This will get me in trouble here but, outside of the little bit of Angel bashing at the end, I kinda agree with them (primarily for the faction thing, which is dead on).

[ edited by unitas on 2003-08-28 15:13 ]

Unitas | August 28, 17:04 CET

What a smarmy piece. Not that I'm over-offended by it, but it really doesn't say much except "shut up already."

The author sounds like those friends of yours and mine that just don' t get it, until, one day, sick in bed, they are flipping through the channels, and bam! No going back.

Wonder what He is a fan of?

Willowy | August 28, 17:54 CET

I disagreed with the article about Futurama, which I believe deserved an early grave. As for annoying Buffy fan? Oh yeah I'm definitely annoying. No question. I take pride in my obsessions.

ZachsMind | August 28, 17:55 CET

Did anyone else notice their previous story TeeVee Awards '03: Best New Show where it says;
Of the 34 shows to inflict themselves upon the American viewing public last fall, only three earned our admiration and endorsement, for an inspiring 9-percent success rate. And that total includes Firefly, Joss Whedon's take on "Stagecoach" meets "Pigs in Space" -- a show that enough Vidiots enjoyed to have it take second in our annual Best New Show poll.

Their number one choice was Without a Trace.

technovamp | August 28, 19:14 CET

Maybe now BtVS is having a holiday(hopefully short)
Fans will have to concentrate on Angel and I am sure we can be more annoying about it.

Linda | August 28, 19:18 CET

I've been reading TeeVee for years and about every six months they post a MailBag column of the email they get from "fans", they get a lot of email from netloons.

Earlier this week teevee mentioned that despite praising Firefly, they got hostile email from "fans". The site has called Buffy, Angel and Firefly among the best things on tv, but still they get abuse.

So, if you're annoying and obsessed, just stop, You make yourself look bad, you make the audience look bad, and you ensure that quality shows don't get made, because what production company or network needs the abuse?

braingarage | August 28, 19:21 CET

If you're on the Internet (and since you're reading this, we have to assume you are), you've seen them. And if you don't know why they're annoying, I can't help you.

Ha, yeah. I don't think this article is anything to make a big huff about. They have a point, and I don't think they're trying to offend anyone. I was fearing something more harsh and mean before I clicked the link, but it's not like that at all.

[ edited by forcorreo on 2003-08-28 23:39 ]

forcorreo | August 28, 22:16 CET

Joss Whedon has admitted that he created BtVS specifically to enslave peoples minds on a global scale, I just hope he uses his control over millions of fanatics for good and not evil.

vpecoraro | August 28, 23:22 CET

TeeVee has always been a great site. They do snark expertly and ,unlike some other sites, they praise as often as they deride so it doesn't become an epic contest of who can be the biggest ass. Their article 'Jon Seda is a Fart at my Thaksgiving Dinner' will live in the hearts of disgruntled Homicide: Life On The Street fans forever.

Unitas | August 28, 23:33 CET

Some great comments here. Yes, for the record, there are many TeeVee writers (myself, Gregg Wrenn, Greg Knauss, Monty Ashley) who are big Buffy (and Angel and Firefly) fans. But believe me, if you got the e-mails we get, you'd have voted for WhedonFans as Most Annoying too! The award's really a combo for angry Firefly fans (who inundated us after we wrote a glowing, positive review of the show...) and Buffy fans (who seem to take offense at the slightest provocation). At least no WhedonFans tried to tell us that we simply didn't get his shows, which is what all the fans of "The Office" (another show most of us actually like) did... Hey, if I didn't like Whedon's work, would I have a login at Whedonesque? :-)

jsnell | August 29, 00:03 CET

But believe me, if you got the e-mails we get

I'd venture to say that I may just get more. And while Some Buffy fans (and Firefly fans) may be annoying, some are also the most generous, brightest, funniest, and talented people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Wherever I go, in just about any state and five countries, there's a fan I know from the net who will give me a meal and a place to rest my head on my travels.

Internet fans of Whedon's work have raised tens of thousands (maybe 100,000) by now, for charity. Some folks from the online communities have met and did the twu wuv thing, getting married and having babies. Some (Mere Smith) have gone on to work at Mutant Enemy.

It's incredibly easy to snark on crazy internet fans. I do it all the time, because I'm lazy like that. It's a lot harder to paddle against the status quo and write a piece that celebrates fandom for all its good qualities, of which there are many, as outlined above.

