Wannabeeeees!

Lake Charles, LA

Calm down, calm down.  This post has absolutely nothing to do with the lovely Spice Girls (although they are a guilty pleasure of mine).  Nope, I just used their photo to draw attention to the topic at hand:  Wannabes.  Yes, there are a lot of “wannabes” out there.  From wannabe athletes to wannabe authors (like myself) to wannabe zookeepers (I’m guessing those really exist), this great land of ours is flush with wannabes.

This post in particular is about a specific type of wannabe:  the wannabe fanboy.  Now I’m not trying to start an argument over who is “more of a true fan” than any other person or what criteria must be met to be considered a true fan at all.  I’m focusing on certain people who become instant fans of a new franchise or genre because they’ve effectively been forced out of another circle of fandom or they become a “fan” of a franchise for their own personal gain.

I have dealt directly with this type of person.  They latch onto whatever fandom happens to be hot or popular at the time, and uses it to gain pseudo-friends because they irritated, lied to, and basically ticked off the last group they were a part of before getting the boot.  I have witnessed this type of person openly blast anime and anime fans, calling them and their genre “stupid, silly, and just dumb.”  However, when that person saw another group put on an anime-focused event and saw how much attention and money it brought, the individual immediately started to use and abuse anime for profit.

Fortunately, the anime fans of the world caught on to this person’s motives and left him/her high and dry.

After this failure, the individual went to another established (yet aged at the time) franchise, Star Trek, to make another attempt at a cash grab.  While it was only a slightly better event, this person yet again ostracized fans of Trek, making him/her two for two on ticking people off.

The next event this person put on was even worse.  The individual doubled up in desperation, attempting to draw both anime and Star Wars fans to the next event, but the event bombed.  While the anime fans had learned from experience, the Star Wars fans had already researched this person and avoided the event like the plague.

Now this person is trying to abuse Doctor Who.  This individual has told me to my face how dumb the good Doctor is in his/her opinion, and just can’t understand why anybody would want to watch the show.  This person didn’t care two bits about the Doctor, the Master, the Rani, Turlough, Tegan, or Peri.  But now, all of a sudden, and with no real fan groups left in the area to milk for profit, this person has become a huge fan of the Doctor, going so far as to join up with a fan group and use it to promote his/her event.

It’s a really sad turn of events in my opinion, that a person would be so desperate for attention and profit that they would sell themselves out to the highest paying fandom.  In short, this person is a fanwhore (Is there such a term yet?  If not, I call dibs!).

This person leeches any and all they can for their own personal gain.  It’s sickening.  I do not like these types of people.  It’s one thing to not like a series or comic and then gradually become a fan, but to instantly become a fan of a franchise that you have a long history of hating and/or disliking is a bit odd in my opinion.  It’s as if the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven and tapped your anime-hating brain and made you an instant fan.

Please, readers.  Do not become one of these posers, one of these parasites.  It doesn’t look good on anybody!

That’s it.  I’m off my soapbox.  I just had to get that off of my chest.

Thanks for reading and tolerating me for a bit.