Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Opinion Myopia

Go To

"It turns out personal taste is a matter of taste."
Unknown

A fan is shocked to find that the loud, mindless summer blockbuster they hated has made so much money! Surely the low Rotten Tomatoes rating should have tipped viewers off. Okay, even if they didn't care about those, surely they would have seen how horrible it was for themselves after the first weekend. What are they? Sheep?

Conversely, how could the movie based on their favorite cult TV series not have made loads of money? Okay, many people didn't know about the movie, but surely word of mouth would have carried. And the blogs went wild for it!

Well, the truth is that some people genuinely like those big, dumb blockbusters, and that works you might be obsessed with just don't appeal to everyone. If the fan can't or won't understand that, then they have Opinion Myopia. Some people take it further by believing that what you like and dislike determines what kind of person you are. These beliefs are justified to an extent, as somebody who cites controversial things like graphic violence as the reason why they like a work is bound to raise eyebrows among their peers; but most people understand that some themes in the works they enjoy would be a very bad idea to carry out in reality.

The formal academic term for this phenomenon is the "false consensus effect", where a person tends to overestimate the extent to which their beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. It's also related to Confirmation Bias in that people tend to ignore evidence that might prove their cherished opinions are inaccurate. Psychological studies conducted in The New '10s have given evidence that the human brain blurs the lines between facts and opinions, which becomes heightened by the strength of emotions, making it more likely for somebody to assume an opinion that aligns with their beliefs is a fact.

A Super-Trope to Fan Hater (hating people directly for positive opinions you don't agree with), Complaining About People Not Liking the Show (getting upset about negative opinions you don't agree with), He Panned It, Now He Sucks! (same but with reviews) and Fan Myopia (fans thinking that the subject of their fandom must be well known and generally liked). Sometimes results in either Fan Dumb or Hate Dumb, and can be related to No True Scotsman.

Compare It's Popular, Now It Sucks!, Broken Base, Bias Steamroller, Vocal Minority, and Casual-Competitive Conflict. Usually the end result of Americans Hate Tingle, where viewers from another region can’t fathom how the thing they hate is well-liked in its home region.

See also Small Reference Pools (people stick to referencing certain works simply because those are the only ones they know... or think the audience will know). Someone who thinks this way about life in general is Captain Oblivious. Someone who thinks this way about religion is likely to be The Fundamentalist (in which case watch out).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Some Western XY(Z) fans believe that Pokémon: The Series was able to Win Back the Crowd after the fiasco BW was, and that TV Tokyo messed up again with SM so that they needed to bring back Misty and Brock to avoid cancellation. Fact is, XY did not do very well in ratings from the second year in Japan contrary to SM which is doing great in Japan but no so much in the West.
  • Gundam: Given the incredible breadth of the franchise, a lot of fans have become overly opinionated on which series is any good, and what constitutes a good introduction for new fans. A lot of the older fanbase will vehemently deny that anything outside of the Universal Century timelines is any good, most of the younger fanbase will find the older UC shows to be entirely too dated.
  • Lurks in the depths of the perpetual Subbing Versus Dubbing debate, where personal preference often boils down to whether one is watching primarily for the story or for the art. The sub side points to things like Cultural Translation, Bowdlerisation, and Filling the Silence while the dub side points to visual distractions and inability to multitask while watching. Not to mention the ongoing debate over which set of voice actors does the job better. This was much more prevalent back in the VHS days when sub vs. dub decisions had to be made in the store. Some within the industry also note that even today, releases with dubs tend to sell better than non-dubbed releases, though it's also more expensive to make a dubbed release of a show that doesn't have a dub already, thus why sub-only releases of less popular shows still exist today.

    Comic Books 
  • If your only exposure to the various books in the X-Men line is the Uncanny X-Cast podcast, you'd get the impression that it's just accepted that X-Force (vol. 3) was the only consistently good book in the line, X-Factor is entirely useless, and Greg Land is a wonderful artist. Start with certain other online reviewers and you'll come away with the impression that it's a universally accepted, scientifically proven fact that X-Force (vol. 3) was rubbish and X-Factor is the only X-book worth reading, and that it's literally impossible NOT to believe that blindness would be preferable to having to look at Greg Land's art. It's not just that both sides disagree, it's that they seem completely unaware that anyone in the world holds the other opinion.
  • The concept of Wolverine Publicity falls under this. Many of the characters fans often cite as worn out or overexposed (like the Trope Namer, Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc.) tend to be the most popular and profitable ones, which comes down to there being a large and less vocal group of fans who do actually enjoy them, despite what the internet may lead you to believe.

