We've got Hall of Fame voting going on up there

[Shockwave]

You know what? I'm really not that miffed about this. I like BW/BM (hey Prowl, I lump 'em together too), they are actually my favorite TF show to date. Well, Animated might tie for that, but... Here's my point: Walky can suck it. I absolutely, 100%, flat out, point blank, refuse to let any part of the fandom ruin any part of the hobby for me. Fuck Walky! I liked BW/BM before that dick, and I'll keep liking it afterwards. Don't blame BW for Walky, blame Walky for being a douche.

On a side note, I always liked Dinobot, I thought he was basically a TF version of Worf.

[Onslaught Six]

Fuck Walky! I liked BW/BM before that dick, and I'll keep liking it afterwards.

Actually, it's debatable if you actually liked BW before him. [/Devil's advocate]

On a side note, I always liked Dinobot, I thought he was basically a TF version of Worf.

This may be part of why I dislike Dinobot. He's not original. He's just Worf with a velocirator head on his chest.

(Oh! It doesn't help that his transformation was impossible.)

[Shockwave]

Fair enough, but I just refuse to let the obnoxious parts of the fandom influence how I feel about the hobby. I grew up liking TF back in the day since G1 long before Al Gore invented the internet, so I've had plenty of time enjoying the hobby on my own. I don't need other fans to validate/invalidate my approach to it and I furthermore refuse to let someone have that much power over me. If Walky and his buddies wanna be dicks, let 'em! It doesn't affect my appreciation for anything TFs at all. I'll have a thorough dislike for Walky, but that's towards Walky, not towards the franchise.

[andersonh1]

Fair enough, but I just refuse to let the obnoxious parts of the fandom influence how I feel about the hobby. I grew up liking TF back in the day since G1 long before Al Gore invented the internet, so I've had plenty of time enjoying the hobby on my own. I don't need other fans to validate/invalidate my approach to it and I furthermore refuse to let someone have that much power over me.

My feelings exactly.

[Dominic]

I used to say the same thing Trekkie. But, over time, bad associations out-weighed my ability to objectively look at the hobby. And, BW did bring in no small amount of undesirables. What gets me is the fact that so many beast-fans obsessively defend that era and focus on it over all others, despite the fact they should be the part of the fan base least given to that sort of behavior.

Maybe it is because BW was the first TF show that was more good than bad. Maybe it was because BW was one fo the first things that part o the fan-base saw that was not completely idiotic, and happened to (post-hoc) justify their obsession. I have no idea. But, the bad associations are there.

I used to look at my BW toys and admire the better ones for looking like the show. I used to think about episodes I liked. I could look at Japanese imports and enjoy them for being rare treats and for displaying nicely. Now, I look at BW Inferno, and instead of a screen-accurate likeness of a decent character, I think of Dan Khanna's completely idiotic concept for Inferno being rebuilt as a fire chief's car. At this point, my favorite part of "Beast Machines" is that if one takes it at face value, most of the beast era's population dies after being terribly violated.


Dom
-really does not want to dislike BW so much.

[Shockwave]

Well I can understand where you're coming from, but why should BW be imune to the GeeWunner experience? We all have things from our childhoods that we remember fondly and don't want tampered with. But GeeWunners take that to an absurd level. You get bad apples in every group and why should the BW fandom be any exception? I think what's going to happen over time is that each successive generation of TF is going to see an increase in these types of fans for that particular genre. It sucks, but it's to be expected. Best thing to do is write them off as idiots and move on. Also, I am certainly not justifying that behavior, simply explaining why we see it in something other than G1.

Shockwave
-Break's over, more on this later.

[Onslaught Six]

The Geewunners have since died off and accepted their fate, though. Their universe will be forever reinvented and reconstrued to create new ones.

[Shockwave]

The GeeWunners may have died, but apparently their spirit lives on in the BW fandom. I'll confess that it's probably easier for me to dismiss the more idiotic segments of the fandom because I have so little interaction with TF fandom in general anyway. I post here pretty regularly and very occasionally at TFW and that's about it. Prior to this thread, I had no idea who the hell Walky was and I pretty much still don't care who he is. It sounds like he's just some douchebag with a webcomic. Big fucking deal. I have a TF webcomic too but I don't feel the need to act all self important and shit. I guess my utlimate point here is don't blame the franchise, blame the assholes for being assholes. If you liked your Inferno toy before, continue to enjoy it for the same reasons. I think the real trick here is to truly honestly really not give a shit what other people think. Easier said than done, but once done, quite liberating.

