Profiles and information on fanpop's users.
2318 fans
 Join this Club
Search Club:
 Invite friend 
fanpop > fanpop users > fanpop users > articles > opinion

My Fanpop pet peeves that I should probably stop whining about

Opinion by Asvini posted 2 months ago
4.8
 by 36 fans
save Bookmark and Share
I realised lately I was becoming a tad too whiny for my tastes about the little things on Fanpop that bug me, maybe it's because I seemed to join just in time to see Fanpop at it's most awesome, then watch it's mild de-awesoming. The site still rocks, but there are some little things being done that I'm not crazy about, so in the spirit of self improvement (or a thinly veiled excuse to complain) I'm going to get them off my chest, as well as listing the solutions to these problems that my angry brain has been suggesting.

1. People making spots for themselves.
It's one thing when a popular user has a spot made for them by someone else, because that's people showing their appreciation for someone they like, and it's also less pointless because when it's a popular user chances are more than 3 people will actually join and things will get posted, but when someone's like "Hey guys, I joined twenty minutes ago, and have spent that time creating the spot of me! Come join, and lets all talk about our favourite thing. ME!" I don't get it. Very few people ever join these spots, and the few who do never seem to add anything (aside from the user who made themselves the spot).

My angry brain's solution:
We just make one spot called the egotists spot, and they can all join that instead of making themselves a spot each. It's a quicker way to send the same message.

2. The rise of text speak.
This is not about spelling or grammar mistakes, that I'm fine with, heavens knows I'm not exactly the quickest bunny in the hutch, so it would be hypocritical of me to get mad at errors. This is just about text speak. I hate text speak. The more popular it gets the more I feel like a granny telling kids to get off her lawn when I complain about it. I just turned 21 and Text speak has turned me into a little old lady (and if those hypothetical kids don't get off my imaginary lawn I'm going to turn the sprinklers on). It's intentional stupidity as a trend, and every time I try to read it I feel my IQ drop a point. Besides, on a site like fanpop it's not just stupid, I also find it inconsiderate. Not everyone who uses the site speaks English as their first language, I can barely understand text speak and English is my first language, I can't imagine what it's like to decipher when it's not.

My angry brain's solution:
When people address me all in 'TXT spk' acting as if they have some terrible phobia of vowels, I should respond using only vowels. See, I can speak in code too! e o y a u i! (that's 'get of my lawn you kids' in reverse text speak)

3. Twilight content leaking into unrelated spots.
There are lots of Twilight fans who are nice, mature and perfectly capable of accepting that not everyone on the planet wants to hear about Twilight 24/7. Unfortunately it's become easy to see them as an endangered species since they aren't as loud as the fans who love Twilight and want everyone in every spot to talk about it with them. If it's a pick relevant to the spot featuring Twilight I usually don't mind (though I am sick to death of being asked "do you like ____ or Twilight more?" I know Twilight is popular, but so are things like House yet there aren't "____ or House?" picks on every spot) Twilight seems to have more spots than anything on fanpop, so I just don't understand the need for it to spill out, and I'm out of ways to bitch about it. Seriously, I have nothing more to add here because I have officially used up my whining on this.

My angry brain's solution:
Every single spot that is not related to Twilight has 'not Twilight' added to the end of it's title as a gentle reminder. So this spot would be called "Fanpop users...not Twilight" Buffy would be "Buffy the vampire slayer...not Twilight" and so on :)

4. Bribing.
I've seen lots of people following requests with "I'll prop if you do" and the reason it bothers me is that it sometimes actually makes me less likely to help someone. I don't need a bribe to help when I can, and when someone ends something like a question on the answers feature with "I'll prop and fan you" I don't want to answer and seem like I'm prop fishing. Also, I don't want a prop someone felt obliged to give me, I'd rather no prop at all. Fanpop is full of lovely people, you don't need to offer to 'pay' with props to get help. As for the users who ask people to fan them in exchange for props, I don't understand that, I'd rather have one fan who actually wanted to fan me than a thousand who only did it for an easy prop.

My angry brain's solution:
The "I'll prop you if you help me" thing seems to solve itself, really. When people spend enough time on Fanpop to see the users are nice enough to help without prop bribes they tend to stop. My solution for the fan proppers is we give them the ability to make their profile say they have as many fans as they want. You want it to look like you have fifty thousand fans? Knock yourself out.

5. The medal obsession.
I don't get the medal thing at all. When they were simply seen as a nice acknowledgement of someone's work to add to the site I totally got it, but now they're so important to people I just don't get it. I'm not just talking about the people cheating for medals, because the people who moan about the cheats are contributing to the problem too in my eyes. Even if you're getting the medals the fair way if you are letting having a little red dot on your profile become so important to you that it lessens the fun of the site, adds disappointment or jealousy to your fanpop experience, then you also contribute to the bad atmosphere the medals have been generating lately. Fanpop's a community, not a contest. If you're looking for a contest go enter a karaoke competition or something, don't try to turn Fanpop into a competition. You should be adding content because you think it will be enjoyed, not to be #1 or to have the most medals, so someone gets one they don't deserve? So what? them having that little red dot doesn't take away anything from you, and there's no reason it should make the site less fun if you have your priorities right. In fact if people stopped treating the medals as so important there would probably be less cheating anyway, because it's only worth cheating for while we treat them like they are so precious.

