It's Popular, Now It Sucks: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== In General ==

* Any form of entertainment ''ever''. A lot of it stems from envy. ("My novel's better than ''that''! Why wasn't ''I'' published?!" "But I drew something completely original, why does ''this'' page have more views?!", "My idea's better! Why are ''they'' getting all the recognition!") It's not uncommon to find [[Sour Grapes]] about it all. ("Well ''I'' never liked that magazine in the first place!", "deviantART is the [[Lowest Common Denominator]] ''ANYWAY''.)

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* If you wish to invoke this trope, ask around on any forum, even one dedicated to Manga and Anime what the worst they've ''ever'' read or seen was. Your responses will ''very very rarely'' mention an anime/manga that wasn't popular or well received even in Japan like ''[[Bakugan]]'', or the stuff that was actually ''canceled'' before it could be localized like ''[[Bakugan]]'' was. At least nine out of ten responses will name stuff like ''[[Bleach]]'', ''[[Code Geass]]'', ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'', ''[[Death Note]]'', ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (anime)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', ''[[Gundam]]'', ''[[Naruto]]'', ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', ''[[Inuyasha]]'', ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', ''[[Sailor Moon]]''...notice a pattern? Yep. Stuff that is popular in Japan, ''and'' outside of Japan.

** Generally pretty much everything that becomes popular in Western anime fandom is guaranteed to be hit with a combination of this and [[Opinion Myopia]]. If you don't want your show that you like to receive heavy amounts of criticism from some part of the fanbase, it's best that it stays far under the radar.

** Interestingly enough, this has led to this trope being avoided amongst many of the highly acclaimed shows that aired on Toonami or [[Adult Swim]], with works like [[Cowboy Bebop]] being often treated as sacrosanct. [[Your Mileage May Vary|For better or worse this has led to a set of popular shows in the fandom being fairly free of criticism]].

 

* ''[[Akira]]'' has managed to avoid this fate, despite that most people are actually familiar with the old dub ([http://canaaadaaaa.ytmnd.com/ "KA-NAY-DAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!"]) that, strangely, neither Otomo or Macek themselves agreed with. If anything, the only It's Popular, Now It Sucks that Akira is getting is the [[I Liked It Better When It Sucked|2001 redub]], which you would ironically ''think'' would be better received. (More thorough translation, they actually ''know'' how to pronounce Kaneda's name, and the fact that the 80s dub got a PG-13 rating thanks in part to the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] while the 2001 redub is rated R...)

* Many fans of ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' were displeased by the [[Newbie Boom|influx of ''many'' new fans]] brought by the successful anime adaptation. (Funnily enough most of them started complaining when the fandom was already ''huge''.)

== Film ==

 

* Let's just start off by saying this: If a movie [[Epic Movie|rakes in a lot of dough]] ([[wikipedia:List of highest-grossing films|especially if the film ends up on this list]]), it's sure to be labeled as a [[Cliché Storm]] filled movie with nothing but "Mindless" Action and/or "Mindless" [[Fan Service]] that isn't [[True Art]] and made for the [[Lowest Common Denominator]]...[[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch|Even if they didn't actually watch the movie.]] Almost no exceptions (you won't find many people making said complaints about ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' or ''[[The Godfather]]'').

* It's not just amongst fans either. People have noticed that in most recent years, the majority of [[Academy Award|Oscar]] winners and nominees for best picture have been both low budget and low box-office. It was the exclusion of well-received successes such as ''[[WALL-E]]'' and ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' that caused the Academy to expand the pool of nominees from 5 to 10.

* Many actors that star in blockbuster films suffer from this, including [[Seth Rogen]] and [[Shia LaBeouf]].

 

* ''[[Austin Powers]]'' is this combined with a bit of [[Hype Backlash]] too, as surely you'd be annoyed that EVERYONE was reciting the catchphrases by the time the second movie came out.

* ''[[A Christmas Story]]'' suffers this, largely due to over-exposure from the 24-hour marathon of the movie that's run every year at or around Christmas.

