Lamest Fanbase!!!

It really depends on the person, I don't think you can really generalize things like this based on what they're a fan of, except in some cases. Like rampant Trekkies and Star Wars EU fans.

But as of right now, the lamest fanbase has got to be based of anyone who regularly watches any current show on the WB.

Buffy and Whedon fans in general. Because, they are like the arrogant distant cousin of the Star Trek fanbase. The problem isn't with their "90210 with vampires" show, it's with you. I had a Buffy fan go off on me the other day.

I haven't had a problem with fans this bad, since I told this French guy that Highlander 2 is a litmus test for the retarded.

My vote for creepiest fanbase has to anime devotees. <shivers>

The Least-Washed-and-Laid Engineers vote has to go to Trek. They also have the oldest fanbase.

My Most Mystifying vote has to go to the Farscape/SG1/Babylon 5/Andromeda folks.

Second Most Mystifying is the Buffy/Angel base. Someday I'm gonna sit down and watch these two series from beginning to end and see if I can find out why it's so popular. I really, really like Firefly, so maybe I'm just missing some Whedon magic that I never seemed to find when I'd check out the shows.

The Star Wars fanbase is just all over the map, so it's harder to pin them down...

And how could I forget, the Most Juvenile Idiots award goes to gamers.

While we're at it, the We Take Our Art Form Way Too Seriously award goes to comic book fans.

Well that's very true, but if it weren't for them comics wouldn't be getting much respect at all, and there are many cases where it's very much deserved.

Wow that's tough. You left out LARP'ers and furries though, either one of them might have gotten my vote.

There was a time when I would have said Star Trek, hands down; but I'm not sure that I can choose. When you get them in the rabid variety, they're all pretty much the same.

I thought Phish fans were a good inclusion. All the other fanbases at least have something that CAN be good to be fans of. I'll vote for them because I hate hippies.

The lamest by far is always the group of nerds who think they're cooler than all the other nerd groups.

How did I not know Devin had his own Web Site?

lamest fanbase? thats easy, any show with no or few fans.

Oh! you mean who has the most enthusiastic fanbase. I'd say reality television in general (i put stuff like american idol in the same category), soap operas also do quite well in the rabid fan area. Ultimately though I'd say sports and wrestling fans are the most extreme, rabid and terrifying fans I've come across.

The sci-fi stuff you mentioned is certainly hardcore but less violent and less prone to actual stalking from what I've seen.

I vote for Countess Anna.

And Phish fans may have shitty musical tastes and questionable grooming habits--I should know, I lived with three of them for four years of college--but they're an endless source of cheap, decent quality drugs. That automatically elevates 'em past the sci-fi and anime nerds.

SHILL.

I voted for the Buffy people, mainly because Barry Woodward and Anya piss me off on these boards more often than any of the other folk. Cheers!

Also, I despise the word "Whedonverse".

i have no clue who Countess Anna is but I agree with the phish comment. I desperately wanted to love phish but no matter how much I love my freinds that worship this band I just don't get it. They are basically like any cafe band I've ever heard, they aren't even inventively bad... they're just bad. How they achieved such a rabid fanbase continues to be a mystery to me but, like sci-fi and grateful dead fanatics, they tend to be harmless at least.

All Your Fanbase Belong To Us

Ha! This thread is hilarious. Considering how many internet geeks are drawn to this site, debating lamest fanbase is like sitting next to a biggest nerd in the room to make yourself look more attractive to the opposite sex. Lucky for you, devincf, you put your own website up there as an option, in an act of deftly played self deprecation.

That said, the answer is clearly www.devincf.com


(just kidding!)

Clearly the Star Wars nerds, because there's so many of them so somehow it makes them think they're different than Star Trek geeks. Hum, no, being heavily into juvenile space opera when you're past your teenage years is always incredibly geeky.

Man, I like just about everything you guys have mentioned as having a creepy/inexplicable fanbase. Thanks!

Personally, I would have voted for NASCAR if it had been an option.

FUCKER!

I'm thinking the Star Wars fans have finally moved ahead of Star Trek geeks. The thing that makes them worse is the fact that they are so blind as to think the prequels are any good. Most Trekkies know a lousy ST movie or episode when they see it.

