Creator Worship

What happens when you start calling people "rock gods".


"The teacher comes to point the way and the students end up worshiping the pointer."
—An old saying, often attributed to Buddha

Isn't it interesting that the defining additional information coming from the creator of a medium is called the Word of God?

Sometimes, a fandom seems to be dedicated to not only the specifics of the show, but to every word or comment that is issued from the creator's mouth. Often anything the creators say, even when not related to the fandom, will be adopted into their vocabulary and mindset. If the creator decides to drop an anvil, it will always be an anvil in dire need of dropping according to the fans. If they decide to suddenly insert a long diatribe that otherwise has nothing to do with the rest of the story, hey, it's their book/comic/show/whatever, they can voice their opinions if they want! If the creator seems to be getting more and more full of themselves, well they're entitled to it because they're just that awesome! These reactions can vary from mild to extreme, but basically the object of Creator Worship will always have fans ready to make some kind of excuse for whatever they do.

The creators themselves may become aware of the power they hold. Some will use it conservatively, to promote unity and not impose their opinions to the masses. Others will wield it like a weapon, boldly stating their position on subjects and obviously hoping their followers will... follow.

Obviously anyone who rises to some type of popularity will have fans, but this is not about a fan going "I really like this one guy..." This trope is about the fans worshipping these mere mortals, and not just the stuff they make.

Such worship may come to resemble established religions, with vicious attitudes towards non-fans.

When it goes wrong, or when the inverse happens, see Scapegoat Creator and Fallen Creator.

Examples of Creator Worship include:

Actors


Anime and Manga


Comic Books

  • Alan Moore, creator of such comics as Watchmen, V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
  • Grant Morrison is essentially Alan Moore with a lot less hair.
  • Frank Miller, creator of 300, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns, and a ton of other stuff.
  • Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy.
  • Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit and coiner of the term "graphic novel," and rightly so. The man was one of the first comickers to take the medium seriously, yet totally unpretentiously.
    • An Eisner Award in comics is the equivalent of an Oscar for movies, or an Emmy for TV shows.
  • As noted below, Neil Gaiman fans tend to be rather, uh, "enthusiastic."
  • For similar reasons, Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics (and Zot) and the first person to take comics seriously enough to do literary criticism to them. As any good god seems to be, highly controversial.
  • Jack Kirby. A bit of the esteem "the King" is held in (aside from being nicknamed "the King") can be seen in the DC Comics boast that they paid Jack more for creating Darkseid than Marvel did for creating their whole universe. Mark Waid actually portrayed the Marvel Universe God as Jack Kirby in the pages of Fantastic Four.
  • Stan Lee, the man responsible for Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, and pretty much every Marvel icon that isn't Captain America (on whom he left his mark nonetheless).
  • Steve Ditko, co-creator of the Marvel Universe, especially Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, where his vision is the definitive one. Justice League gave his later DC and Charlton Comics creations their due.
  • Warren Ellis. Writer of many comic books including Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, Nextwave, Fell, Freak Angels and Doktor Sleepless. Known to his fans as Dear Leader, the Internet Jesus or the Love Swami, among other similar monikers. Once commanded a Holy Slut Army of fans.
  • Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes.
  • Garth Ennis is SOME sort of comics deity...
  • Alex Ross. Can anyone hear the name "Superman" without instantly thinking of that awesome, square-jawed, blue eyed titan he paints?
  • Jhonen Vasquez, creator of famously disturbing comics such as Johnny the Homicidal Maniac as well as the cult animated series Invader Zim. According to fans of that last one, absolutely everything good about the show was his personal idea, and everything bad was due to the Nickelodeon executives, the demons to Vasquez's godhood.
  • Carl Barks. He was worshipped before anyone even knew his name, he was just known in the public as the Good Duck Artist. His popularity was so big that he figured he'd take pension when he was roughly 130 years old.
  • Chris Claremont has some of this, especially from X-Men fans who have become disillusioned with the changes to the comic in recent years. The recent release of X-Men Forever has given Claremont fns somewhere to go, but, predictably, has also garnered some detractors. To most fans, he is known as the Father of X(-men) and is the author of the most acclaimed X-Men story arc, The Dark Phoenix Saga as well as many popular X-Men characters.
  • Geoff Johns. The man who always has an epic story and a larger plan for the DCU. And to think that he was merely a fan who managed to get his dream job when he first started.
  • Jeff Smith, pretty much the most acclaimed and successful Independent Comic Book artist and author out there; Anything he writes becomes immediately awesome. Anything. RASL? Awesome. Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil? Awesome, even to people that hate superheroes, or The Silver Age of Comic Books. Bone? So friggin' awesome it's won 10 Eisner Awards, 11 Harvey Awards, has been listed on Time's 10 Best English Graphic Novels of All Time list, and is included in Scholastic's "required reading" section... oh, and it's an engrossing Doorstopper to boot.


Fan Works


Film

  • Alfred Hitchcock was and is still considered the master of suspense. He coined turns like The Mac Guffin, and gave a number of interviews describing his tactics in constructing good stories.
  • George Lucas. The godfather of modern entertainment. It has been said that the original Star Wars trilogy didn't invent movie marketing—just perfected it. His popularity has decreased somewhat since the prequel trilogy came out, with George Lucas bashing being popular now. But his name and image should not be taken lightly.
  • Peter Jackson has his followers for his take on The Lord of the Rings. Although he also has his serious detractors among hard-core fans of the original books, as well as from fans of the original King Kong and the book of The Lovely Bones.
  • Steven Spielberg
  • Kevin Smith of The View Askewniverse. The personality cult surrounding him has become so great that he now seems to spend more doing podcasts than making films.
  • Tim Burton, for many, many, many films.
  • Pixar. All of Pixar. And they've earned it; Cars had an average rating of 75%, and that's their worst-rated film.
    • Pixar was originally spun off from George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic, and until recently was helmed by Steve Jobs. Stranger and stranger?
    • Cars 2 is currently a 35% on rotten tomatoes. It's anyone's guess what'll happen to them...
  • Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who did Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
  • Brad Bird, who helmed The Iron Giant. You should've heard the response when he teamed with Pixar for The Incredibles.
    • Fans lined up for the fourth Mission: Impossible film simply because Bird was directing it.
  • Quentin Tarantino was considered the new voice of film in The Ninties. Just about anything both violent and comic will be compared to his works.
  • Judd Apatow.
  • Spike Lee became known as the artistic authority on the African-American experience. In an interview, Lee even complained that whenever a controversy involved black people, his office would inevitably get a call asking for comment.
  • Christopher Nolan.
  • The Coen Brothers.
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • Martin Scorsese
  • David Fincher
  • Zack Snyder


