Anyone who has ever written a book, wrote a TV show, drawn a comic, or done anything that ends in a creative outlet being produced and sold, or distributed amongst the public will garner a fanbase. Sometimes it's small, literally just a handful of people who'll have seen one thing, and enjoyed it somewhat, othertimes you can gain an entire fanbase who'll argue bitterly about the most trivial of things you, as the creator, never even thought about. For example, I very much doubt anyone at Sega has ever thought about the landscape of Sonic games beyond level design.
But quite often it's the case that you attract a fair number of idiots. It's just a rule of averages really. Unless you set your bar deliberately high on the intellectual level (i.e. make it so nerdy only geniuses could appreciate it), you will attract a level of stupid fans. heck, even the cleverest of people can be drawn to idiocy.
However, this is even worse when you take over someone else's work. Fans are all to quick to pin any difference they don't like a case of "the new guy sucks". But what can you, as a creative person, say when your hard work is being panned by the fans you're trying to please. What I'd advise is you ignore it, and carry on. What i don't advise is you say something like this, which I was shocked to learn was the opinion of someone who took over the writing of a series from someone else who'd died:
"There is very little diversity of opinion amongst the fans. Most of them continue to be displaying high levels of juvenile lefty cynicism. The only good fans are those who didn't question [controversial decision]. Everybody else is an idiot.
Just look at the message boards. Half of them aren't even discussion about [series]. The show doesn't depend on the audience any more, and it's more about how the creative staff feel rather than what the audience thinks. None of the forum goers matter, as half of them probably don't even watch the show, and even then not all of our watchers are registered to the forums, making it a disproportionate representation of the fandom."
For those of you not following, this is one of the head honcho's of a forum made specifically for the discussion of a show, i.e. the official forum, annoyed that said forum has grown beyond that of just a place to discuss his work, and has (like many forums often do) become a social interaction site, where people talk about things they're interested in outside the scope of the original work.
And yes, I did deliberately censor out the names, as well as paraphrase what was said. I have good reason for doing that, and I apologise, seeing as I'm usually the first to spill the beans on anyone whose being a dick and calling them a dick as I see fit. To anyone who knows what exactly I'm on about, then you'll understand why I blurred it, and don't spill the beans yet.
But yes, this is one of the main writers, dismissing his audience entirely, just because they don't like what he's doing. Okay, fair enough, you can ignore some of your critics who are being stupid (I once had one tell me off for making a shocking twist ending, despite that being the entire point of the story), but to ignore a majority, and even worse, call them all idiots?
Now I know, as a writer you have the advantage of seeing the full story. So what can look like a dodgy decision in the middle can come across as a disaster to those not in the know, a good writer should make his reasoning clear once the story is complete. The trick is to not annoy your audience too much so that they never see the end.
But you can never ignore your audience, especially if you're hoping to sell a product. You can ignore the odd idiot here or there, or you can tease your audience, but the audience are the ones who pay your wages, and unless you can get a new audience, you'd better not deliberately set out to annoy your current one.
Which is exactly what this guy has done. While this is a leaked memo, not intended for public eyes, he has basically told every one of the people who work for him, to ignore everything the fans are asking, and do whatever they want. This could be seen as good, but I don't see it as such, and I'm sure if the fans found out there'd be mass walkouts of the franchise. The first rule of any creative work with popularity is to respect your fans.
And why exactly is it so bad that the fans of his work talk to one another like friends anyway? Talk about ego-centric. I mean yes, taking criticism is never easy, and sometimes in receiving reviews you will get ones that eat at you for saying how bad your work is, but to want, ney demand that the sole focus of a group of your fans is to worship you... Well lets put it another way, would you want the writer of your favourite TV show forcing you to always kiss his butt all the time? I imagine it'd get very tiresome very quickly.
I'm also left wondering what this guy is a fan of. After all, if this is how he thinks fans should act, then I want to avoid those fandom's he has like the plague.
But quite often it's the case that you attract a fair number of idiots. It's just a rule of averages really. Unless you set your bar deliberately high on the intellectual level (i.e. make it so nerdy only geniuses could appreciate it), you will attract a level of stupid fans. heck, even the cleverest of people can be drawn to idiocy.
However, this is even worse when you take over someone else's work. Fans are all to quick to pin any difference they don't like a case of "the new guy sucks". But what can you, as a creative person, say when your hard work is being panned by the fans you're trying to please. What I'd advise is you ignore it, and carry on. What i don't advise is you say something like this, which I was shocked to learn was the opinion of someone who took over the writing of a series from someone else who'd died:
"There is very little diversity of opinion amongst the fans. Most of them continue to be displaying high levels of juvenile lefty cynicism. The only good fans are those who didn't question [controversial decision]. Everybody else is an idiot.
Just look at the message boards. Half of them aren't even discussion about [series]. The show doesn't depend on the audience any more, and it's more about how the creative staff feel rather than what the audience thinks. None of the forum goers matter, as half of them probably don't even watch the show, and even then not all of our watchers are registered to the forums, making it a disproportionate representation of the fandom."
For those of you not following, this is one of the head honcho's of a forum made specifically for the discussion of a show, i.e. the official forum, annoyed that said forum has grown beyond that of just a place to discuss his work, and has (like many forums often do) become a social interaction site, where people talk about things they're interested in outside the scope of the original work.
And yes, I did deliberately censor out the names, as well as paraphrase what was said. I have good reason for doing that, and I apologise, seeing as I'm usually the first to spill the beans on anyone whose being a dick and calling them a dick as I see fit. To anyone who knows what exactly I'm on about, then you'll understand why I blurred it, and don't spill the beans yet.
But yes, this is one of the main writers, dismissing his audience entirely, just because they don't like what he's doing. Okay, fair enough, you can ignore some of your critics who are being stupid (I once had one tell me off for making a shocking twist ending, despite that being the entire point of the story), but to ignore a majority, and even worse, call them all idiots?
Now I know, as a writer you have the advantage of seeing the full story. So what can look like a dodgy decision in the middle can come across as a disaster to those not in the know, a good writer should make his reasoning clear once the story is complete. The trick is to not annoy your audience too much so that they never see the end.
But you can never ignore your audience, especially if you're hoping to sell a product. You can ignore the odd idiot here or there, or you can tease your audience, but the audience are the ones who pay your wages, and unless you can get a new audience, you'd better not deliberately set out to annoy your current one.
Which is exactly what this guy has done. While this is a leaked memo, not intended for public eyes, he has basically told every one of the people who work for him, to ignore everything the fans are asking, and do whatever they want. This could be seen as good, but I don't see it as such, and I'm sure if the fans found out there'd be mass walkouts of the franchise. The first rule of any creative work with popularity is to respect your fans.
And why exactly is it so bad that the fans of his work talk to one another like friends anyway? Talk about ego-centric. I mean yes, taking criticism is never easy, and sometimes in receiving reviews you will get ones that eat at you for saying how bad your work is, but to want, ney demand that the sole focus of a group of your fans is to worship you... Well lets put it another way, would you want the writer of your favourite TV show forcing you to always kiss his butt all the time? I imagine it'd get very tiresome very quickly.
I'm also left wondering what this guy is a fan of. After all, if this is how he thinks fans should act, then I want to avoid those fandom's he has like the plague.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment