Why is there a stigma against the Sonic community

[Sapphirine Wind]

Just now, Scritch the Cat said:

I could almost sympathize with Chandler’s loneliness because I’ve been in that position.  Modern romance norms are written for neurotypicals who normally meet a lot of people, both sexes, so getting to the point of asking them out is easIre.  I understand why autistic people demand an alternative means of finding and meeting their significant others.  CWC, though, went about it the wrong way and has made us all look bad as a result.

I'm sorry this has added to the struggle for you and others.

People need a reminder that this is not normal behavior for autistic people, and one extreme example does not mean that most exhibit that behavior. I'm having a hard time articulating how ridiculous that is, it just seems against common sense.

Also, thank you for taking the time to tell me about CWC's actions.

[Guest]

One thing I'll say about the whole CWC debacle...

People use her shitty behaviors as an excuse to bully her for things completely unrelated to them.

For example: her autism, along with certain harmless behaviors it entails, her body, and her being trans (before her coming out, gender non-conforming).

And as someone who is also autistic, and gender non-conforming, and "ugly", and similar to Christine in so many ways that I often jokingly refer to myself as CWC 2.0,... it's just painful. Painful to see that even without doing shitty things, someone like me will have zero value or respect whatsoever.

Also, let's not forget how bad her tolls were. Including the time they found out she was hanging out with a local woman (who didn't know of Christine's online infamy), and they doxxed said local woman, found where her dad worked, and made up a story about the dad sexually abusing Christine to get him fired from his job so the woman and her family would suffer.

Why would they do this? Who knows. Some weird obsession with torturing anyone who Christine interacts with. But this is not Christine's fault and nobody better date blame her for that. She has zero control over these trolls, who probably use so many proxies etc. that it's impossible to track them down, and they will never face repercussions for any of this.

The trolls are honestly worse than CWC is in many ways.

 

[Piko]

2 hours ago, Angyu said:

One thing I'll say about the whole CWC debacle...

People use her shitty behaviors as an excuse to bully her for things completely unrelated to them.

For example: her autism, along with certain harmless behaviors it entails, her body, and her being trans (before her coming out, gender non-conforming).

And as someone who is also autistic, and gender non-conforming, and "ugly", and similar to Christine in so many ways that I often jokingly refer to myself as CWC 2.0,... it's just painful. Painful to see that even without doing shitty things, someone like me will have zero value or respect whatsoever.

Also, let's not forget how bad her tolls were. Including the time they found out she was hanging out with a local woman (who didn't know of Christine's online infamy), and they doxxed said local woman, found where her dad worked, and made up a story about the dad sexually abusing Christine to get him fired from his job so the woman and her family would suffer.

Why would they do this? Who knows. Some weird obsession with torturing anyone who Christine interacts with. But this is not Christine's fault and nobody better date blame her for that. She has zero control over these trolls, who probably use so many proxies etc. that it's impossible to track them down, and they will never face repercussions for any of this.

The trolls are honestly worse than CWC is in many ways.

 

Couldn't agree more. I'm not gonna pretend that Christine's an angel, but she doesn't deserve swarms of people bullying her, taking advantage of her naivety and documenting her every move. I wouldn't wish that kind of attention on my worst enemy.

[SaturnWolf]

I don't really think people discussing a person and events who have been public knowledge for well, well over a decade at this point are really adding to any sort of stigma. Christine is going to come up when discussions of the public view of Sonic fans come up because, whether we like it or not, she is a prolific figure and her behavior constantly puts herself in a spotlight, for better or for worse

That said, I believe this is just sort of how it goes with fandom. It's always the shock value and cheap laughs that get more attention than thoughtful discussion or cool fanart. Outside of the people who are already fans, nobody really cares about the latter, because they don't really have any sort of attachment to the source, but everyone will laugh at drunk Star Wars kid, because you don't need to be a fan of Star Wars to get a chuckle out of a person jumping around and being silly with a stick

Nobody outside of Star Wars fandom really talks about the HelloGreedo's, the Dave Filoni's, etc. It's not that different from how nobody outside of Sonic fandom really talks about (insert Sonictuber name here) or (insert Sonic Team employee here), but, removed from the context of Christine's harassment online, everyone can get a laugh out of a woman who cares way too much about this sort of thing to be macing a Gamestop employee over a shitty inoffensive redesign for a children's game

