History Main / PraisingShowsYouDontWatch

[[caption-width-right:350:The Franchise/CthulhuMythos: one of many things nerds [[JustForFun/TropeOverdosed can't get enough of.]]]]

* Although many people involved with comic books and superheroes praise Creator/JackKirby's ComicBook/NewGods, one gets the distinct impression they haven't ''read'' the original comic books. (It's hardly unlikely, as they took a long time to be collected properly and didn't sell well in their heyday.) Several post-Kirby New Gods comics show signs that the creators weren't familiar with the original work, with characters who are dead showing up alive, fundamental misreads of the lore and plot points, and generally little understanding of the themes--which, if you've read ''New Gods'', were ''not'' subtle. When the New Gods comics were collected in hardcover Creator/GrantMorrison wrote an intro where he basically admitted he hadn't read it until now.

* Any famous {{Doorstopper}} is in default danger of this trope or its inverse, especially the "modern" stuff like Pynchon or Joyce. Perhaps the most famous example, though, is ''Literature/WarAndPeace''. Said to be one of the great Russian classics, but people tend to shy away from it due to it being 1200-1500 pages long in most editions. Not to mention that the writing style is dense, and the format well...odd.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' gets this, too. Mostly for people who haven't exactly read it, but praise it more for what it accomplished. This one is perhaps a very sad example, as most people who claim to love it might never have cracked it open, but ''have'' seen the movies, and therefore think they know the story. The movies were great, but missing Creator/JRRTolkien's classic writing style and a number of the important themes of the work were either truncated or left out. Not to mention the sheer number of non-Tolkien ideas that were added to the script.

* While ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'' did have some... [[EverythingsBetterWithSparkles questionable]]... aspects of vampires, amongst the cries of how they ruined vampires like Dracula in ''Twilight'' is allegedly that they are moving during the day - which pretty much shows how familiar people actually ''are'' with ''Literature/{{Dracula}}''.

** {{Justified|Trope}} due to it being one of the Chinese classics.[[note]]alongside ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'', ''Literature/WaterMargin'', and ''Literature/DreamOfTheRedChamber''[[/note]] While translations of them into English do exist in the public domain, due to elements that look like {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s if you don't know the conventions of Chinese literature, it's quite common for even 'unabridged' translations to actually have experienced some abridgment themselves in order to handle such moments. It may be easier to just learn how to read Chinese than obtain a truly unabridged translation, and it might even make more sense if the translation lacks footnotes.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' is sometimes praised because people who found out that it was the "real" sequel to ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' instead of the DolledUpInstallment released as ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' in North America. Actually playing - [[NintendoHard and]] [[SequelDifficultySpike surviving]] - probably silences the praise. Not to mention, the US version of ''Super Mario Bros 2'' was adapted from a game built off of the original prototype for the game.[[note]]Nintendo's perception (as well as a large part of the gaming community at the time) was that just making the same game with different levels wouldn't sell as well as something similar but different enough to be its own game. A prototype for a "vertical scrolling" Mario game was made to contrast the original's WhenAllElseFailsGoRight. With a looming deadline and not much progress, the prototype was shelved while a MissionPackSequel was made instead. Later, this prototype would be expanded into ''VideoGame/DokiDokiPanic''. This means the so-called ''Super Mario Bros. USA'' was the actual intended sequel, though with more of a storybook aesthetic than originally envisioned.[[/note]]

* While ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' did have some... [[EverythingsBetterWithSparkles questionable]]... aspects of vampires, amongst the cries of how they ruined vampires like Dracula in ''Twilight'' is allegedly that they are moving during the day - which pretty much shows how familiar people actually ''are'' with ''Literature/{{Dracula}}''.

* In the 1990s, the success of the movies of ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' and ''Anime/GhostInTheShell'' meant that many in the West professed to be "into manga", in many cases without ever seeing any more examples of the form than those two films. Or appreciating the difference between manga and anime. Or that there's a ''lot'' of different genres within the anime/manga world, besides {{dystopia}}n sci-fi. This has created a weird situation where many fans of old-school anime want the industry to go back to "the way it used to be," i.e. focused on dystopian sci-fi; but it never actually ''was'' focused on that genre. [[TrueArtIsAngsty For some reason]], the [[UsefulNotes/{{Kawaisa}} other types of shows]] didn't start getting imported until years later.

* ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'' was widely seen as a masterpiece by people claiming it had been ripped off by ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'', when many arguments involving its status as a ripoff were made by people who clearly had never seen ''Kimba.'' For instance, claiming that Claw was the series's main villain and therefore Scar is a ripoff of him, when he only appeared in a couple episodes, or claiming he has some familial or personal connection to Kimba, when he doesn't.

Praising Shows You Don't Watch is the inverse of ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch, in which these people somehow know ''exactly'' how good something is, without having ever actually ''seen'' it. Maybe they saw so much praise they feel like they can account for having actually watched it for themselves, or maybe they're just carbon-copying someone's opinions to fit into the group. Or they have seen a fragment of the work, liked it, and assumed the rest is equally good. Or perhaps they've seen the {{Audience Coloring Adaptation}}s and decided they really liked those, which means the original must be just as awesome or even better. Who knows? Similar to somehow knowing a show is utter crap without having seen an episode, it's one of the greatest mysteries of human culture, and has only been [[InternetJerk exacerbated]] by the Age of the Internet.

* This is a trend with the Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse, with fans being dismayed at these films receiving more lukewarm critical reaction than the more widely-praised Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse. For example, after ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'' received mostly negative reviews, a [[https://www.change.org/p/don-t-listen-to-film-criticism petition]] was creating asking Rotten Tomatoes[[note]]a company [[CriticalResearchFailure Warner Bros.]] ''co-owns''[[/note]] to be shut down. Note that over 18,000 people signed it ''before'' the movie was actually released, meaning that thousands of people assumed the criticism was unfair, without actually watching the movie.

* Happens in the classical music world as well; everyone's heard ''of'' Music/JohannSebastianBach, Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart, Creator/JohannesBrahms, and so forth (Music/LudwigVanBeethoven gets a pass for the "Music/OdeToJoy", "Für Elise", and the opening of the Fifth Symphony) but few can name a piece of theirs or identify it on hearing (to Jeremy Paxman's eternal frustration on ''Series/UniversityChallenge''). Made more confusing by the fact that their best-known hits are sometimes [[MagnumOpusDissonance not at all similar to the rest of their oeuvre]] - Brahms' ''Wiegenleid'' ("Lullaby"), for example, which is almost entirely unlike everything else he ever wrote.

* Plenty of fans of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' on social media haven't played the game. They only get their experience from fan-made content and clips on You[=Tube=]. Joker's inclusion as a DLC fighter in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' is blamed for heightening the {{newbie boom}}, leading to HypeBacklash. Hence the recurring joke among the P5 player-base, "Don't mess with us Persona 5 fans, we haven't played the game."

** {{Justified}} due to it being one of the Chinese classics.[[note]]alongside ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'', ''Literature/WaterMargin'', and ''Literature/DreamOfTheRedChamber''[[/note]] While translations of them into English do exist in the public domain, due to elements that look like {{Big Lipped Alligator Moment}}s if you don't know the conventions of Chinese literature, it's quite common for even 'unabridged' translations to actually have experienced some abridgment themselves in order to handle such moments. It may be easier to just learn how to read Chinese than obtain a truly unabridged translation, and it might even make more sense if the translation lacks footnotes.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Franchise/CthulhuMythos: one of many things {{nerd}}s [[JustForFun/TropeOverdosed can't get enough of.]]]]

* Happens with a lot of very successful and famous rock groups. Music/TheBeatles, Music/TheRollingStones, Music/{{ACDC}}, Music/PinkFloyd, Music/LedZeppelin and many other older rock groups, in spite of having legit and quite large fanbases, are popular among this group of people, particularly in the case of music debates where one will list these bands and others to prove their musical taste is "superior" to the other person's. An exception to this is when someone uses a ProgressiveRock group like Music/{{Yes}}. They will often be seen as a music snob by others.

