Livin' That Spite Life

No, not "Sprite" life. Spite Life. This is not a soda commercial.

Question for the day: Has there ever been something - a movie, book, food, sports team, whatever - that you were fairly neutral or indifferent to on its own, but you ended up hating it because its fans were such annoyances?

There are certain things we're gonna dislike on their own merits, or lack thereof. My distaste for the Dallas Cowboys had nothing to do with their fans, and everything to do with a) them kicking the Cardinals' asses twice a year back in the '90s, and b) the media's insistence on referring to them as America's Team. My dislike for Batman stems from him being written as a total ass for twenty years. So on and so on.

But sometimes, the thing itself is OK, but the people who really like it are what kills it. It isn't the fans' enthusiasm. I've said this before, but reading or watching people discuss something that interests them, even if it's not necessarily something I'm into, can be fun. It's when the fans decide they have to seek out people who are fans of other, related things, and badmouth those while trying to prop up what they like. Convert or die, basically. It's so aggressively obnoxious I end up despising the thing they like since it apparently produces such idiocy in them.

I don't like Cyclops, but I don't go find people talking about how much they like him so I can butt in yammering how, actually, Cyclops is garbage and Nightcrawler is so much better.

The Chicago Cubs would probably be an earlier example of this for me, but the reason it came up is I think I hit my limit last week with Vegeta fans. I don't particularly like the character. He's an asshole. He talks a lot of shit he rarely manages to back up. His arrogance makes situations worse for everyone else repeatedly. He takes time away from any number of other characters I'd rather see get some shine. But, on occasions, he will do something cool, and it's fun to watch him freak out when things don't go his way. I could do without him, but on his own, he isn't a deal-breaker.

But a lot of Vegeta fans - or perhaps just a few, very persistent ones - like to spend their time interjecting themselves into discussions that had nothing to do with him to talk him up, and put down whichever characters were actually being discussed. Usually this involves making a lot of excuses for the character, or inventing things out of thin air to explain why he's "better" than the character they're dismissing. Generally just being obnoxious.

I know, people behaving poorly on the Internet? What is the world coming to? Anyway, I've reached the point the character's own irritating behavior is now conflated with that of his fanboys, and seeing him or hearing about him is unwelcome.

That's my current target of loathing, so what's yours?