The ones I find most annoying are horse and dog clubs. At least the others mentioned in this thread are people that will probably rank humans above other animals.
The worst is the polo crowd. What can you say to a pretensious wank multi-millionaire to shut them up?
Ask them for some money. They’ll leave you alone after that.
Extreme Anime Fans
I like Anime, I also like American animation. It really pisses me off when some say that all anime has mature storylines and all American animation are pieces of crap.
I mean I can think of at least 10 anime titles that don’t fit the"Glorified Perception" that anime fans have of anime.
Do some Trekies actually speak Klingon?
Other than that, as long as they don’t bug me, I don’t bug them.
Well, I would imagine the ones who obsess over a TV show would be even worse.
Nobody irritated by Michael Jackson Fans?
“He may be an alien pedophile faerie in drag, but he’s our alien pedophile faerie in drag. And…and…and he’s a genius, and you’re not! Why are you so prejudiced against alien pedophile faeries in drag, you hateful, ignorant, jealous, bad bad person!?!? I hate you I hate you I hate you! I loooooooove you Miiiichaaaaelllll!! Waaahahahahahaaaa!”
Trek fans, definitely.
Look at Usenet, for example. There are several groups that are titled alt.startrek.vs. - stuff like vs.starwars and .vs.drwho and stuff like that.
Nerds who won’t shut up and dedicate entire groups to “The Enterprise is so cool it could use its phasers to pulverise God’s kidney stones!”.
STFU! Arrrrgh!
-Joe, different kind of nerd
I’d say all rabid fans annoy me. It is one thing to enjoy something a lot it is another to devote your entire existance and all of your memory and analytical skills towards studying and memorizing every insignificant detail conected to the object of your fanaticism.
Star Wars Fans bug me the most. Like the serious sport fans they are unable to make light or take criticism about the love of their life. Even worse is their overblown detailed explainations of obvious mistakes/plotholes (Parsecs used as a measure of time instead of distance) rather than admit it was an error.
They can’t admit when crap is crap. Hell I like Trek… I like Star Wars too, but when the material is absolute garbage I call it such (Spock’s Brain anyone?)
Many hardcore fans can’t even call Bullshit on the great Mr Lucas! Here is a guy who changes his story more times than the flannel shirts he wears and yet every word is traeted as the word of the Lord.
But my number one greivence… the Cult of Boba Fett. This weird mythos built around a character with three or four lines just puzzles the hell out of me. I mean he doesn’t do anything in Empire except stand around take orders and ask for his cargo. Big Deal. Oh wait, he and a few storm troopers take a potshot at Luke but really so what?
What does God need with a dialysis machine?
Dude, Matrix kicks both their asses!
(just joking)
So, gotta ask here…hasn’t the extended edition of ROTK been out for some time now? Or is it a super-duper extended edition? Cuz I’ve already got one that looks like a red book.
-Joe
Since the SFCA/Ren Fair people have been mentioned, I’ll mention the fanatics I find most annoying: Civil War re-enactors. There’s just something about them that’s really off-putting. They never seem to into the social history or politics - just the uniforms & guns. I guess playing at killing people is better than really doing it, but don’t tell me your “battles” are like the real thing. Also if I tell a Civil War fanatic that I’m not particularly interested in that time period, they assume I am an unschooled ignoramus. No, I’m not. I just find other historical eras far more interesting.
and whoever mentioned “Indiscriminate Sci-Fi Nerds” - I’ll second that one. And I’ll add “Indiscriminate Fantasy Nerds”.
By the way, I’m a total LOTR fan, but I don’t try to foist it on others. So please, Star Wars & Harry Potter fans & Narnia fans - Just accept that I don’t enjoy what you enjoy.
Uhhh, replace Revenge of the Sith with Attack of the Clones and it will all make more sense.
(On the other hand, replace Attack of the Clones with Revenge of the Sith and you’ll sure as heck enjoy the movie more.)
In recent history the Firefly/Serenity Fans have proved to be annoying. I enjoyed Firefly but I just can’t get wrapped up in a series that only lasted 13 episodes. I went to a party last March and everyone there was a browncoat and every time the topic turned to Firefly I was pretty much left out of the loop.
I’m not sure what the lamest example of fandom is. Objectively I’m convinced that Furries are the lamest but at least their getting some action.
Marc
Esperanto messiahs.
Also, any member of a group that slips it into every conversation for the shock value. I used to know a furry who was a funny enough guy, but you couldn’t have a conversation with him without thinking that he was using every one of your comments as a jumping off point for a furry story. And you could tell he intended it to be oh-so-scandalous.
