Misaimed Fandom/Web Media

Examples of Misaimed Fandom for characters in Web Comics and Web Original works.

Webcomics

 * According to the Word of God of Drowtales Syphile is "not meant to have much redeeming features, she lost them all over time. I wouldn't portray her as anything else." Guess who's treated as The Woobie by a good portion of the fandom? Given the Grey and Gray Morality of the world it's understandable to a point, but now that it'll probably get worse.
 * Misaimed fandom is the point of this Something Positive comic. For those who don't get the joke, the author had previously used "cat girls" to represent annoying teenage anime fangirls who spout Gratuitous Japanese.
 * A rare positive example of this occurred during the fake "ending" in this strip of Eight Bit Theater. As he claimed in the blog post for the following strip, Brian Clevinger made the strip to piss people off and was later astounded to receive several e-mails of people saying how it was a perfect way to end the strip and thanking him for a job well done (even the ones who hated the "ending").
 * Someone once posted this Minus strip on a board, without any context nor any link to the comic. Immediately people saw it as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, an innocent child's dream of saving the world because nobody told her it was impossible (probably.), that no one should ever lose hope when faced with a The End of the World as We Know It, etc. Of course, anybody who has read the comic knows that:
 * 1) It's minus, so there is nothing "impossible" here. She will make a home-run with the meteor.
 * 2) Knowing her, she probably summoned it in the first place.
 * Richard, the undead warlock of Looking for Group, does nothing so much as play jump rope with the line. He has an entire summer home in audacity. About the only time we ever see him is when he's killing stuff for the hell of it or making kinda Vincenty Price-y jokes. And "stuff" in this context means, well, you name it. Women, children, innocent bystanders, orphanages, whatever. It was well into the story before there was even a hint that he had any purpose or role other than as super-dark comic relief, or any redeeming qualities at all. Go on and guess which character seems to be by far the fandom favorite. Saying things like "I don't like to see evil characters get away with the things Richard gets away with" on the forums isn't quite going to get anyone flamed, but expect plenty of people to leap to defense of their favorite comic mass murderer. There are both Foe Yay and heroics in the strip revolving around Richard, especially in the more recent installments of the comic, so it's unclear if the character has a genuinely misguided fandom, or if he is being evolved in the comic progression, or if one has led to the other or vice-versa.
 * It's pretty much impossible to claim Misaimed Fandom in Order of the Stick without getting hit with massive amounts of Internet Backdraft, though the contradictory positions means that someone must have the wrong end of the ten-foot pole. But Word of God eventually stepped in to confirm the "Belkar is Chaotic Good" claim as nonsense. He's Chaotic Evil, and not exactly subtle about it either.
 * And just confirmed.
 * There's also the case of Miko Miyazaki who was a parody of a badly roleplayed Paladin (in contrast to more balanced characters like Hinjo, O-Chul and Lien) yet developed a rather bizarre following despite her overwhelmingly unlikeable nature. Time seems to have faded most of it away, though there are still occasional outbreaks on the official forums.
 * Girard Draketooth, who somehow gained a reputation as a Properly Paranoid Magnificent Bastard by his cunning plan of hurling inaccurate accusations of treachery at a dead man and ineffectively trying to blow up a group of people who showed up to help him. Put it down to Cool People Rebel Against Authority.
 * This was both Lampshaded and Discussed in this strip, when favorite fanbase villain
 * NewRem Comics entire fanbase is misaimed. According to Word of God, the main character is intended to be a deconstruction of an RPG Heroine's life after there's nothing left to save, not a cutesy nerd rage comic.
 * It would probably help if the author gave any hint of this at all in the strip.
 * Gright the Suicide Doll in Far Out There was supposed to be offensive, unsettling, and an attack on the sort of people who would buy such things. Much to the author's horror, readers have demanded actual Gright merchandise ever since.
 * Collar 6: Recently, some fans have suggested that Buttefly may simply be an "antagonist" and not a "villain." This comes with the claim that her torturing Trina for information on Sixx was consensual BDSM.
 * Trollface. The meme originated from a comic lampooning Internet trolls, but the face was so awesome that the very same trolls had no problem making it the most recognizable icon of "the lulz" this side of Awesome itself.
