I was surprised that Kauffman was mentioned. Sure he played with audiences expectations (“The Great Gatsby” was an absolutely brilliant joke), but that didn’t mean his despised his audience (he also took them for cookies, remember). No one did a put-on better than Kaufman, who knew how to go beyond, “Oh, he’s putting us on” to “Maybe he is serious” to “oh, he was putting us on.”
Another sounding off that Andy Kaufman did not despise his audience.
He’s really the most avant-garde comic we’ve had. (Sasha Baren Cohen’s entire repertoire is derivative of what Andy had done decades before.)
Kaufman reportedly grew to despise his work on Taxi but obviously accepted that that’s what paid the bills.
His foray into professional wrestling and infamous Letterman incident, the above-mentioned Fridays’ skit sabotage and a good portion of his onstage stand-up act weren’t designed to engender the big laffs that most other comics sought but really to present bizarre spectacle that was amusing foremost to himself and then to anyone else with a similarly twisted sense of humor.
I don’t think people like Lucas and Guinness belong here. I think George Lucas was doing his damnedest to make the best movie he could make for the audience that he thought he had when he made Phantom Menace. I think he was untalented, and wrong about his audience, but I don’t think he despised anyone.
Sir Alec Guinness was very annoyed with “fans” of his who only knew about Obi-Wan, which he regarded as a very minor incident in a distinguished career. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was the same. They didn’t like being pigeonholed but I don’t think they hated the people who did it.
If Andy Kaufmann doesn’t count–I never paid attention to him and I don’t think I would have been entertained–then we have to go to GG Allyn, the Toilet Rocker. This guy was, in fact, completely insane. I heard him interviewed on Jonathon Brandmeier’s radio show a few years back. He was saying that he hated his audience and they wanted to kill him. He said he was going to commit suicide on stage and take as many audience members as possible with him. That, frankly, is a little too edgy for me. I think he died of an overdose of heroin.
I had heard a couple of times that Stephen King grew annoyed with the Dark Tower fans, hence the author’s note at the end of the last book. Quite a few people took it as him saying ‘screw you people for badgering me for a ‘real’ ending. Fine, here, have one. Enjoy.’
I’m not sure if I take what he wrote to be such, or that he was merely sad that folks didn’t appreciate the original ending as he intended it to be.
GG was the first guy I thought of. GG’s shows consisted of stunts like him taking a dump on stage, stripping naked and rolling around in it, running around hugging the audience members, and running outside to immediately get arrested. I don’t know if it was so much that he hated his audience; it seemed more like he wanted them to hate him, which they often did. One infamous show in Dallas ended with the audience slashing the tires on the band’s van and the band fleeing town on the rims.
Andrew Eldritch supposedly gets very angry when people call him a Goth musician, and has quite a bit of contempt for (well, just about everyone, but in particular) that subculture.
I’ll take it from there.
And when he presented the idea to his talent agent who inquired about the name of this unusual act, he responded with:
The Aristocrat!
Good night folks!
Don’t forget to tip the wait staff!
Come to think of it, he probably was as close to a real life version of that story as you can get.
I don’t have the time to do a more thorough search and my efforts so far have netted nothing, but the first things I thought of when I saw the title were the incidents of Roger Waters spitting on a fan at a concert, and Grace Slick allegedly making some comment about how she was so much richer than people who had to scrimp and save for a ticket to see her. (Which of course she is). Rumors?
I don’t think Stephen resents us. Not most of us, anyway. At least not me.
I’m not sure “despise” would be the right word, but I’ve heard from many sources that Rush’s Neil Peart would prefer to simply write lyrics, perform, and have minimal if any contact with fans. In fact, the song “Limelight” pretty much sums it up: “I can’t pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend.” He doesn’t generally attend the backstage meet-and-greet sessions and reportedly was very annoyed when his little “write to Neil and get a reply” thing many years ago (affiliated with one of the drum magazines) grew from a “do this for a few people who read the magazine” affair into a “let’s deluge Neil with thousands of requests” thing, thanks to the newly burgeoning internet.
I can see why someone would. One of the biggest reasons I never pursued a professional music career was because I didn’t want to deal with fans. I would have been a more reclusive artist (think of someone like Enya). I had no interest in public appearances and would be in it to create music and dealing with people would be a major problem for me.
I concur.
The KLF. Modern geniuses who rival Duchamp in pure, subversive brilliance. Andy Kaufman as rave DJ.
Dark Tower fans? Stephen King fucking hates ALL of his fans! 
William Shatner does not love the Trekkies.
Jimmy Buffet is at least mystified by his following.
Crissy Hynde and Johnny Rotton both hated their fans.
I don’t think it’s really fair to say that. It’s true that at first Shatner was dismissive of Star Trek fans (he attributes this to being uncomfortable with speaking onstage and with wishing to appear professional). But after his infamous Saturday Night Live “Get a life!” sketch, he sat down with Star Trek fans and interviewed them. He gained a new appreciation of fandom and got a book out of it. By all accounts, he’s now very engaging at Star Trek conventions, especially when he appears alongside Leonard Nimoy.
Similarily I don’t think Harrison Ford has much love for the Star Wars flicks and the fanboys.
I do think Stephen King has a love/hate relationship with his fan base: Loves most of them, but really hates the crazies. He has written several books about the relationship between authors and their fans, the best one being Misery.