Literature

  • "J. K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, is either the primal mistress of all evil, or the supreme, almighty goddess deserving of our unreserved worship. The Harry Potter fandom does not allow any opinion between these two extremes." ~ Fandom Wank Wiki
  • Jane Austen of Sense and Sensibility and five other novels.
  • Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club).
  • Douglas Adams (author of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) became incredibly popular as an author, humorist, essayist and atheist.
  • L. Ron Hubbard (made even more rabid with the fact that he actually created a religion, Scientology).
  • Robert A. Heinlein has a particularly obsessive and cultish fanbase who pore over his fictional and non-fictional writings to glean pearls of wisdom.
    • Hubbard and Heinlein are actually involved in a pretty interesting anecdote involving this trope being played straight-up. As the story goes, Heinlein challenged his contemporary and rival Hubbard to see who can come up with the most ludicrous-sounding religion while still convincing people that's it's legit. Heinlein pulled out of the competition when he decided that people were all too willing to latch onto it and take it seriously...of course, Hubbard didn't....
    • The religion spawned by Heinlein's work, The Church Of All Worlds, survived for years though. It petered out along with the hippy movement.
  • Ayn Rand wrote several popular novels, including Atlas Shrugged, which formed the basis for the philosophy of Objectivism. She remains its figurehead to this day.
  • Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame. His fans celebrate his birthday (April 28) as the "Creator's Birthday".
    • This started as a joke in the Discworld Diary (another being that Big Name Fan Stephen Briggs's birthday is Patrician Day), but it is certainly the case that any statement he makes on alt.fan.pratchett (which rarely discusses the actual books) will be treated as a bit more significant than if J. Random Poster said it. Half of them will still disagree with it, because they're a bloody-minded bunch (again, taking on his mindset!) but they'll do it in a more measured way.
    • His French translator, Patrick Couton, Grand Master of Woolseyism, has been referred to as Metatron, as in "Voice of God".
  • JRR Tolkien, of Lord of the Rings, god of the fantasy genre as we know it. His son Christopher presides over veneration and interpretation of the holy texts.
    • The fans call him "The Professor" and hold toasts each year on his birthday. Really.
    • The hero worship has not been well received by the Tolkien family; Tolkien himself referred to it as "my deplorable cultus", and Christopher keeps a wild boar on his property to discourage overly zealous pilgrims.
  • George R.R. Martin of A Song of Ice and Fire is known to have a pretty close relationship with his fans, and often attends parties they throw at various sci-fi/fantasy conventions. This is all in spite of the internet Hatedom directed at him by readers who complain about his slipping release schedules. To them, it's more like GRRM is their own personal Satan
  • Neil Gaiman, despite the fact that he always looks faintly bemused at discovering hundreds of fans waiting for him at book signings and the like. (That or he's just stoned, hard to say really.)
    • It's Neil Gaiman, meaning the answer is almost certainly both.
    • And now he's got a whole bunch of new fans who are coming to him because of his wife, who are a bit rowdier than his older fans.
  • CS Lewis. To his credit, he did as much as he could to downplay it during his lifetime in favor of recommending other fantasy authors and Christian apologists.
  • To a comparatively minor extent, Timothy Zahn among fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. The Thrawn Trilogy basically kicked off all Star Wars novels - yes, there had been a few before, focusing on young-ish Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, but this trilogy picked a point years after the movies and built a galaxy around it, and introduced both Mara Jade and Thrawn. It was the first - and this is hotly contested - the best Expanded Universe epic. Zahn-bashing is a bit more popular these days, though less so than for Lucas.
  • Neil Gaiman himself was an adolescent fanboy of Michael Moorcock who was very much worshiped some twenty-odd years ago, perhaps before most tropers' time.
  • H.P. Lovecraft. Creator of Cthulhu. Even during his lifetime, there were fans of his who believed that his universe was real and his works were merely channelling the message of the Old Ones. His cult actually contained a number of young acolytes who would go on to greatness of their own, notably Robert Bloch, author of Psycho and Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. There is even speculation that his cult may have indirectly inspired Erich von Daniken, and thus may have been responsible for the creation of some actual religions.


