Seriously - stupidity has gone hand-in-hand with fandom from day one, because whenever you have large groups of people, you'll have to deal with the village idiots.
I remember in the pre-LJ days when it wasn't just criticism, but flat-out FLAMING and bashing characters and other things in canon that you didn't like or agree with. The flame wars that spawned from that got pretty epic in lots of fandoms. 'Character A sucks!''No, Character B sucks and you suck!''You both suck! Character C rules!''ZOMG A/B 4-EVA!!1!1!!one!1!!''EW YOU LIKE YAOI OMG YOU PERVERT.'
No website was ever left un-singed, and every single one of them had a "rants" section that evolved into meta entries and metafandom on LJ.
Re: I'm surprised no one has mentioned that this is basically a "get off my lawn" rant.
I remember in the pre-LJ days when it wasn't just criticism, but flat-out FLAMING and bashing characters and other things in canon that you didn't like or agree with. The flame wars that spawned from that got pretty epic in lots of fandoms. 'Character A sucks!' 'No, Character B sucks and you suck!' 'You both suck! Character C rules!' 'ZOMG A/B 4-EVA!!1!1!!one!1!!' 'EW YOU LIKE YAOI OMG YOU PERVERT.'
No website was ever left un-singed, and every single one of them had a "rants" section that evolved into meta entries and