# Things that you wouldn't think would gather a huge fan following **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 22, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282 "2011-02-22T21:49:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/21 "2011-02-23T03:26:31Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _Tries to imagine the sort of people who would write fan-fiction about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama or Dr. Ron Paul…_ They’re called _reporters_; their zines, which they call _newspapers_, had a surprisingly large following, considering the quality of the writing, but that’s falling off rapidly. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/22 "2011-02-23T03:29:25Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > They’re called _reporters_; their zines, which they call _newspapers_, had a surprisingly large following, considering the quality of the writing, but that’s falling off rapidly. Fox News still calls them “reporters?” ---
**Author:** ![Gil-Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Gil-Martin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gil-Martin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/23 "2011-02-23T03:35:11Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Anime? You mean animated movies out of Asia? That’s a pretty broad topic. You should be more specific and pick out a few movies or shows that baffle you. It can’t be all animated work from Asia, can it? Well, I suspect just maybe it can. Granted, I’ve hardly seen it all, but I’ve disliked all of it I have ever seen. I’d rather watch Barney the Dinosaur or something. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/24 "2011-02-23T05:05:36Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _Tries to imagine the sort of people who would write fan-fiction about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama or Dr. Ron Paul…_ There are actually pretty large political fandoms out there. I’m not into it at all, but I know it exists. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/25 "2011-02-23T05:16:45Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > zYour last question and your OP title don’t seem to be the same question. > > But answering the title question: Boba Fett. That stumps me completely. Even as a sixth-grade Star Wars nerd when the movie came out, I never got the Boba Fett love. He was on the screen for less than 1 minute, and had maybe 1 line. Why would anyone think twice about him prior to the release of the prequels? But the guys in my class loved him, his action figure sold well, and Lucas decided to make him and his father part of the prequels, for no real goddamn reason at all except that ppl apparently liked this random place-filler from the first trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/26 "2011-02-23T05:25:17Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I wish had a bigger following: > Smoking: Until smokers stand up for their own rights, people are going to keep taking them away. [hijack] Even if they do, wont’ make any difference. And someday, I predict, you’ll be grateful. I was - it helped me a great deal to move me to quit and stay quit to know that my habit was despised and reviled and harder and harder to engage in. Seriously. When I was young and it was everywhere, well, way easier to keep doing it. Then, after I quit, I was spared too much exposure. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/27 "2011-02-23T05:36:23Z")
I used to moderate a pop music forum and there were some intense, detailed and very in depth discussions about things that non-hardcore fans would never ever consider, things like which order singles are released from an album, release dates, obscure mixes, analysis of every shot in a music video, endless chart position talk etc. For music that is supposed to be one of the lightest, least pretentious genres, there are a surprising amount of people that will treat it like Very Serious Business indeed, and yes I am one of them. Before I found out that this fandom existed I thought I was the only one (aside from people who actually, you know, work for record companies and get paid to care) obsessing over all this stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/28 "2011-02-23T06:53:16Z")
Hello Kitty. 'nuff said ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/29 "2011-02-23T06:59:30Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > There are actually pretty large political fandoms out there. I’m not into it at all, but I know it exists. Weird. I did not know that. Actually ( and without being snide regarding Mrs. Palin nor those who find her attractive ) I would guess that fan-fiction regarding her might mostly run to the sorts of Readers’ Letters to porn magazines ( if they have that sort of thing on the internet ); whilst for Dr. Paul, I was envisaging enthusiastic young Texan libertarians, writing in the stilted mode of Texan Robert E. Howard, describing the good doctor roaming Texas as a modern-day Uncle Abner, a grim Texan puritan righting wrongs, solving murders, and being constantly thwarted by the machinations of servants of the sinister entity of the Federal Reserve. Generally… being a pain. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/30 "2011-02-23T08:27:46Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > [hijack] > Even if they do, wont’ make any difference. And someday, I predict, you’ll be grateful. I was - it helped me a great deal to move me to quit and stay quit to know that my habit was despised and reviled and harder and harder to engage in. Seriously. When I was young and it was everywhere, well, way easier to keep doing it. Then, after I quit, I was spared too much exposure. > [/hijack] This has been talked to death on the dope, but no matter what the smoker feels like doing, their rights should not be taken from them. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/31 "2011-02-23T09:35:57Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > This has been talked to death on the dope, but no matter what the smoker feels like doing, their rights should not be taken from them. Nor should other people’s rights be taken from them. The question becomes…what is a right? What is a privilege? If in the end two rights are equal but clash, who must sacrifice? I think these questions have all been pretty much answered and I thought so when I smoked two-plus packs a day. “Rights” are an illusion to begin with, but if we skip that headache and assume everyone has a right to consume a legal substance and that everyone has a right to breathe air that is free of cigarette smoke when they are in public or at work, then the right to be free of noxious smoke is the “weightier” right, for the following reasons: 1. Fewer people smoke. 