# Least pathetic fanbase **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 22, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346 "2020-02-22T14:36:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/41 "2020-02-25T00:37:22Z")
> [@Dark\_Sponge](#): > > Maybe not looked up to, but the Browncoats (Firefly) are one of the least pathetic TV/Movie fanbases. I guess this is a case of YMMV. Or maybe they’ve mellowed over the last 20 years. But the Browncoats I had the misfortune to know about 20 years ago were pretty high on the pathetic scale. In their worldview, the only reason Firefly/Serenity aren’t bigger than Star Wars/Star Trek/Marvel/DC/Titanic/Tolkien combined was the vast Fox-wing conspiracy to suppress St. Whedon. First Fox deliberately sabotaged the show by showing the episodes out of order. (Why a network would massively hype an upcoming show, then intentionally tank it, is left unexplained. But “Fox execs are boneheads and just made bad decisions” doesn’t play with that crowd). Then they got a second chance with the Serenity movie, which failed to set the box office on fire. Why? Because Fox intentionally sabotaged the marketing. (Why a studio would spend tens of millions of dollars to make a move and then try to make it flop is also left unexplained). Seriously, given my tastes, this was a show that probably would have appealed to me, but the hardcore fans managed to turn me off even giving it a shot, despite receiving numerous offers to borrow their DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/42 "2020-02-25T01:21:22Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Monty Python fans, maybe. Some are rabid, no doubt, but I’m unaware of any of them creating a whole lifestyle out of it. Except that - at least in Britain - there’s the strain of Python fan notorious for their humourless ability to just word-for-word parrot the sketches. They’re locally the very epitome of a pathetic fanbase. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/43 "2020-02-25T02:05:27Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > Except that - at least in Britain - there’s the strain of Python fan notorious for their humourless ability to just word-for-word parrot the sketches. They’re locally the very epitome of a pathetic fanbase. There were drunken college-age Python fans in the US who were noted for doing the same–this would have been in the 80s and early 90s. I am not sure if Python is a thing among college student today though. ---
**Author:** ![Jumpbass](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jumpbass/32/147_2.png) [@Jumpbass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jumpbass)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/44 "2020-02-25T16:48:50Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > Except that - at least in Britain - there’s the strain of Python fan notorious for their humourless ability to just word-for-word parrot the sketches. They’re locally the very epitome of a pathetic fanbase. No, they’re here, too. I went to a showing of Holy Grail hosted by John Cleese and there were a couple bozos shouting the punchlines before the actors got to them. Yes, yes, you’re so smart, you know the movie better than the rest of us Python fans. :rolleyes: Pathetic. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/45 "2020-02-25T17:06:24Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > Except that - at least in Britain - there’s the strain of Python fan notorious for their humourless ability to just word-for-word parrot the sketches. They’re locally the very epitome of a pathetic fanbase. When I visited Tintagel Castle in Cornwall I looked up at the Camelot Castle Hotel which was up on a hill high above and said, of course, “It’s only a model.” Sighs and head shaking from those within earshot. Same trip I could be seen trotting around Doune Castle (site of most Holy Grail filming) banging two coconut halves together. At least I borrowed the coconuts halves from the gift shop, I didn’t bring my own. That would have been pathetic. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/46 "2020-02-25T21:59:06Z")
> [@by-tor](#): > > I don’t think The Expanse fanbase is that pathetic, yet. Maybe I am wrong. > > I agree with Chronos that is hard to beat hardcore sports fans for gushy patheticness. It always gives me a quiet chuckle to hear some sports fan, who can list the on-base percentage of the 1927 Yankees starting lineup, and who holds the NFL record for yards-after-catch by a slot receiver, deride Trekkies or GoT fans as trivia-obsessed nerds. > [@panache45](#): > > My brother had been a Browns fan since the 50s. He even had a ball from some Big Game and some seats in his apartment from the original Browns stadium. > > And he hadn’t even lived in Cleveland since the early 60s. > > Pathetic. Hey! I left Cleveland as a 14 year-old, and have only been back twice in the nearly forty years since then, but I still have Browns jerseys, hoodies, and hats that I regularly wear. Despite only seeing one game in all that time. That’s not “pathetic”, that’s _loyal_. > [@TruCelt](#): > > (snip) > > And of course, there’s this guy Cecil Adams with a BUNCH of insanely cool fans. . . “Plus a few total dipsticks.” ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/47 "2020-02-26T05:51:25Z")
HP Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos fans generally don’t seem terrible. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/48 "2020-02-26T06:13:13Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > HP Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos fans generally don’t seem terrible. I think the terrible is already baked in. Because Lovecraft. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/49 "2020-02-26T08:11:24Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > I guess this is a case of YMMV. Or maybe they’ve mellowed over the last 20 years. > But the Browncoats I had the misfortune to know about 20 years ago were pretty high on the pathetic scale. In their worldview, the only reason Firefly/Serenity aren’t bigger than Star Wars/Star Trek/Marvel/DC/Titanic/Tolkien combined was the vast Fox-wing conspiracy to suppress St. Whedon. > > First Fox deliberately sabotaged the show by showing the episodes out of order. (Why a network would massively hype an upcoming show, then intentionally tank it, is left unexplained. But “Fox execs are boneheads and just made bad decisions” doesn’t play with that crowd). > Then they got a second chance with the Serenity movie, which failed to set the box office on fire. Why? Because Fox intentionally sabotaged the marketing. (Why a studio would spend tens of millions of dollars to make a move and then try to make it flop is also left unexplained). > > Seriously, given my tastes, this was a show that probably would have appealed to me, but the hardcore fans managed to turn me off even giving it a shot, despite receiving numerous offers to borrow their DVDs. Totally agreed, and was the first “pathetic fandom” I thought of when seeing the thread title. The browncoats turned me off of watching Firefly for around 10 years. When I finally saw it I liked it; I even currently have the DVDs for the show ($3 at goodwill) and Serenity ($0.49 at swapadvd) in my DVD collection. On the one hand, I kind of wish there were more episodes. On the other hand, I’m glad there aren’t because fuck those annoying browncoats. