What drives characterfags to be what they are?

What drives characterfags to be what they are?

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Batman.

They like the premise of whatever the character is.

I like plenty of characters, that doesn't mean I should go to fanatical lenghts for them.

Two extremes. Either you're a casual who doesn't read or rarely reads comics so you can't even properly understand the concept of creative teams being 99% of what makes a run but still like the character, or you're a weird ass autist who's unnaturally obsessed with them and has to read/watch/masturbate to everything related to them.

Either:
They're an absolute casual who just likes the idea of a character and thinks that being obsessed with something is how you "fit in" with this kind of stuff
Or
Slight to severe autism for a character
Thank fuck I'm a character fag for the metal men, characters who don't have a completely autistic fan base like Batfags and Billyfags

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How the fuck did the billy fan base get this bad man.

Because you're the one making the posts

Genuinely good character who's always played second fiddle to Superman (he's only sold better when he initially came out) and DC doesn't give him anywhere near as much attention as he probably should get.
Because of this and a lack of consistent material, he gets what? A few mini series every few years and some cartoon appearances? The idea of Captain Marvel has become romanticised to the point that nothing can be good enough and everyone disagrees, they're "not muh" personified
It's a shame too because I really like Captain Marvel/Shazam, but Billy fags are insufferable, atleast Batfags are mostly casuals.
You don't see me screaming that the metal men are bad now because Gold has a hairstyle i don't like

Autism mostly. You see they hold their favorite character on a pedestal, want only the best for them, and think the plot should accommodate them instead of the other way around. Character progression or elseworlds also can trigger them. It's all very silly, and fans should hold storytelling above whatever bias notions they may have about their favorite character. What's interesting though is that the character doesn't have to be widely popular either to create characterfags, but only possess ongoing material for a characterfag to either adore or criticize
>Batfags
>Venomfags
>Billyfags
>Spiderfags
>Superfags
>Punisherfags
>Wondyfags
And the list goes on.

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So what does the term "characterfag" mean exactly?
I see it throw around a lot as a buzzword anytime someone criticizes character writing in a comic.

"Characterfag" is someone who limits themselves to a few characters and has severely bias fanboy opinion about them. For example, a "Batfag" is someone who mainly just reads Batman comics, and can get upset when Bruce doesn't do something the way he thinks he should, be it jobbing to another character or acting differently when writers shift.

A characterfag will also follow/support completely dogshit runs, no matter how bad they get, just because it's their specific character. OP's image is an only slightly exaggerated example of that.

It means people who follow a character. Character fags are literally the reason American comics exist.

Is that Evan Dorkin? Fuck that faggot, he hates Blade Runner.

Reading a book is not going to fantastical lengths

This is kind of a weird issue though. Because if a lot of people stop buying a popular character's comic because of a shitty creative team the publisher will usually switch out the creative team, but if people do the same thing to an unpopular character their comic will almost definitely be cancelled (and they will sometimes be chucked into comic book limbo for several decades). So unpopular characters kind of need characterfags most of the time.

>someone who limits themselves to a few characters and has severely bias fanboy opinion about them. For example, a "Batfag" is someone who mainly just reads Batman comics, and can get upset when Bruce doesn't do something the way he thinks he should, be it jobbing to another character or acting differently when writers shift
>A characterfag will also follow/support completely dogshit runs, no matter how bad they get, just because it's their specific character.
These two seem to contradict each other.

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Please don't drag the Metal Men into this. They're too pure and innocent for this debacle.

Not really. Because characterfags will also stick with a book just so they can bitch about it, and wait for a new team to take over.

This. You stop reading Batman because King or Snyder are doing bad work, he'll still be there in five years.
You stop reading Static and you may not see him for another 20 years.

Caring about characters is for losers so you should just follow writers and never say anything bad about them whatsoever, otherwise you are an characterfag

So do we need Billyfags for Shazam to continue?

Not with him getting a movie.
Shazam is B-list at minimum. Characterfags are necessary for C listers and below.
Otherweise you get a Cassandra Cain situation where an editor can say "oh that character is toxic"

Hey, nobody on Sup Forums ever talks about them, I had to hijack a Shazam costume thread last week or so just to get people talking about them, being a characterfag is suffering, being a characterfag for a team that shows up once every 3-4 years is even worse

You can join us L.E.G.I.O.N. fags. The three of us are really nice.

why is blatant hipsterism not bannable yet

Someone like me who buys a comic for the primary reason that their favorite character appears, even if it's just for a page.

I think most of co/ has a bit of this in them. If you follow creative teams instead of characters and most folks around here will be cool with it. However if you admit that don’t give a fuck about The FF without Kirby or ASM without Ditko or whatever, and you will be called four kinds of faggot.

>not being an autist means you're a hipster
What kind of fucked up logic is this?

Autism logic.

>(and they will sometimes be chucked into comic book limbo for several decades)

Or they become background c-list fodder.

Nerds obsess over specific things. They're not in it for the artistry. There's some kind of more abstract thing they enjoy. I'm sure an actual psychologist could explain the effect.

Not that nostalgia for a brand influencing your enjoyment of something is necessarily wrong, of course.

With comic fans specifically, I think many are more attracted to a feeling of an interconnected universe with a history that grows as they follow it than they are to the individual stories themselves. This is, obviously, mostly an illusion, as Stan Lee himself decreed in the 70's that Marvel comics should always present "the illusion of change", not actual change.

But it's been the core of comic sales since the direct market rose to prominence. This is why we have yearly events that sell tremendous amounts, why titles cross over constantly, why the 80's in particular had extremely strict continuity with editors mostly existing just to keep track of the status and location of every single character at any given time.

So the Batman fans in the OP pic, I think, are reading because they think if they stop reading they'll be missing essential pieces of some overarching plot that they've been following since they started reading Batman. Though I'm sure many, if not the same people, are also reading out of habit, or because discussing their opinions on each issue online has become a central reason for purchasing. Which is also why people are perfectly willing to pay $60+ for a video game right when it comes out when it will be $15 or less in a few years, or $10+ for a movie in theaters when in five months they'll be able to own it for the same price. There's an appeal to being part of a zeitgeist around a piece of media.

Disliking Blade Runner is not an opinion limited to hipsters, it's very common among movie fans, and they have plenty of well-explained reasons for disliking it. It's not like it's a universally acclaimed classic like Alien.

Liking the characters regardless is fine, but consuming media that you yourself know is bad and don't enjoy just because it has a character you like is pretty stupid, you can do what you want with your money, but you can see why people insult you on a Taiwanese basket weaving forum over it

Single mothers

I think you replied to the wrong post?

Alien is a pretty lackluster movie. It's a bog-standard alien monster/slasher film whose most notable elements stem from them swapping character roles. Aliens is a far more inventive and groundbreaking film.

Thank you for giving us an example of what a hipster would think of Alien