History Main / WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings

* StephenieMeyer had been planning a book called ''Midnight Sun'', which was a re-telling of ''{{Twilight}}'' from Edward's perspective. She even posted the first chapter on her website, to whet fans' appetites. Then a half-finished manuscript appeared on the Internet, posted by someone else. Smeyer was so upset that the book is now "on hold indefinitely," as if she wrote it in her current state of mind, she has said, the vampire hunter would succeed.

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]
* Supposedly one of the reasons that ''[[TinyToonAdventures Tiny Toons]]'' ended was that [[TressMacNeille Tress MacNeille]] had been receiving sexual threats from an obsessed fan.

** This however, was a publicity gimmick.

* [[YoshikiHayashi Yoshiki]] of XJapan was pretty much chased off the internet in a massive flare of FanDumb, InternetCounterattack, and InternetBackdraft that originally started when he canceled a planned concert in Paris and continues to burn even now, though it may finally be beginning to subside.

* MarionZimmerBradley was one of the first writers to run into this in regards to fanfiction. She used to edit occasional anthologies of what she thought were the best fanfics for her {{Darkover}} setting. She wrote a story similar to a fanfic that did not make it into an anthology, and she was sued for plagiarism. While she won the case, she lost a large amount of money on court costs, setting a precedent for many authors to not even ''read'' fanfic (since if they haven't read it, any similarities can be argued to be coincidental.)

* Mrs Ron on the BSG forum
** Who? Which forum? What did she do? What effect did it have? Ya gotta give us more than that.

** And therefore, her putting it on hold is why the -hatedom- can't have nice things.

* This is a major problem for artists in the FurryFandom; one of the biggest sources of furry drama will invariably be about an artist being driven out due to their art being stolen and reposted elsewhere, usually because [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil they're too lazy to buy the artwork from the artist, themselves]]. In a subversion, some of the places where the artwork is being reloaded will help the artist out by putting them on a DNP (Do Not Post) list and punishing those who break it...but that's small comfort when most of these cases are followed up by InternetBackdraft over the artist leaving, making a bad situation worse.

Related to DearNegativeReader and WriterRevolt, this Trope is when someone is involved in the production of a work who is known for interacting with the fans (by, for example, writing a production Blog or answering fandom's questions, or regularly appearing at conventions) stops doing so because, in their opinion, the FanDumb is getting so thick and heavy (and '''''ugly''''') that their previously "fun" activity has become a burden and is no longer enjoyable.

The fans complain to and about the creator, hassle them to an unbearable level, constantly ask questions that the creator has already stated he will not be answering. Because a small handful are ruining it for everyone else, the creator stops whatever fun interaction with the fans they were doing.

* StephenieMeyer had been planning a book called ''Midnight Sun'', which was a re-telling of ''{{Twilight}}'' from Edward's perspective. She even posted the first chapter on her website, to whet fans' appetites. Then a half-finished manuscript appeared on the Internet, posted by someone else. Smeyer was so upset that the book is now "on hold indefinitely."

* Spider Robinson pre-empted this in the case of the alt.callahans Usenet group, an early virtual community based on his ''Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon'' series. While he gave it his full blessing early on, mentioned (and hence promoted) it in a ''Callahan’s'' story, and made the odd official contribution from time to time, this was always done offline and/or through third parties -– if he has ever posted to the group, it was never under any alias that could have been penetrated. This careful policy probably owes something to the aftermath of ''Pyotr’s Story'' (published 1981), which was set on Callahan’s weekly riddle night, and ended with an invitation for readers to write in with answers to the unsolved riddles. Result: sackloads of mail, and while the flow did tail off, it never ceased entirely.

** [[AndTheFandomRejoiced And the]] {{Hatedom}} [[AndTheFandomRejoiced rejoiced.]]

** Watterson has another reason to complain. You see, other than the books, a special stamp released by the U.S. Postal Service, a handful of special single-page poster-quality prints, and a ''single'' t-shirt designed as a fundraising tool for a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit of cartoon art, he hasn't ''ever'' merchandised ''CalvinAndHobbes''. So all those cutesy stickers with Calvin peeing on something (or, alternately, praying), and all the t-shirts, and the children's plates, and so on? Watterson doesn't get a dime for those, and they constitute a serious threat to his trademark of the character.
*** And you know Calvin would hate them.
** Considering how Watterson [[AuthorFilibuster pontificated]]--loquaciously!--on how anyone who ''did'' merchandise their work wasn't really an artist anymore, and had surrendered creative control to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive amoral suits]], it [[YourMileageMayVary could]] be seen as [[{{Irony}} ironic]] that the main public presence of his work now is Calvin pissing on things. Meanwhile, precisely ''because'' the likenesses were licensed, the majority of appearances by characters from Peanuts or Garfield are largely consonant to the authors' intentions.