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/50 "2020-02-26T15:49:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I think the terrible is already baked in. Because Lovecraft. That’s just it… the fandom acknowledges that Lovecraft was a racist jackass even by the standards of his own time, while simultaneously acknowledging the rather outsized impact he has truly had on pop culture. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/51 "2020-02-26T15:52:03Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > Totally agreed, and was the first “pathetic fandom” I thought of when seeing the thread title. The browncoats turned me off of watching Firefly for around 10 years. When I finally saw it I liked it; I even currently have the DVDs for the show ($3 at goodwill) and Serenity ($0.49 at swapadvd) in my DVD collection. > > On the one hand, I kind of wish there were more episodes. On the other hand, I’m glad there aren’t because fuck those annoying browncoats. I’ll chime in with agreement. I _REFUSED_ to watch it until… 5 years ago, maybe? I’ll have to see if I can find where I posted about it. Now, I really do think it was definitely a tragedy that it failed so spectacularly. If it had come out now, I think it would have been a runaway success. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/52 "2020-02-26T16:11:46Z")
I’ve never met a Patrick O’Brian fan who wasn’t intelligent, witty, charming and handsome. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/53 "2020-02-26T16:19:01Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I don’t see much mocking of the Baker Street Irregulars. I don’t know about that. We used to get under the skin of most Holmesians by pointing out that his extraordinary skills were in large part due to very specialized knowledge of the culture and mores of Victorian Britain, e.g. “No self-respecting barrister would patronize a tobacconist on Fleet Street! So, obviously, Watson, she’s lying!” To the larger question, as a die-hard fan of Star Trek, Doctor Who and Dark Shadows, long before such devotion was considered virtually mainstream, I find that question coming most often from people who watch professional sports. Nuff Said. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/54 "2020-02-26T18:18:31Z")
Least pathetic? Looked up to by outsiders? Well, not Bible fans. Dan ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/55 "2020-02-26T19:07:41Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I don’t think you’re going to find any group in existence that is mockery free, because miserable people will always hate people who are enjoying themselves. Maybe so, but I don’t think it’s about miserable/non-miserable people. Generally speaking, there are fans of certain show/game/movie/book/etc… franchises, and that’s all well and good. Where it tends to go off the rails is when they start integrating this fandom into their everyday lives beyond maybe having something like a clever t-shirt or knick-knack about their hobby. I’m talking about the people whose lives seem to center around the fandom and/or they get WAY too involved- beyond the point of healthiness. They seem to me, anyway, like a kid who is obsessed with something, but without the growing out of it. It’s weird and more than a little bit childish. It’s the guy who watches EVERY game of their chosen team, knows background on all the players, and who gets personally emotionally involved in every game- it’s a BIG DEAL to them when their team loses, or even underperforms, despite having no _actual_ material impact on them personally. I’m not counting hobbies in there; generally speaking there’s an inherent creativity involved in most hobbies- you’re actually DOING something as you engage in the hobby. Fandoms are just people who like the property, whatever it happens to be. So ham radio people are dorky hobbyists, but not a fandom, while hardcore Phillies fans are a fandom. So to answer the OP, I’d probably say something like Parrotheads, mostly because in my experience, although they like Buffett’s music, their main goal isn’t to geek out about the changes in the Coral Reefer Band or about how Jimmy sang the second stanza of “Pencil Thin Mustache” different than last time, but similar to five times ago, but rather they’re people in their 40s and later who use it as an excuse to get good and drunk, show their boobs, grill cheeseburgers and generally have a good time out in the parking lot for hours prior to the concert itself. ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/56 "2020-02-26T20:41:09Z")
> [@CaptMurdock](#): > > To the larger question, as a die-hard fan of Star Trek, Doctor Who and Dark Shadows, long before such devotion was considered virtually mainstream, I find that question coming most often from people who watch professional sports. Nuff Said. Took 53 posts to get to the Whovians, I’d guess that names the winner 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/57 "2020-02-27T04:24:04Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > word-for-word _ **parrot** _ the sketches I’ve got a slug. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2020, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/58 "2020-02-27T06:08:00Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > That’s just it… the fandom acknowledges that Lovecraft was a racist jackass even by the standards of his own time. They do? In my experience, most of them really don’t, and they resent one bringing it up. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/59 "2020-02-28T04:27:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > They do? In my experience, most of them really don’t, and they resent one bringing it up. I think a lot of us get tired of it being brought up so frequently when it doesn’t really have anything to do with the conversation. It’s fine with me if someone brings up Lovecraft’s racism to examine how that influenced some of his work. But very often it’s, “OMG! H.P. Lovecraft is so racist! How can you read that?” ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346/60 "2020-02-28T15:43:52Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I think a lot of us get tired of it being brought up so frequently when it doesn’t really have anything to do with the conversation. It’s fine with me if someone brings up Lovecraft’s racism to examine how that influenced some of his work. But very often it’s, “OMG! H.P. Lovecraft is so racist! How can you read that?” I think a lot of us get tired of _another_ racist piece of shit getting a pass just because they created something that entertains some people. FYI, the same can be said about sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/least-pathetic-fanbase/848346.md?page=4)