Live Action TV

  • Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and now Dollhouse. Don't like him? Fine. Mention it online? The internet will eat you.
    • Interestingly, Joss is also considered to be evil by these very same fans for the angst he puts his characters through, bordering on misanthropic. If the Cult of Joss were an actual religion, it would be a Religion of Evil.
    • This Creator Worship is in no small part responsible for Dollhouse getting a second season. It's a safe bet that had Dollhouse been made by someone else, there's no way it would've gotten that far, if only because of the inboxes full on hate-mail his fans could unleash like no other.
    • This very wiki was founded by Whedonites and so, even by internet standards, this is a holy site for them.
    • So, in other words, obey the Josspel.
  • JMS, aka J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. There was once a website called the Church of Joe, where his more obsessive fans could sign up to be clergy in a religion worshipping the Great Maker, Joe Straczynski himself.
    • "The Great Maker" was a mostly tongue-in-cheek Fan Nickname before that, taken from the in-universe Centauri deity.
  • Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, is sometimes called The Great Bird of the Galaxy by his fans, after a Romulan god.
    • This doesn't even begin to describe it. A lot of the older TOS fans positively worship the man, and it's practically Fandom Heresy to say anything against him. While Trek fans certainly do owe him some credit for creating the franchise, he also essentially abandoned TOS by the end of the second season (Season finale as a Poorly-Disguised Pilot, anyone?), and his meddling in the TOS film era eventually led to him getting Kicked Upstairs. These same fans tend to vilify Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, who, while making some questionable choices later in their term of presiding over the Trek series, helped to rescue TNG from the ruins of its first season, which had the most Roddenberry influence, and make it the classic it is today.
  • Ron Moore himself has varied from being considered a saint for reviving Battlestar Galactica Reimagined and doing it so well, or the Antichrist for changing it so much.
  • There was a big to-do concerning a personal appearance of Rockne S. O'Bannon, the brains behind Alien Nation, SeaQuest DSV, and of course Farscape, his biggest cult hit. There was an interview around the same time that said he was creating a new sci-fi show called Cult which would focus on loony fans of a show within a show series.
    • Farscape screenwriter Justin Monjo also achieved God status among John/Aeryn shippers for specific shippy episodes he penned. They called themselves Monjonians and even had a prayer: Hail Monj, full of 'Scape, Rockne is with thee... When told about this, several of the show's actors agreed he was a God and were declared to be honorary Monjonians. I am not making any of this up...
  • Eric Kripke, the creator of Supernatural, is either hailed as a God or as a Lying Liar That Lies Anti-Christ.
  • Bill Lawrence creator of Spin City and Scrubs, hailed for his type of comedy seen nowhere else in television.
  • JJ Abrams, creator of Alias, Lost, and Fringe.
    • And while Abrams may have created Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse perfected it. Fans have even given them a Portmanteau Couple Name of "Darlton".
    • And now Star Trek as well. While some of the pre-existing Fan Dumb will vilify him, the newer fans who were lured in by this movie will defend him to the last.
  • Tim Kring, creator of Heroes. Of course, given the Sophomore Slump of season 2, bashing him has also become a bit of fun.
  • David Simon of The Wire. The fact that this is mostly justified—he and everyone else who worked on The Wire pay far more attention to detail, characterization, and plot than nearly anyone else working in television—makes fandom all the more frustrating for the unlucky few who do take issue with some aspects of his work.
    • Reinforcing the appearance of deity is that if you criticize him online, there's a non-zero chance that he'll actually see it and respond (usually witheringly).
    • Simon also wrote the book that gave rise to Homicide: Life on the Street, so he's been at least a demiurge for some time.
  • Jon Stewart. Among the reasons cited by fans:
  • Stephen Colbert, for many of the same reasons.
  • Aaron Sorkin, creator/writer of Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
    • That last one lost him a bit of standing. However, he did then write the screenplay for Charlie Wilson's War, which was well-received and stuffed to the gills with all the Sorkin tropes we know and love.
    • The Social Network has been so overwhelmingly well-received that any damage Studio 60 might've done to his standing is utterly irrelevant.
    • Sorkin's worshippers are pretty bad. Not only do They firmly believe every word of dialogue that flows from his pen is a work of Shakespearian magnificence, They will also swear on Their lives that he can do no wrong and any criticism of his work (The author tracts, the condescending air, the heavy amounts of personalization) go ignored. Studio 60 definitely gets the worst of it. You'll hardly find a fan who will say that it got cancelled because it was flawed, not because it was too edgy. Even Sorkin has said it was a misfire.
  • Although not strictly the creator, Russell T. Davies gets a fair amount of worship for bringing back Doctor Who.
  • Jim Henson, the undisputed greatest puppeteer of the 20th century for his Muppets.
  • David Shore. He's seen as kind of a douchebag but, then again, he did write "Three Stories" (which is seen as the best episode ever by most people) so I guess it evens out.
  • Chris Morris, creator and writer of seminal shows such as On The Hour, The Day Today and Brass Eye. When not taking scathing pot-shots at the Media and generally baiting the outrage brigade, occasionally emerges from his lair to lambast public figures such as Martin Amis for talking out of their colons. And that's not even taking into account the pranks he was responsible for back when he was a humble DJ for Radio One.
  • Armando Iannucci, not only helped to create The Day Today, but also co-wrote I'm Alan Partridge and created The Thick of It, any one of which would raise any individual to Deity Status.
  • Sherlock creators, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are revered as gods, very evil gods to be precise, by the fandom. The fans fondly call them Mofftiss when referring to both, and Godtiss and The Moff when referring to one or the other. They are both loved and hated for their genius... and knack of leaving their fans on mindbending cliffhangers for an entire year.
  • Ryan Murphy of Glee, especially amongst the LGBT crowds.