    Films 
  • A lot of famous movies hailed as classics, such as Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump did more poorly with critics than one would expect. They still did well, but it wasn't all acclaim. For example, Forrest Gump's Tomatometer score is only 71%, and both it and Jurassic Park only have an average rating of 7 out of 10.note 
  • The film critic community as a whole has many people who fit this type. The basic logic principle that you can only "accept" or "reject" an opinion naturally does not sit well with the people whose self-described job description is that they speak their opinion and people on purpose want to listen to them. So it's not surprising when some easily switch to name-calling and blame games when someone interacts with them to disagree about an opinion or not take their thoughts as anything important.
  • With movies that have multiple cuts and director's cuts, many fans automatically prefer the director's cut simply because it's marketed as the 'film presented in the way the director intended'. They will often regard the original release as inferior even if it's the release that they originally loved for decades, ignorant of the existence of a director's cut. Such fans will often dismiss those who stick to the cut that they "loved growing up", regarding them as improperly viewing the movie through a Nostalgia Filter. Conversely with the Star Wars movies; George Lucas's various re-edits and remastered editions are frequently and bitterly denounced by many fans, in many cases precisely because they over-ride the versions that the fans grew up loving. See, for example, the controversy over whether Han Shot First.
  • Tying in with that, the Nostalgia Filter trope easily also brings in this trope. Where some people are so committed to the idea that they "matured" and saw some things now as inferior will outright deny that there is any other option. The other option in this case probably has another word for these people than "mature".
  • Similarly, there are many fans who can't fathom that someone could prefer a newer version of a character, the one they see as "desecrating" the character's image and legacy, either assuming they simply haven't experienced older versions, have been "brainwashed" to accept a new take or even outright hate what the original supposedly stood for or make insulting claims about their intelligence, morality, and reasoning skills. The idea that a person could like and appreciate both for what they are but simply have a preference or not being as into their preferred version for valid reasons is one many fans simply can't comprehend.
  • You either think Disney is an amazing company that can do no wrong or an all-consuming monster the world would be better off without. Disney fans often can't imagine why anyone would dislike the company, and Disney haters often can't imagine why anyone would still watch their movies as adults.
  • Many either think the Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and Vampire Academy films failed because they were half-assed Twilight ripoffs or think they failed because Twilight was so bad that it poisoned the well for other, better supernatural young-adult novels being adapted to film.
  • It does not take much searching around online to find remarks about how high-profile children's movies like The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Minions will cause financial harm to the studios that make them because of their perceived unwatchability. They do not realize that these movies are very well-liked by kids, which is why they can have such a high profile in the first place. The Smurfs and Alvin's last films were box office disappointments, but they didn't outright bomb.
  • A trend (circa late 2010s) among some audiences who strongly dislike a successful film is to insist its success was somehow 'faked'. Films like Captain Marvel (2019) and The Last Jedi are popularly hated by certain audiences and have been met with accusations that Disney (who own and produced both) had instead lied/faked/bribed the numbers to inflate the success of these movies. Of course, this is insane as it would be incredibly financially unwise to do this (as it would then force them to pay tax on the additional money they faked earning, would have to pay bonuses to the people who produced them, and the huge loss of money would be traceable, meaning that people would uncover these fraudulent box offices). In actual fact, what happened was that despite their personal hatred of the movies, general audiences liked them enough to go see them in droves, but the Vocal Minority refuse to believe that they are the minority. Crucially, the portions of the audience who either like or dislike the movies most intensely have the greatest investment in broadcasting their opinion (especially online) whereas the large mass of the moviegoing public will either: like the movie when they see it, move on to the next one, and maybe stream it or buy the DVD a few months later (both Captain Marvel and The Last Jedi, it may be worth noting, sold very well on home release) without any fanfare; or dislike the movie without making a deal about not liking it and move onto the next one which they might like, because at the end of the day, it isn't worth becoming preoccupied with something you didn't like in the first place.
  • Reading certain film review sites would have you think that the Trolls movies are the worst and least successful movies ever. But it is very popular with kids (y'know, the intended audience) and makes a lot of money (even Trolls World Tour, which wasn't released in theaters due to COVID, had an extremely successful digital release) for DreamWorks Animation. These factors are why it's a franchise to begin with.

