I don't go to the Pathfinder boards/threads either, but here's the rub: When is there enough individuals to call it a trend? Last night I gamed at a FLGS and a couple of people came up and asked if we were playing 4E. I said yes we were and one piped in with a refuse-eating grin with 'Oh, that's the version that's too restrictive so I don't like it' while looking for backup from store personel as if he was afraid I was going to turn him in to a oxyclean grease spot.
Now, you can say these two were just jerks, but this has happened numerous times there. There was a Pathfinder table playing next to us last year and they never had people approach them like that. Their DM and her husband were really cool but a couple of their players looked at us like we were forcing kittens to smoke cheap, unfiltered menthols.
OK, but how does this negate the observations by those who have experienced the same thing, but in the opposite direction? Or, more important, how does it negate the fact that
the vast majority of gamers of any stripe are walking around just minding their own business?
There's a certain mentality of those who feel "betrayed" by an edition change that simply isn't there in those who embrace the new one. That's a simple, psychological phenomenon. Does that mean that all responses are appropriate if done in like manner? No. It's a viscious circle to be sure.
I honestly think a better explanation is simple tribalism. Did your grease-spot up above
really care what you were playing, or was he just trying to voice the "correct" opinion based on what someone else said?
With respect to the games, we all have our preferences and understand full well we can just play whatever we want, regardless of what anyone else thinks. But when we collect into like-minded groups and start stewing about it, feeding off each others' annoyance, hear each others little anecdotes, we start feeling persecuted. So echochambers form, based not on what we like, but on what we don't like.
And when people from those echochambers wander out into the real world, they forget the vehemence of their position is really a tiny minority position. They sound like weirdos to the unitiated-- and sound like genocidal devils to members of an opposing echochamber, who feel compelled to respond in kind. And that leads to the vicious circle: crusaders on either side who just. can't. leave. it. alone.
Casual perusal of the internet unearths these unhealthy little echochambers all over the place, on topics ranging from gaming to politics to religion to sports to any other hot-button issue, on a scale from a dozen members to tens of thousands. At this very moment cultists on either side of the Edition Wars are pointing and sneering at posts made right here on ENWorld, possibly even this thread. How do those maladjusted troglodytes come across when they appear in real life, or in
any moderate context?
Hint: they look like jerks.
Where does that cycle end? I don't know. Saying both sides have had bad responses is quite accurate but claiming both are equally responsible for starting it is not.
The cycle ends when people stop worrying about it. IMHO, the correct response to most of this tripe is to just roll the eyes and ignore it. Don't give the echochambers any reason to feel "vindicated" and they'll eventually run out of steam and grow up. And as for the irreparable, lone jerks out there flailing about like the catpiss-scented ogres that they are? Meh, they've always been there, they always will be. Give them a spritz of cologne and shoo them off.