It's annoying to have people like that constantly spotlighted, but it's nothing new or exclusive to the Sonic fanbase

[OtakuHedgehog]

You know what's funny about this whole stigma against Sonic fans? I only seem to get this WuT? U Li3k S@niC? S@Nic SuX! He h@sn'T haD a gUd g@me sinC3 1994 lol lol lol lol! hate on the internet for liking Sonic when speaking with the nerd/geek/gamer/weeb community. But if a normie in college for example sees me wearing a Sonic shirt I'll get a response like Oh you like Sonic? That's cool, I loved playing that game back in the day on the Sega Genesis. A lot of people on the internet (especially in the gaming community) have this superiority complex where they feel that they need to push others down to improve their own self-esteem. Just look at console war debates in YouTube comment sections. And a lot of these Sonic haters I see are just stupid kids who weren't even around to experience Sonic in his glory days, they just know of Sonic from memes and YouTubers. I once even had a 14-year old apologize to me on my YouTube channel for harrassing me after the 2018 Mario vs Sonic Death Battle because "he was taking his anger out on me for being picked on at school" after I got fed up with him after awhile. Unfortunately the Sonic fandom is just an easy target for bullying due to the whole "How the Mighty have fallen" stigma that the industry have put on SEGA for leaving the console market, thus making Sonic fans appear as "loud-mouth" in response of constantly being harrassed, and YouTubers making videos mocking us and the franchise to get quick ad-revenue.

[Rabbitearsblog]

This makes me wonder that now that Sonic got his own movie (and it became a huge success), would that add more fuel to the fire or would it help non-Sonic fans get into the franchise a bit more?

[Piko]

9 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

This makes me wonder that now that Sonic got his own movie (and it became a huge success), would that add more fuel to the fire or would it help non-Sonic fans get into the franchise a bit more?

From my experience, it seems like the fandom and the franchise doesn’t have as much stigma surrounding it after the movie ended up being better than anyone expected. I think that not only has the movie helped more people get into the franchise, but its success is a reminder that Sonic is far from dead.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

This makes me wonder that now that Sonic got his own movie (and it became a huge success), would that add more fuel to the fire or would it help non-Sonic fans get into the franchise a bit more?

It was a success, but idk about "huge". The only people who really cared were already familiar with him to begin with, or young kids who like those kinds of movies in general. Unless maybe a parent with their kid starts getting curious about Sonic's game, I doubt they'll really pull in new fans unless the sequel is massive.

[OtakuHedgehog]

On 1/19/2021 at 5:57 AM, Rabbitearsblog said:

This makes me wonder that now that Sonic got his own movie (and it became a huge success), would that add more fuel to the fire or would it help non-Sonic fans get into the franchise a bit more?

Same reason why Tom & Jerry are getting a movie this year. Sonic is a nostalgic character and movie producers  will be able to make some cash off of him regardless of his reputation amongst gamers on the internet.

 

Edit: Oops, I read your comment as "This makes me wonder how Sonic got his own movie"

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 hours ago, OtakuHedgehog said:

Same reason why Tom & Jerry are getting a movie this year. Sonic is a nostalgic character and movie producers  will be able to make some cash off of him regardless of his reputation amongst gamers on the internet.

I agree with this.  Even if Sonic wasn't doing well in the games, the movie studios will find a reason to make a movie about Sonic anyway.

[Drisaac]

On 12/16/2020 at 5:12 PM, batson said:

Zelda fans draw porn and engage in strange behavious too, but there is no stimga to being a Zelda fan because everyone can agree that it's a great series.

You pretty much hit the nail right in the coffin, zelda is indeed a good series so there's no need to justify why you are a zelda fan, it just has good games.

with sonic it's kinda harder to do that because sonic has had a huge streak of bad games, or at least that's what most people outside the fandom perceive it, so you need to find a justification for it

Also, most zelda characters are humans, or at least have humanoid appearances, therefore making porn of them, although kinda odd, is seen as mostly fine as, again, you don't have to explain why you like it.

same thing cannot be said about sonic porn, since it features anthropomorphic animals, good luck explaining that one without looking like a freak

[StephTheFox]

On 1/17/2021 at 5:54 AM, Angyu said:

I wish people would stop using that as an insult. (Not saying you did, but it's true a lot of Sonic-haters and others do.)

Even if the entire Sonic fanbase was autistic... so? Doesn't make them worse than any allistic people.

