D&D 5E Toxicity in the Fandom

[Thomas Shey]

You mean IT! The Terror from Beyond Space? I'd say that the inspiration there is about 1/100th what we're seeing with The Joker given the massive aesthetic borrowing, it's not even comparable. With IT! the similarities were basically very broad plot outlines and nothing which makes Alien unique. Like it's entirely possible Dan O'Bannon or Ronald Shusett had seen IT! among dozens of other monster movies and parts of it were bouncing around in they wrote the story that they later re-wrote to be the screenplay for Alien, but the similarities are shallow as hell. You can see them discussed here for example:

I really don't agree with their argument; I think some of the practical similarities are far more important than they do, and its shown by the fact there's basically no movie with much similar structural elements anywhere between the two (or, really, before "IT") in the SF/horror genre. I'm not going to claim there was necessarily influence, but I'd find it really surprising if there wasn't.

But that's really neither here nor there; the point is that the similarities wouldn't have even been noticed by most viewers of Alien because the prior movie was not well known and had come out 20 years earlier so many of the viewers of Alien would not have seen it to make the comparison.

Prior art is only visible to someone who knows the prior art.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Prior art is only visible to someone who knows the prior art.

Yeah okay but that's not an argument nor meaningful. It's a random observation. I mean, it's kind of funny, because you do see people who have this incredibly limited background in a medium (film, games, whatever) who are just blown to smithereens by low-quality ultra-derivative art (Joker was medium-quality, to be clear) just because they've never seen it before, then they see the original and are like "Meh I've seen this before", because they're just that awful kind of person who can't recalibrate, but whatever. God I had an amazing example of this, but I'm trying to remember what it was. Will let you know if I do! Need caffeine!

EDIT - This isn't the good example, but a classic is people who played WoW who thought Blizzard came up with that aesthetic and that Warhammer was just like a lazy rip-off. You can't even make it up - if someone had told me people would be saying "Warhammer is a rip-off of Warcraft!" in say, 2000, I'd have said "No-one is that dumb". By 2014 I'd seen literally happen so many times that I'd completely lost count.

And I feel like it's worse with movies than games, because there's truly awful kind of person who literally won't watch movies beyond a certain age, yet claims to be a "film buff" (so many Nolan ultra-fans in this category, I feel bad for Nolan), so continually acts like ultra-derivative stuff (or even actual homages acknowledged by the director!) are totally novel - "It's new to me!" (kill me now).

(PS I'm fine with people not watching movies over a certain age, it's mean it's eccentric and extremely narrow-minded, but whatever. Just don't do that and claim to be a "film buff", let alone a film expert.)

 

[Mind of tempest]

Speaking of toxicity and Aquaman, I went to that movie fully expecting it to be bad, only going because my then gf was getting into superheroes, loved Aquamn and from Batman: Brave and the Bold, and was deeply unaware of the entire rest of the character's history.

I tried to gently warn her, kind of felt smug as she blew off those warnings and my frantic gesturing to Man of Steel and BVS, which she hadn't seen... and then in the middle of the movie caught myself being genuinely upset that I was enjoying it and she was too.

And there was the moment, during the romance montage, where I was genuinely soul searching at the fact that I was actually getting angry at the happiness of not only someone I cared about -- BUT MYSELF.

So I gave the part of me a mental sack beating and that weekend researched and purchased an arrangement of edible flowers.

you only have one of those parts of you? lucky.

 

[John R Davis]

It's a judgement call, but I would say frequency and intensity are good indicators.

Yes, different people have different tolerances/sensitivities, but sometimes you just have to wonder.

Just as many people can't wait to be horrible, i.e. the toxic; Many people just can't wait to be offended, i.e. The fentitled.

 

[James Gasik]

This has killed so many things I love.

I remember when Young Justice got canceled because it was too popular with the wrong demographic who they thought wouldn't buy toys because apparently that market research hadn't been updated since 1986.

Or when Sym-Bionic Titan was cancelled because it also wasn't selling toys.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah okay but that's not an argument nor meaningful. It's a random observation. I mean, it's kind of funny, because you do see people who have this incredibly limited background in a medium (film, games, whatever) who are just blown to smithereens by low-quality ultra-derivative art (Joker was medium-quality, to be clear) just because they've never seen it before, then they see the original and are like "Meh I've seen this before", because they're just that awful kind of person who can't recalibrate, but whatever. God I had an amazing example of this, but I'm trying to remember what it was. Will let you know if I do! Need caffeine!