Music

  • Michael Jackson, whose fanbase seems to consist entirely of worshippers who aren't distressed by anything he did. Someone released doves when he was pronounced not guilty at his child molestation trial, and since his death he's been elevated even higher.
  • Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers, despite barely being able to play an instrument and never once singing on a studio track - not to mention having vanished in 1995 after possibly drowning himself in the Severn. A certain section of fans were and are known as the "Cult of Richey". Guitarist and vocalist James Dean Bradfield once remarked that even after his disappearance Cult of Richey types would stand in front of Richey's traditional but now-vacant position onstage, staring at where he usually was and nowhere else for the entire gig.
  • For a while, The Beatles qualified. Yoko Ono is now the official priestess of John Lennon, for those interested in his cult. And there are still a few members of the cult of Paul McCartney out there....
  • Weird Al Yankovic, current high priest of comedy, has a surprisingly obsessive fanbase.
    • To be fair, the he's kind of the only game in town when it comes to parody tunes.
  • Bob Marley. Considered to be the King of Reggae.
  • Very common with the fans of influential and critically acclaimed songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and Tom Waits? Though just about any famous musician with any charisma at all will get this kind of thing from some quarter of their fandom.
  • The King of Rock. Elvis Presley fandom extends way, way beyond worship. Uh-hunh.
  • Similar, hide fandom and to a somewhat lesser degree, Yoshiki fandom.
  • Tupac Shakur. Apparently the undisputed greatest rapper of all time. So prolific was his career that he literally wrote thousands of songs, much of which released posthumously, and like Elvis above for this reason, many fans believe he's still alive somewhere.
  • For many aficionados of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is unassailably the greatest composer and lyricist that the medium has ever seen.
  • Vic Firth, a legendary percussionist and pretty much the face of concert percussion. It helps that his brand of equipment is the most popular (and for some, reliable) brand on the market. Also helps that he taught a blind hockey player to play the marimba. With four mallets.
  • Frank Zappa. An example close to home can be found here.
  • Benny Goodman, the King of Swing. Some claim he was responsible for touching off the Swing era, and he was almost certainly one of the biggest players in bringing Jazz into the mainstream with his '38 Carnegie Hall concert. It probably doesn't hurt that his ensembles have included- and in many, if not most, cases given a start to- Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Teddy Wilson, and even Billie Holiday.
  • Speaking of Gene Krupa... Gene Krupa. Go ahead, speak ill of him in a large gathering of drummers. Just be ready to run.
  • Just go on Twitter. The amount of tiny tween (and adult) worshippers of Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber are astounding. And scary.
  • It was a fan catchphrase in the 60s that "Clapton is God", supposedly inspired by a famous piece of graffiti in Islington.
  • Those who have interest in film music will know and love John Williams.
  • My Chemical Romance has a few fans who claim the band is their religion. Some fans even refer to singer Gerard Way as "Geesus" and the other band members as his disciples. Also, here's an MCR bible. I'm scared too. *shudder*
  • Sound Horizon fans do not worship Revo - they crown him king and show their love to him by singing the Sound Horizon Kingdom's (inter)national anthem after every concert.


Professional Wrestling

  • Many wrestling fans believe that Vince McMahon should be hailed as the sole creator and protector of modern professional wrestling.
  • Fans of the original ECW often give Paul Heyman the full-on Creator Worship treatment. There's a reason why the word "Kool-Aid" seems to come up a lot while discussing ECW and its mutants?
  • Smart Marks (especially the Internet Wrestling Community) worship Dave Meltzer. Ric Flair, in his autobiography, compared Meltzer's The Wrestling Observer Newsletter to The Bible.