* Tim Burton. As with ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' example above, you can expand this to pretty much anything done by him. Early in his career, he gained a cult following, most of his early films did good, but not huge numbers at the box office. However, as his films became more popular, the [[Hate Dumb]] grew and grew, in large part do to his popularity with the Goth and Emo crowd, and much because of this trope. It seems to be mostly due to the misconception that he and his movies are all [[Wangst|whiny, mopey, self-indulgent]] navel-gazers, missing the part where he's actually [[Deadpan Snarker|pretty funny]] and doesn't take himself that seriously at all. Just watch [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPrFec9rAwM this interview]. "Could you roll the I.V. in here? I'm feeling a bit...faint."

* Certain parts of the ''[[Transformers]]'' fandom, over the year or so before the release of [[Transformers (film)|the 2007 live-action movie]], preemptively expressed the sentiment that "It's going to be popular! That sucks!" Everyone else was rather confused. It becomes very silly when people accuse ''Transformers'', a franchise that was created specifically [[Merchandise-Driven|to sell toys]], of selling out.

** On the other hand, part of the reason why ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' purists hate the movies so much is because of their popularity; they're basically pissed that more people are familiar with the hyper-detailed CGI Transformers starring in big, dumb action movies than their original, not-very-detailed cartoon incarnations. (Fans of more widely praised incarnations such as ''[[Beast Wars]]'', ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', and ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' also react this way if they dislike the movies).

 

== Food ==

* Often inverted for Gluten-Free diets. Outside of places like California or Boulder, CO, if you had a gluten allergy in the 90s...good luck finding gluten-free stuff outside of expensive specialty stores or health food stores! Now that Gluten-free diet has become a fad diet (or that people are actually more aware of Gluten-free diets), those with Gluten allergies can actually go ''out to eat'' more often and actually ''not'' have to shop at expensive health food stores. (Course, those are ''still'' pretty much the best places to go if you have a gluten allergy, but still.)

* One easily noticeable trait among food enthusiasts is their total disdain for any chain restaurant. Some take it a step further and badmouth even local non-chain eateries that are popular and/or have attractive signs and architecture to bring in the curious. The most extreme eat from a single small and nondescript place that's hard to notice and nowhere else, and deride other food enthusiasts for eating anywhere else. However, there is another group that [[Inverted Trope|inverts this phenomenon]]: Chain restaurant fans, who by and large ignore local restaurants, embracing It's Unpopular, So It Sucks.

 

 

== Music ==

* Music is by far the [[Trope Codifier]]. Sadly, this happens WAY too much among music fans. [[Trope Maker|Hell, this trope was primarily made by these guys]]. If a song or a performer is "mainstream", they automatically suck regardless if they actually suck or not. ''I liked that band before they were popular'' and ''I hate the band because they are popular'' are quite common mottos among "[[Fan Dumb|true music fans]]".

** [http://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/elitism This T-shirt] pretty much sums up this trope. As does [http://www.google.com/imgres?q=music+snobs&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1920&bih=829&tbm=isch&tbnid=DYOs2lFnrhdfKM:&imgrefurl=http://stackofdimes.com/%3Fp%3D1116&docid=aVtXaiSlPcgmXM&imgurl=http://stackofdimes.com/media/bands1.jpg&w=500&h=358&ei=904OT4etDZSNsAKRxrzfAw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=156&sig=113431404822408667155&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=188&start=0&ndsp=37&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=58&ty=54 this one].

* This happens to many lesser-known solo artists that lend their vocals to a track by a huge hip-hop artist or dance producer, which then proves to be their breakthrough to the mainstream. Sia Furler and Dragonette are two recent examples of this.

 

* [[ABBA]] This complaint arises in their fan community every time there is a major surge in interest, the latest being the success of ''[[Mamma Mia!]]''. Interestingly, each wave of popularity leads to a status increase for past newcomers, to the point where "Goldies" (newcomers after the release of the "ABBA Gold" album), who were ridiculed on their arrival, are now praised as "true fans" by the older fans who criticized them. Many of these older fans ignore the fact that they first liked the band in the 1970's, at the all-time peak of their success and popularity.

