The mechanism makes perfect sense, though that doesn’t mean the theory is right. If you have a very good, relatively unobjectionable movie/book/etc, most people will like it, some people will dislike it, but it’s unlikely there’ll be much conflict. By contrast, if you’ve got some movie that’s got some good parts, and some really awful parts, then you have the potential for some people to really like it, and then actually have to defend it against the bad parts. Since they don’t want to part with liking it, they develop all kinds of defense mechanisms, they talk amongst themselves, maybe you get some social evaporative cooling, and they start liking it more and more, because they spend so much time thinking about it and defending it. Not to mention they actually have to look to find people who like it as much as they do. If pretty much everyone liked it pretty much the same amount (or within a proper upper bound), this need never arises, and fandom does not form. But if it’s there, and the group needs to defend itself from the Philistines who don’t understand, pretty soon people are getting married dressed up as Han and Leia. Of course, some movies/books/etc. fall below critical mass and never develop a fandom despite having similar characteristics.
The main problem with that theory is that I’m not sure it’s causal, and it may fit too well. That is, when you look at the actual development of such groups, they may not actually be defined by opposition (I don’t personally know). Though the “needing to seek out other people who also ignored or even liked the bad parts” may still be a driving force.
Of greater concern, it’s probably possible to find something seriously wrong with damn near anything. If you’ve got a bunch of people speaking Klingon, it’s also much more entertaining to find some reason to call them idiots. I, for one, would be significantly less pissed off by some of the moronic parts of, say, Harry Potter, if it weren’t one of the most successful series ever written. So it’s quite possible that we understand the badness because the fandom exists and people want to make fun of it, and pretty much anything that evolved a fandom would present us with similar fodder.
The mechanism makes perfect sense, though that doesn’t mean the theory is right. If you have a very good, relatively unobjectionable movie/book/etc, most people will like it, some people will dislike it, but it’s unlikely there’ll be much conflict. By contrast, if you’ve got some movie that’s got some good parts, and some really awful parts, then you have the potential for some people to really like it, and then actually have to defend it against the bad parts. Since they don’t want to part with liking it, they develop all kinds of defense mechanisms, they talk amongst themselves, maybe you get some social evaporative cooling, and they start liking it more and more, because they spend so much time thinking about it and defending it. Not to mention they actually have to look to find people who like it as much as they do. If pretty much everyone liked it pretty much the same amount (or within a proper upper bound), this need never arises, and fandom does not form. But if it’s there, and the group needs to defend itself from the Philistines who don’t understand, pretty soon people are getting married dressed up as Han and Leia. Of course, some movies/books/etc. fall below critical mass and never develop a fandom despite having similar characteristics.
The main problem with that theory is that I’m not sure it’s causal, and it may fit too well. That is, when you look at the actual development of such groups, they may not actually be defined by opposition (I don’t personally know). Though the “needing to seek out other people who also ignored or even liked the bad parts” may still be a driving force.
Of greater concern, it’s probably possible to find something seriously wrong with damn near anything. If you’ve got a bunch of people speaking Klingon, it’s also much more entertaining to find some reason to call them idiots. I, for one, would be significantly less pissed off by some of the moronic parts of, say, Harry Potter, if it weren’t one of the most successful series ever written. So it’s quite possible that we understand the badness because the fandom exists and people want to make fun of it, and pretty much anything that evolved a fandom would present us with similar fodder.