TF Views

Dominic wrote:I know that BW, and Dinobot, enjoys no small amount of support in the fandom.

And, as much of a twit as Willis is, when he organized the votes for Dinobot, he did the same thing that any of us are trying to do for our favorites. Do you think I would hesitate to put Jazz or Mirage over if I could? Willis just did an exceptionally good job of organizing fans, and making it about himself.


The misreading in question is that the people standing tall for Erector are supporting the character because the name sounds like a dick joke, even though we can assume it was not Habro's intention that anybody ever do that.

Dom
-tempted to find and destroy copies of Erector now.

The difference here is that he didn't "do what any of us would have done". I wasn't trying to get anyone else on board my Shockwave bandwagon. That would just be pretentious and arrogant. I don't expect anyone else here did that either. Case in point, Prowl voted for Dinobot because he actually likes Dinobot, but unlike Willis was not trying to sway the rest of us to his bandwagon. There in lies the difference and why I continue to say that I will never be convinced that Dinobot won legitimately. He could have, but the truth is we'll never know for sure if Willis' campaigning was enough to sway the win. And that's why it's not a valid win.

By that logic though, any vote that was influenced something somebody said to the voter is illegitimate. For example, I am most likely going to pull for Jazz. But, you might make a case that for all of Jazz's consistency and recognizability as a character, Jazz has never done much of importance in context (as Shockwave has). You could, in theory, convince me that importance in context trumps the out of context variables I am weighing Jazz favorably for....simply by virtue of this conversation.

Simply listing out reasons for the characters we chose is arguably trying to sway a vote. (I would love it if we had actual shrines in every city to Jazz. Damned right I want people to vote him into the Hall of Fame.)

Willis was simply operationg on a scale, (of both resources and ego), that we could not match. it was, as Prowl noted, more Willis' attitude than his actions that were so offensive. And, yes, Willis does have a cult of personality large enough to swing this sort of poll. (Point of information: It ain't an election.) If Willis comes out for a character, that character becomes a serious prospect. This could be Dinobot, Jazz, Shockwave, Barricade, or even Erector.

Dom

What Dom said. I have no problem with "campaigning" for characters. If you want a character in the Hall of Fame that badly, and you have the time and resources to campaign, then you're totally allowed to do it. If nothing else I was *impressed* with the level of organization Willis and co. put into voting Dinobot in, and I'm still very happy he got in, if only because it broke a glass ceiling early on for other non-G1 guys to get in. Like I said, it was mainly the way he acted afterwards about the whole thing that ticked me. You'd have thought he'd voted himself into the Transformers Hall of Fame, with the amount of back-pats he was giving himself.

And just think, if Shattered Glass Ravage ever gets in, then Willis will actually *have* voted himself into the Hall of Fame.

I really do not think there is as much of a glass ceiling for beast era characters as people say. As has been (rightly) pointed out, BW arguably saved the franchise. I have no doubt that TF would have returned in '02 when the nostaligia wave hit. But, I also think that without the progress of the beast-era, "Transformers" would have either been as regressive as "GI Joe" was forced to be or as clumsily mis-handled as "He-Man" was. ("Thundercats" was brought down by DC's intentional disdain for the property and attempts to be artsy.)

Most of the hard-core GeeWunners have either left the fandom or retreated to non-voting fringes. AllSpark has its roots in the beast era. (Remember, when ATT split, it was the non-G1 group that went on to build the majority of the major TF sites and forums. The "old guard" at AllSpark are actually younger than a few of the older members here.) Every major forum, and even the minor forums, have to at least acknowledge BW now.

The real glass ceiling will be for post-Beast characters (such as Barricade or Lockdown). Part of the problem there is media support, specifically that so little is allowed to stic k. But, there is also the fact that the voting fans are older. We may like Barricade conceptually now. But, when we were kids, Barricade would have burned into our collective psyches much more deeply. (Look at the following tha Thundercracker has. How much of the original content actually justifies it?)

We are likely to see a UT character in the "Hall of Fame" by 2015, when the kids of the last decade become full on fans. (By "fans", I mean adults who are into the hobby.)

Smart votes for the UT:
-Vector Prime
-Hotshot
-Perceptor (bike team)
-Alpha Q
-Signal Lancer
-Thunderblast (just cuz she is a gal)
-Demolishor
-Sideways
-Thrust
-Scourge


Dom
-was honestly glad to see Hotshot get a 25A toy.

Dominic wrote:By that logic though, any vote that was influenced something somebody said to the voter is illegitimate. For example, I am most likely going to pull for Jazz. But, you might make a case that for all of Jazz's consistency and recognizability as a character, Jazz has never done much of importance in context (as Shockwave has). You could, in theory, convince me that importance in context trumps the out of context variables I am weighing Jazz favorably for....simply by virtue of this conversation.

Simply listing out reasons for the characters we chose is arguably trying to sway a vote.

Uhh... no it isn't. And here's why: Yes, I could try to argue that Shockwave has more in context relevance than Jazz. BUT I'M NOT GOING TO! That right there is the difference. Now, if you read my reasons for voting for Shockwave and decide ON YOUR OWN to change your vote, that's a legitimate vote because you made that decision without me trying to sway you. Even going with your example of this conversation, you'll notice that at no point have I ever said anything close to "here's why you should like Shockwave". Actually, this year I didn't even list reasons although last year I flat out admitted that my vote for Shockwave was self indulgent which was really a way of doing exactly opposite of what Willis did (since I was essentially saying "here's why I'm voting Shockwave, but I don't really expect anyone else to"). Now, if I were to make that context argument you mentioned then I'd be on the same level as Willis.