 * One of the major themes in Homestuck is that everything is predestined, and that going against what's meant to happen will only result in disaster. It's been established in the comic that the kids the story follows are the only ones who will play Sburb and survive - any of the other kids who got the game will be doomed to failure when the meteors come because they aren't the ones who are supposed to play. And yet, fanfics and roleplay that take place in a Sburb session with entirely new human or troll kids are hugely popular. At least some of them make up a new species for the players to be first, but the vast majority of them don't.
 * Zig Zagged in canon;.
 * Also, many fans take whatever Andrew Hussie says outside of the comic, such as on the forums or his Formspring page, as Word of God that is unarguably canon. Problem is, Andrew is a Teasing Creator and many of the things he writes about his comic outside of the actual comic are intended as jokes.
 * Troll Romance was supposed to be comically exaggerated. It and the related characters ended up breaking the comic out into mainstream awareness. Similarly, Andrew chose to make the main characters 13-year-olds so that romance wouldn't come into play. Guess what comic has one of the largest shipping fanbases on the Internet?
 * In Ansem Retort, at the end of season 4 was meant to purely be a Take That towards how most shows tend to end a season with a major Shocking Swerve, but many readers consider it to be a genuine Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
 * The famous Hark! A Vagrant strip about Mr Darcy was originally intended to parody how ridiculously fangirlish women still get about Mr Darcy, because most of the tropes that made him sexy to the audience of that day no longer apply in modern society and because no-one could possibly live up to the Memetic Sex God Mr Darcy has become in the popular imagination over the years. However, people all over the internet just edit the comic with their fandom's Memetic Sex God, totally unironically.
 * Misfile is a deconstruction on Gender Bender stories, the nightmare of waking up as a girl being played straight, along with the issues that transgender people go through. However, in the forums there are always people who can't understand why Ash doesn't just conform to the Second Law of Gender Bending.

Web Original

 * From Cracked.com:
 * This trope is the subject of "The 5 Greatest Books With Psychotic Fanbases."
 * 6 Tricks Movies Use to Make Sure You Root for the Right Guy lists tools used to prevent this reaction.
 * Though most of the games reviewed by The Angry Video Game Nerd are just as bad as he says they are, there are a large number of viewers that didn't realize his first review of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest was deliberate Accentuate the Negative, and thought the guy who played him genuinely hated that much (James Rolfe stated that the first review was done as a joke and he didn't really think the game was that bad). It doesn't help that he frequently brings up Castlevania II when discussing other games' flaws, notably long passwords. His Metal Gear review does a better job of what he was aiming for with Castlevania II.
 * Mm? In the Metal Gear review, he specifically says that he isn't trying to find flaws, and everything he says is what he felt when he played the game.
 * And that's actually what he wanted to do with Castlevania II.
 * But Castlevania II was deliberate Accentuate the Negative, where Metal Gear, by his own admission, wasn't.
 * The Nostalgia Critic also attracts a lot of this. Despite the fact that a fair number of the episodes conclude with him admitting the film's strong points, any YouTube re-post will inevitably have loads of comments claiming "he was so right!" and bashing the film in question (sometimes without even having seen the movie themselves). The happens to most of the site's other reviews as well.
 * The Spoony One is deliberately trying to accentuate the negative on Final Fantasy VIII and the other Final Fantasy titles; however, his Fan Dumb tends to overlap with the massive Hate Dumb and Hatedom for the franchise, as comments even pointing out how subjective he could be or flat out fallacious were downrated and flamed into oblivion. Even saying that he was complaining about a game he hadn't played and ADMITTED he never played. (Final Fantasy IX)
 * Bear in mind, Spoony himself has said that Final Fantasy IX is probably a very good game, but he simply can't get past the art style and admits that his judging the book by its cover is "massively unfair".
 * The Critic also gets a lot of teenage fans who think he's a Badass, manly role model, when Doug has said time and time again that he's supposed to a weak, pathetic waste of space jerk who's always getting the short end of the stick.
 * Somewhat related, Lindsay has expressed annoyance that many fanboys seem to think The Nostalgia Chick is a "good person" when she's really a fucked up bitch with an Inferiority Superiority Complex.