As someone on the Autism Spectrum, i don't think i help these arguments much by chiming in as i'm apart of the people many try to say doesn't make up the whole sonic fandom.

 

Some of my friends don't like sonic but they at least respect that i like the series so I feel that the negative stigma has at least slowed down slightly, at least in my neck of the woods both IRL and Online. I think it has something to do with fandoms becoming more present than ever before online and how the loud minority/majority of every fandom can be heard at once, not just the sonic fandom anymore.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, StephTheFox said:

As someone on the Autism Spectrum, i don't think i help these arguments much by chiming in as i'm apart of the people many try to say doesn't make up the whole sonic fandom.

 

Some of my friends don't like sonic but they at least respect that i like the series so I feel that the negative stigma has at least slowed down slightly, at least in my neck of the woods both IRL and Online. I think it has something to do with fandoms becoming more present than ever before online and how the loud minority/majority of every fandom can be heard at once, not just the sonic fandom anymore.

It's wrong for people to assume that every autistic person is going around macing GameStop employees, or stalking women, or making tantrum videos and uploading them onto YouTube (tbh I did that last thing because I'm bipolar and was very upset but I deleted it. It wasn't even Sonic related though, and it hurt nobody so it's kind of an outlier on this list.)

So no, we aren't part of the problem. The "problem" is such a small number of individuals. We're people who just happen to be on the spectrum, and we are respectful.

And yeah what I say is: all fandoms are trash. Just some are less self-aware... *coughkpopstanscough*

[Scritch the Cat]

13 hours ago, Angyu said:

And yeah what I say is: all fandoms are trash. Just some are less self-aware... *coughkpopstanscough*

This may be a joke, but even if it is I don’t find it very funny because I think fandoms can provide a great source of community to people who don’t necessarily have it already.  It isn’t my intention to perpetuate a stereotype that Sonic fans are autistic, either, but I’m autistic and these sorts of crowds are a net positive to me.  Here’s the thing about autistic people.  Most of us don’t get positive stimulation from merely being around other people.  Situations where people just hang out and make small-talk, especially when there are lots of people doing it, run from boring to highly unpleasant for many autistic people.  At the same time, many autistic people aren’t totally introverted; they do want friends to talk to and do things with, but such have to be framed around their personal interests.  In that sense, joining communities framed around those interests can be great.

It’s true that Sonic fandom is heavily factionalized, and this can seem unpleasant to some people; it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to make a Sonic game that will please the whole fandom. But I still have more fun arguing about Sonic with people of different but Sonic-related opinions, than I would talking amiably about things that don’t interest me.

So to move back to the issue of how overall autistic the Sonic fandom is (which for what this is worth, I haven’t seen methodically and statistically presented), it’s possible that not too many of the people who enjoy Sonic games are autistic, but a substantially higher percent of those who go discuss it online are; given the propensity of autistic people to prefer discussions about specific interests.

Also mind you, I do have a life outside of Sonic.  In fact, I have a life outside of media franchises in general.  But what I said about Sonic more or less applies to my behavior as a whole; I’ll socialize about my interests but I’m not interested in socializing.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Scritch the Cat said:

This may be a joke, but even if it is I don’t find it very funny because I think fandoms can provide a great source of community to people who don’t necessarily have things.  It isn’t my intention to perpetuate a stereotype that Sonic fans are autistic, either, but I’m autistic and these sorts of crowds are a net positive to me.  Here’s the thing about autistic people.  Most of us don’t get positive stimulation from merely being around other people.  Situations where people just hang out and make small-talk, especially when there are lots of people doing it, run from boring to highly unpleasant for many autistic people.  At the same time, many autistic people aren’t totally introverted; they do want friends to talk to and do things with, but such have to be framed around their personal interests.  In that sense, joining communities framed around those interests can be great.

It’s true that Sonic fandom is heavily factionalized, and this can seem unpleasant to some people; it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to make a Sonic game that will please the whole fandom. But I still have more fun arguing about Sonic with people of different but Sonic-related opinions, than I would talking amiably about things that don’t interest me.

So to move back to the issue of how overall autistic the Sonic fandom is (which for what this is worth, I haven’t seen methodically and statistically presented), it’s possible that not too many of the people who enjoy Sonic games are autistic, but a substantially higher percent of those who go discuss it online are; given the propensity of autistic people to prefer discussions about specific interests.