Shockwave
-The same level, but not the same scale.

Why is it wrong to urge people to vote one way or another on this sort of thing? (Would you apply the same standard to an important topic?) That is half the fun of this sort of thing. (And, hey, it might work one way or another.) That does not mean I have a right to bully people. Nor does it give me the right to flame and spam them. And, it certainly does not give me the right to be sneaky about pushing the vote one way or another. But, there is nothing wrong with pushing one character or another.

Hell, I am going to sit here and say that everybody should vote for Jazz. Jazz is the light, the path and the way. There is no better Transformer than Jazz. And, if it were up to me, the franchise would be all about Jazz and nothing else.

But, even if I manage to convince people to vote for Jazz, I would not take credit. I would give credit to people for recognizing Jazz's greatness, not my own charisma and kewlness. (Willis of course took credit, at least initially.)

Because it's pretentious and self indulgent and is predicated upon the delusion of one's own inflated sense of self importance and such an act only serves that end. Willis' push for Dinobot is the ultimate expression and example of this. Plus I think there needs to be some analysis of intent here. Willis was ultimately pushing Dinobot, at least in part, to highten his own ego. Now, if you were to come out with your "Jazz is the way and the light etc..." well that's a little different. You're doing that because you believe in the character not to inflate your own ego. And really, the intent is the biggest part of the equasion here. I don't push anyone else to vote for Shockwave because I don't consider myself important enough to pull it off and I wouldn't even if I did because I'm not that pretentious. Putting Shockwave in the number 1 slot is about as self indulgent as I'm willing to get and I almost didn't even do that this year. This is kinda one those situations where Scourge's sig comes into play for me: As it is, I barely give a fuck what I think. So I'm not assuming anyone else does either.

Shockwave
-It is nice to have the vote though.

Intent is part of what Prowl and I were talking about. But, reasoning for the choice is another.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most fans do to give a flying poop about Erector beyond his funny name. And, even those who really loved the toy as kids would have to admit that the character was pretty unimportant.

Telling somebody to vote for a character because they were a childhood favorite, or one really liked/likes the toy is being a self-indulgent twerp. But, coming up with and presenting reasons to vote for the character that have nothing to do with personal biases is another thing entirely.

Here are two examples:

Let us assume that I have never read the late run Marvel comics. (Maybe I bailed after season 3 of the cartoon and came back in with the G2 comics.) And, along those lines, lets say that somebody tries to put Bludgeon over. If nobody told me about late run Marvel, or if nobody showed me those comics, I would wonder what the big deal was with the guy who Megatron decapitated in G2 and who showed up in IDW. In that case, an arguement could be made in favor of Bludgeon beyond "he is awesome because I like him".

Similarly, lets assume that Windbreaker actually showed up in some context somewhere or another. (Hell, lets pretend that "Man of Iron" featured Windbreaker in place of Jazz.) Then, there would be a solid reason to vote for Windbreaker beyond his funny name and whatever post-hoc logic that the funny name crowd managed to fabricate after deciding they wanted to put Windbreaker over. (I am pretty sure that Windbreaker has no context to speak of. But, you get the example.)


Now, lets say that I really like...uh.... G2 Rapido. (Hell, I *do* really like G2 Rapido.) Now, as much as I might love that toy, (even ripping one off a sealed card in the last 10 years), there is no way in hell anybody is ever going to convince me that Rapide is an important character. Before last year, the character had zero context. The toy was released in a line that floundered. There is nothing especially great about Rapido. The toy broke no new ground in terms of engineering. Hell, it has chrome, which most people would consider a huge strike against it. Me arguing for Rapido would be self-indulgent prickery.

A similar case could be made for, uh, RiD Wreckerhook. The character has context, arguably in 2 iterations of the franchise. But, a reasonable person, (or even a slightly unhinged fan), should understand that just showing up a couple of times should not merit a place in the hall of fame no matter how much one likes the toy or episodes in question. (And, yeah, I kinda like Wreckerhook as well.)

On the other hand, (to account for O6's "where do we draw the line" concern), we do have to be open to some odd choices. For example, a case would be made for Overlord. The character is almost completely unknown in the US, and has only limited exposure overseas. And, until recently, was little more than an over-hyped badass and/or a rare toy. But, he has over 20 years of sporadic context, including a very well written miniseries that we might hope sets the bar higher for the franchise.


Dom
-always liked Mirage despite never owning a G1 Mirage figure.

I think the real difference regardless of character is (I'm going back to your Jazz example) is that you would say "thank you for supporting Jazz." Willis said "thanks for supporting ME!" I have nothing against someone supporting a character regardless of how obscure it is. Willis' using it for shameless self promotion is what I really have a problem with. The simple fact of the matter is that some people did vote for Dinobot to support Willis and the fact that we'll never know how many legitimately voted for Dinobot is why I'll never be convinced that it was a valid win. Dinobot may have actually had enough valid votes for the win but thanks to that self promoting asshole we'll never know.

Ah, now I see your gripe. It is a safe bet that some of the Dinobots votes were votes for David "the wanky wiki" Willis. And, yeah, those might have been the votes that put Dinobot over.

Still, I would not argue if people said, "we love Dom, so we voted for Jazz". Of course, that would also be kind of creepy, but you know what I mean.

That said, I urge everybody to vote for Jazz, not because I like Jazz, but because Jazz is friggin' awesome. Jazz is not awesome because I like him. I love Jazz because Jazz is awesome. He is the light, the way and truth.

VOTE FOR JAZZ!

Dom
-only half kidding. You should vote for Jazz.