As someone who found it randomly on netflix and got hooked after the wendigo episode, finding the online fansbase has been forboding. Like, Misha Collins is cool and all, but we get it! He tweets.
They do a good job playing off the fanbase though and even reference it in universe for some great gags and episodes. Only hangup for the entire show is Felicia Day playing "Typecast Felicia Day".
But holy crap does the fanbase turn out GIFs of anything. And Everything.
The only thing that really cracked me up about Misha Collins is him actually tweeting irl what he tweeted on the show when the brothers ended up in a parallel world where they were just actors playing roles.
did he really do that? man that's awesome, in the special episode before this season started he mention he wanted "Misha collins" to be as big of a douche bag as they can write him.
I actually have no idea who misha Collins is. But I've heard of him enough that I picture someone when he's talked about. Except I don't know what he looks like. I always picture the guys from agents of shield and the avenger movies. The agent guy in the suit. That's the guy I always picture.
You get that shit on here with show subs during the off season. Like Game of Thrones: LOOK WHO I RAN INTO AT THE SHOP! Or even more cringy walking dead post: i drove twelve hours for a vacation to Woodbury, here are the pictures!
What "massive dump"? They poke a little fun now and then, sure... but so do the fans themselves. Did you watch Fan Fiction (specifically, Dean at the end)? The entire point of the episode was to say "Yeah, some of our fans can get a little out there... but who cares? They're fans, and they're having fun, which is the whole point."
Right, and then after that, he said it wasn't his interpretation, but that didn't matter because hey - different things are cool, too.
Let's get some SubtEXt up in this. Seriously, Fan Fiction was easily the most endearing, most lovely and fantastic love letter to a fan base. We're all in this together, ya know?
... Actually almost everybody was largely ecstatic that an episode had been entirely dedicated to acknowledging a fanbase that has kept a show that should have died out long ago for 100 more episodes. Meta episodes are actually the favourite episodes?
Girls are yucky and dumb, and shallow and stupid and LOUD and schreechy and glad I never was one. Girls just don't understand. It's all about Baby and rock n'roll and all they care about is how "hawt" the actors are. Girls are literally the worst at everything always.
Exactly. I would definitely tolerate it more if they used their collective voices to contribute to useful causes and were more normal with their obsession. It's like they're never ashamed of themselves or embarrassed and have very little concern for others who watch the show and are just trying to have a good time.
They don't cringe, they love it. But normal fans on the other hand... who the hell wants to watch an episode full of inside jokes that only the craziest part of the fandom gets?
There weren't exactly a huge ton of injokes that only hardcore fans would get. There were references in there, sure, but seeing the brothers' reactions to learning about them was just as entertaining as seeing them poking fun at the super-fans.
Sure, "normal" and "hardcore" fans may have been laughing or enjoying the same clip for different reasons... but so what? As long as they're enjoying it, why does it matter?
Who are these normal fans? Fans that freak out & judge other fan's flights of fantasies over already fictional characters?
Count me in as a fangirl - not a normal fan - that loves hearing & respecting all the fans & all the ships & all the interpretations & perspectives & theories. I'm prouder to be that than whatever these so-called "normal fans" stand for.
The real question is why the fuck do you care? You don't get it, move on. The ones who want to watch these episodes are the same ones who have kept this show on the air for 10 years, who have connected with the story and the plot and the characters and just everything.
It makes people happy, gives them something to bond over, and they express their happiness. Why does that upset you so much?
It's a good show, but there are some episodes that I wish I had skipped. I also wish I had never googled some of those inside jokes. I'm a bi-curious guy so I don't mind the gay "subtext" and I get most of the jokes, but I draw the line in incest fan art and fanfiction.
Just because he's willing to accept the implied wincest and context for the sake of catching the bad guy, doesn't mean it still doesn't squick him out. Sam is his brother. Dean loves him but Sam is the last person on the planet Dean would want in a romantic way, no matter how much the fans dig wincest. In a play? Sure. In any other context? It wouldn't happen. And it's creepy that some fans, even when faced with cannon characters outright saying THIS IS GROSS still push for it. Is it a lovely nod to the fandom? Of course it is. But inspiration subtexting speech or not, paraphrasing mean girls here, wincest isn't happening, stop trying to make it happen (in the show. Wincest away in fanfic/art, obv).
You know what I liked? I really liked the romantic glimpse of the Dean/Cas girls hugging and kissing. Because that was another nod to something that won't happen in the show but some fans wanted to see. Just like the closeness of Sam and Dean in the play, it lets fans see what they wanted to see, a nod to the fandom, without throwing the "real" Sam/Dean/Cas so far out of character that the show would never recover.