* The ''[[Manga/MetroidManga Metroid]]'' manga suddenly became widely encouraged reading material on related forums and other discussion areas after the backlash against then new title ''Videogame/MetroidOtherM.'' To the ten people who actually read the manga though, the common arguments used to defend ''Other M'' made little sense, as the game's plot directly contradicted it in several instances; mainly in regards to Samus's post-traumatic stress disorder and general characterization. Notably, a major plot point in ''Other M'' is that Adam resents Samus having left his command and Samus sees it as a black mark on their relationship--which absolutely was not the case in the manga.

* A good number of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fans [[PeripheryDemographic have not played the games proper]], and are only familiar with the games through fanart, doujins, remixes and other fan material. Most fans who ''have'' seen what the games look like praise them for having beautiful [[BulletHell bullet patterns]], but [[ItsHardSoItSucks won't play them]]. Then there are ''Touhou Project'' fans that are only familiar with the games through canon and semi-canon [[GaidenGame gaiden]] [[BonusMaterial works]] by the games' creator (from fantasy-land travelogues up to and including a book-length short story series), and praise the project as a whole because there's no single phrase referring to these works alone. This is perhaps part of why a lot of ''Touhou'' fans who are into the lore and fan works don't [[GatewaySeries play other shoot-em-up series]] and why the general shoot-em-up fanbase is [[FandomRivalry baffled by]] the ''Touhou'' fanbase.

* Even before the ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'' series earned its status as SacredCow, there were many people repeatedly praising ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' and talking about how awesome it is. Now look at its sales figures, and ask yourself how many of those people actually played it when you could actually obtain a cartridge [[CrackIsCheaper for a reasonable price]]. Even then, claims about its amazingness tend to skate over things like the SlowPacedBeginning, the rickety and rudimentary battle system, and the many weird mechanics. It's also not often discussed that the most famous part of the game is also the final boss fight, which the rest of the game is almost nothing like. The satirical videogame website The Hard Times even had an article called [[https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/huge-earthbound-fan-excited-play-first-time/ "Huge Earthbound Fan Excited to Play It for the First Time."]]

* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' fans are quick to call ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon64'' the best in the franchise despite the fact few have played it. A good majority of the fanbase got into the games through ''(More) Friends Of Mineral Town'', ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonAWonderfulLife A Wonderful Life]]'', and the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS games plus ''64'' was obscure as it was; the 64 wasn't as popular as the Playstation and even kids who owned a 64 were more likely to pick [[Videogame/SuperMario64 Mario]] than some farming game. They simply hear other fans praising it so they praise it too. It doesn't help that it will likely never be ported onto the Virtual Console.

* Plenty of fans of ''VideoGame/Persona5'' on social media haven't played the game. They only get their experience from fan-made content and clips on You[=Tube=]. Joker's inclusion as a DLC fighter in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' is blamed for heightening the [[NewbieBoom newbie boom]], leading to [[HypeBacklash Hype Backlash]]. Hence the recurring joke among the P5 player-base, "Don't mess with us Persona 5 fans, we haven't played the game."

* Creator/StuartAshen believes those who liked Film/JurassicWorld are this.

* The standard technique for averting this problem with new anime tends to end up [[DoubleSubversion causing it, in a roundabout way]]. Many fans will start watching ''every'' show each season[[note]]anywhere from 40-50 TV series, not including shorter three-minute episode ones[[/note]], but quickly "drop" ones they don't like or don't have time for after one to three episodes. They usually believe, by the end, that they have a clear opinion of exactly how good every show was, despite having watched [[TwelveEpisodeAnime less than one-fourth]] of most of them. [[Website/AnimeNewsNetwork ANN]] took this phenomenon [[UpToEleven even further]] with the [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/preview-guide/ "preview guide,"]] in which the review team ranks and analyzes every new show based on the first episode. The disclaimer says that these are not meant to judge a series as a whole (which ''no one'', other than the production team, has seen yet) but readers treat them that way regardless, and will argue about what the best shows are after watching between zero and one episodes.

