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[Loud Whispers]

Sure, if you like. People are welcome not to like things, I'm just tired of the elitist circlejerk that comes with it. Enjoy yourself, I guess.

'I dislike this.'
t. elitists

[Reelya]

Sure, if you like. People are welcome not to like things, I'm just tired of the elitist circlejerk that comes with it. Enjoy yourself, I guess.

I don't think it's elitist to not like that in particular.

e.g. comparison: in anime if you slag off SAO, you're being elitist, if you slag of Mahouka you're saving people from utter shit. There's populist/fun stuff, then there's stuff that's so bad it's amazing anyone reads it at all.

We're not talking Shakespeare here. There's a basic level of competence in putting a story together, and stuff that falls far below that gets pilloried. e.g. Eragon would get a pass, because it has a fairly coherent story, despite being written by a 14 year old. "Ready Player One" doesn't get a pass, because the writing is fucking awful in a way that doesn't advance the plot whatsoever. 10 pages of listing 1980s film and TV shows? No thanks.

[Arx]

You're missing the point, LW. I don't mind people disliking things. I mind them then going around and loudly declaring that it's an atrocity and if you like it you're bad and you should feel bad. What part of

If something is popular and it's not literally the breath of God Himself, someone will be willing to blast it and say liking it makes you a terrible person. It's tiresome. Let people like things if they want to.

did you get "disliking things is elitist" from? Being an elitist jerk is elitist.

I don't think it's elitist to not like that in particular.

e.g. comparison: in anime if you slag off SAO, you're being elitist, if you slag of Mahouka you're saving people from utter shit. There's populist/fun stuff, then there's stuff that's so bad it's amazing anyone reads it at all.

I know a number of people who enjoyed the book, though. It clearly has its flaws, but maybe the rest of the novel is good enough to make up for the occasional massive screw up.

I wish people weren't so quick to decide which side of "fun stuff" and "terrible" things lie, and then subsequently so vehemently against changing their mind.

[scriver]

It's because we live in a culture of superlatives. Nothing is ever anything than the literally most it could ever be any more. The worst or the best. The most or the lest. Famine or fest. I can't think of anything to rhyme with for the rest.

No but seriously. This has the effect of people who like things going THIS IS THE BEST EVAR over things that is only sorta good, which triggers people who don't like it to respond; as well as the effect of people who don't like things going THIS IS THE WORST EVER over things which are only sorta bad, which triggers people who like it to respond. And because everything is only expressed in superlatives, the responses in both cases will come down to NO ARE FUCKING YOU STUPID THIS IS THE BEST/WORST EVAR.

[Reelya]

There's also stuff that's terrible one one level, but pretty good on other levels, and as long as it's not too jarring then it can be enjoyed.

Case in point: the Japanese novels No Game No Life, which is similar stuff to Ready Player One, I'm guessing. A brother and sister who are game geeks get transported to a fantasy world in which playing games is how all wars are solved, then they set about conquering the world via playing games. Basically, the fun part is the rules and outcomes of the games, however the characterization, storyline etc are all pretty shit (it's very much the "harem" girl-collecting thing, as the older brother scores another fawning animal girl / elf girl etc for his "collection" with each major victory), basically the plot is on rails, since each nation is represented by a chess piece, and they linearly collect the chess pieces, so there are no actual plot twists, only "suprise endings" in literally every game where it looks like the protagonists will lose, but suddenly they win by exploiting a rules twist. One many levels, it's really terrible and predictable bullshit, but some of the games are fun. I'm guessing Ready Player One is like that as well: massive fails on most levels, but weaves a bit of fun from the nostalgia side of things in between the shoddy plot framework.

[MrRoboto75]

[Loud Whispers]

You're missing the point, LW. I don't mind people disliking things. I mind them then going around and loudly declaring that it's an atrocity and if you like it you're bad and you should feel bad.

If people are not allowed to discuss how bad things are and how you are bad for encouraging their creation & consumption then we run into two problems:
1. English students will starve to death
2. The creatively bankrupt will prosper and continue to thrust endless mediocrity before us all, whether we like it or not

[Reelya]

People not complaining is why you end up with shovelware.

If people never complained ... then the quality of goods will decrease until the amount of complaining increases to a stable level.

[Magistrum]

If nothing is bad nothing can be good.

Maybe disagreeing is just how you express your interest in something?

Even fighting is a form of socializing after all.

[Jopax]

RPO was pretty decent imo. Sure it got into referencing a bit heavily at times, but for the most part it felt kinda justified I guess? Here was this incredible VR system with infinite possibilities and most of humanity kinda chose to relive this one kinda okay part of human history. And funnily enough the story itself is a pretty straightforward kids go on a big adventure type of deal you'd see coming out as a movie in the 80's.

The movie will probably be somewhat better since they'll have to cut out a lot of the fluff to make it not last forever, plus fucking live-ish action gundams, fuck yeah.

[wierd]

I dont think either of you picked up on his subtlety--

He said "popular" media-- eg, things that some not-insignificant portion of the population will find favorable on some level.

For a reasonable example;  Red Dwarf.  It was a "loosely science fiction" (ahem) show produced in the UK, which has a cult following. Some percentage of people just freaking loved it, despite it being a droll waste of airtime in many respects. (Bagging on it for devil's advocate here. I actually did enjoy the series, just not to the point of excessive fanboisim. I took it as a modern satyr comedy, just minus the satyrs. Ideally, I feel it should have followed something like StarTrek in the time slot, but hey, the media executives had their own views.)

Somebody seeing it for the first time, and thinking it was supposed to be "serious", could well have apoplexy and rail endlessly about how utterly horrible it is, while failing to understand that such horribleness is exactly the point of the series, and many people LIKE the horribleness. 

I believe Arx is trying to make you see that just because ONESELF does not like something and has a terrible reaction to its very existence, does not make that thing unworthy of being, or of being enjoyed, especially when that thing has defacto gathered a following (Due to being popular.)

A less meda-centered example might be social networking.  I personally despise FaceBook. I want it to die like MySpace did.  I wont wax philosophical about how people who use FaceBook are horrible people, because that is elitist horseshit-- People use FaceBook for a variety of reasons, and if they enjoy giving away all their personal information to every 3 letter agency on the planet, so be it. Who am I to judge them as people? I can dislike the thing, without disliking the the people who do like the thing.

[Draignean]

http://cghub.com/

This. All of this. Poe's Law is in full effect.

EDIT:

The Disney movie Frozen is a lighter side of the Antichrist, with Elsa being the great whore of Babylon.

[milo christiansen]

Wow, that is too weird to be a parody, too crazy to be what the author really thinks.

...

It must be what he really thinks.

[MrRoboto75]

"A lighter side of the Antichrist" would be a great name for an album.

[pisskop]

eye floaters are in fact devils