    Literature 
  • Harry Potter: Potterheads who are going to study English in college should be prepared — they disparage Rowling all the time there. Some creative writing classes devote entire lessons to teaching pupils not to put the books on a pedestal. Same goes for other popular and well-loved books. On the other hand, you can also find literature departments that offer full-length courses on the Harry Potter books by professors who are willing to take the books on their own merits, analyzing J. K. Rowling's uses of folkloric elements and literary devices. It's almost impossible for either camp to acknowledge the other's arguments.
  • The Da Vinci Code: Two sides. One: "Holy crap, how do people actually like this trash?!" Two: "Hey, I thought it was a good book! Can't you understand Dan Brown's genius?"
  • People who loved Fifty Shades of Grey don't seem to be aware that anyone hates it. Those who hate it cannot believe that anyone aside from lonely single mothers in need of a good lay could possibly like it.
  • One can either think Twilight ruined literary vampires, or vampires in general, or literature in general, and that Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a hill of beans, or that it's the only real vampire novel out there and that all others (including those that were published before Twilight) are just cheap imitations written by jealous hacks who only wish they could write like Meyer.
  • People who enjoy Hush, Hush see nothing wrong with the romance and Nora changing the bad boy Patch is romantic. People who hate it see nothing but stalking, verbal and emotional abuse, and manipulation on Patch's side towards Nora and her being too stupid to even attempt to run away.
  • Robert Jordan and his epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time are among the highest-selling fantasy of all time. Naturally, this has created some backlash, with readers pointing out Jordan's odd tendency to spend a lot of time, ink, and paper to ultimately say very little, bloating his series from its initially intended trilogy to fourteen volumes, and that's not including the prequel novel. There are those who will say "I know it's flawed, but I still love it", but most fantasy readers fall into two categories:
  • Jane Austen's novel Emma has an In-Universe example with Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father. The narrative explicitly notes that he is incapable of believing that other people have opinions that differ from his own, and so he assumes that whatever he thinks about something (particularly food and activities) is exactly what other people will, or should, think about that same thing. Emma has to delicately circumvent him in order to, for example, provide guests with food they actually want to eat.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Doctor Who:
    • The eternal war between the Classic Series fans who can't believe that anyone could possibly enjoy the flashy, superficial soap opera that is the New Series over the complex, deep masterpiece that is the Classic Series, and the New Series fans who can't believe that anyone could possibly enjoy the cheap, tacky snooze-fest that is the Classic Series over the complex, deep masterpiece that is the New Series. And, of course, both sets of fans find it hard to believe that there's anyone out there who might like both, and they find it impossible to believe that anyone might not like either.
    • Steven Moffat, the latest in a long line of divisive showrunners who ruined everything the show stood for, and the very worst of them all until the next one, has been getting this for taking liberties with the concept of regeneration in "The Time of the Doctor". His critics often point to "The Deadly Assassin" as a cherished piece of lore from the original series. "The Deadly Assassin" was every bit as contentious when it first came out, and fans bashed it precisely for taking liberties with Time Lords and regeneration.
      • Conveniently forgotten by said fans was the real enthusiasm for Moffat from fans who absolutely hated everything Russell T. Davies had done to the series (save bringing the show back after nearly two decades). In particular he was criticized for focusing too much on the companions (making it into a soap opera) and ludicrous series finales (destroying ever-increasing amounts of reality then hitting the reset button).