Tabletop Games

  • Look no further than Richard Garfield, PhD. Literally, if his own card is anything to go by. It's not every creator that gets to be depicted as a Biblical saint.


Theater

  • William Shakespeare. Playwright of...err, a lot. There was a time in history when "Bardolatry" (as it was called by George Bernard Shaw) was the primary attitude. The modern critic is more likely to regard Shakespeare's collection of plays as just that: a collection of plays, written as entertainment for an Elizabethan audience, rather than "a map of life". Nonetheless, Bardolatry is very much alive.


Video Games

  • Nintendo. Having revitalized the industry after the Video Game Crash Of 1983 and still remaining a strong contender in the hardware and software departments after many companies have come and gone, it's easy to see why they have loyal fans to their name. In addition, many people and sub-companies who work for them get their own individual worship.
  • Bungie Studios for the Halo series. The sheer amount of fan input they allow make the studio very popular.
    • Not only does Bungie get worshiped, but some employees get worshiped. A few of the highest worshiped are Shishka, Lukems, Urk, Marty, and, back when he worked for Bungie, Frankie. Frankie is now over at 343 Industries, which he runs.
      • To add to that, the forum mods get worshiped. The most famous are Foman, Duardo, Recon Number 54, and a few others.
  • Square Enix (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.)
  • BioWare (makers of Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect, etc.).
  • Sid Meier, as in Sid Meier's Civilization, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire, Railroad Tycoon, etc.
  • Valve, for masterpieces such as the Half-Life series, Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike (although Counter-Strike was originally a Half-Life mod taken over by Valve, and Portal was originally a student project that had its team hired to perfect it using Valve's own development methodology). But Steam is pretty cool or extremely uncool depending on who you speak to, of course.
    • They're nearly as good as Pixar, actually - according to Metacritic, their lowest-rated game is Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, an expansion pack with 65%! Add on Metacritic's tendency to swing towards the middle, and the fact that all their full games are much, much higher (the lowest full game, Day of Defeat, has 78, and that nine out of thirteen scored games have 85 or more), and you have a beautiful average.
    • It's really telling that they're able to almost completely disregard release schedules and still have the fans remain on their side: yeah, they delay so much it's a Running Gag, but the game that comes out in the end is usually so good that the fans are willing to forgive the wait.
  • The guys at Rocksteady Studios earned a lot of well-deserved respect from Batman fans (and videogame fans in general) for their work in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City.
  • Will Wright, the man who either created or was tangentially involved in all "Sim" games by Maxis. The best-selling game designer ever (With The Sims, its sequels and expansions, and all the numbered SimCity games).
  • Richard Garriot, AKA Lord British, creator of RPGs as we know them in the form of the fanatically loved Ultima series.
  • Peter Molyneux, best known for boasting about incredible features and then failing to deliver them. Still loved mostly because you can't fault him for being enthusiastic about his own (High-quality) work. Responsible for Populous, Black & White, and Fable, among others.
  • Warren Spector, creator of Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief and Deus Ex, which is a strong contender for the position of "best game ever," according to critics.
    • How much Warren Spector influenced Thief's development is debatable. Mr. Spector himself has stated that he had minimal involvement on Thief as it came to be in the end.
  • John Carmack, one of the main men responsible for the Doom and Quake series and one of the first wildly successful game designers. Though his stock has dipped somewhat since Doom 3's lukewarm reception, "The Carmack" still commands attention when he speaks about game technology, especially 3D graphics engines, his specialty.
