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What causes "fankidism"? Why do certain things develop a fanboy/fangirl following, while others don't?

At first glance, one might say "anime" definitely develops fankid following. But that's not true. It's probably correlated with anime, but I believe the correlation is weak; on one hand I've never heard of fankids of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and on the other hand, the Harry Potter series has a prominent fankid following.

Is it correlated with marketing? Probably not; the Pokemon series has been VERY heavily marketed, but I hear of few fankids of that series.

Does it have to involve a fantasy world? And if so, why Final Fantasy VII, but not Final Fantasy Tactics, for example? (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there isn't an FFT fankid following.)

On a related note, what is a fankid, anyway?

Edit

Nausicaa title typo, my bad. Thanks, L. Cully!

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 16th November 2005 01:46

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Ah yes the term fanboy and fangirl. The word "fan" is short for "fanatic" and the word "boy" or "girl" is added there as a taunt. You can call a person a fan of something, they won't mind, but it bothers someone if you call them a fanboy/girl.

Urbandictionary has some clear definitions on this, but it tends to point towards "anime", "manga", "startrek", "Dungeons and Dragons", and titles that suggest a "geek" culture (refering to fantasy video games, comics, and things that will never happen in real life). It's more of a taunt. There are a few people who are obsessed (whatever they are a fan of takes over their life) and basically they commonly refer to their fandom alot (through clothing, media, and sometimes through their personality). Visit some specific forums that deal with a specific title and you will see what I mean.

What causes it, highly advertised things like Pokemon, Harry Potter, Startrek, Starwars, Dungeons and Dragons and other titles that seem "geeky". A few kids start liking these, and they kinda form their own "little group". This group is somewhat like a clique where the more you know about "the title", you are more of a fan and higher up in such a group. Things like "trivia" rise up, where people obsessively preach their title to exhaustion so that they can claim they are better. Fandom usually arises at a pre-teen age, cause we all know middle school students are extremely group based. Why did all my classmates try to remember all 150 pokemon (oh no, there are actually 152 pokemon).

Now there are 8 billion pokemon, and since the fad has grown old, no one remembers them anymore (an example of a dying fad).

It gets broader than this, actually you will get into how pre-teen's/teen's think if you go further (refering to the teens who really don't make the grade in society if you know what I mean).

Fankidism occurs with popular titles only. Very rarely do you see fankidism in titles that is not familiar by too many people. FFVII was a very popular series, while FF Tactics wasn't as popular in the general public.

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Who is Byblos?

To me, Fankidism is blindly or avidly following a popular trend or going with a group. It also can be attributed to going absolutely over the edge with something, such as dressing up like Harry Potter and waiting in line for the movie or doing something along those lines Star Wars related. I think the difference between Tactics and FF7 is tactics is more of a cult following, as it was never a highly popular game like 7. Tactics also requires much more skill to play then 7 does, and people who get into tactics and the inner workings of it are hardly what one would call an Idiot.

It goes as well for the older FF's IE 6-1. People played them less than 7, and thus they developed a cult following rather than a procession of people. Fandom goes hand in hand with ignorance as one might observe with an FF7 fan declaring boldly that "Sephiroth is teh gr8est villain evar." The problem here is, he clearly has never played one of the older games. He's making a blind statement that to anyone more learned in the ways of the series sounds like sheep braying than an actual statement.

It just comes down to ignorance, popularity, trends, and things of that nature.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Actually, I know so many people who blindly love the Macintosh computer since "it doesn't crash lol" and "its cause its intuitive and easy to use" and the Objective-C programming language (which is by far an ugly language that does not adopt anything from another language) they make me sick. I am a Computer Science major by the way.

At times, I even fall into one of these sneaky fads, but it tends to be temporary. I decided, well Magic the Gathering seems like a nice game. After 1 month, the people started to get really irritating so I stopped playing.

I remember I got all hyped cause of Final Fantasy: Advent Children (as in hyped, I checked out www.adventchildren.net everyday for 3 weeks before I watched it and got it over with).

For some people who get really irritating, the term fanboy/fangirl should be used

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Who is Byblos?

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What causes "fankidism"?  Why do certain things develop a fanboy/fangirl following, while others don't?

Well, fankids seem to usually be 12-15 year old kids who havent seen anything else and in their eyes, their fankidee is the best out there. The most well known fankidee traits are Flashy Lights, lots of Blood, weapons, and all-around violence. Just so you know, these things make me sick in video games. Companies usually add those things to develop Fankids.