  • There's usually a lot of issues between fandoms when it comes to Super Sentai and Power Rangers. As an example, Power Rangers Super Megaforce is absolutely hated on the Internet, and yet its intended younger audience loves it and many fans don't understand why.
    • Ressha Sentai ToQger is also a point of tension. Due to trains not being so prominent in America, Western Sentai fans will usually have opinions that harshly differ from Japanese fans. Some have even gone to the point where they say "those people [who like the show] are on drugs".
    • There's also fandom rivalry between Sentai and PR fans that aren't fans of both over which is better. Sentai fans will bring up its more consistent maturity and mature elements that PR rarely uses. PR fans will bring up that PR, usually, has a more better mix of humorous and serious elements, as Sentai usually flip flops depending on the series, and Japanese humor tends to be more in-your-face and over the top versus American humor, which is much more restrained and subdued. There are even fans who'll disavow one for reasons why they hate it.
  • Star Trek fans can be divided into several distinct groups: Purists, who only will accept the show in its original form, which is to say the classic series and only the series (the films don't count), classic "Trekkies" who think of the various series as "Star Trek and those newer shows", more modern "Trekkers", who tip the hat to the classic series but think Star Trek: The Next Generation was when Trek really begins and ends (to the point where some deny that the other spin-offs are even canon), "Niners", who think the grit of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine made it the best, proclaim Ira Stephen Behr to be the true heir to Roddenberry's throne and even suggest that Roddenberry's vision for Trek wasn't all it was cracked up to be...and finally those that just like anything with the name "Star Trek" in its title.
    • A smaller, but incredibly vocal minority, swear off anything produced after Gene Roddenberry's death in 1991 because nothing can be canon if Roddenberry wasn't around to put his seal of approval on it. These people apparently do not realize that Roddenberry only had direct creative input for the first two seasons of the classic series, the first theatrical film, and the first season of TNG. For that matter, if it's his seal of approval they're concerned about, then none of the films beyond Star Trek: The Motion Picture are canon, as Roddenberry didn't like the direction Harve Bennett took with them, particularly the fifth and sixth films. This led to the widespread belief that Roddenberry had declared Star Trek V and VI to be non-canon, which he never did.
    • More recently, the controversy regarding Trek fan films (largely caused by the creators of Prelude to Axanar) has split the fanbase firmly into three camps: those who consider the fans to be the true owners of Trek lore, while Paramount (until the franchise was bought by CBS) is just a bunch of Corrupt Corporate Executives; those who believe that Paramount/CBS's legal ownership of the copyright means they're free to do whatever the hell they want with it; and those who haven't watched any fan films and don't get what all the fuss is about.
  • The Arrowverse shows, due to their divisive nature, naturally bring this out. Some audiences adore them over all else, finding them to be the single-best adaptation of the DC Universe, and anyone who disliked the show-original characters and concepts are just bitter that it's not like previous versions, often pointing to the highly successful 'event crossovers'. Other audiences despise them with a passion, finding it to be the worst adaptation of the DC Universe, and anyone who likes their show original Creator's Pet characters and Canon Defilement concepts is just blindly supporting the franchise because they've never experienced the original comics and previous adaptations, often pointing to the shows' comparatively low ratings as proof they suck. Middle ground doesn't exist.

