Fan Hater

"Final Fantasy VIII sucks and you suck for liking it!"

—Noah "The Spoony One" Antwiler

To some people, there is only one thing worse than anything they consider horrible—people liking it.

In a nutshell, a Fan Hater is someone in a Hatedom, who hates not only the work, but also the fans of that work.

The thing is that to these people, art is Serious Business, and they treat their enjoyment of art the way some people take to competitive gaming. If you like anything not up to their standards, they will either mock you, mock that thing in front of your face, or just go on a diatribe about why you shouldn't like that thing. They also seem to stereotype fans, to make matters worse, such as (anybody whom likes comic books are obese losers; anyone who likes anime is some annoying, anti-American, over-obsessive wannabe Japan-fetishizing freak; people who like cartoons are manchildren; anyone who likes metal/punk is a wannabe tough guy; people who like rap are wangsters; etc.). Fan Haters tend to refer to the targets of their hatred as the "Lowest Common Denominator" or "unwashed masses".

As a work becomes more popular, the probability of such a group appearing approaches one. Today's media landscape seems to encourage this somewhat, because In a World where executives and producers seem to believe in Quality by Popular Vote, and because Ratings are so important in determining what keeps getting made and what gets canceled, it's easy for fans of one thing that might be on the verge of getting canned to resent the people who are making another work so popular (and thus keeping it on the air), as they blame those fans for their own favorite work's misfortune.

But others seem to just want to rail against fans simply because they think it makes them superior. This group is comparable to Moral Guardians, only it's their own subjective tastes they are trying to guard. They really love to make up fake stories about how fans are Complaining About People Not Liking the Show. These kinds of people are a big reason for some people's mentality of He Panned It, Now He Sucks: Fan Haters are always waiting for an opportunity to pounce, and even a single negative critical opinion of something is usually enough to "justify" their "this thing is bad and you should feel bad for liking it" rants. It also contributes to Complaining About People Not Liking the Show: because there are quite a few Fan Haters out there, some fans mistake an honest criticism of a work for Fan Hating and get very defensive.

It is a very odd phenomenon, because after all, different people enjoy different things. And maybe they just enjoy it for one reason or another, not because of their sexual orientation, not because of their intelligence, not because they're old or inexperienced, they just happen to like it. But chances are if you like something that's subject to fan haters, expect one of those comments to be thrown at you. It's incredibly rare (at least, on the internet) to see someone who actually acknowledges that maybe you like different things not because you're mentally ill or homosexual or "haven't seen a 'true' something".

Of course actually being familiar with the works people aren't supposed to like is entirely optional.

Contrast the inverse, Complaining About People Not Liking the Show, where fans of a show will lambaste you for not liking it. This activity has also been known to spawn Fan Haters, though in that case, the hate starts with the fans and spreads to the work. Also, when a fan likes the show, but is a Fan Hater toward a certain character on the show, it's a specific type of Fan Dumb known as The Hate Monger.

Be warned some may pretend to be fan haters, but are in fact Trolls, which some find to be worse, depending on who you are.

A Sub-Trope of Hatedom, Hate Dumb, and Opinion Myopia.

Due to past messes, please avoid Take That statements, flame bait, "This Troper" blurbs, redundancy and redundancy.

Websites featuring lots of Fan Hating (and Hatedom):

Common forms of this trope:

No real life examples, please; if we all liked the same things, this would be a boring world.

Examples here should be from in media.

Anime and Manga

  • Love Lucky has an in-universe example with Erika, the female lead singer of the rock band "M.I.T.", who is a self-professed hater of "normal people". This apparently arose from the way she was treated by the band's fans after she replaced the previous lead.
  • Dragonball Z has an in-universe case of this. In one of the episodes during the Buu arc before the World Martial Arts Tournament begins, Krillin comments on how he's unsure of who is more annoying: Mr. Satan or his fans.

Fan Works

  • My Immortal is basically set in a world with this as its hat. There are but three sorts of people in My Immortal-land; "goffs", "posers" and "preps". Being a "goff", which entails wearing black clothes from Hot Topic and listening to the emo bands the author likes, is the One True Path and everyone else sucks for existing. "Preps" are the unwashed masses who shop at Abercrombie & Fitch and worship Britney Spears. "Posers" are "preps" who try to be "goffic" but listen to the "wrong" music and are thus evil.

Film

  • Rock fans vs. disco fans in Detroit Rock City.
    • This one is based in reality. During the late 1970s there was a very real rivalry between rock fans and disco fans. The rivalry came to a head on July 12, 1979 (sometimes referred to as "the night disco died") during a baseball promotion called Disco Demolition Night, which resulted in thousands of rock fans storming the field at Chicago's Comiskey Park to express their hatred of disco. The event made news worldwide and less than a year later disco was effectively dead in the United States and Canada (although it would remain popular in Europe for another few years). See also: Deader Than Disco
  • Even Roger Ebert did this once, saying: "Those who think "Transformers" (Revenge of the Fallen) is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve. Those people contain multitudes. They deserve films that refresh the parts others do not reach. They don't need to spend a lifetime with the water only up to their toes."

Literature

  • There's a line in American Psycho where Patrick mentions that no one should feel sympathy for the woman he's forcing into getting an abortion due to the fact that her favorite movie is Pretty in Pink and "she thinks Sting is cool."
  • Rob Fleming from High Fidelity (Rob Gordon in The Movie) questions how one can be friends with people whose favorite band are Simple Minds. One of the reasons why he dislikes Ian is because of that weird ethno music he listens to. And Barry chases a potential customer out of Rob's record store because he wanted to acquire I Just Called To Say I Love You, a song from Stevie Wonder's 80s pop period.

Live-Action TV

  • If you like Final Fantasy or any JRPGs, then there is a 100% chance you will be hated by Adam and Morgan of X-Play. Also consider yourself hated if you like anime—which they in particular love to trash, most of their Fullmetal Alchemist and Dragonball Z game reviews are trashing the people who will flame them.
    • Adam and Morgan (less and less as of late, as we might get two reviews in a week now) flame them because, as they've stated repeatedly, they get hate mail every time they review a JRPG or anime-licensed game, regardless of the actual score they give.
  • In Friends, it's mentioned that Chandler once broke up with a girl because she didn't hate Yanni.
  • Some random Fox affiliate (not Fox News) does not like Bronies, stating they're a bunch of manchildren who quit their jobs to watch the show.
  • In Big Brother's 11th American Season, four previous players were invited as "guests" to give their insight on the current game being played. Danielle stated that she wanted Natalie to win, and held up her hand to silence the audience, who begun to boo.
    • Players have taken potshots at the fans of other players (or even previous seasons) but these have never made the feeds. There was also controversy in Season 13 where Jeff had gone off on a rant, not only insulting the premise of Harry Potter but also taking a few potshots at the fans.

Music

Video Games

  • The Krunch radio station from the Saints Row series is a hard rock and metal station that will frequently air this between songs:

"Do you like pop music? Go fuck yourself! 106.66, Krunch!"

Web Comics

  • The bug of Bug has a Grinch persona that is a fan hater.
  • As part of it's increasing meta-ness, Act 6 of Homestuck introduces undyingUmbrage, who is basically a personification of the comic's fan haters. This includes the people who complain about their friends talking about Homestuck and trying to get them interested in it.

Web Original

Western Animation

  1. ↑ Saying they needs to shut the doors on all of their primary franchises, especially Zelda, which he calls an unchanging series
  2. ↑ Calling the movie crap and one of the worst films of 2010 and insulting anyone who liked it by saying they have low standards and are easily entertained
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