Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do?

[Aldo]

So I'm reading through the IMDB board for Sucker Punch and the debates there are out of control. The people who love the movie go out of there way to say that other people "don't get it" and the people that hated it are calling the people that liked it retards.

Now replace the movie's name with any action/scifi movie and replace the IMDB message boards with any message board, and basically you have something that happens a lot in this day and age.

So my question is...why? Now I loved Sucker Punch, I ain't going to lie, it touched me in a way that I will never forget, but enough about that, I don't want to turn this into a debate on one movie. So I liked the movie, but I'm not going to go out of my way and tell other people they are wrong for disliking it. Now trolling is different of course, but I never give them the time of day anyways.

There just seems to be this need to defend a movie/tv show/video game to the point where it gets personal. I've been guilty of this in the past, but now I don't care, I like something, I like it. No one else is going to change my opinion, and I sure as hell ain't going to change their opinion, so what's the use?

Note: I am not talking about rational debate here, I quite enjoy that, I'm talking about when both sides try to cut the other side down, opinions be damned.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

Because people have no sense of perspective, and lose their rag over the silliest of trivial things. Wrong forum BTW.

 

[Aldo]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

I don't mind if it gets moved. But curious, how is this the wrong forum? Since it's science fiction and fantasy shows/movies which usually end up getting the most heated debates among the net crowd.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

^I'm kidding, here's as good a place as any.

 

[WillsBabe]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

I think that when people like something (a film, author, musician, football team, tv show) they see something in it that resonates with them. I think people can identify with that thing, associate with it, and feel that that thing says something about them as a person, something about their values and abilities. Liking a particular film says something about me - that I appreciate the subtle interplay of text and subtext; liking a particular musician says siomething about me - that I have an understanding of social issues, etc etc. When someone else knocks the thing that we like we feel that they are knocking us. Don't feel that Incpetion was an erudite discourse on the nature of the subconsious and the nature of self-deterimation? But I did! If you don't think those things were in the film but I do, what does that say about my ability to interpret the source material? Don't feel that Joss Whedon subverts the feminist text? But I do! I feel strongly in the place of the female poisition in socieity. If you don't see that, what does that say about me? I think that Turner's use of light is the epitome of the craft. You don't? But what does that say about my art appreciation and the understanding of the medium?

I think that people get uptight because in criticising the work/author/team they like they feel that their own skills, judgement and values are being challenged.

* source material cited may, or may not, have associated opinions attached.

 

[T'Baio]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

The funny thing is, it's not just movies or media or entertainment.

Put "religion" in the appropriate spots in your post, and it still kinda' works.

It's all just terror management.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

It's all just terror management.

Never quite heard it put that way. But it works!

 

[lurok]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

What's even sadder is not just people being antagonistic over different tastes, but over any contrary view. Though I'm deeply encouraged that on several threads here people seem able to debate differing viewpoints without resorting to insults

 

[RandyS]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

Sometimes people are just looking for a fight and will take what they can get. It doesn't make sense, but there you go.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

I get offended when other's don't like the same things as me, because they're wrong and need to be told the correct opinions.

j/k

Seriously, I don't know. There's something about the way opinions come across online that just makes them more antagonistic. Most people will just give their opinion and move along, but there are always the few who have to give an extremely polarized opinion, and when you get two stubborn people with polarized opinions stating their opinions as absolute truths, there are going to be clashes.
I've been guilty of it myself plenty enough times. Now I try to generally keep this in mind when posting and make sure it's obvious that my opinions are clearly just opinions, and politely state them without mindlessly bashing or over-simplifying my opinions to the point of being polarized.

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

I love the "you just don't get it". It's a way to go "you're fucking stupid" without getting a warning. I watched all of Arrested Development, it's a perfectly fine show, but at times it's just not funny. "Hey look! I blue myself", was funny when I was 12, it's not not. The show was funny at times and lame at others and if you say that the insane fans will come up and go "You just aren't smart enough to get it".

Then there are the Firefly people that someone make the AD people look sane. Once again a perfectly fine, and I'm sure it would have been great if the show went on a few years, but it doesn't live up to the hype. It's a space western, while different in sci-fi, and different is great, it's not the best sci-fi show ever, that would be Farscape. :-p

But yeah I don't go into the Voyager room to make fun of a show I never liked. I will stick up for the fact that Stargate was once good, half of the series seasons are good, but it's not as great as the fanboys i nthe forum say. This is a forum and we are supposed to express our ideas, but the fanboys get in the way and go "NO! You are wrong!" when you are expressing an opinion that can't be wrong.