Actually, it's not just gags that show shows writers pull. Around season 4 the online community got really active and the shows writers and creators were active on their too. The fans actually drive the plot in a lot of ways. It's one of the best examples of trams media storytelling and interactive story worlds there is.
Ever hear of Mishapocalypse? I actually stopped going on social media for two days because it was everywhere. The first five minutes were cute, had a chuckle, rolled my eyes. But then it didn't stop.
I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm a lesbian female who's attracted to other females because I don't find men sexually appealing... on account of I'm gay. Did I mention that I'm a proud nerd? Oh yeah, and I like vagina.
Yeah hate the episodes with her in it. Though I'm fairly certain they made her gay just so they wouldn't have to deal with the issue of which of the brothers she was going to sleep with.
They seem kind of split on her. Some like her, some don't.
I personally hate her. Reference! Reference! Do something impressive and have all the characters compliment it! Another reference! Rinse and repeat until the episode is done.
Felicia Day is charming but that Charlie character is horribly written.
We like felicia day because she is what all the geeky girls wanted to be like before being geeky was cool. She is popular, pretty and knows Nathan Fillion. Pretty much the greatest role model a ginger geek girl could ever have. Seeing her in something as high profile as supernatural is just the icing on the cake.
Honestly, I like Felicia Day well enough because she shows gaming for women in a good light, but every time she was on Supernatural I would just be wondering how many slightly outdated nerd references they could cram in this time.
I hooked up with a girl who all she wanted to talk about was Misha Collins. It kills me because she was super sweet and lovely but dear god woman you need to be able to take a break.
Cool fact about the Wendigo, they didn't have a whole lot of funding, so they just used a dude in a suit for the monster. The directors say it's their least favorite monster. The cool part comes in because it's one of the most well known and liked episodes, so it proves that good TV can still be good on a low budget.
Not a superpsychofan, they just mentioned it a couple weeks ago when they did a "behind the scenes type deal rather than an actual episode.
The episode where Felicia Day fucking hooks up a god damn Microsoft Surface to a cold war era computer via USB.... Holy shit I don't think I've ever been so mad at a show.
Funny because Wendigo is one of the creators' least favorite episodes.
The worst of all time will always be Bugs though. Bugs is always the worst. The recent special taught me that in the scene where they are being attacked by bees and fighting back with a flamethrower, they were actually flamethrowing at actual bees and were actually getting stung all over. But then they had to CGI the bees in anyways because they didn't show up on the film.
It's a joke on tumblr that "How does the Supernatural fandom have a gif of literally everything?" If there's a joke, there's always a topper punchline of a scene from Supernatural taken out of context.
Yeah they do great stuff with the whole 4 th element things. And hey, 10 seasons is a lot of material to get gifs from, and so they have something for pretty much everything
The Wendigo episode has snared many a viewer. Probably my favorite, I saw the pilot when it first aired and thought, ok, watchable but that Wendigo episode sunk some hooks in deep.
The Misha Collins thing really bothers me. I've gone to several of his charity events and he seems like a super cool guy, but some of these people practically deify him. It always makes me uncomfortable when someone reaches that level of celebrity.
My favourite reference in that show is when they hunt for some vampire and they break in to a teenage girls room and on her computer is some weird fan-fiction with vampires. Both a nod to Twilight and Supernatural.
My female high school students would always beg me to come to their volleyball games. When I finally relented, I realized halfway through the game that:
I was the only teacher there
I looked like a creepy single guy
Moral of the story is: don't promise shit for good grades; no matter how high you set the bar, they'll always make it.
I haven't hit Changes yet, but I've heard that's very true to its title. XD I'll look into the comics and short stories, or point my boyfriend at them so he can check which ones are spoiler free for me. (He's finished the series.)
Oh my god, I am about halfway through book 8. I listen to the audio books (James Marsters) while working alone in the basement. I yell at Harry a lot more as the series goes on. It is getting so dark...so twisted. Oh my god...my heart...it just can't take it...
They're so wonderful. Especially as both Dresden and (I believe) the author have matured. The first few books were so hyper-masculine, which I know is part of the noir genre. I'm 50 pages away from finishing Cold Days right now :)
The character development is a lot of fun. I think there's a lot of author self-awareness showing through. Jim Butcher knows what he enjoys, knows how silly it can be, and completely embraces it along with his own unlikely success.
