This is a sister to my "
Nerd Double Standards" topic. Basically: shoot the shit about things nerds say or do that annoy you.
Please try not to politisperg. I won't outlaw it (at the moment) but we already have tons of topics that are just people circlejerking about how they hate wokeness, black people, trans people etc. and we really don't need another one. Please try to think outside the box.
Anyway, some personal examples:
........
One of my biggest ones takes one of two forms (and often both at the same time):
FORM ONE - They Can't See Differences Because of Superficial Similarities
FORM TWO - They Can't See Similarities Because of Superficial Differences
Here's an example:
A work of fiction where one of the recurring themes is discrimination. The stand-in for minorities is a group who are feared in part because they have powers that normal humans don't have. There are those among the minority who want to just wipe out humans, but the heroes hope for eventual peace.
Quick: am I describing Astro Boy or X-Men? Because guess what: that summary works for both.
But this tends to confuse certain people. Why? because "robots aren't the same thing as mutants." It's like because they don't have the same dictionary definition, then they can't fulfil a similar purpose. These people would be
astonished to learn that I've used a screwdriver as a chisel, or that I've used a rock to jam a door.
Again though, it works the other way. I've seen people insist that two
completely un-similar things are in fact very much alike... because of some minor, superficial similarity that doesn't really matter.
For example: Someone once insisted to me that Wall-E and Short Circuit were similar movies "because the robots look kind of similar." Even though the plots, themes, settings etc. were entirely different. I even once had someone here on the Farms suggest that Detective Conan and Inspector Gadget were similar shows because "they both have kid detectives."
If I ran the world, this would be something I test people on... and anyone who gets hung up on superficial similarities/differences and demonstrates no ability to see beyond that would go into the disintegrator unit because they're retarded.
Fans who don't actually know anything about the thing they're supposedly a fan of.
I'm sure we've all seen this, you're discussing a book or movie or whatever... and then someone says something that is just completely at odds with everything you know about the work and/or its author.
I used to see this a lot in the 2000s with the Final Fantasy fandom, who were absolutely convinced that Final Fantasy VII and VIII allowing a large amount of customization around your party members was some new element to that game. I even recall a usenet post at the time calling FF fans out on this, because it turns out, character customization is actually common in the series.
The same document also talked about
Fans of a Series/Company/Whatever Being Utterly Ignorant of Anything Not Part of that Series/Made By The Same Company/Whatever
I think nowadays we might call this the "Nintoddler" issue--if Nintendo hasn't done it, then its never been done. A variation is "it hasn't been done in a major AAA title made in the last five years, so it doesn't exist."
Annoying Persistent Fan Assumptions and Presumptions
So here's a story from 2010.
I was friends with some people who happened to be part of that wholy Brony thing (please don't force me to ban Brony examples like I did in a previous topic). A common fanfic trend was "human in equestria" or "human adopts a pony."
I recall thinking that was weird. I mean, on Equestria the ponies are the dominant species, humans would effectively be aliens. Why would the
pony ever submit to being the
human's pet? I mean, put that scenario in reverse: if a pony came to Earth, would you ever describe yourself as the
Pony's pet?
So I suggested it would make more sense for the Pony to adopt the Human.
.... And people
freaked the fuck out. Why? Well, the argument I got was "that's slavery!"
Ummm.... why? I pointed out that even in the show, Twilight Sparkle owns a
dragon.
"Well yeah, but she's not mean to him!"
Okay... and? Nobody said the ponies would be mean to their humans, either.
Nevertheless, Bronies would just not accept "humans as pets."
I quickly cottoned what was really going on, to be honest: people were incapable of ever imagining a scenario where humans weren't the top of the chain. If there was a planet of ponies, the ponies were our pets, even though that makes no fucking sense. How this happened in the same fandom that thinks humans are evil is anybody's guess.
Bronydom kinda makes me scared what will happen if there's ever a first contact scenario IRL, if this is how they see things.
Anything you want to rant about?
