Goddamnit yes. It’s why I’m very pro-gatekeeping. Because people who are new to a hobby because it got popular tend to ruin every-fucking-thing.

For example: flight simulator. That used to be an exclusively nerd domain up until the FS2020 version, which was released on Xbox. The result: a massive influx of new garbage payware and a decline in quality of established brands. While also making the sim worse in order to chase broader appeal. It’s gotten a bit better after covid went away and the normies dropped the hobby, thankfully.

Also: film photography. The popularity of instagram and YouTube ‘influencers’ got a lot of people into our hobby the past decade. It’s lead to increased gear prices, film being more difficult to get and the forums flooding with the dumbest possible questions, since these newcomers are allergic as fuck to reading manuals or watching any tutorial longer than thirty seconds. It’s also lead camera manufacturers to chase this new demographic by making their cameras shittier and more ‘instagram-friendly’. Here’s looking at you, Fujifilm and your shitty X-half.

Take it from someone who’s been around a bit: if you like a thing, keep newcomers away from it. Gatekeep it like the Berlin Fucking Wall, lest they completely fuck up your hobby.

I’m in the same boat with a few others here when it comes to some games like Halo and Fallout. But I feel like I’m on the brink with 2 new ones:

• Doom: I played the original when I was a kid and got bullied for it (or probably being a general nerd). 2016 and Eternal were really popular and the franchise took off; but Dark Ages feels off. I played Dark Ages for a bit, put it down, and haven’t picked it up since. I think Doom is going down the shitter, especially what they did to Mick Gordon.
• Mother Mother (a band): My SO and I love their music for how unique and interesting it is; and we went to one of their first concerts at a small venue when they came into town ~10 years ago ish? Must have been <500 people. Generally no one else liked their music we shared it with, so we kept it to ourselves. Now? We went to another one a few months ago and it was at a HUGE stadium; absolutely packed. I think one of their songs went viral on TikTok - My Daddy’s got a gun. We’re proud of what they’ve accomplished, but really hope they don’t lose their identity in trying to become even more popular.

Not to that extent, but crypto. I think its an amazing and really interesting technology. But now it’s tainted by scammers and when people hear the term, they get defensive because they are ready for you to scam them

I am an avid collector and drinker of Chinese teas, particularly oolongs and puerh. I had been drinking them for years when suddenly the absolute asshole Dr. Oz went on TV claiming that puerh tea was some magical cure for anything and everything that you might have.

Normally, I get excited for new people to share tea with, but this fad caused prices to rise across the board and caused the market to get flooded with awful quality tea. These people were drinking some of the worst quality (fishy, shou/cooked puerh) teas and were more obsessed with how to mask the flavors with milk and sugar than actually slowing down and enjoying the tea.

The fad faded and people went back to putting matcha in their morning milkshakes. Even so, I still run into people that reflexively associate incredible tea with Dr. Oz and the disgusting teas he foisted upon his audience. Sad.

It’s equally as bad when you discover you like something that has been around for a while and has lots of fans and you don’t get accepted or realise you don’t want to be part of the fans because of how shitty, toxic, dumb etc. they are. A relevant example for this is Assassin’s creed for me. I never like any of the games until AC: Origins, even though I gave most of them a fair shake. AC: Origins is a 10/10 for me, I put in over 600h hours into that game, 100%'ed it and all its expansions/dlc. AC: Odyssey is good too, but I never got as into it, so a 8/10. Valhalla never looked good in any way so never even tried it. Started playing Shadows about a week ago and really enjoying it so far, not as good as Origins but mostly better than Odyssey. But damn do people not like when I mention this, like I’m not allowed to like it because I didn’t like the earlier games. I have no issue with people liking them and not the ones I do, never said anything else. Music is a lot like this too. “Oh, you like their newer stuff? Fucking idiot, only the early stuff is good, I now see down on you as a person and hate every opinion you have”.

Tabletop RPG. It used to be a niche of the internet in the early days, with people posting here and there their scenarios, campaign, ideas etc. It was hard to find and so pleasurable when you found something.

Nowadays it’s trusted by … Wizard if the coast ? Online only platforms and what have you.

I loved #scenariotheque, but now it’s almost a ghost website (pardon the french).

I know if sounds like old man yell at clouds, but damn do I miss the early days.

Star Wars

This happened to all the ols school Star Wars fans. Disney created the “idiot fans”

While not to the same degree as a lot of folks, Fallout got into it some time around New Vegas because it was featured on game fly. Anyways delved headfirst into it and fell in love with the classic games. The post Fallout 4 boom gives me a headache sometimes I just want to talk with old bastards and my fellow autists about Fallout without some profligate butting in cause they watch the TV show.

Reddit

Pogs are cool little disks

Then it became a children’s verb

Sounds like Rick and morty

Minecraft. Started playing in 2011 and have played off and on every year since then. It’s now really popular again, but I distinctly remember around 2017-18 it became suddenly uncool to play. When I would be in a VC with friends while playing it, they would ride my ass for it. The ~10 year nostalgia/hype cycle is coming full circle lol

I have several things that interested me and became popular, but I didn’t hate on the new fans. At most I sometimes missed the feeling of having this thing that was a bit obscure and in case of channels on youtube, the intimacy of interacting with the creator and other subscribers was nice. But I can’t hate on something I like becoming popular.

As for concrete examples, I do remember subbing to this small gaming channel with 9000 subs called Markiplier back in the day.

I subbed to OKI Weird Stories when he had like 600ish subs.

I subbed to Creepcast before it had any videos on it, but that one is cheating since both meatcanyon and wendigoon were already very popular. Still, it’s been a bit nuts seeing the podcast explode in popularity. I even know people irl who listen to it.

Currently I follow a small channel, also podcast format, called The Daydream Arcade that focuses on reading reddit stories, but the hosts are two friends, who bring some warmth and personality to the format which is nice. For me, I stick around becuase I really like their friendship and their personalities. I’m also a older than the both of them and feel a bit big-sister-protective of them. I want them to grow and I believe they will because they already have 4500 subs compared to the 900 they had when I found them, but also don’t like the thought of them reaching a point of popularity where the mean assholes come crawling to tear them down.

Nazi ideology, OP OP. There was a nice little thing we had once, until you cunts took it up like a hoard of malignant nihilist pussies 😒Now we can’t even bring up the Third Reich’s many incredible qualities in conversation without someone rolling their eyes! n-chan numpties ruin every fandom.

/ss

if so then name your thing

Sort of I guess: em dashes.

Not to talk about, but to use when writing.
Now they are apparently the hallmark of AI-generated crap.