    • The other members of id's founding pantheon (John Romero, Tom Hall, and American McGee) also attract their share of sycophants and loathers.
  • Michael Kirkbride, who wrote much of the background religious lore for The Elder Scrolls and had a hand in the spin-off game Redguard and the main quest of Morrowind. Going on the Imperial Library forum or the Lore subsection of the official Bethesda forum and saying anything even a little negative about any of his work, or even claiming one of his characters can be wrong about things (not all that hard to believe, considering all of the series lore is presented through in-character opinions by multiple authors) will get you flamed, then firebombed, then regular flamed again.
  • Telltale Games (formerly the beloved adventure game division of LucasArts) are on exactly the same wavelength as their fanbase, and most of the employees are moderators on the Telltale forums.
  • Hideo Kojima, best known for the Metal Gear Solid series and Snatcher.
  • The various diaspora of Interplay's RPG division (Black Isle Studios, Troika Games, Obsidian Entertainment) draw a merciless but fiercely devoted fanbase.
    • A lot of Black Isle's creative team works at Obsidian now, so there is some justification for lumping them together.
  • Infinity Ward. Don't even think about suggesting that any Call of Duty titles other than 1, 2, and the Modern Warfare games exist. And lord help you if you so much as suggest that Treyarch exists or that World at War was anything less than a travesty, despite insistence that it's a copy of 4 with World War II paint.
    • Which has backlashed with the release of Black Ops, with more people feeling that Modern Warfare 2 was far from great and the single-player a disjointed mess.
  • Seafood metaphors aside, Nasu Kinoko can do no wrong.
  • Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil gets this - to the extent that the above-mentioned Peter Jackson approached him to handle the game version of his King Kong remake.
  • Goichi Suda and his studio, Grasshopper Manufacture, draw this, especially from art-game enthusiasts.
  • Team Silent, the vaguely-defined group of individuals responsible for the first four Silent Hill games, are considered gods among men (especially now that they're split up) by many of the series' Unpleasable Fanbase.
  • Even some video game composers get this - Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu and Akira Yamaoka, to name just a few, are as beloved and worshiped as many game creators.
  • Ryukishi07 gets this sort of treatment from When They Cry fans a good amount of the time. And it's a very masochistic kind of Creator Worship too, so the funniest thing is watching right after a new release as the When They Cry message boards erupt into flames of fans screaming "Oh my god! What does he take us for!" while paradoxically loving every second of it.
  • Brian Fargo, the man behind Interplay up until the... unpleasantness. Now running In Xile Entertainment. Go on, laugh.
  • ZUN, for being a Crazy Awesome Drunken Master who helped make a moe-filled Bullet Hell series, that is extremely memetically popular and has a fanon almost as big as Vocaloid's.
  • Notch, Creator of Minecraft is revered as a physical god, to the point of having temples built in-game to him.
    • Notch always has a cult of fans who will never disown him, and many who think he's lazy. So I guess it's a holy war.
  • Platinum Games/ Clover Studios get this a lot, as when at Capcom, many of the games they made were considered to be some of Capcom's best, especially Okami. Same with how they are as Platinum Games when a game they make is published by Sega.
  • Sonic Team is worshipped by Sega fans for the Sonic the Hedgehog series as well as other masterpieces like Samba De Amigo, NiGHTS Into Dreams, and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Yuji Naka in particular seems to be the most venerated, even though he has left.
  • Team ICO for their So Cool Its Awesome games that usually get placed high on many "Best Games" lists.