 

[MilleniumLance]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

oh this reminds me of the SGU debates

 

[bigdaddy]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

oh this reminds me of the SGU debates

They weren't debates, it was the fans gonig "YOU JUST DON'T LIKE CHANGE!!!" when everyone who didn't like it was trying to explain why.. it's boring, the characters are 2D, the writing is horrible, it's a soup opera in space with boring characters, they rarely used the Stargate.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

What intrigues me is the degree to which this hostility (in which I participate, duh) seems to be magnified by the online medium - and that's been true at least since the usenet days.

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lM9dqfnANw[/yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lM9dqfnANw

 

[BlobVanDam]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

What intrigues me is the degree to which this hostility (in which I participate, duh) seems to be magnified by the online medium - and that's been true at least since the usenet days.

Because online messages (and written text in general) doesn't portray emotional tone or context well, it's all too easy to misinterpret someone, and it can escalate and get out of control so easily. That's one of my theories, anyway.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

That, yeah. I also think that to some degree people respond to the rather distant, anonymous stimulation of a sentence on a computer screen as if it's not being emitted by an actual human being.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

One theory I've found attractive is that, online, people feel no consequences for their actions. Hence, their actions expand in degrees of offensiveness, as if into a vacuum.

I don't take it to suggest that people are necessarily or always behaving with malice when they are rude online, but people's online emotional ages can be quite immature at times. Maturation begins when people realize that others are out there, who feel the way they do, and that the content of the posts flowing through their computer window is not generated by a machine (except when it's bot spam).

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

One theory I've found attractive is that, online, people feel no consequences for their actions. Hence, their actions expand in degrees of offensiveness, as if into a vacuum.

I don't take it to suggest that people are necessarily or always behaving with malice when they are rude online, but people's online emotional ages can be quite immature at times. Maturation begins when people realize that others are out there, who feel the way they do, and that the content of the posts flowing through their computer window is not generated by a machine (except when it's bot spam).

I personally don't care when someone insults me over the interblag. I don't know the guy I'm writing with/against/to. Someone who I don't know, who doesn't know me at all, and who's thousands of miles away can't offend me. It's just the internet. It's my opinion that people shouldn't take it so goddamn seriously. It goes even so far that people INTERPRET WRITING ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING AT YOU and react like someone just really shouted them in the face. That's just silly.

On a side note, my problem here and on other message boards is mostly that I can insult everyone who is not an official member of the community (I could call Charlie Sheen a drunk fuckup, for instance, when he behaves like one), but if I call a community member an asshole if he behaves like one, I get warnings, etc... that's pretty hypocritical.

 

[Kaijima]

Re: Why do people get so offended when other's don't like what they do

A guy on a videogame forum ten years ago actually went so far as to say that when other people liked games he was intellectually convinced were crap, that it was a legitimate attack on his intelligence and competency. He literally justified instigating flamewars and ad hominem attacks this way.

And that's the way some people think. When you're convinced something is crap, it's warm and reassuring to tell yourself that anyone who likes it can't possibly be seeing something that you, in your high and mighty throne, have misinterpreted or overlooked.

It's much easier to conclude that "they're all morons".

Plus, maturity of perspective brings with it the ability to see that "quality" is truly relative and in some ways, is a misleading idea. Trying to define "quality" is a merry go round. If someone finds an aspect in a given thing that they enjoy, then there is a quality in that thing - period. It doesn't matter how you think the overall package stacks up to <insert comparison here>.

I get this a lot with popular music; people love to constantly sneer that popular music is all crap, and that anyone who listens to it is an imbecile. But while they're busy admiring their own refinement, those imbeciles are having fun. It doesn't mean that some selection of classical music is not more "sophisticated" in its construction than a Lady GaGa song. But at a certain level, that is irrelevant to the question "does this do something for people?"

Sophisticates tend to mistake craftsmanship and esoteric exploration of possibilities for an elusive, illusionary concept of "quality" and even "worth". Using music as the example again, they tend to mistake the skill demonstrated by a given musician for the purpose served by the music itself, or even why it appeals to the listeners.

Moving back to sci-fi, a pulp science fiction novel can be just as entertaining, and even affective on the reader, as some 1200 page tome by a enshrined American novelist who found the world's most nuanced and sophisticated way to tell a story about someone's divorce. Good luck getting the literary afficio who has a lot of ego invested in his perception of his refined tastes to admit that though.