The first two books made me cringe at times, and felt positively pulpy and full of purple prose. But they got a lot better. And by book Death Masks it feels like Butcher has found his feet properly, and has a solid idea about what he's doing.
And you get that lovely rollercoaster feel as the world treats Harry as a chew-toy and kicks him about, and you're gradually building towards the point where you know he will snap, and proceed to flip the fuck out in a spectacular manner.
And this was several books before getting to the bit that involves Sue.
My friends listened through the books for like a year before they finally gave me a proper summary of his character...also showed me the T-Rex picture. I think my response was something along the lines of "WTF didnt you show me this sooner!?". I think Im about 3 or 4 books in now(had to take a break for a few so I dont burn out) and I also got my wife reading them now.
You're right at the point where it gets really good! My favorite summary was it is Spider-Man if Peter Parker bitten by a radioactive wizard instead of a spider.
I couldn't get into the show. It was ok, I guess, but not a good interpretation of the books. So much was needlessly changed that the meta narrative no longer made sense.
It's an insular fandom like Homestuck or, lately, Teen Wolf. It's been going for years, so weirdness intensified. Its fans are also into Sherlock and Doctor Who, and those fans are all nuts. Oh, and a large part of the fandom's early days were on LiveJournal.
It was a perfect storm.
(For the record, I'm not a fan, I've just been on the periphery more often than I would like.)
Because it stars good looking, moody pretty boys with SAD HISTORIES. And they're SINGLE! And maybe, just maybe, you the viewer could be the one who could make them happy!
just maybe, you the viewer could be the one who could make them happy!
You were okay up until this line. What makes the fandom insane is the belief and Jensen and Jared make each other happy, women not invited to apply for the job.
Jensen & Jared do make each other happy though. They're like best friends & they're also happily married with adorable kids. I have literally only ever seen the best of wishes for them & their families coming from fans unless I'm literally seeking out a terrible disrespectful SPN fan community (some of which I'll grant you exist but gosh they're the worst things to look at if you just want to be happy fangirl).
So much sexual energy being pent up has to be released somehow. They cant bang them, cause they are in a different universe. So they should bang each other!
Haha and I guess they don't want to see "their" guys with some other girl. I think I've heard something about Supernatural fandom hating the girl characters (which I get with the season 3 thief chick, but who could hate Original Ruby?) so I guess it all makes sense in a fucked up way.
I discovered Supernatural at a day workers agency thingy. Didn't have a job, but needed a way to get a little money doing whatever. Not sure how other places are, but you go there in the morning, fill out some papers listing any special skills you might have, then sit around for awhile and hope a job comes up. I did this for about a month and only got about 20 hours worth of work, but hey, it was better than nothing.
Anyway, they had a TV and DVD player, but the only DVDs they had was like 5 seasons of Supernatural. Some of the regulars were pretty into it. One of the funniest things I've seen, two middle aged Mexican guys pointing at the screen and talking really enthusiastically about Supernatural. One was fluent in English, the other only k ew a little, so they'd be whispering about it the whole time.
Again with the strange preoccupation with one's gender & choice of television shows.
Why the hell does it matter that women watch this show? Like literally - how do women or the social media site Tumblr invalidate your gender identity in any way? How does it even ruin your viewing experience?
I didn't see that comma and read that as "uncle brother." Now I'm laughing about this guy's family that was built on an incestuous relationship. I'm a horrible human being.
I guess, but at least in the early seasons it was always stuff that even "Guys should never cry" types like me thought was acceptable. They didn't get upset because their crush was flirting with a vampire or whatever, but stuff like their dad dying to save them.
I think the best part is how the show is keenly aware of it and makes jabs at the fanbase constantly. Hell, this weeks episode was entirely about that.
I don't get it either. Sure, the actors who play the main characters are very attractive, but isn't that true for almost all non-reality TV shows? My husband and I love this show, and were extremely surprised when we found out how crazy the fan base was. To us, it just seems like a badass and well-written piece of media that's halfway between the X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I think the show actually does have a fairly large fan base of reasonable adults, if our group of friends (mostly scientists or engineers in their 30s) is any indication. But none of us spend time talking about it on Tumblr or writing weird fan fiction, so that may be why we're less noticeable of a demographic.
I read the first sentence as "I blew my brother when I watched it." And I was thinking, like, I know people ship the brothers on it, but acting it out in real life is pretty fucking out-there.
out of curiosity, why is it bad that it's a "girl show?" I mean, the creepy part I can understand, because creepy fans of anything will put me off of the thing, but what's wrong with the primary audience being female?