2. Smoke is poisonous. Pretty straightforward, really. Your “right” to smoke has not been taken away. Your “right” to smoke anywhere you feel like it probably never existed in your lifetime to begin with. (It did in mine. When I was a kid people could smoke in movies, the grocery store…in HOSPITAL ROOMS…) Everyone’s “right” to various things is subject to modification. You can’t drive anywhere you want, you can’t drink anywhere and anytime, your right to be naked is limited, etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/32 "2011-02-23T11:52:14Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > Even as a sixth-grade Star Wars nerd when the movie came out, I never got the Boba Fett love. He was on the screen for less than 1 minute, and had maybe 1 line. Why would anyone think twice about him prior to the release of the prequels? But the guys in my class loved him, his action figure sold well, and Lucas decided to make him and his father part of the prequels, for no real goddamn reason at all except that ppl apparently liked this random place-filler from the first trilogy. Add me to this. Any supposed “badass” who gets killed through a Three Stooges scenario ain’t worth the time. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/33 "2011-02-23T13:03:16Z")
**Superhal, stoid** , this is Cafe Society, not GD – take the smoking hijack elsewhere, please. Thanks, **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/34 "2011-02-23T13:17:16Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > The whole Juggalos thing confuses me. To me, Insane Clown Posse was just some below-average Hip-Hop band I was vaguely aware of. Suddenly they had this rabid fan base of face-painting lunatics following them everywhere. > [@Mahaloth](#): > > They became super popular? Wow, I remember them from the mid-90’s. I worked at Meijer in metro-Detroit area and they were only popular there. I had no idea they had continued to be popular. They dropped off into cult land about a decade ago. And even then, they were never “huge” in the way that Korn, Limp Bizkit or Eminem were in the late 90s. But I love how every year or so, a writer will put out a story about ICP as if they were then (and still are today) one of the biggest bands in the world. It even happened to [Frontline](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/). ---
**Author:** ![MegaBee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/35 "2011-02-23T13:27:44Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > Even as a sixth-grade Star Wars nerd when the movie came out, I never got the Boba Fett love. He was on the screen for less than 1 minute, and had maybe 1 line. Why would anyone think twice about him prior to the release of the prequels? But the guys in my class loved him, his action figure sold well, and Lucas decided to make him and his father part of the prequels, for no real goddamn reason at all except that ppl apparently liked this random place-filler from the first trilogy. Dude, just look at him. He’s totally badass! I was a huge Boba Fett fan from the moment he appeared on screen, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because he talked back to Darth Vader? Could it be the jetpack? The fact that he actually captured Han Solo? It is a mystery. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/36 "2011-02-23T13:34:05Z")
**High School Musical.** You have to remember it started off as just a made-for-TV Disney flick with a bunch of no-name actors. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/37 "2011-02-23T13:37:10Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _Tries to imagine the sort of people who would write fan-fiction about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama or Dr. Ron Paul…_ Well, you have to check this out then: > **[ComicsAlliance - Comic book culture, news, humor and commentary.](https://comicsalliance.com/)** > > Marvel Comics, DC Comics, comics downloads, comic book movies, digital comics, free comics and more. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/38 "2011-02-23T13:57:05Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > _Tries to imagine the sort of people who would write fan-fiction about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama or Dr. Ron Paul…_ > [@](#): > > “Did somebody call for a plumber?” > > “Oh gosh, Joe” exclaimed a startled Sarah. “I didn’t hear you there. I was so busy reading the press and the media. You know, all of them.” > > “Permission to come aboard the Straight Talk Express?” > > “Granted!” she cried, nasally. > > The unlicensed Plumber, his plunger erect, boarded the bus and slid into a seat next to the unindicted Governor… Set off my [sarcasm alarm](http://outfoxingkarlrove.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/drill-baby-drill-a-trashy-novel-work-of-gop-fanficti-on-236/)… ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/39 "2011-02-23T14:15:32Z")
> [@MegaBee](#): > > Dude, just look at him. He’s totally badass! I was a huge Boba Fett fan from the moment he appeared on screen, and I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because he talked back to Darth Vader? Could it be the jetpack? The fact that he actually captured Han Solo? > > It is a mystery. He had a cool outfit and didn’t he have some wrist mounted weaponry? That’s kind of cool to a 10 year old. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282/40 "2011-02-23T14:41:18Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > The whole Juggalos thing confuses me. To me, Insane Clown Posse was just some below-average Hip-Hop band I was vaguely aware of. Suddenly they had this rabid fan base of face-painting lunatics following them everywhere. Agreed. I can’t understand why anyone watches or plays Pokémon past the age of 13. Yet a lot of the adult friends of my girlfriend (who is strongly entrenched in the anime culture) are big fans of it. It’s obviously targeted toward young children. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-you-wouldnt-think-would-gather-a-huge-fan-following/572282.md?page=3)