Quote

At first glance, one might say "anime" definitely develops fankid following.  But that's not true.  It's probably correlated with anime, but I believe the correlation is weak; on one hand I've never heard of fankids of Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, and on the other hand, the Harry Potter series has a prominent fankid following.

As I said before, Harry Potter has magic and "humor", and fankids like that. Nausicaa just doesn't appeal as much to the younger group of watchers, and they make up most of the fankid population. The few adult fanpeople probably like Nausicaa. They kids are all for Laugh, Blood, Sex, Weapons, Magic. Games like GTA and Resident Evil dish it out, and fast. That probably explains their popularity with kids.

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Does it have to involve a fantasy world?  And if so, why Final Fantasy VII, but not Final Fantasy Tactics, for example?  (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there isn't an FFT fankid following.)

Probably because FFT doesn't have huge weapons or blood.

This post has been edited by Kimahri on 15th November 2005 23:03

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eh?

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 15th November 2005 13:49)

I've never heard of fankids of Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind

You've found one. Since I was ten. (It's "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind," incidentally. ; )

I think availability has a large part to do with it. If you can't find it, obviously you can't fankid it. It's also self-perpetuating; the more beloved something gets, the more popular and available it becomes, and the more beloved it gets, etc.

Creations that tend to become the biggest fandoms, I've found, have one or more of the following:

(1) A huge cast of characters, including subgroups. (Death Eaters, Klingons, Turks, etc.)

(2) A long and convoluted storyline.

(3) Several generations mentioned.

(4) Rich terminology, including technical terms, magical terms, etc, etc, that people love to learn about in detail.

This post has been edited by L. Cully on 16th November 2005 01:24

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Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

Quote (L. Cully @ 15th November 2005 20:24)

[QUOTE=Glenn Magus Harvey,15th November 2005 13:49]
Creations that tend to become the biggest fandoms, I've found, have one or more of the following:

(1) A huge cast of characters, including subgroups. (Death Eaters, Klingons, Turks, etc.)

(2) A long and convoluted storyline.

(3) Several generations mentioned.

(4) Rich terminology, including technical terms, magical terms, etc, etc, that people love to learn about in detail.

Sounds like a Book/Comic/Video Game/Movie/Anime with all those things is deserving of attention. You certainly have me interested in whatever product you have described.


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I've never heard of fankidism, but judging by the responses, I think I know the demographic we're getting at. To me, this type are deadly protective of their series. One hint at a possible flaw or ill-opinion aimed at their object of desire and they flip into ultra-protective mode, taking things far to over the top and serious, like.

I think we should be carefull not to pin specific titles to having all-out fankiddy fan-bases, you should think of that as friendly-fire. Lots of people here like the Final Fantasy series, Manga, Anime, Otaku-related stuff, etc. Just because such things HAVE fankiddies, to pin that label on every fan is unfair.

For instance, a fan of, lets say Final Fantasy isn't going to exactly take this very harshly, it's someones low opinion in something they have a high opinion of. Wow. Big deal. Now, a fankiddy, that will be an all-together different reaction. It might actually cause tears before bedtime;

The Final Fantasy series, stretched way beyond it's actually value of originality, is now forced into re-hashing itself, pumping out money-grabbing 'prequels', 'sequels', and 'Advance' versions to keep Square-Enix afloat. The real fans are gone, and SE know the only fans left are kiddies that will lap up any old tripe with the 'Final Fantasy' moniker.

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Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.

http://slightly-bitter.blog.co.uk

There have been plenty of pokemon fankids. However, I will say that is has died off over the last few years as you suddenly realize, that no no no more. No more catch them all!

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Elena Indurain

Currently Playing: Suikoden II

Quote (BASSsic @ 16th November 2005 00:37)

I think we should be carefull not to pin specific titles to having all-out fankiddy fan-bases, you should think of that as friendly-fire. Lots of people here like the Final Fantasy series, Manga, Anime, Otaku-related stuff, etc. Just because such things HAVE fankiddies, to pin that label on every fan is unfair.

For instance, a fan of, lets say Final Fantasy isn't going to exactly take this very harshly, it's someones low opinion in something they have a high opinion of. Wow. Big deal. Now, a fankiddy, that will be an all-together different reaction. It might actually cause tears before bedtime;

The Final Fantasy series, stretched way beyond it's actually value of originality, is now forced into re-hashing itself, pumping out money-grabbing 'prequels', 'sequels', and 'Advance' versions to keep Square-Enix afloat. The real fans are gone, and SE know the only fans left are kiddies that will lap up any old tripe with the 'Final Fantasy' moniker.