    Music 
  • People who talk about what is and what isn't "real music" or how "there isn't any good music anymore". If someone has heard examples of a genre that they dislike they will automatically write off the whole genre as bad and "how can anybody listen to it?"
  • Seth Stevens Davidowitz argues that our brains are heavily impacted emotionally by music when we're teenagers and somewhat in our twenties, so new music literally just doesn't feel as good when you're in your thirties and older.
  • In a similar manner, don't tell certain vinyl collectors (the kind who collect old, rare records merely to put on display) about how you listen to your records. Expect a massive diatribe if you casually mention you opened a sealed record.
  • People who refuse to share rare music on the grounds that they have something hardly anyone has are like this. Especially when someone else shares their copy of the same material and says they're doing it because they want to make people happy.
  • The director's cut example mentioned for films also applied when the British versions of the early Beatles albums were released on CD in the U.S. in The '80s. Most fans embraced them and they gained retroactive status as the official Beatles discography. But there was enough nostalgia for the original U.S. Capitol Records releases that the LPs and cassettes circulated widely among collectors. Consequently, Capitol released two deluxe CD box sets of the U.S. albums, only to get bashed by purists accusing them of greed and peddling inferior mixes of the music.

    Other 
  • Shipping wars. So many vicious, seething, blood-boiling wars have been launched because so many fans could not comprehend how anyone could not support their One True Pairing. Not even fans who don't ship them with anyone or have no interest in shipping will be spared, because shippers believe that their OTP champions true everlasting love and if you don't agree with them, then you must not believe in love. Conversely, those who don't ship might get into a rivalry with the shippers because obviously those delusional loons can't see that nobody has subtext with anybody and can't see why they have to "shoehorn" pairings where there are none.
  • The comparisons of earlier works to newer, updated, or reimagined versions. Those who stick by the earlier works and admit they were enjoyable are often accused of wearing a Nostalgia Filter. At the same time, those who prefer the newer versions are accused of not understanding what made the original compelling in the first place or only capable of liking newer productions simply because they are more recent and made on better budgets with newer technology (especially CGI effects).
  • Niche fandoms can have this sort of reaction when more mainstream attention starts rolling in. The newer fans are only exposed to more contemporary works while older fans scratch their heads at some of the best works of the medium/genre being ignored. Some examples include young fans calling Naruto the best anime ever while older fans tend to disagree or the hardcore versus casual gamers.
  • On the flip side, there are a number of tight-knit cult followings who believe the obscure work they like should be more mainstream, and won't accept most explanations for why it isn't. And that's if they're even aware that the work is obscure in the first place.
  • Windows vs Linux (or any other operating system). Visit any tech support message board and view posts that describe the problem and their system specs. Inevitably someone will always say something along the lines of, "[system runs on Windows 10], that's your problem right there." There is just as much of a debate about which Windows version is better. Many users (Both 7 and 8) bash 10 for its telemetry which eats up RAM, also atop the forced updates that may have bricked their computers or nagged them like mad to auto-update, as well as the fact that Windows 10 has built-in third-party advertising, though this can be disabled for the most part.
  • Intimacy is a major one with some people. For instance, people who are social butterflies tend to have difficulty comprehending how anyone could actually enjoy being alone. Likewise, people who crave hugs and/or other intimate forms of affection tend to believe that, deep down inside, everyone craves that type of affection. Some do not even know what introversion is, as the thought that some people prefer being by themselves has never once occurred to them (or they never took the thought seriously).
  • Any new form of technology can develop this among its early adopters but some are more notable than others. Generally when something new comes along the pike that's touted as better gets held to that standard. Where anyone who dares not care to adopt clearly just hasn't seen it yet to be amazed or are just not smart enough to appreciate it. The idea that other people have seen it and not care is considered alien.
  • Generally a problem in contemporary politics, as it is such a controversial and divisive topic that many people will keep quiet about it to avoid having to deal with an argument or being hassled by others who disagree with their opinions unless they're among people who share their beliefs. This results in some people who care passionately about one side of a divisive issue associating almost exclusively, online and off, with people who share or at least sympathize with their position, putting them in the proverbial bubble where they've spent so much time affirming their opinions with others and hearing like-minded statements that they become unable (or unwilling) to understand why anyone would have the opposite point of view, and attributing it to naïveté, emotionalism, or stupidity. In 1984, feminist Betty Friedan said that she couldn't understand how Reagan had gotten elected, much less re-elected, since she didn't know anyone who had voted for him (She lived, at the time, in Greenwich Village).
  • It's common among car enthusiasts to highly criticize cars that have bad or uninteresting handling, with the Top Gear magazine being egregious in it through giving otherwise-OK cars bad reviews if they aren't rewarding enough to drive (e.g. 4/10 points for the Toyota Yaris). However, this group often forgets that a vast majority of car buyers don't care about it; they simply want cars that will get reliably get them from A to B, while offering the right amount of equipment, style, and safety.
  • Any conspiracy theories will have ardent defenders, no matter if the facts there don't line up with reality or how the attempts at covering up the conspiracy would be much more complicated/expensive than necessary, basically "I Reject Your Reality because my opinion says so" or with the catch-all statement that any facts/reasoning/common sense/proof to the contrary is "created as a coverup by the conspirators".