 * Game reviews by IGSRJ, which serve as dual Irate Gamer parodies/AVGN tributes (though Third Rate Gamer does a better job at the parody part), not only include horrible games, but also games generally believed to be the best of all time, including Super Mario Bros. 3, Mortal Kombat and Duke Nukem 3D. He does a well enough job at Accentuating The Negative that reading the comments reveals that many viewers consistently either bitch about how wrong IGSRJ is, or more stupidly, agree with his arguments.


 * Similar to the above examples, many people actually assume that because they find Yahtzee so funny, he is actually the Word of God and that the games he reviews are genuinely crappy. Never mind the fact that there is a huge Bias Steamroller on there, and how he is deliberately trying to Accentuate the Negative. Many of his reviews are just fixating on one thing that bugged him or attacking the fans. This is especially true with JRPGs and Fighter games, where Yahtzee deliberately insists that he really doesn't know that much about them and didn't care about fighting games, yet played 'em anyways, acted like he knew everything, said The World Ends With You was an okay game, and most of his Brawl review was pretty much insulting Fan Dumb. Unfortunately, if you go to the Escapist Forum, you'll find all sorts of people who claim that they were glad they didn't get a game Yahtzee just savaged despite that he said plenty of positive things bout it (Especially Bioshock), insist that all fighters and RPGs are "Crap" despite proudly admitting having never played one in their lives.
 * Yahtzee himself has said that he exaggerates the flaws for comedic value, and that he 'praises by exception'. Anything he doesn't mention is fine or at least average, while if he takes the time to mention something's good in the review, he thought it was really good. He's also admitted his prejudices and that what he likes or hates may be the opposite for other people. Above all he just wants people to think for themselves and demand better than 'average' from developers.
 * It was also particularly bad about Brawl, in which, before he reviewed it, a lot of people actually liked it. Then, mysteriously, after he said he hated it because it was a fighting game, the Escapist was full of people saying it was the worst game and they were glad they never bothered with it, despite that several weeks before, their posts said they liked it. Suffice to say, if Yahtzee basically said he thought sex was overrated, you can pretty much bet that the Escapist Forums will be full of people who have proudly declared themselves to be celibates or that they were always Asexual.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series is actually mostly an Affectionate Parody of Yu-Gi-Oh!, with most of Little Kuriboh's hatred being directed at 4Kids. In case it's not obvious, Little Kuriboh is actually a fan of Yu-Gi-Oh. Unfortunately, this has lead to a lot of people admitting that Yu-Gi-Oh hatred is "cool" or calling it a "children's card game" for serious, and assuming that LK actually hated the franchise. Despite that his username is LittleKuriboh.
 * This video is a parody of incredibly impatient gamers. Then people started believing the kid was one, which led him to stop making videos for about a year.
 * The Greatest Freakout Ever, which has become ridiculously popular among teens and young adults as a humorous video. Any responsible adult who views it can only be horrified at the dysfunction it represents - in both brothers and in their parents.
 * "Any responsible adult" would realize the video is staged around the point where the kid pretends to shove the remote control up his ass. Really, now...
 * Any responsible adult or even kid who pays attention would notice that the videoes plural are faked and that the kid is probably a really good actor. (It's easy to fool people if you only show footage or pictures of them throwing tantrums and wrecking things and say they're like that all the time - Remember when Calvin tried to establish a fictitious childhood?) If he had seen a "Greatest freakout ever part x" and had forced his brother to remove it and make a new one (Why would he do that?!?), why would he have "just found out" in another video? Really, now...
 * Wafflepwn, the kid who posts the videos, said that his older brother thought that he (the younger brother) deleted ALL of the videos that he posted and not just the one. (Again, ignoring the question of why Steven had apparently forced his brother to remake one of the videos...and in the supposed remake, Steven's acting a lot more irrational than in the "actual" video)
 * There is also a video in which the kids' mother is apparently in on this. What kind of mother would approve of Wafflepwn filming his brother's anger outbursts and posting them on the internet? Especially when there's an interview crew coming in to talk with them both? Really now...Social Services would have enough proof to take away Steven considering there are at least 9 videos of him up as of June 2010. (The neighbours would obviously have found something wrong given how much stuff he destroys in plain sight.)
