My immediate answer - Sonic fans.

I don’t really know what Sega and the Sonic Team can do anymore to make these fans happy. They’ve revisited the classic formula a few times, they tried going modern routes, they tried 2-D sprites in some entries, they try going full 3D and whatever. Nothing ever seems to be enough and that’s even when they’ve tried listening to the fanbase a few times.

Nothing seems to matter, regardless. The fans will find something to be upset about with Sonic. Anything.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    2·
    22 hours ago

    This happens to any fandom over time. The folks engaged enough to stick around so long tend to obsess over whatever the “original” is. They peel apart every little blemish of a new release under a microscope, before it comes out.

    Toxicity breeds.

    Compared to old forums, I think the structure of places like Reddit/Discord inflames it. It’s cultish.

    So do YouTubers and such, as video algorithms likes punchy ragebait more than (say) nerdy lore analysis.

    I first experienced this in the Avatar community, and seeing so much hate breed makes me sad.

    See: the Korra/NATLA hate videos. The Reddit groupthink that parrots the same points, including straight up misinformation. Breathless worship of ATLA these days, waning interest in deeper lore like the novels and longfics. Even the idea of an upscale/touch up is shot down, because the video artifacts in the original are “perfect.”

    And a lot of that history is archived. For instance, read through the comments in the Korra episode premiere threads, and it’s nothing like the fandom now.

    But the pattern seems to be everywhere.

    And I think it’s partially a mirage. I suspect a lot of fans (like me) are just not engaged with fandom social media. And many more are “dormant” and will come back whenever something big and new drops.