** This is common in multiple music fandoms, and leads to a sort of cycle: a band becomes "popular", at which point liking them becomes lame and so they become unpopular, at which point no-one likes them so liking them becomes "cool" again. Thanks to the internet, this can often happen over the course of a single month, even with no change whatsoever from the band themselves. Factor in that this happens on several levels (with individual artists, genres, and even with awareness of this very trope), and that bands often drastically change their sounds and attitudes (usually partially due to fan reaction and, again, awareness of this trope), and you get a consensus attitude that is very confusing and difficult to get a read on.

* Windows became an internet [[The Antichrist|Antichrist]] when it clearly dominated the [[Computer Wars]]. Conversely, [[Mac OS]] did the reverse and became an internet darling when it became the apparent underdog. Recently though, Mac has rebounded in popularity with the help of the iPod and may have picked up this trope as well but Apple hate is nothing compared to Microsoft hate.

* Speaking of Apple, Apple Inc itself has become this. While still an underdog in the [[Computer Wars]], the company has recently diversified beyond home computing, its dominance of the portable music player market and the downloadable music market (with the iPod and iTunes respectively), along with the success of iPhone, has made the company highly profitable even though it doesn't retain the share of the PC market it enjoyed in its computer-heyday. Recently it overtook long-time competitor Microsoft's share value. However, Apple's increased presence in these new markets and among ordinary people becoming Apple users (not to mention Steve Jobs' sporadic rants about competing products or Apple's heavy-handed tendency to enforce litigation against anyone who leaked details of unreleased or rumored products) have invoked this trope, where long-time fanboys are upset that the company is no longer part of the counter-culture they aspire to. The shift from its previous "Think different" campaign to the present somewhat-elitist [[Take That]] and [[Strawman Product]] advertising as well, not to mention that Apple seems to get away with [[Double Standard|anything bad they do]] unlike Microsoft, and its [[Fan Dumb|often snobbish user base]] also contributes towards this.

* Ubuntu has made Linux more user-friendly and easier for newbies. Many GNU/Linux ''users'' complain about how mainstream this operating system has become, hence moving to other obscure operating systems such as Plan 9, BSD, and Haiku. A few long-time users are annoyed that the newbies seem more interested in getting actual work done than hacking the kernel.

** In this case, there is a partial justification: making a system easy for beginners to use means adding extra components that will slow it down or otherwise make it inappropriate for experts to do very specific things. Of course, continuing to harp on about Ubuntu's mainstream release when there are "expert" distros like Arch (or even Ubuntu Minimal) available is a solid example of this trope in action.

** To a certain extent, where software is concerned, this trope actually has some basis in reality. The tradeoff between user friendliness (interface complexity) and actual sound design from an internal/engineering standpoint (implementation complexity) is legendary. This is as much true in Ubuntu's case as it has ever been; Ubuntu has gained the former, while neglecting the latter.

 

== Video Games ==

* [[Video Game Genres|Video Games]] in general. Here's a little bit of homework....go onto a video game forum. Ask what the worst game they ever played is. Now count how many will trash a game that's popular. Round your answer to the nearest ''dozen''. It's amazing how often these threads include ''playable'' games and say they are the "Worst games ever". Wouldn't the worst games ever be the ones that are actually unplayable due to glitches and unintelligent design?

* [[Fan Dumb|Some]] [[PC vs. Console|PC gamers]] consider "consolization" to be synonymous with "[[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|complete destruction of the series]]" (just look at this list!), and complete and total assha- er, fans who proclaim themselves as "[["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|Hardcore Gamers]]" hate " Casual Gamers". For an in-depth view at the latter phenomenon, read [http://malstrom.50webs.com/washinghardcore2.htm this article]. Heck, even in [[This Very Wiki]], we've even had [[Edit War]]s erupting occasionally in this page when it comes to this in examples. [[Justifying Edit|Tropers, do not start one, please]].

** Not to mention, even handheld juggernauts like ''[[Pokémon]]'' were made to be handheld games. (Eg, being able to save everywhere, stuff not taking long) People just refuse to accept this.