[[folder:Films]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* Creator/WilliamShakespeare is so well known for being "the greatest author in the English language, and possibly any language," that many people will not hesitate to dump heaps of praise over his entire body of work and over all aspects of his writing. While some of his best-known plays are required reading in most high schools, Shakespeare wrote quite a few plays, and not all of them were works of staggering genius. Some plays are preserved only out of a GottaCatchEmAll sense of duty to study Shakespeare's entire body of work, rather than for their individual quality. Also, many people don't know that most of Shakespeare's plays were adaptations/rip-offs of previous works. Shakespeare punched up the plot and wrote the dialogue (the latter of which someone would argue is the ''point'' of reading Shakespeare), but did not himself invent the stories.

* A good portion of the ''{{Franchise/Danganronpa}}'' fandom has not played the games. Since it [[NoExportForYou didn't have a release outside of Japan]] at the time, it was pretty unknown until a LetsPlay made it popular. Despite a fan-translated English patch, the animation of the game was as far as many fans went. However, once [=DR1=] and 2 were officially released in the West through Steam, the problems were mostly remedied.

The Inverse of ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch, in which these people somehow know ''exactly'' how good something is, without having ever actually ''seen'' it. Maybe they saw so much praise they feel like they can account for having actually watched it for themselves, or maybe they're just carbon-copying someone's opinions to fit into the group. Or they have seen a fragment of the work, liked it, and assumed the rest is equally good. Or perhaps they've seen the {{Audience Coloring Adaptation}}s and decided they really liked those, which means the original must be just as awesome or even better. Who knows? Similar to somehow knowing a show is utter crap without having seen an episode, it's one of the greatest mysteries of human culture, and has only been [[InternetJerk exacerbated]] by the Age of the Internet.

Praising shows you don't watch is often a major contributor to MainstreamObscurity. When it becomes ''really'' commonplace, PopculturalOsmosisFailure is not far behind.

** ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'', ''[[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]]'', ''Film/TheTenCommandments''- [[EpicMovie anything long enough to have an intermission built in]].

* The ''Videogame/{{Metroid}}'' manga suddenly became widely encouraged reading material on related forums and other discussion areas after the backlash against then new title ''Videogame/MetroidOtherM.'' To the ten people who actually read the manga though, the common arguments used to defend ''Other M'' made little sense, as the game's plot directly contradicted it in several instances; mainly in regards to Samus's post-traumatic stress disorder and general characterization. Notably, a major plot point in ''Other M'' is that Adam resents Samus having left his command and Samus sees it as a black mark on their relationship--which absolutely was not the case in the manga.

* Creator/OrsonWelles made a pilot for a TV anthology series, which had no name, but is commonly referred to as ''The Fountain of Youth'', after the title of its only episode. Until very recently virtually no one could see the episode unless they saw it as part of an exhibit in a museum. It's generally considered to be magnificent, with Creator/PeterBogdanovich saying that if it had gone to series it would have changed the history of television. Then it leaked onto YouTube, and the response was... tepid. Imagine an episode of ''The Twilight Zone'', where Rod Serling sat at a desk and narrated over still photographs of a classic episode, like ''Time Enough At Last''.

** ''Film/GoneWithTheWind'', ''Film/BenHur'', ''Film/TheTenCommandments''- [[EpicMovie anything long enough to have an intermission built in]].

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' is sometimes praised because people who found out that it was the "real" sequel to ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' instead of the DolledUpInstallment released as ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' in North America. Actually playing - [[NintendoHard and]] [[SequelDifficultySpike surviving]] - probably silences the praise. Not to mention, the US version of ''Super Mario Bros 2'' was adapted from a game built off of the original prototype for the game.[[note]]Nintendo's perception (as well as a large part of the gaming community at the time) was that just making the same game with different levels wouldn't sell as well as something similar but different enough to be its own game. A prototype for a "vertical scrolling" Mario game was made to contrast the original's WhenAllElseFailsGoRight. With a looming deadline and not much progress, the prototype was shelved while a MissionPackSequel was made instead. Later, this prototype would be expanded into ''VideoGame/DokiDokiPanic''. This means the so-called ''Super Mario Bros. USA'' was the actual intended sequel, though with more of a storybook aesthetic than originally envisioned.[[/note]]