Unpleasable Fanbase/Quotes

"Of course I listen to my readers! So the next book will be: Set in Ankh-Morpork/not set in Ankh-Morpork. With lots of the good old characters/with a whole cast of new characters. Written like the old books, which were better/written like the later books, which were better. With lots of character development/none of that dull character development stuff, which gets in the way of the jokes. Short/long. You want fries with that?"

—Terry Pratchett

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
See, you can't please everyone
So you gotta please yourself

—Ricky Nelson, "Garden Party"

Grouches of the world unite!
Stand up for your grouchly rights!
Don't let the sunshine spoil your rain
Just stand up and complain!
Let this be the grouches' cause
Point out everybody's flaws!
Something is wrong with everything
Except the way I sing!

—Oscar the Grouch, Follow That Bird, "Grouch Anthem"

"Just think whereas now we have young adults complaining that Elmo has taken screen time away from classic characters like Big Bird and Grover, in just a few years we're likely to have young adults ranting about how Abby has taken screen time away from classic characters like Elmo and Baby Bear! Since Elmo hit the big time, grown-ups have been like, "It's a huge mistake to give Elmo the spotlight over the classic characters! The show was so much better before he showed up!" But now the viewers who were in the audience for the first Elmo's World segments are becoming grown-ups themselves, and they're all like, "It's a huge mistake to change the Elmo character! The show needs the classic Elmo!"

—Ryan Roe, "The Elmo Generation Gets Cranky", Tough Pigs.com

"There is a diabolical twist to Star Wars fandom, you see, that defies comprehension, and yet is the life-blood of all Star Wars fans. It is this: Star Wars fans hate Star Wars. If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans."

—Andrey Summers, JIVEMagazine

Frasier: What is the one thing better than an exquisite meal? An exquisite meal with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night.
Niles: *raises glass* To impossible standards!

—Frasier

"Ranting about the game can be more fun than the game itself."

—No Mutants Allowed forum member Pipboy-x11

"Second, y'know, I get asked a lot, 'Give us ALIEN aliens.' So I do. And then I get gigged because they don't act like we'd expect humans to act. Sometimes I just throw up my hands...."

—J. Michael Straczynski

But what would you say
if I walked away?
Would you appreciate?
But then it'd be too late.
'Cause I can only take so much
of your ungrateful ways.
Everything is never enough.

—Dream Theater, "Never Enough" (a song which resumes this trope)

"People used to complain about how the list was too hard to navigate and that we should turn into a calendar. Now all I hear is that the calendar is too hard to navigate and we should go back to a list. The lesson here? Never listen to fans."

—Brian Clevinger, on the 8-Bit Theater archive design

"You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"

—John Lydgate, later paraphrased by Abraham Lincoln

"Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything."

—Bob Dylan

"Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never ever be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill, tremulous voices the happier you will be for it. Incidentally, why not buy a Zero Punctuation T-Shirt?"

—Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

"'Hardcore' Gamers are basically the Parents of gaming. They complained about not having tutorials because a lot of them didn't have the manual, they complained about how they had to wait for the magazines to find out the secret areas...and now that we have sites like GameFAQs that offer detailed walkthroughs free of charge and built-in-tutorials, they're whining at how it's all dumbed down and saying 'in my day, we...' because they didn't have those boons."

—A post from a topic detailing complaints at how fans (who complained about Final Fantasy XIII having tutorials) saying that Final Fantasy XIV needs tutorials.

"For fans, they sure do complain a lot."

—Dean Winchester

It doesn't matter what you do
It doesn't matter what you say
There will always be one who wants things the opposite way
It doesn't matter where you go
It doesn't matter who you see
There will always be someone who disagrees

—The Shaggs "Philosophy of the World"

"I thought Zelda was getting stale, so I made Wind Waker. You all hated Wind Waker and said it was for babies, So I followed OOT and made Twilight Princess. Oooooo but noooo, now you love Wind Waker! WELL YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE! So at this E3 I made a morph with Twilight Princess and Wind Waker and called it Skyward Sword. And you don't like Skyward Sword either. You love Wind Waker and Twilight Princess now. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU WANT!!!!? That's why I made Wii Sports. At least the kids and moms will always like it!"

—Anonymous impersonating Shigeru Miyamoto

"You can't please all of the people all of the time, and last night all of those people were at my show."

—Mitch Hedberg

"You've done nothing but complain endlessly about this game for years and years. Yet you've logged on every day since then. I still see you in-game playing. I still see you hosting games. I see you joining games. I see you coming up with strategies. This game sucks so much yet you still pay the monthly fee. I think this means despite all your complaints, they're doing something right.

—A "The Reason You Suck" Speech that was given at a forum about video games.

"If the story I want to tell isn't the story you want to read, there are no hard feelings on my part."

—Krakro, writer of Spinnerette!

"Gotta love video gamers who complain about the stagnation of repetitive, copy & paste sequels; they are always the first to complain when something new is introduced to reinvigorate the series."

—A comment on the Video Game Awards 2011 trailer of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on YouTube