Also mind you, I do have a life outside of Sonic.  In fact, I have a life outside of media franchises in general.  But what I said about Sonic more or less applies to my behavior as a whole; I’ll socialize about my interests but I’m not interested in socializing.

Yeah so far it seems like every other person in this thread (me included) is on the spectrum, but... you brought up a good point, I think we're just more likely to seek company online. I enjoy talking to people IRL but it gets frustrating if we have nothing in common.

And I didn't mean that fandoms themselves were all trash, or I wouldn't be involved in any, or be on here. But a lot of modern fandoms contain drama and awful people.

[Piko]

On 1/24/2021 at 10:26 PM, Scritch the Cat said:

This may be a joke, but even if it is I don’t find it very funny because I think fandoms can provide a great source of community to people who don’t necessarily have it already.  It isn’t my intention to perpetuate a stereotype that Sonic fans are autistic, either, but I’m autistic and these sorts of crowds are a net positive to me.  Here’s the thing about autistic people.  Most of us don’t get positive stimulation from merely being around other people.  Situations where people just hang out and make small-talk, especially when there are lots of people doing it, run from boring to highly unpleasant for many autistic people.  At the same time, many autistic people aren’t totally introverted; they do want friends to talk to and do things with, but such have to be framed around their personal interests.  In that sense, joining communities framed around those interests can be great.

That’s a really good point. A lot of people assume I’m very shy but the thing is: I love talking to people, it’s just that I have a hard time doing so if my interests don’t come into the equation. However, I tend to keep quiet about my interests due to being judged by my peers in the past because they’re “weird” or “childish”.

That’s where fandoms come into play. Most people don’t realise how important these spaces are, especially to autistic people, as it provides a place for people to discuss their interests without being judged.

[Guergy]

On 1/19/2021 at 1:44 AM, SaturnWolf said:

I don't really think people discussing a person and events who have been public knowledge for well, well over a decade at this point are really adding to any sort of stigma. Christine is going to come up when discussions of the public view of Sonic fans come up because, whether we like it or not, she is a prolific figure and her behavior constantly puts herself in a spotlight, for better or for worse

That said, I believe this is just sort of how it goes with fandom. It's always the shock value and cheap laughs that get more attention than thoughtful discussion or cool fanart. Outside of the people who are already fans, nobody really cares about the latter, because they don't really have any sort of attachment to the source, but everyone will laugh at drunk Star Wars kid, because you don't need to be a fan of Star Wars to get a chuckle out of a person jumping around and being silly with a stick

Nobody outside of Star Wars fandom really talks about the HelloGreedo's, the Dave Filoni's, etc. It's not that different from how nobody outside of Sonic fandom really talks about (insert Sonictuber name here) or (insert Sonic Team employee here), but, removed from the context of Christine's harassment online, everyone can get a laugh out of a woman who cares way too much about this sort of thing to be macing a Gamestop employee over a shitty inoffensive redesign for a children's game

It's annoying to have people like that constantly spotlighted, but it's nothing new or exclusive to the Sonic fanbase

Unfortunately I had seen some of this on Youtube. 

On 1/18/2021 at 10:23 AM, Angyu said:

One thing I'll say about the whole CWC debacle...

People use her shitty behaviors as an excuse to bully her for things completely unrelated to them.

For example: her autism, along with certain harmless behaviors it entails, her body, and her being trans (before her coming out, gender non-conforming).

And as someone who is also autistic, and gender non-conforming, and "ugly", and similar to Christine in so many ways that I often jokingly refer to myself as CWC 2.0,... it's just painful. Painful to see that even without doing shitty things, someone like me will have zero value or respect whatsoever.

Also, let's not forget how bad her tolls were. Including the time they found out she was hanging out with a local woman (who didn't know of Christine's online infamy), and they doxxed said local woman, found where her dad worked, and made up a story about the dad sexually abusing Christine to get him fired from his job so the woman and her family would suffer.

Why would they do this? Who knows. Some weird obsession with torturing anyone who Christine interacts with. But this is not Christine's fault and nobody better date blame her for that. She has zero control over these trolls, who probably use so many proxies etc. that it's impossible to track them down, and they will never face repercussions for any of this.

The trolls are honestly worse than CWC is in many ways.