Response to first quoted paragraph:
As you explain in your next paragraph, BASSic, there's a definite difference between the fan and the fankid. I'd personally say that while virtually all of us who are members here are fans of one or more Final Fantasy games, not that many of us are fankids.

The term 'fan', in this sense, has kind of an ironic derivation. It derives from 'fanatic', and that's usually a person who's crazy about the whatever item in question. There's a noticeable distinction between a fanatic who's crazed about something (Final Fantasy VII, for example) and someone who deeply appreciates that same object, and I'm trying to figure out (1) what that distinction is characterized by and (2) why it exists.

Now, different series and different people have different intensities of fankidism; that's an interesting topic I just thought of.

Response to your second paragraph:
I have definitely seen people like that; one of my friends insisted that Sephiroth is the greatest villain ever, in fact, in good English (as opposed to 'sephy is teh gr8est villian evar', even on AIM, gasp!). Of course, it's no surprise that he showed off the 2-minute long Bahamut summon from FFX when I visited him. I have yet to finish my argument with him as to why Kefka is a more effective villain than Sephiroth, but...whatever.

The reason I bring up different intensities of fankidism is because there are people out there whose rooms are plastered with FFVII, Advent Children, Sephiroth, and Cloud posters, and who're often willing to buy plane tickets to Japan just to grab whatever they can't get through importers or downloading sites. Of course, that's kinda extreme, but I will say that that friend of mine is definitely nowhere near being that intense a fankid...but why? What makes certain people more 'fankiddy' than others?

And he didn't lose sleep over my telling him that FFVII wasn't that great, but he was quite surprised when I said that I didn't really enjoy FFVII's plot that much and felt that the game had some balance issues.

Response to third quoted paragraph:
Advance? The only 'Advance' I know of is FFTA, and I haven't heard of a fankid following of that game. Plus, I like that game, so yeah, shush. (Just kidding.)

Now, unfortunately, it is somewhat true that Square-Enix has decided to make a cash cow of the FF series. But that begs another question: Why does the Final Fantasy cash cow have a huge fankid following, while the Pokemon cash cow does not?

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I pulled that last paragraph, the one in Italics, out of my backside, just as an example of what a fankiddy might take extremly personally. It's a meaningless paragraph of writing. It's pretending to be an observation or reasoning why the FF series is no good, but really it is a weak poke at the assumed fanbase with no fact or evidence supplied. Like when people say something is 'over-rated'. 90% of the time, what people mean when they say over-rated, is, "It's very populer, but I havn't tried it, so I'm going to look angsty and cool by being oh-so above the hype and disrespectfull towards it."

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Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.

http://slightly-bitter.blog.co.uk

Final Fantasy VII has more sophisticated characters and storylines. Plus, it's got lots of "cool stuff." Swords, magic, good-looking ladies, good-looking men, catchphrases, hilarious translation errors, and a major character death. Actually, maybe the character death has a lot to do with crazy popularity. LOtR has it, Harry Potter has it, Final Fantasy 7, etc.

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Some ghost of me might greet my son
the day he is delivered.


Eternal Sleep, Track 1-1: The Blue Planet

Um, what causes it? That's rather a tricky thing to pinpoint. I kinda, sorta, REALLY like the Mario series of games but at this point in time but it seems to be a hard thing to explain logical fashion. Luckily plenty of others like the Mario series of games at least to some extent as well, so I rarely ever have to. =P

I can only guess that it's a level of enthrallment with something that makes people act so defensive about imaginary stuff that doesn't really matter. A kind of feeling that usually just brings a certain warmth (or thrill) to your heart that can suddenly go sour, if the object of affection is challenged that is. Can't say much more about that except that the things that these particular terms are associated with are things that tend to capture a certain level of intrigue and can whisk us away to another world. Sci-Fi, Anime, Videogames and good books tend to do this to us so the terms pop up far more often within those realms of fandom. Sometimes you can be a fanboy/fangirl of a certain person but from what I've seen, I'm lead to believe the term Fan is used far more often in that circumstance.

And since I can't think of anything more to say. . . I've got to go look for my keys. Bye guys.

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Role reversal at its finest.