I tried to make the Thunderbirds island base that they showed on Blue Peter about 15 years ago. it was rubbish.

Whedonverse... that's incredible.

Does that mean there's a Lucasverse too, or even better a Shatnerverse? Does that mean I'm going to have to refer to 3 Men and a Baby as a centrepiece of the Dansonverse?

Actually, I picked Trekkies. Excuse me, Trekkers.

Die hard Star Wars fans are a close second.

Buffy's fanbase has more girls and for geeks that's a great thing.

Anime/Cosplay fans can be mighty weird, but since anime is so varied in subject matter, its tough to single them out.

I know nothing about Vampire fans. They're goth, right? That's almost safe.

Comic book fans? Same as anime. There are so many different titles.

Long sci-fi/fantasy novel fans are probably just as oddly obsessed as Trekkies.

LOTR fans are pretty wacky too.

Phish fans are lame and smelly, but at least they have some drugs.

After much debate I must point to the movie Trekkies to support my answer. People had surgery dude. Surgery. Maybe if I'd seen a movie on how "off" other fans are, I'd change my mind, but, damn, that teenage kid who was designing his own ship? Wow. That was intense.

Haven't had much practical experience with them, but the anime/cosplay folks get my vote. If I understand this correctly, it involves regularly dressing up in funny costumes.

Now, I know there are a number of crazy fans in the other genres who do this on occasion (a Trek fan might put on federation garb at a convention, a Star Wars fan might dress like a Stormtrooper at a premier, or Andre Dellamorte might get all gussied up in his aardvark suit before penning a very special post at devincf.com), but, seeing as this fandom is inherently costume-based - the cosplays have it.

Can someone clarify for me - is cosplay an essential element of anime fandom or vice versa or are they simply common bedfellows? In either case, cosplay is way fucking weird, but I just want to know.

not all of us.

Lord of the Rings fans - hands down.

It's not what they're a fan of, or even all, or most LOTR fans.

But it seems many border on hysteria - akin to a kind of religious fanaticism. There's some that will say "if you don't love these films, then I pity you!" Could there be any more of an arrogant statment? It's as if it never occured to any of these people that maybe fantasy - wizards, dragon-like creatures, dwarfs, elfs, midgets with hairy feet might not be everybody's cup of tea?

Or the hysteria that greets any critic or net columnist that doesn't like these films or likes them, but doesn't think they're great or even the greatest (I remember many people whining like it was some travesty that the guy from Entertainment Weekly giving The Two Towers a B and last year I remember some LOTR fanboys freaking out that Peter Travers had ROTK as the number two film. Mystic River was number one. Is it any wonder why that film would suffer a major internet fanboy backlash following this?) Or the kind of hysteria that some people have at Jeffrey Wells (sure he's a prick, but who cares - wasn't his last job Movie Poop shoot? Why does his negative opinion on these make waves through the net?)

There's also a kind of mentality that if it's conncected to Lord of the Rings, it's amazing or perfect. You could show some of these people a photo of a pile of dirt and say this is from Lord of the Rings, and they'd remark it was the most beautiful thing they've ever seen. I remember a certain webmaster last year when the decent, but rather basic (it was a collage with many painted images copied from publicity stills) final one sheet was released and they claimed it was so perfect and raised the bar on movie marketing. Um no. It was a good poster and certainly much better than the weak photoshop jobs for the first two movies, but raising the bar?

I'd also add the Matrix fans to this list.

Jesus Charlie you obsess over the Matrix more than Matrix fans themselves! Fucking let it go.

I've decided pro sports has the worst fanbase. Tailgate parties, dressing up, waiting days to pay hundreds of dollars for ticket, memorizing years of stats, organizing weekly parties around games, worshipping/despising players like deities, forming life long devotions to any given team.
Pro sports has a level of fandom unmatched by all geek genres combined.

Thanks for reminding me.

Add Metal Gear Solid 2 fans to the wall o' shame.

I just bust my gut laughing. Hardee har har.

http://www.operationsombrero.com/Art...eeks030122.htm

Surely Michael Jackson fans have to be at the top of this list.