    Pinballs 
  • Almost all pinball fans know that video games have completely overtaken pinball in popularity, leaving pinball a niche. However, what video games are popular is a big source of confusion for them, as many of them do not follow (or, in more extreme cases, they'll avoid) any news on video games. The result is a lot of them having no idea what video games are popular to real-life cases of Pac Man Fever thinking that kids today are still playing Donkey Kong and Street Fighter II (vanilla). A lot of these fans are left scratching their heads as to what exactly it was that allowed video game companies to completely take their thunder. That being said, pinball nowadays is consumed largely by middle-aged men, who would mostly socialize with other middle-aged men and be largely unaware of what people younger than they are would be into.
  • Within pinball communities themselves, there are some hardline Bally-Williams fans who think that the only reason Stern is still in business is that they can talk big to clueless operators and because they can secure attractive modern licenses like Game of Thrones and The Avengers. Never mind that there are plenty of pinball fans who genuinely like what Stern makes, and that Data East did exactly what the Stern-haters described (very good licenses, but shoddy build quality and rushed programming) only to go out of business after several years.
  • Pinball also has an inverted case of Opinion Myopia: Many of the most-liked games, like Medieval Madness, Cactus Canyon, Cirqus Voltaire, and Monster Bash, are actually quite rare due to being poor sellers, but that fact only ever comes up when someone wants to buy one of these machines in the used market. If someone not familiar with pinball were to go to a message board or social media group about pinball, they might think these were some of the most common machines made because of how they dominate discussion and how people talk like everyone has played them.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The Internet Wrestling Community, or the IWC. As a whole, they tend to favor wrestlers with a higher "work rate." At times, this tends to conflict with who's actually over and receiving a push in various promotions.

    Video Games 
  • The JRPG/WRPG debate tends to veer towards this, especially when the "freedom vs. story" conflict is mentioned.
  • The Console Wars. The three groups of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft (and back in the day, SEGA) often collide with each other, and arguments spawn from literally everywhere, ranging from GameFAQs, YouTube, and even Amazon. Although it's usually "*insert console here* sucks", there are times where those on the offensive will go even further and begin insulting those who like the console they hate. Expect to hear the word "fanboy" a lot in these fights. A similar issue occurs between console gamers and PC gamers, although there is often overlap between them. Mobile gaming also gives and gets flack from the other parties as well.
  • The arguments that occur between movies with multiple cuts and director's cuts also occur between games that get remakes (HD or not).
  • Really, if you go to any discussion board or YouTube comments section in which a particular game is the subject of conversation, you'll inevitably run into some of this from both defenders and critics of the game in question.
  • Anything hit under the It's Popular, Now It Sucks! trope to video games. It's not uncommon to hear people make rants disparaging why certain games or game genres exist, despite that they regularly target games that happen to sell millions and make billions.
  • Challenge Gamers often clash with players who prefer easy games, and don't like the suggestion that a series renowned for its difficulty should have the option for an easy mode added. those who advocate for said easy-mode say that not everyone is physically capable of mastering those types of games and it's only optional, while the challenge gamers argue that adding an easy mode will downplay the achievement of overcoming a challenge and lessens the camaraderie of knowing the difficulties everyone went through due to everyone being on the same level. When a PC Gamer journalist proudly admitted to cheating on the final boss of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice because of the difficulty, a Twitter user gave this memetic response that sums up the view:
    You cheated not only the game, but yourself.

    You didn't grow.
    You didn't improve.
    You took a shortcut and gained nothing.

    You experienced a hollow victory.
    Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.

    It's sad that you don't know the difference.
  • Resident Evil 5 takes constant flak from its fanbase for being an overly Matrixy Actionized Sequel with a mandatory AI-controlled partner who is about as smart as a bag of rocks and about as useful as a two-man axe, and it's not uncommon to hear it described as being the worst in the entire series. However it was a massive financial success and, even now, is the best-selling Resident Evil title to date (even outselling the critically acclaimed Resident Evil 2 (Remake)) and was the best-selling Capcom title ever until it was beaten by Monster Hunter: World in 2018. Resident Evil 6 is a similar case, being a very high-selling and financially successful title despite getting lukewarm critical reception at best and often being disregarded or outright ignored by fans of the series.
  • Any time a new fighter is announced for a Super Smash Bros. game, expect to hear cries of, "No one wanted this!" regardless of the popularity of said character or the character's game.
  • The newer Pokémon games, especially those made for the Nintendo Switch, have a very vocal and passionate hatedom mostly made up of longtime fans, especially from those displeased by the concept of not being able to obtain every Pokémon in the game. Despite this, the games continue to be massive system sellers (with numbers that haven't been seen since Pokémon Gold and Silver), draw in many new fans, and critical reception ranges from mixed to very positive. Pokémon Sword and Shield has particularly visceral hatred directed towards it, despite being the second best-selling games in the entire franchise and getting excellent reviews from professional critics, with IGN flat-out naming it the best game in the series upon its release.