Webcomics

  • For Andrew Hussie this verges on the terrifying
    • There's been some scattered reports (nothing officially commented on by Andrew) that he and his girlfriend have actually been stalked by fans.


Web Original


Western Animation


Real Life

  • Gary Gygax for Dungeons & Dragons (at least up until 3rd edition). His recent death has all but granted him full apotheosis.
    • Greg Stolze, another author of Tabletop Games, gets the same treatment nowadays.
    • In the Exalted community specifically, Michael Goodwin, also known as Nephilpal, has become synonymous with everything good there is about Exalted, and his presence on a controversial project make the Fandom Rejoice. While he was an Ink Monkey for a time, he's now gone from the core team.
      • Holden Shearer (also a freelancer) was His Prophet, until he became an assistant to the developer (who forced Nephilpal out of writing).
  • Richard Garfield (PhD) for Magic the Gathering (though to tell the truth, he isn't involved nearly as much in the game as he used to be). According to legend, he can permanently change one Magic card into another simply by touching it.
  • Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux.
  • Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU project.
  • Love him or hate him (which seems to be S.O.P. for a deity), Bill Gates.
  • Steve Jobs and his hordes of pretentious iFanboys millions of Apple enthusiasts. It's even said that he radiates a dazzling aura of RDF (Reality Distortion Field) which can enrapture those around him. Oh, and he was also the CEO of Pixar from its founding to 2006, but nobody knows this and assumes he's the only employee of Apple inc now.
    • The yin to Jobs' yang is, of course, Steve Wozniak. The Cult of Mac was once officially presided over by Apple's Chief Evangelist Guy Kawasaki (that was his actual job title.)
  • Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. Pick a review. Any review. The first fifty comments will be something along the lines of "Brilliant review as always, Yahtzee! I haven't played the game, but it sounds like crap, so I'm not going to try it!" If Croshaw reviews a Japanese game, said comments will also invariably feature some manner of anti-Japanese sentiment. Despite his reputation, Croshaw himself has stated his displeasure with the notion that Reviews Are the Gospel - but a large portion of his fandom seems to have missed that bit.
  • Anyone reviewed by Mark Prindle seems to attract these like flies. Seriously, look at almost any of his reviews, especially of more popular bands, and I guarantee there'll be at least one rant about how no-one else is a true fan and anyone who criticises the artist has no right to criticise them, is infinitely less talented, etc ad nauseum. There's a whole world of Fan Dumb out there?
  • Dan Bernstein is generally regarded by the Slashdot crowd as a profoundly cantankerous but rather talented security researcher. His small but vocal fanbase, on the other hand...
  • Diego Maradona has a church. No Really
    • So does Bungie Studios.
  • The Nostalgia Critic.
  • The Nostalgia Chick. When her Fan Dumb clashes with the Critic's the results aren't pretty.
  • Atop the Fourth Wall
  • Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is so revered he is a Great God of the TV Tropes Pantheon and a minor god in Dungeons & Dragons. Do not make any mention of him being anything less than the perfect mortal human being if you want to remain alive on the Internet.
  • Andrew Hussie, creator of MS Paint Adventures is worshipped by his fanbase as godlike, due to the massive amount of creativity and effort he puts into his work. His typical output is about five pages a day, or one 2-4 min flash movie in 3–5 days.
  • Bill Watterson
  • Charles Schulz
  • Oprah Winfrey, probably one of the most well known examples.
    • Oprah really does have a cult of personality around her. Compare this video of reactions to Oprah's favorite things 2010, to this video of the citizens of North Korea mourning Kim Il-Sung's death. Granted Oprah hasn't set up forced Labor camps, oppressed an entire nation, and committed democide, but the videos still have a startling similarity... *shudders*
      • Give her time, she had to build an empire. He had one ready made.
  • God has a pretty big fandom.
    • Which is a very literal case of creator worship (though most religions tend to be).
  • Any popular self-help person gets this: Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Steve Pavlina, Abraham Hicks, Eckhart Tolle are several. It's enough that a "self-help guru" with sycophants is a standard image, a truth.
    • That being said, the Creator Worship of any self-help person by their adoring fans often attracts a Hatedom as well nowadays.
  • Legendary bicycle mechanic and writer Sheldon Brown. Ask a question about bike repair and you'll invariably be sent a link to his site. The articles on his website are considered Word of God for anything bicycle related, although most people don't realize new writers have been updating the site since Brown died in 2008. He is also credited as a major contributor to the fixie craze.
  • In US politics, Congressman Ron Paul is not the founder of the libertarian movement (or the Libertarian Party), but he is inarguably the founder of the libertarian movement's modern incarnation...and his fans sure don't mind letting people know it.
    • His fanbase has not only garnered supporters in the Right, but also the Left as well---many Occupy protesters and democrats who are disillusioned with Obama believe that he is the only candidate worth voting for
  1. ↑ with said games not being developed by the Nintendo EAD division Miyamoto typically works with, and also developed in North America instead of Miyamoto's home country of Japan
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