 

* [[Bungie]]; in their early days a Macintosh game developer, decided that their next title after their hit ''[[Pathways into Darkness|PID]]'' was ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' instead of a ''PID'' sequel, but after ''Marathon'', they made ''Marathon 2''. "Oh no, they've sold out!", said the fans. "No we haven't", said Bungie, later revealing work on the genre-founding Real Time Tactics game ''[[Myth]]''. Next, ''Marathon 2'' was ported to become Bungie's first non-Mac release. "Oh no, they've sold out!", the fans said again. "No we haven't", said Bungie, "We're still doing our own thing making innovative work" pointing to pioneering [[Beat'Em Up]]/[[Third-Person Shooter|shooter]] ''[[Oni]]'' and [[Wide Open Sandbox|Sandbox]] guerrilla warfare game ''[[Halo (series)|Halo]]''. After that, Microsoft bought them, and turned ''Halo'' into a [[Killer App]] for the original Xbox. "They've sold out!" screamed the fans, and Bungie responded "No, we haven't." After they were finished with the Halo series,'Bung split up with Microsoft to create a new ip and signed a deal that it will be published by [[Activision]]. Of course the fans said "They've sold out!" and of course Bungie responded with "No, we haven't."

* Some ''[[Call of Duty]]'' fans were not too pleased when the ''[[Call of Duty: Modern Warfare|Modern Warfare]]'' franchise was introduced and turned out to be a hit. Possibly aided by the recent changes of ''Modern Warfare 2'' including the lack of [[PC vs. Console|dedicated servers in the PC version]], the [[Downloadable Content]], and most importantly; the [[Executive Meddling]] between [[Activision]] and Infinity Ward, leading to many of Infinity Ward's crew defecting to [[Electronic Arts]]. Go to a gaming forum (especially one with a lot of PC users) and ask them what the best entry in the series is. Chances are, the answer will be United Offensive or ''Call of Duty 2''. Woe be it to the poor newbie that actually likes the newer games.

 

== Other ==

{{quote|Recursive trope!}}

** The hate seems to stem from our terms popping up in other places more frequently. But hey! We seem to be taking over the internet! Aren't you ''happy?''

* Polish [[Demoscene]]. When the Polish videogame magazine, ''CD-Action'', began publishing a series about the hitherto rather hermetic demoscene, many old sceners claimed that it [[Ruined FOREVER|ruined the demoscene forever]], caused an [[Eternal September|influx of talentless newbies]], and were angry that while ''they'' had to go to great lengths to learn about the community in the first place, all those new youngsters know everything by just reading a magazine.

* A rare [[Justified Trope]] example: Beautiful secluded beaches. When only you and maybe a few friends know about the location of a secluded beach, its a wonderful thing but if the wrong people find out about it, before long the word spreads around and lots of people start visiting it which means that the formerly beautiful secluded beach turns into just another busy tourist trap.

** Can also extend to camping locations. As Yogi Berra put it: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

* This attitude ''pervades'' the ''[[Fur Affinity]]'' forums, as well as the site itself. Mention any popular trend in the ''[[Furry Fandom]]'' and you'll have at ''least'' three responses on why it sucks or is a stupid trend. Mention any popular TV show or anime, and for every response praising the show, you'll see at least three trashing it. Mention artstyles, and, if it's popular, will immediately be decried by the fanbase. The ''Video Games'' forum is also pretty much ''exactly'' this trope through and through. Mention ''any'' game that is popular, and the responses will consist of trashing it, saying they don't get why it's fun, saying it's overrated, and naming an obscure/retro/independent video game that is "vastly superior" in just about every way, complete with [[Fan Hater]]s keeping all the fans of ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' and any game from Japan away from the forums.

* Two words: [[Bruce Campbell]]. Fans want him to be successful and more than a B-movie star, but at the same time they want to keep him all to themselves and hope he never gets that A-listing he deserves, because then a lot of what makes him cool will simply vanish and he'd be just another Hollywood star.

** As of 2012, his biggest role is one of the three leads of [[USA Network]]'s hit show ''[[Burn Notice]]''. His character is so popular he actually got his own spinoff movie. The fans don't seem to actually mind.