 

I agree with this post. Christine is not above criticism but it is one thing to criticize her, it another matter entirely to create an entire website dedicated to messing with her and chronicle her actions.  It kind of makes you wonder who is really messed up when you make websites like dedicated to bullying Christine (or any other individual).

[Guest]

On 1/25/2021 at 5:29 PM, Piko said:

That’s a really good point. A lot of people assume I’m very shy but the thing is: I love talking to people, it’s just that I have a hard time doing so if my interests don’t come into the equation. However, I tend to keep quiet about my interests due to being judged by my peers in the past because they’re “weird” or “childish”.

That’s where fandoms come into play. Most people don’t realise how important these spaces are, especially to autistic people, as it provides a place for people to discuss their interests without being judged.

I relate to this so much. I call myself "anti-social" because I know that nobody in this world will really desire to be around me for more than a few minutes. But deep down, I really wish they did. I wish I found someone I had a lot in common with and could talk to for hours. But the fandom spaces do help. Sometimes.

11 hours ago, Guergy said:

I agree with this post. Christine is not above criticism but it is one thing to criticize her, it another matter entirely to create an entire website dedicated to messing with her and chronicle her actions.  It kind of makes you wonder who is really messed up when you make websites like dedicated to bullying Christine (or any other individual).

Yes and I constantly bring this up to people who question my logic.

Imagine finding a random autistic person online, and dedicating hours upon hours of your life to making a Wiki with thousands of articles on it, dedicated to this random person. And trying to doxx anyone that comes into contact with said person.

I feel worse for these trolls than for her. To spend so much of your life obsessing over someone like this... gang mentality is one hell of a drug. But nothing that I or anyone else says will change their minds. Even at my lowest point in my mental illness, I was never that bad.

[Scritch the Cat]

On 1/26/2021 at 4:00 PM, Angyu said:

I relate to this so much. I call myself "anti-social" because I know that nobody in this world will really desire to be around me for more than a few minutes. But deep down, I really wish they did. I wish I found someone I had a lot in common with and could talk to for hours. But the fandom spaces do help. Sometimes.

Yes and I constantly bring this up to people who question my logic.

Imagine finding a random autistic person online, and dedicating hours upon hours of your life to making a Wiki with thousands of articles on it, dedicated to this random person. And trying to doxx anyone that comes into contact with said person.

I feel worse for these trolls than for her. To spend so much of your life obsessing over someone like this... gang mentality is one hell of a drug. But nothing that I or anyone else says will change their minds. Even at my lowest point in my mental illness, I was never that bad.

The sad thing is there are quite a few people who think they're doing a good deed by seeking out and mocking lonely, introverted (read, probably autistic) people online.  A lot of these actions I'd call straight-up hate-crimes, but when judgmental neurotypical bullies find and focus on known sexual predators like CWC, it lets them spin this derision as progressive activism since it might relate distantly to warning women about dangerous people.  Of course, they're ignoring that there are plenty of people who share other characreristics with CWC and aren't sexual predators.  When you try to associate certain characteristics of people with undesirable actions, you quickly open the Pandora's box to deeming certain people undesirable, and often this leads to increased stigmatization of the sorts of people who already had it bad.  If you need a refresher on just how far open the box was already, just think back to that time IGN's thugs alleged that everyone who was still a Sonic fan wanted to have sex with Big the Cat.

Unfotunately, the flip side is that CWC pretty obviously got mollycoddled growing up, and it's clear that when parents don't do their job, someone else has to educate people more about what reactions to expect from certain actions.  But too many people who see themselves as assisting autistic people are mostly just trying to convince autistic people to do numerous things they find uncomfortable just so everyone else can be comfortable.  This, again, is an unfair and prejudiced attitude.  Certainly, people like CWC must be informed that they are not owed a sexual relationship (and to put it bluntly, I see absolutely no attractive traits to CWC on either a physical or personality level), but they should not be pressured to conform to behavioral standards that are rigged against them on no greater promise than maybe some neurotypical person will reward it.  Of course you still need to draw the line somewhere, but right now things are still weighed too heavily against the neurodiverse.  Rather than going into more specifics here, though, let's get back to Sonic.