My angry brain's solution:
The F4 should stop handing out solid gold porches with the red medals...wait...they don't do that? Ok, now I understand the competition even less.

There, I got my moaning out of the way, never to whine about these things again. Oh, who am I kidding, I'm not letting the text speak thing go. I know these things might not bother other people (I imagine the medals thing will probably have a fair few people who disagree), and my suggested solutions were not serious, but now I've got my complaining out of the way I can go back to enjoying the site whine free.
URL:   Bookmark and Share
13 comments
user photo
laugh
I plan to use a couple of these solutions to the things that havee been bugging me too, also I deffinatly enjoy your solution to number 2 =P

Awesome article =P ♥
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
Asvini,

I'm with you on everything. Oh, and I'm now going to prop you for this awesomenss. Why? Well, besides that under the monitor deal we have, this is great and it's nice to know I'm not the only one with issues as of late.
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
em_em said:
So glad I'm not the only younger person who can't read text speak lol being dyslexic is bad enough with out this confusion! hehe

Love that you have acknowledged us 'normal' Twilight fans! I think we seem to be an "endangered species" because many refuse to go over to the Twilight spot because of its ridiculousness and don't go around random spots throwing Twilight stuff about. So we are lost and without a home :(
What do you mean Vampires don't really sparkle!Help where am I?!?! lol

When I first started Popping I was quite pleased when I got my first dedicated fan medals. But today I found that I have gained another one in a new spot, I'm not sure when that happened it may have been that I got it today or earlier and not noticed lol. Although I have learnt during my life on Fanpop that really medals now mean very little in most cases. It seems to me that they are only important to people who are happy to add repeated or worthless content to spots so that they look like a true 'fan' or that they love something more than other people in the spot do. This could just be me being very cynical but I is the old ways of Fanpop! :( Any way nice article I hope some people take the hint lol :D
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
oblix said:
wow, i love this article everything i think. ooh
this article is ace!
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
AgentCoop said:
I just can't think of a single thing to add. Brilliant article and I agree 100%. Bravo.
posted 2 months ago.
last edited 2 months ago
 
user photo
Belle_94 said:
I completely agree with everything you've said here, and I hope a lot of the people creating these pet peaves READ THIS! ;]
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
smile
totally agree with just about everything you said i too hate text speak its so hard to understand and tired of seeing twilight in every spot i'm on great article some of these things needed to be said
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
heart
absolutely agree 100% fantastic article!
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
i kinda go nuts for the little red dot but i gave up cuz i thought *what am i doing , i come to fan pop for fun not to be competitive and plus its a spirited website for everyone to be equel fans. It doesn't make you a bigger fan cuz you have this little red dot*

xD
BTW great vertical, when i saw how long it was i said "oh boy" then i started reading more and ended up reading every word.
posted 2 months ago.
 
user photo
laugh
PiiXiiE said:
i am a "Twilight [fan] who [is] nice, mature and perfectly capable of accepting that not everyone on the planet wants to hear about Twilight 24/7."
Unfortunately, i got attacked and told to leave on the Twilight fan spot because of this.
i also hate kids on my lawn.
posted 1 month ago.
 
user photo
Very well written article, I agree with every single point that's on here. Honestly, back in May 2007 when I joined Fanpop the atmosphere was so much different. Don't get me wrong, it is STILL an awesome, original site. And I love seeing it grow this much, with more users, more features, etc. It's just that a consequence of this, are the points in this article.

What bothers me the most though, is that an atmosphere that was always so friendly, now turned into a constant competition. I get props saying "prop me back" all the time. Seriously, I give props when (as redundant as it sounds) I actually want to prop someone for their contribution. The whole point of giving props gets totally lost if people start giving them out just for a personal gain, so that others will "prop them back" and they'll have more.

The same with Fans. People become my fans and send me emails saying "fan me back, or I'll take you off my list". Umm... I don't have anything against adding people as my fans. But that aggressive and competitive attitude just makes me NOT want to add them to my list. I don't mind being taken out off someone's "list" (??) if they just added me so THEY would have more fans. Honestly, it's all a competition, which in my personal opinion is a tad absurd. It's not like we are being rewarded with a gold statue if we have more fans than others...

But the worst competition, is the MEDALS. I totally, and completely agree with your last point. The competition surrounding medals is totally absurd. As you say, the people that cheat, and also the people that complain. I used to add good stuff to many spots I liked, but it's been a while since I've added anything because this competition thing doesn't really make me want to. I'm not going to go into details about this, because honestly you explained it much better than I could...

About the "TXT" language - I'm a perfect example of someone who's first language is NOT english, and for a while I just stopped trying to read those messages. Call me crazy, but I just love vowels. :D
posted 1 month ago.
last edited 1 month ago
 
user photo
emmett said:
*cough* i'm addicted to medals.. *cough* .. oops my bad .. :S . but i didn't really cheat to get mine.... and i'm a huge fan of the spots that i have medals for. :)
But i agree with like everything else on your article
posted 1 month ago.
 
user photo
big smile
*claps* no need to say anything else *claps more*
posted 20 days ago.
 
related links
popular content
fanpop home - company blog - about us - advertise on fanpop - faq - sitemap - terms of service - privacy policy - contact us
connect with us on
Facebook MySpace bebo hi5 YouTube Twitter