[Dominic]

The thing that really irks me is that the beast fans should simply know better.

When they first came into the fandom in the late 90s early aughts, they saw plenty of vocal GeeWunners and GeeWunnabees. (The latter being kids who were simply too young to actually have been there during the G1 days, but wanted to pretend they were "true fans" by "remembering" a golden age that they spend in their diapers and cribs.) The GeeWunners might have been anime partisans, (arguing that cell animation is much better than CG for some vague reason), straight-up toyhacks, whatever. But, they refused to accept change and progress, needing everything to be like it was before 1986.

I remember Beast-fans struggling to make other fans understand that BW was not utter shit, that names like Optimus and Megatron could be fungible...... Older fans like me recognized the problem, (if only because we saw it happen with "Star Trek" in the 80s). There was also the fact that GeeWunners went through 5, (albeit non-consecutive), years of getting nothing for their hobby. Granted, this does not compare to the decade or so that "Star Wars" fans dealt with or the 20 years of next to nothing that Trekkies went through.

Us old timers need not be toy-hacks to remember the dark days in the early to mid-90s of looking at our comics (likely found in bargain bins), toys (likely heavily play-worn), and VHS (likely falling apart) and thinking "this is it". This made us very attached to those things, as once they were gone, our hobby was gone.

Remember, the internet was not really a factor, meaning fans were isolated, keeping in touch primarily through mail if at all. I still remember the elation of meeting another Transfan in a comic store, and recruiting another from my circle of friends. We were *it* as far as we knew...until I discovered the Hartmans in an issue of Lee's. That story is hardly unique.

But, we grew past it. Beast-fans should have seen the absurdity of refusing to accept change and yearning for the largely imagined past. They should have seen how much GeeWunners delivered on the damned stereotypes. In other words, they should have learned their damned lessons. (This is especially true for the beast-fans who are less than 5 years my junior, as they should have been well past the "lunatic attachment to non-living things" stage by '95 or so, when BW first hit.)

That fact that the worst "drought" since the beast-era was '04, (when the convention's future was in doubt and there were no comics), means that people who started with "Beast Wars" never had a reason to sit in a room and fondle their old toys for lack of having anything new.


All of the above is bad enough. But, the fact that the obsessive beast fans seem to be more vocal, more obsessed and more dogmatic makes it even worse.


Objectively, I should not blame Bob and Larry. (They are actually really classy fellows.) BW saved the fanchise. And, the fact that a BW character made it into the first 5 should be a sign that we as a fandom are not stuck in the 80s. But, part of me wonders if it is a sign that we as a fandom are just stuck obsessing over different decades.

Prior to this thread, I had no idea who the hell Walky was and I pretty much still don't care who he is.

It is a question of associations though. In a very real way, Walky is the face of the fandom. The fact his web-comic is profitable helps him here. (The over-all quality ranges from self-indulgent trash to genuinely insightful.)

Objectively, you are right. But, I did want to explain my reasoning on this, foolish as it may be.

Easier said than done, but once done, quite liberating.

True enough. Pants off attack, GO!


Dom
-plenty of good toys coming up though. That is good.

[andersonh1]

I still don't really see why Walky's opinion should produce any sense of anger or disgust. Who is he to me? Nobody. There are plenty of genuine fans out there who just enjoy the hobby that I can associate with and discuss and enjoy the hobby with. If there's a group of "Beast Wars or bust" fans, no matter how high profile they might seem to be, so what? I didn't even know who he was until he came up in discussion here. That's how irrelevant he is.

Don't let it get to you. It's not worth the trouble.

Us old timers need not be toy-hacks to remember the dark days in the early to mid-90s of looking at our comics (likely found in bargain bins), toys (likely heavily play-worn), and VHS (likely falling apart) and thinking "this is it". This made us very attached to those things, as once they were gone, our hobby was gone.

Remember, the internet was not really a factor, meaning fans were isolated, keeping in touch primarily through mail if at all.

Yep, I've been there. I'm old enough to clearly remember 1984 when Transformers burst on the scene, and they made a big impression. Big enough that even though I grew out of them and hit high school and went on from there, I kept the old figures in a box in my closet, and was able to break them out again in the late 90s when I discovered Beast Wars and rediscovered Transformers in general. I didn't give them away or toss them in the trash like so many other things, and G1 is still my favorite.