Allyson | August 29, 00:56 CET

vpecoraro: "Joss Whedon has admitted that he created BtVS specifically to enslave peoples minds on a global scale, I just hope he uses his control over millions of fanatics for good and not evil."

Actually I'd just be happy if he used his powers to make a spinoff where Xander's eye turns into a mystic laser cannon and he goes around blowing stuff up! Yeah!! And! And Oz comes back and he's got retractable claws now! And Willow's powers start affecting the weather! Dawnie like touches these playing cards right? and then she throws them at vampires and BLAMMO they blow up! And! And Jonathan comes back from the dead with ice powers and...

-woah waitaminute! Why's all that sound so familiar?

ZachsMind | August 29, 03:19 CET

Ah, but Allyson, we don't have an award for best fans. Because the best fans don't bombard us with their idiot e-mails. Such is the way of the world...

As for fans raising money for charity, it's very sweet... but of course, there are also those fans who raise money for ads in Variety. Variety? Not so much a charity. (Which is a reason why we also considered Farscape fans for our award...)

Funny, how those are all shows we actually like. Maybe that has something to do with it. I certainly was mortified when all the Stargate fans wrote us to complain about Michael Shanks leaving the show.

jsnell | August 29, 03:34 CET

Having raised money for two Variety ads and a Hollywood Reporter ad, I'm more than a wee bit miffed. I've run a Save Our Show campaign for Firefly, and an Emmy campaign for Buffy. And really? Never heard of your site until it was linked here, so I certainly didn't encourage anyone to send emails to you. Variety ads serve to both mobilize a fandom, and help promote something that they love and enjoy. Fandom revolves around the show, and within the fandom are communities. When a show is in trouble, the community is troubled, and they organize to help save the show, and to a greater degree, the community they love.

Your own site has a paypal button on it, I presume so that your fans can donate money to show appreciation and support for teevee.org, so that they may continue to enjoy it for years to come. It also serves to promote the fandom, itself, as savvy and having disposable income. The Variety ad and campaign for Firefly was the driving force behind the production of the DVDs. Not a waste of time or money for the fans who would otherwise never see the final unaired episodes. On average, each donated less than they would have spent on dinner and a movie for two, and in the end, an assload of cash went to charity.

All in all, about 12,000 has been spent by my fandom on advertising, and about 100,000 has been donated to charity. I'd say that's pretty good, and less of an overhead than most national charities can boast.

Nevertheless, you've chosen to paint all of Whedon's fans with the same brush, without giving any examples of the annoying (which at least would have been proved your point, and also would have been funny).

The bad goes with the good. The same passion that drives fans to give so much to each other, can also be channeled into insanity. I know this. Really. We should compare crazy mail. I'm starting a Wall of Shame. But what I appreciate is that for every moron, there's three normal fans who don't send letters to say, "Hey, I'm having a good time, and my mental health is effing GREAT!" But they show support in other ways, and their numbers are legion.

Like any cross section of society, there's going to be a very vocal and obnoxious contingency of the tin foil hat brigade. And they're annoying. And sometimes they're scary and threatening. Mostly stupid. But they don't represent the majority of the fandom any more than the chick who wore a Star Trek uniform to jury duty represents all of Star Trek's fandom.

Idiots may bombard you with idiotic emails, but idiots certainly don't represent the fandom as a whole. You've chosen to let what, like 2000 morons represent 6,000,000 people worldwide?

Allyson | August 29, 05:02 CET

I'm sure I'll get some angry responses for this, but I do think that sometimes rabid fans can do more to destroy a show than support it. For example: Star Trek. Don't get me wrong,I've watched at least some of every Star Trek series created, and have always liked at least a few episodes from each series. But Star Trek is a prime example of rabid fans either blindly following every stupid idea the execs come up with and providing the ratings to encourage more stupid ideas, or being so completely ridiculous and out there that no one beyond a niche audience would ever dare admit to watching such a show.

Luckily, Buffy's fans have yet to do either - well, maybe a bit of the latter, I have gotten a lot of strange looks when I tell people I'm a fan - but what happens in 10 years when some company buys the rights to the buffyverse (if that's possible) and creates a Buffy: The Next Generation? Will we all tune-in no matter how crap the quality is just for nostalgia?

I hope not, no one deserves a Voyager, no matter how much it may pay lip-service to the original concept.

Orangeinmymouth | August 29, 07:11 CET