I'm going to assume DeviantArt contributed more than its share to Sonic's reputation.  While probably the most cringey Sonic art is on Rule 34 and other such sites, DeviantArt is probably where people are exposed to the majority of cringey Sonic art because there all sorts of things are mixed in and inevitably, people are going to bump into things they don't want to see when searching for things they do.  I, for example, have decided I will no longer search for Ninja Turtles art on the site because I'm fed up with so many of the results depicting them in incestuous relationships.  I don't know what it is about that brand that attracts that sort of fans, but with Sonic, I think I can put my finger on why it attracts all sorts of people, with all sorts of inclinations: Its style is pretty easy to duplicate. 

The characters are mostly characterized by big heads, these heads are often simple circles or something not far derived, their little bodies and limbs are afterthoughts, and most don't wear clothes.  All sorts of people can draw the canon Sonic characters--or more infamously still, make their own.  The style is clearly pleasing to a lot of people, but it's also so widely formulaic that it's possible to make a rather convincing Sonic character design just by mildly editing official art.  Even if you can't draw well enough to even draw a Sonic character, there are computer programs that do almost all the work for you.  Which enables artists to bring out their basest desires and thoughts in these characters.  Almost any Joe Schmo or Jane Plain can write a Mary Sue or Gary Stu, but it takes effort to draw such characters if they're many other art styles.  But with Sonic's style, it's easy.  However, it also seems like a lot of the stigma has nothing to do with the personality of such characters or the values they espouse, but rather, the notion that many of these "original characters" are in fact quite unoriginal.  The thing is, again, this is quite a formulaic art style, so inevitably people are going to wind up with that sort of character, and even in canon they've been doing it since almost the very start.  It's pretty blatant how much Mighty and Classic Amy are slight alterations of Sonic himself.

I could actually make a whole thread on the merits and flaws of Sonic's art style.

[Fire-N-Space]

Because Sonic Fans will out right ostracized you with backhanded insults claiming that they're being helpful if what you like doesn't line up with their views.

[Scritch the Cat]

2 hours ago, Fire-N-Space said:

Because Sonic Fans will out right ostracized you with backhanded insults claiming that they're being helpful if what you like doesn't line up with their views.

Source, please?  You'll have to cite quite a few sources if you hope to convince anyone that applies to even close to the majority of Sonic fans.

[Cadence]

In the 00's the idea of what children's entertainment could be , that opinion held by adults was much more limited than it was now. Due to this , in combination with the sort of late 20's early 30's nerd guru types that permeated all aspects of the nerd world at the time , resulted in all sorts of franchises being made fun of because to be blunt, it was a thing for children and they were out of touch. JRPG's , Other platformers too many types of games over time got a certain kind of criticism that stemmed from out of touch dudes being who dictated " nerd culture" . This was outside of games too, comics, cartoons, musicians. Does anyone remember does anyone remember when comedians were just super openly homophobic towards more " feminine" and younger male musicians because teen girls liked them. That was a time that lived through and it was weird.  This isn't to say there weren't bad sonic games, there were. But I stand that cultural reaction to 06 from that arena was largely an overreaction for what was "a children's franchise that made a bad thing. "

This largely isn't a thing anymore. That sort of reaction to that sort of thing, children's will call you boomers, people will rightly call those people over obsessed with children's media even if it may be actually bad and people will largely move on. I don't think 06 or shadow's game would have had that much impact in today's time if anything the latter might have been more popular because of meme culture in general. As it is seeing a weird resurgence of popularity on the internet right now because people are taking it a cheesy b movie game.

But back to my original point these people dictated that sonic was and for weirdos. Part of this comes out of genuine prejudice. Not comparing the " plight " of sonic to the marginalized, but sonic was apart of a larger criticism societally. Furry's. Sonic fans , children had made oc's characters representing themselves and who they are and aspects of themselves they were exploring and this funky fun characters were helping them do that. Sonic fan's and their oc's were and largely still are associated with furries rightfully so in some cases unrightfully so in others. But  a lot of that ire against furries , admitted by the people who started on something awful was just homophobia. It was just thinly veiled homophobia. A lot of the ew gross sonic fan's with their oc's were framed as creepy adults and not what it was largely children kind making characters figuring out who they were. And a bunch of adults got away with that at a time you could...get away with that. ( they also got away with a lot of xenophobia against japan during that period but that's another topic of conversation)  

A lot of the sonic communities reputation in this regard, even to this day stems from that period of unchecked thinly veiled homophobia aimed at children and teens because a bunch of adults at the time didn't get why people liked sonic and/or didn't like it and didn't like how children were expressing themselves. And I firmly believe if it happened today , it would likely get called out for what it was. And the out of touch old folks would just have to move on.