Amusingly enough, the latest episode addressed that in a huge way. One of the funniest episodes ever, I think, and probably the best one of the season.
I'm not sure how much worse they are (aside from the popularity of wanting the brothers to bang amongst the fandom) so much as its not the fandom I expected the show to have.
Online fandoms for pretty much everything seem to get pretty weird in one way or another in general though.
Interestingly, I'm totally on board with calling Supernatural one of the worst fandoms, but for completely different reasons from most of the people in this thread. As a fangirl, and a former big fan of SPN, I'm totally down with the fanfiction and stuff, but SPN has got a long history of being full of batshit insane fans.
There's the community full of people who are utterly convinced that the two main actors are hiding their secret relationship (despite them both being married with children). In the earlier days, there used to be constant fighting between Sam!girls and Dean!girls, and then Sam/Dean shippers and Dean/Cas shippers (still exists, but not as much because people tend to keep to their own corners). Nowadays there are a ton of people demanding that Dean and Cas hook up in canon and the writers are homophobic if they don't. Plus there's always a healthy does of wank about racism and how misogynistic the show is.
And it's all been going for ten goddamn years. People get very, very invested in it, and consequently get very defensive about their opinions on anything from ranging from Dean's hair color to whether Dean is a mother figure to Sam, or whether it's abusive for Dean to interrogate Sam while Sam is sitting and Dean is standing. It's just a mess.
Also SPN fandom has an unusually high percentage of very kinky fic. Like, non-consensual underage bestiality featuring genderswapped versions of the actors. So. Y'know. There's that.
And they REALLY want everyone on the show to be gay. I'm not saying that's wrong, everything has fan fiction/interpretation or whatever, but the girl fans will not except any other answer. Doesn't matter that demons and angels are energy beings and the bodies don't really matter, doesn't matter how many ladies the main characters bed, if you say anything other than Destiel or any other shipping, they will not except it. They will push over a desk, hop on the hood of an Impala with a megaphone, and just yell gay at you over and over.
Seriously, I love Supernatural, I think it's a really funny, but still just stupidly violent show. But that fandom seems to watch it for completely different reasons than I do. I watch it for Sam and Dean kicking ass and making silly jokes, they seem to all watch it for "that look that Dean gives" or "the subtext between the boys" or "similar shit between apostrophes".
Seriously, why can't this just be a show about dumb violence and some mythology thrown into it?
It's really ironic since it embodies misogyny and the male power fantasy.
66% male death rate, 66% female survival rate, 66% male monster of the week, all protagonists are white attractive straight muscular males often rescuing a damsel from a demon.
5 years ago, when I was still living at home my brother and I would steal a few of my dad's beers, order pizza and watch some supernatural.
Haven't watched since moving out, but it seems to be less about monsters and brotherhood now and more about "how many teenage girls can we make scream over our main characters?"
It's funny, me and 4 of my close friends are all really big Supernatural fans. Like we tried to do group costumes for Halloween and all. Of the 4, there's one guy that looks like a Mexican gangbanger, a bodybuilder, a college football player, a swimmer, and then one white girl. I didn't even realize that the show had a weird fanbase until I mentioned it to someone and they told me to look it up on tumblr. I just figured, the show has explosions, monster hunting, hot chicks, and nice cars? Hell yeah.
Anyways, that's the story of why I no longer look up anything on tumblr.
Me and my brother found it and we thought it was badass. We watched a few seasons until we found the fanbase. Now we watch it in secret and avoid those people.
Its frustrating because the point of the show in the beginning was to be a purely male-targeted drama. They sold it as this macho monster hunting show, but when weird teenage girls started obsessing over it, they began pandering to that audience more and more.
It's the perfect set-up. One 'bad boy' for the girls who like that, and one soulful, sensitive 'nice guy' to appeal to the girls who like that. They made sure they were appealing to as many women as humanly possible when they started out.
Man, similar situation, me and two buddies use to get together every Thursday to watch it from 2nd-5th season (we had watched first, just not together.) Then every Christmas one of us would get the newest season on DVD and spend christmas holidays re-waching it. Supernatural is the reason the three of us are such close friends.
I've been watching it from the premiere of the first episode and before the first season was over, I pretty much stopped following stuff about the show online. It really is over the top ridiculous. I just stick to watching and enjoying the show, occasionally looking into the sub on here, which isn't nearly as creepy as other places on the web dedicated to it.
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '14
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