    Web Comics 

    Web Original 
  • Any Message Board that is enforcing conformity in opinions will likely have this. Any message board aimed at a particular group or interest will have the majority of posters holding the opinion and any poster who doesn't will tend to be the type to post on message boards they specifically disagree with. Sometimes the moderators of the message board will kick off those who do not toe the party line.
  • Even Message Boards that allow for comment scoring via votes often enter into a feedback loop of sorts, where the most popular common opinion gets enforced autonomously. People begin to realize if they go against the common opinion they will be downvoted into oblivion, and so either keep quiet about such things or leave. This creates the illusion that everyone unanimously agrees, and the few who don't are Trolls who should be heckled away, which in turn strengthens the popular common opinion and encourages more posts supporting it owing to the Skinner Box nature of posting high-scoring comments. The end result is a circlejerk of a community that genuinely believes they are unanimously right about such things, even when they are a minority at best: this has a nasty habit of shifting the entire tone of a website, particularly if spicy topics like current events or politics get involved, and one of the reasons many sites employ a Ban on Politics.
  • A popular question posed by radio stations on Facebook is "you're on a date. Your date says their favorite TV show/movie/artist and you immediately leave. What's the show/movie/artist?". A fair chunk of the answers are beloved and acclaimed pieces of media (for example, one such question had many answers of Bruce Springsteen and others had many answers of Seinfeld, there are also intense genre biases against science fiction and animation). The commenters hardly ever give any reasons beyond "I hate it" and often get huffy whenever someone says that they enjoy X movie/TV show/artist. Clearly, there is a wide difference between something that is actually unwatchable and something that is inherently good, but is not to someone's taste or is part of that person's Public Medium Ignorance.
  • Any Message Board/blog with a sufficiently strict moderation/comment policy will be accused of this. How dare the owner of the blog decide that some opinions are not worth hosting and some people not worth arguing with.
  • Reviewers, especially vitriolic ones, who point out Unfortunate Implications present in works get this a lot.
  • This is one of the main reasons that the Television Without Pity forums maintained strict 'no talking about the boards on the board' and 'talk about the posts, not the other posters' policies. Posts like "I don't get why everybody wants her to win" or "what's wrong with all these people who don't like him?" would net at least a warning and possibly a ban.
  • This overlaps often with Critical Dissonance. Many reviewers, especially Video Game reviewers, seem to think that because their tastes are limited, that means that any game they review should be strictly along those.
    • A very notable example are the reviews of Grand Theft Auto IV, which gushed about recreating a living, breathing world while minimizing the gameplay and technical issues, which were noted strongly in user reviews.
    • A common form is if they think the content of a game is "kiddie", they will put that well above whether the gameplay is any good, how the game performs, replay value, and other factors that would appeal to many gamers more than whether a game is kiddie or not. Because they don't like kiddie games, it's clear no one else will.
    • Players respond to video game reviews (seemingly more so than other forms of reviews) especially strongly in this way. Expect any review of a video game that disagrees with someone's opinions to be met with numerous comments about how the person/the site is biased and that reviews should be objective, even though an objective review is impossible; any criteria or theory you choose to follow in a review is in and of itself a form of bias. Jim Sterling once mocked this with an "objective and unbiased review" of Final Fantasy XIII. Reviews for re-released "classic games", especially, tend to get hit with this pretty hard. If a re-released classic game gets a relatively poor or even average score from a reviewer, you can expect accusations of the reviewer being "biased towards modern games" or (in a subtle invoking of Moff’s Law) "unfairly holding the game to modern standards."
  • One game reviewer talked about this, stating more or less, what while most reviewers talk about what the game is, what you do, and why they thought it was fun, a truly good reviewer also talks about why you the reader might like it.
  • Parodied in The Onion article "Man Who Enjoys Thing Informed He Is Wrong".
  • In Facebook fan pages, while you'll find a lot of posts about how good a work is or gushing about certain characters, you'll invariably get haters of the work liking the page simply to say, 'How can you people like this crap?' or 'You people are stupid, [Work] is obviously bad!' Some more extreme haters will demand the page get deleted because it dares to like something they don't. Similarly, browse pages devoted to hating certain works and you'll find the same thing in reverse: fans posting on the page saying, 'You people are stupid!', 'You obviously don't realise how superior [Work] is!', or 'You just haven't read/watched it!', and some demanding that the page get taken down because it dares to not like something they do.
  • IMDb forums are similar — people often seem unable to comprehend another opinion. Many users assume those who dislike films they themselves like are automatically trolls, and those who like films they themselves dislike are automatically involved with the movie. These people will very often seem incapable of talking about the movie without stating their dislike. Occasionally, you'll come across someone who disagrees with the majority but actually asks why [movie] is loved/hated.
  • The YouTube series "Everything Wrong with...", produced by CinemaSins, has a tendency to include everything that bothered the reviewer, ranging from plot holes and continuity errors, to debatable aesthetic choices such as the use of voiceover, to the reviewer's pet peeves, like his opinion that characters eating apples "makes them look like assholes".
  • The Outskirts Battle Dome is pretty much considered this by plenty of people. Especially the wiki. The idea of an OBD Hive Mind is actually an in-joke to members.
  • Arin of Game Grumps often brings this up this phenomenon when he speaks of how he dislikes things like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, only for the much more optimistic Danny to remark that he likes said thing for the exact same reasons Arin dislikes it. Arin will acknowledge that he is indeed the minority on it and often even remarks that he wishes he did like such things, as it would give him one more thing in his life to enjoy.