** As well as [[SmallNameBigEgo legitimate complaints]], but yes -- some of the trolls were vicious.
*** If it helps, the Something Awful comics thread which has inspired some of the trolling (at least) finds the comment spam counterproductive, as it only feeds the author's rampaging ego. Though they ''are'' attempting to be the number 1 Google result for the phrase [[TakeThat "Brooke McEldowny sucks."]]

* The UnpleasableFanbase (This can go into any category for that matter). Artists would love to listen to their fans and have fan input...if only [[VocalMinority some fans]] didn't complain about every single thing.

* The UnpleasableFanbase (This can go into any category for that matter). Artists would love to listen to their fans and have fan input...if only some fans didn't complain about every single thing.

* The UnpleasableFanbase (This can go into any category for that matter). Artists would love to listen to their fans and have fan input...if only if they didn't complain about every single thing.

* A rather meta example, some stuff considered a GoodBadBug. Such as an exploit that was commonly used in a [=PvP=] game that gets fixed in a patch/update mostly ''because'' people kept complaining about it being used. The FanDumb often treats this as a slap in the face, while the other faction often tells the complainers to shut up and "Learn to play without exploiting glitches".

** [[BewareTheNiceOnes And yet they act so nicely ingame...]]

** Relatedly, moderator burnout is apparently a very real problem due to the game's vast UnpleasableFanbase. There have been highly publicized outbursts by certain controversial mods in response to particularly {{egregious}} instances of FanDumb that reportedly got them taken off the staff. Many serious players refuse to read the official forums entirely, preferring to read the official Blizzard posts through third-party aggregators.

* This is a major problem for artists in the FurryFandom; one of the biggest sources of furry drama will invariably be about an artist being driven out due to their art being stolen and reposted elsewhere, usually because [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil they're too lazy to buy the artwork from the artist, themselves]]. In a subversion, some of the places where the artwork is being reloaded will help the artist out by putting them on a DNP (that's Do Not Post, for those acronymically challenged) list and punishing those who break it...but that's small comfort when most of these cases are followed bup by InternetBackdraft over the artist leaving, making a bad situation worse.

* A rather meta example, some stuff considered a GoodBadBug. Such as an exploit that was commonly used in a [=PvP=] game that gets fixed in a patch/update mostly ''because'' people kept complaining about it being used. The FanDumb often treats this as a slap in the face, while the other faction is often [[ComplainingAboutComplaining telling the complainers to shut up and "Lern2play without exploiting glitches"]].

** Considering how Watterson [[AuthorFilibuster pontificated]]--loquaciously!--on how anyone who ''did'' merchandise their work wasn't really an artist anymore, and had surrendered creative control to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive amoral suits]], it [[YourMileageMayVary could]] be seen as [[{{Irony}} ironic]] that the main public presence of his work now is Calvin pissing on things. Meanwhile, precisely ''because'' the likenesses were licensed, the majority of appearances by characters from Peanuts or Garfield are largely consonant to the authors' intentions. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Live by a simplistic concept of artistic integrity, die by a simplistic concept of artistic integrity]].

** Watterson has another reason to complain. You see, other than the books, a special stamp released by the U.S. Postal Service, a handful of special single-page poster-quality prints, and a ''single'' t-shirt designed as a fundraising tool for a Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibit of cartoon art, he hasn't ''ever'' merchandised ''CalvinAndHobbes''. So all those cutesy stickers with Calvin peeing on something (or, alternately, praying), and all the t-shirts, and the children's plates, and so on? Watterson doesn't get a dime for those, and they constitute a serious threat to his trademark of the character. SoYeah...

* The UnpleasableFanbase. Artists would love to listen to their fans...if only if they didn't complain about every single thing. This can go into any category for that matter.

*Microsoft blogger [[http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing Raymond Chen]] deleted an entire backlog of stories about one coworker after people ignored his request not to try to guess his identity.