cracked-complaint thread.

The stigma against fanfic is widespread. So far, I haven't had any relatives who were never into the hobby bother me about it when I casually mention the hobby on my Facebook, but Cracked and other sources make me worried that I'm going to be harped on about it eventually.

Actually, an incident happened on the Ao3 com on Facebook a while back in which someone came to the com advertising scriptwriting classes or something like that and they were acting like we were all just wasting our time writing fanfic and ought to make our hobby into something that makes us money... She was promptly informed that lots of us write things that wouldn't work as scripts and that we all pretty much are into the hobby FOR THE HOBBY and don't see having fun as a waste of time. So, yeah, this crap comes up even on places for writers. Gah.

This thread...its a bit too sensitive and defensive.

I dont think Cracked or non Fanfic people have something agaisnt Fanfic Fans (Be they writers or readers)