EDIT - This isn't the good example, but a classic is people who played WoW who thought Blizzard came up with that aesthetic and that Warhammer was just like a lazy rip-off. You can't even make it up - if someone had told me people would be saying "Warhammer is a rip-off of Warcraft!" in say, 2000, I'd have said "No-one is that dumb". By 2014 I'd seen literally happen so many times that I'd completely lost count.

And I feel like it's worse with movies than games, because there's truly awful kind of person who literally won't watch movies beyond a certain age, yet claims to be a "film buff" (so many Nolan ultra-fans in this category, I feel bad for Nolan), so continually acts like ultra-derivative stuff (or even actual homages acknowledged by the director!) are totally novel - "It's new to me!" (kill me now).

(PS I'm fine with people not watching movies over a certain age, it's mean it's eccentric and extremely narrow-minded, but whatever. Just don't do that and claim to be a "film buff", let alone a film expert.)

Yeah I remember the reaction to the Warhammer MMO. "Isn't this just, World of Warhammer...craft?".

It always astounds me how much Blizzard rips off other people's ideas and gets away with it. Although given how derivative Warhammer is, I guess that's like the pot calling the kettle black...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah okay but that's not an argument nor meaningful. It's a random observation. I mean, it's kind of funny, because you do see people who have this incredibly limited background in a medium (film, games, whatever) who are just blown to smithereens by low-quality ultra-derivative art (Joker was medium-quality, to be clear) just because they've never seen it before, then they see the original and are like "Meh I've seen this before", because they're just that awful kind of person who can't recalibrate, but whatever. God I had an amazing example of this, but I'm trying to remember what it was. Will let you know if I do! Need caffeine!

EDIT - This isn't the good example, but a classic is people who played WoW who thought Blizzard came up with that aesthetic and that Warhammer was just like a lazy rip-off. You can't even make it up - if someone had told me people would be saying "Warhammer is a rip-off of Warcraft!" in say, 2000, I'd have said "No-one is that dumb". By 2014 I'd seen literally happen so many times that I'd completely lost count.

And I feel like it's worse with movies than games, because there's truly awful kind of person who literally won't watch movies beyond a certain age, yet claims to be a "film buff" (so many Nolan ultra-fans in this category, I feel bad for Nolan), so continually acts like ultra-derivative stuff (or even actual homages acknowledged by the director!) are totally novel - "It's new to me!" (kill me now).

(PS I'm fine with people not watching movies over a certain age, it's mean it's eccentric and extremely narrow-minded, but whatever. Just don't do that and claim to be a "film buff", let alone a film expert.)

I'm more talking about rank-and-file movie watchers here, and I think it has some relevance in the broader question to people who haven't encountered, and really aren't interested in prior art; they just have seen/played what they have, and enjoyed it, and they're not (and there's no overwhelming reason they should) respond well to someone telling them they're shallow and ignorant (even though in a sense this is literally true, but there's too much connotational load on that to ever go well, so what's supposed to be the benefit of doing so?)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah I remember the reaction to the Warhammer MMO. "Isn't this just, World of Warhammer...craft?".

It always astounds me how much Blizzard rips off other people's ideas and gets away with it. Although given how derivative Warhammer is, I guess that's like the pot calling the kettle black...

Well, there's almost always prior art of some kind. Frankly, getting fixated on being derivative strikes me as being concerned about the wrong thing anyway; there are quality derivative works and pretty much crap original ones, and I'm more interested in quality than originality.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If someone is offended by something you say and you didn't intend to tee them off, explain yourself maybe rather than accuse them of being the problem, actually.

 

[James Gasik]

Well, there's almost always prior art of some kind. Frankly, getting fixated on being derivative strikes me as being concerned about the wrong thing anyway; there are quality derivative works and pretty much crap original ones, and I'm more interested in quality than originality.

I remember when I went to see John Carter with my friends. They immediately called out the movie for being derivative, and using tired old tropes.

When I pointed to them that John Carter was the original (or at least, an early) source, they just shrugged and said "well there was no reason to keep on doing it".

As the man said, you can't please all of the people, all of the time. If your adaptation makes changes, you get the Full Metal Alchemist problem ("it's not true to the manga, it doesn't matter how good it is!"). If you make no changes, you get the World of Warcraft Classic problem ("man, this is just old and busted!").