 * And not to mention, the fact that as of October 2011, there are seventeen videos up...and in several, they tell Wafflepwn to stop filming. Any responsible adult would have taken that camera away months ago because they're showing videos of them showing their worst side.
 * Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog: some people, as highlighted in this essay, are arguing that a large part of the audience seems to have missed the point especially in the way it tackled the idea of
 * These guys are satirizing the Christian Side Hug. However, more Christian groups have become aware of the Christian Side Hug thanks to the video and have adopted it because they believe front-hugging is a public display of affection and that it can cause accidental sexual contact.
 * Spoony created Doctor Insano as a satire of the idea that in fiction obviously evil people can be elected into positions of power. However several of his fans said that they would vote for him. Why? Because he is honest.
 * This video, technically part of a film project that doesn't look like it will ever be made. It's really a brilliant expression, and critique, on the American potential for fascism. Needless to say, most of the comments are on what a straight-thinking person Derek Jacobi's character seems to be.
 * Christian Lander started Stuff White People Like as an affectionate satire of his fellow liberal Hipster types. But peruse through the comments section on any of the site's pages and you'll find that SWPL tends to attract a large number of racists, many of them presumably non-ironic.
 * Urban Dictionary is created as a site where people can make their own slang words with their definitions, and also for other people to find out what (a) certain slang word(s) mean. However, a lot of people simply use it as a vehicle for their (biased) opinions. A lot of people noticed it to the point that the most popular definition for "Urban Dictionary" at the very site covers this, it's at the very top of this website's TV Tropes page.
 * Australian teen Madelene Zammit vents her frustrations against Facebook in an internet song with clear statements like "Na, I don't want to be judgmental towards people that I don't know. I'm sure you're nice, but your statuses must go," along with slamming people who post scandalous photos and creepy stalkers. Even after all that, she can't be too pleased after discovering her song was "liked" over 10,000 times by Facebook posters.
 * The Germaine character in the Neurotically Yours series is portrayed as the stereotypical goth female teenager that hates men, doesn't take orders from the man (aka refusing to get a job because she hates being told what to do), and acts like her poetry writing is amazing and shows how she knows the world for what it really is. As the series progressed, Germaine is shown to be dressing more and more slutty and performing sexual acts on random men while also revealing her fetishes and what she would do to the people and celebrities she has a crush on, yet Germaine still tries to stay true to her views on men and sex. Viewers of the series kept demanding to see Germaine naked, which pissed off the author every single time and as a response to the requests, he decides to have Germaine grow very fat and shave her hair off to make her ugly. However, not only did this cause people in-universe to find her even more attractive, it caused the viewers to whine at the author to change Germaine back. In response to that, the author made a video where he explains for over 10 minutes on how the Germaine character is supposed to be a satire on girls that claim to be above anything sexual and yet go against their values behind closed doors.
 * Proton Jon has encountered this a few times in his Let's Play videos. He hates Super Mario World ROM hacks that abuse the use of invisible coin blocks and in response to the hacks that kept doing that, he made his own level that had over 200 invisible coin blocks in a platform like maze with a switch at the very top that reveals the level exit. He sent the level to some of his friends and one of them thought the level was just brilliant, causing Proton Jon to exclaim "No, you idiot! You're missing the point!"
 * Proton Jon's videos of him doing an LP of Superman64 was to show people just how awful the game was, along with all its random bugs and glitches. Proton Jon admitted that the game was So Bad It's Good and that was his only motivation to play the game. However, many viewers that saw the game in action started to make their own videos showcasing all the glitches in the game, which baffled Proton Jon.
 * Jeff The Killer And Slenderman. full stop. One can sort of understand Jeff being a Draco in Leather Pants, but SLENDERMAN?!
 * You'd be surprised at how much Slenderman is idolized despite the fact that he's an eldritch abomination that stalks people, drives them insane, and then disappears them (it's heavily implied in some media that he eats them). Hell, the guy's original appearence as an image macro implies he kidnaps and/or eats children, which I think all sane people can agree is a bad thing.