Ah, I taken you’ve never encountered a southern Jimmy Buffet fan. This group is mostly made up of middle age (or older) women who like to go out dressed in more garish-than-usual clothing. If they’re at a bar, and a Buffet song starts playing…they start “dancing.” It’s painful to watch–a touch of arm swaying combined with this rhythmless up-down-up-down of their feet, along with the occasional “Woooo!” I can never tell if they’re having fun or if they’re trashed.
I nearly lost interest in Star Wars and Star Trek after I was stuck spending a semester in a class next to a girl who would babble on and on about how you weren’t really a fan if you hadn’t spent more than $900 on your costume. (Assigned seating in college – go figure. At least I got an A in the course.)
How about fanbases that split up an annoy each other?
I have a friend who’s a Deadhead. He was able to see a few concerts before Garcia died and said the old school Deadheads don’t care much for the post-“Touch of Grey” wannabe Deadheads who thought they knew what the whole Deadhead thing was about.
How about Harley Davidson bikers and the weekend take-my-hog-to-Sturgess-on-a-trailer types?
Related to Linux fandom are those who are fans of certain distributions of Limux. generally, it seems like the distros that are harder to install have the more vurilent fanbases. While there’s certainly more Ubuntu fans, they’re not as obsessive and defensive as Slackware or Gentoo fans. Gentoo users are like the ricers of the computer world, spending hours to compile and tweak software so it runs 3% faster than that of a precompiled binary, and they’ll make damn sure you know about it.
An even more niche form of fandom are those who are completely enamored with a particular message board system. There’s more than a few people caught up in a vBulletin v Invision Power Board rivalry, refusing to acknowleghe the weaknesses of their preferred program or the strengths of the other. Go into the vBulletin message board, casually mention how you like vBulletin but the administrator control panel in Invision Power Board seems less cluttered, and pull up a chair. The flames aren’t coming from Jeloft staff; it’s the fans fueling them.
To date, fans of the new Battlestar Galactica haven’t reached the obnoxious Star Trek/Star Wars level, but if history is any indicator …
My number #1 has already been mentioned - Joss Whedon fans
It doesn’t matter what he does, it’s gold, PURE GOLD! I too tried to watch Buffy (and even Angel), Firefly… meh. It doesn’t work for me, I’m glad it does for you… oh wait you say… I didn’t see the “right” episodes? Hmmm. Look, I tried, it’s not for me. But I prolly will see Serenity to further your cause for Whedism.
Mac users, also mentioned. Not from what I see day to day or from this board, but rather from the other board I read ARSTechnica.
Some of them are so fanatacal they would take a bullet for Jobs. Ugh. It’s a computer, people, not a religion. Mac users aside, its a fantastic board for tech knowledge… best on the net… way better than Slashdot, which was also mentioned. I would add that to my list, but I learned long ago to quit reading that rag.
This behaviour is just weird. Doesn’t he get tired of having to explain it? I’m completely the opposite. I play and judge Magic the Gathering and travel around Europe to do so, and I go out of my way to avoid mentioning it. I’ll just say “a card game” and similar because there’s just no way to explain the game at, for example, a family dinner.
In what way are Farscape and Babylon 5 remotely similar to the admittedly crappy, fanfic-ish Dark Horse “Vs” comics, tie-in novels, etc.? I haven’t seen Farscape but I can’t imagine comparing Babylon 5 to those things. Even if if it’s not your personal cup of tea, what would make its fans “indiscriminate”?
I have to say, the people who annoy me most of all are the people who expend lots of energy on hating other fandoms (especially when they’re hating particular splinter cells within the fandom they also belong to, like the ongoing war of words between the Buffy-Wuvs-Angel and Buffy-Wuvs-Spike contingents or the “Star Trek Rulz, Bab 5 sux!” people.). I’d rather see enthusiasm than pointless negativity anyday.
Fandoms are like religions. They tend to have lots of irrationally devoted followers who embarrass the middle-of-the-road folks who enjoy the subject of the fandom, but who recognize that other people might not be as fanatical and that it’s ok for them not to be. People need to be more aware of that fine line between “enthusiast” and “psychotic freak”.
I once got involved in a discussion with two film students who were Lynch fanboys. Apparently the entirety of human experience is examined in every one of Lych’s films, those who don’t realize this simply lack the capacity to appreciate high art. I can’t think of a time when I had a greater desire to clunk two heads together Three Stooges style.