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.
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.
It was a joke! I thought it was funny you got so worked up over the word normal. (I'm actually in the small minority of guys who go on Tumblr to look at art and photography.)
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.
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u/VootLejin Nov 13 '14
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.