That isn't to say the sonic community is perfect. It isn't , I'm not fond of its propensity to blame workers and the fanbase itself for the failures of sega's corporate end. And that is one of a few issues. 

But upon reflection given how none of these people actually ended up investing in sonic as a whole, sonic at that time was just caught up in society moving past a certain group of out of touch old " nerd guru" types and got caught in the crossfire. And every once in a while someone will say the sonic fanbase is bad these days without specifying why because " Its just how it is " and questioning that is bad because introspection is hard. Or bringing up weird fan art that exists in every fanbase because...questioning that is bad and introspection is hard.

All because a litany of out of touch old dudes overacted to a bad video game in 06 and a lot of other aspects of culture and no one realized it was bad besides the targets of their aggression until a bunch of those dudes turned into nazi's the past decade. Upon coming upon the own realization of their own cultural irrelevance.  Being shocked and in awe as the marginalized groups and literal children who grew up in this say " This has always been this way were telling you before"  

Sonic as a brand was at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

[prettyinplague]

On 10/27/2020 at 12:21 PM, Your Vest Friend said:

In the early days of fandom, while most others kept relatively quiet, the Sonic fandom was always loud, so it ended up as a frequent target (I mean, the game reputations at the time didn't help, this was 2005-2008, but this is looking at the fandom specifically). Nowadays this is considered the norm for most fandoms, so the popular target tends to be whatever is popular at that moment. 

This is super true, as someone who has been in almost every single fandom... every fandom is loud, obnoxious, and has the shipping wars, fetish art, discourse, what have you. It's what you get when you step into fandom. I think the problem is that Sonic might have been the first that was relatively mainstream. My worst experience in fandom is actually the Invader Zim fandom hilariously, but people seem to not think much of that fandom because it's easier to poke fun at Sonic for "the meme". 

With all that being said, the Sonic fandom has chilled out A LOT since the earlier days, and I think it's time people recognized that. 

[Scritch the Cat]

27 minutes ago, prettyinplague said:

This is super true, as someone who has been in almost every single fandom... every fandom is loud, obnoxious, and has the shipping wars, fetish art, discourse, what have you. It's what you get when you step into fandom. I think the problem is that Sonic might have been the first that was relatively mainstream. My worst experience in fandom is actually the Invader Zim fandom hilariously, but people seem to not think much of that fandom because it's easier to poke fun at Sonic for "the meme". 

With all that being said, the Sonic fandom has chilled out A LOT since the earlier days, and I think it's time people recognized that. 

I'm really not sure that bit about Sonic being the original loud, obnoxious fandom is really true.  Star Wars and Star Trek fans may be niche, but the objects of their fandom have always been mainstream, with big, rich companies stoking the fires.  Boy band fans have existed as long as boy bands themselves have existed.  Dragon Ball Z fandom was already huge before Internet usage was huge, and once Naruto joined the fray its fandom always felt to me just as loud online as Sonic's fandom.

I think if there's anything responsible for the Sonic fanbase's reputation as loud and unpleasant, it's the coincidence of the series changing, going third party and being turned against by critics right around the time that Internet usage skyrocketed.  Not only were more and more people getting online, more and more people were getting into Sonic since its games were coming out for other consoles; most notably Nintendo's.  However, the Sonic they were getting into wasn't necessarily the same one older fans had gotten into; SA2 was many people's first Sonic game and it tends to influence their opinion of what the series should be.  So take a bunch of people who have a newfound love of the Adventure era, expose them to both critics who have a newfound hatred of it, and players who agree with the critics, and sparks fly.  Also remember that up until the Adventure era, most of Sonic's canon supporting cast were mostly confined to obscure spin-offs, so a lot of the pre-Adventure fandom tended to see the DIC and Archie characters as Sonic's true supporting cast.  That's likely why the stereotypical whiny Sonic fans are commonly reputed to be obsessed with characters that, to most outsiders, look really unimportant either way.  A lot of Sonic fans brayed on and on about canon and worldbuilding because during that period, whichever side they fell on they had the sense that part of what they loved about Sonic was under assault.

[sassytassie]

From what I've seen we have a bad rep mostly because we "whine" about everything (though let's be honest, a lot of it is for good reason). But then there's those fans that make a big deal about small things such as Sonic having green eyes lol.