    Western Animation 
  • The general feedback loop of 'Oh my God, grown men like My Little Pony now?!'/'Yeah, we like My Little Pony now, what are you gonna do about it?' has led many bronies to forget that the show has just as many fans in its target demographic (that is, small children, especially of the female variety) as it does grown men and women.
  • The Simpsons fans of a certain age generally take it for granted that the show is no longer worth watching and hasn't been for a lot of years, with abstinence from "new Simpsons" episodes a badge of honor for some. Go ahead, just try to find a clip of "old" Simpsons on YouTube without a slew of comments waxing poetic about "how good Simpsons was back then, before the dark times", and just try to find a clip of "new" Simpsons without the comments bemoaning "Simpsons is terrible now!" While the show isn't as broadly popular as it once was, a consistent supply of new, young viewers has kept the show's ratings respectable enough for it to be continually renewed year after year.
  • Animation vet Bruce Timm has said that he rarely lets online criticism get to him for precisely this reason. He reasoned that statistically speaking, the people who post on message boards are a very small fraction of the actual fandom and audience, so just because some people are screaming Ruined FOREVER, that doesn't make it representative of the overall opinion of his work.
  • Anyone who spends five minutes on a comic book message board would think Ultimate Spider-Man is the most hated cartoon of all time, when in reality, it does quite well among its target demographic of young children. Brian Michael Bendis pointed out that even though "It's for kids!" is a common admission of a lack of quality, the network and advertisers don't actually care what the Periphery Demographic thinks.
  • Similarly to the above, Teen Titans Go! has a very vocal audience of detractors, consisting mostly of outraged fans of the original series, that makes up a sizable chunk of its online presence. As a result, it is very easy to find claims of it being one of the worst things on television on the internet. Despite this, it is actually one of the highest-rated programs on Cartoon Network and receives consistently mixed reviews from professional critics; a far cry from what the naysayers perceive it to be. This dissonance reached its apex when the series' Big Damn Movie was released, where the same detractors predicted that it would be a travesty worthy of being called the worst movie of all time only for it to be released to both positive critical reception and box office success.
  • Older fans of Nickelodeon widely believe that the channel has gone downhill. They also believe that Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and even Discovery Family are beating it. In reality, Nickelodeon easily defeats the latter two, and they have a small head up on the Disney Channel. In addition, many of the series they point fingers at tend to receive mixed or even positive reviews from professional critics.
  • As is the case with most Sequel Series, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender that didn't like The Legend of Korra have a tendency to believe that no one could possibly like the latter let alone like The Legend of Korra as much or more than The Last Airbender. They often think that it is a bad series that is disrespectful and contradictory to the original series, and they think that most people think it is bad. In actuality, critics and most fans find the opposite (that the series is really good, pays respect to its predecessor, and is careful to keep track of continuity and consistency) to be true.
  • Similar to the backlash against the popularity of My Little Pony, there are a vocal minority of people who get very angry at the popularity of Bluey, as they can't imagine the idea of anyone over the age of six watching a children's cartoon. Ironically, some fans of My Little Pony, Sonic the Hedgehog, anime, and other "cringe" fandoms tend to promote this mindset, disliking Bluey's Periphery Demographic for watching a 'toddler show' despite the fact that shows such as My Little Pony are also geared towards small children.

Top