This is great. It's a lot of fun to be reminded of how many strange people are out there. All the groups have their own hardcore set o fans who go overboard, but I love it. It's a blast watching people enjoy themselves. As long as they're all having fun while maintaining a grip on reality then it's all good, but then again... there are people who make this stuff a way of life... I guess that's creepy. I have never been cursed out in Klingonese and I have yet to be force choked so so far so good.

Common bedfellows for really creepy people. Most anime fans are content to just sit and watch it on their TV.

I thought this too. Then I sat down and watched these shows from beginning to middle, and I think I see what makes them so great. It's the show Angel. Buffy is only good as a primer to this awesome series.

I never understood why sports was a socially acceptable thing to geek out about and obsess over, while movies, comics and video games aren't. I know people who can tell you every score of every game of their hometown's team. Every game EVER.

And just because I have a quote from Angel as my sig doesn't make me a rabid Buffy fanboy.

RACK HIM!!!!111

What's always baffled me about Whedon devotees is that they place Buffy/Angel/Firefly or anything else he's ever touched on a pedestal, and anything he gets attachted to is automatically garunteed to be soul-touchingly awesome, but if you bring up something by him that's infallibly crap, then it Wasn't His Fault.

Alien Ressurection blew? Not his fault.

The toad line from X-Men? Also not his fault!

Titan A.E. being a hoplessly boring cliche of a movie? Not his fault!

I guess I just don't get his appeal since I never managed to get into any of his shows (and I tried on all three counts--I even gave Firefly a shot even after the abyssmal pilot), and being one of four writers on Toy Story doesn't make him infallible. Every film he's had sole credit on so far has been pretty mediocre or downright shitty.

Also, Buffy fans continue to use the entire cast lists as the Best and Brightest actors for our generation. Some try to pass off Sarah Michelle Gellar as a "multi-faceted" actress. Sorry, I'll take your overly jokey and self-refferential TV show and raise you two Scooby-Doos, Simply Irresistable and The Grudge.

Hey, I never defended him for Alien: Resurrection, though I don't find Titan A.E. particularly bad. And the toad line from X-Men would've worked if it was said right, and as terrible as it is, he redeemed himself with the "You're a dick" exchange

This I don't get at all.

What? How could that line sound anything like remotely good?

g-dude, the anti-Woodward.

Organized Religion.



(I WIN.)

You win, indeed.

I thought it was cute that you have a little fan club. Of course I would soooo join it if you let me.

I got that beat: Rocky Horror fans.

lol, I can't tell which is the more sad. The fact that he named members or the fact that you even noticed. I guess the funny part is you guys don't even realize you are fanatical about the same thing.

The really ironic part of this kind of discussion is the fanatics on one side always consider the other side to be the crazy ones. Seriously, compare someone wearing vulcan ears at a sci-fi convention with someone that has painted their entire body before watching a football game. It's incredibly convenient to call the other-side "weird". After all, if those wacko's aren't crazy, what does that make me?


I've learned something in this thread... everyone is a fanatic.

I can´t stand Kevin Smith´s obsessive fans!
Constantly quoting his films, saying "You fuckers think just because a guy reads comics he can't start some shit?" and "Snootchi Bootchies", Jay and Silent Bob suck.I have nothing against Kevin Smith and his films, but his fans are really crap.

I think just about any Fanbase is reasonable until it also becomes a sexual fetish. So basically everything's been ruined by the Internet.

Amen to that. The LOTR hysteria over the last few years was partly a very well orchestrated and efficient ongoing marketing operation which people fell headfirst into - the website, the endless DVD editions, Peter Jackson's catering for the geek fanbase, the constant slow unleashing of news ("and now OH MY GOD it's a blurred picture of the preliminary make-up for the screentest of yet another monster! How amazing!").

"Everyone's a fanatic".... talk for yourself, the majority of people around the world never dress as a fictional character, or buy figurine toys, or paint their bodies the colour of their sports team, or go to a convention...
that's why everybody makes fun of nerds, because they are by definition in a minority.

RPG Nerds. Wow this is Lord of the Rings only for people who cant get out and meet and greet. How many times can you walk through Lands of Yore Killing and Drinking meed for Odin



As for the Vampire people you can meet some hot chicks who are major pervs