I saw an interesting video the other day about BookTok, because apparently several of these women are straight-out saying that they skip "long paragraphs" or sometimes anything that's not dialogue, because they want to get to the romance and the sexin. And of course they consoom all the shiny limited editions of exactly the same book.
Literally joined just to say this.
>Entire community centered around reading
FOMO in any form is usually never worth paying extra or whatever it costs to have a "limited run" item. usually you can find almost anything related to collecting on eBay, and even then, if it's not at a price you like or an auction is going crazy, you can wait and be patient. Anything I've bought that I collect as I too am a collector of plastic bullshit I don't need, wasn't worth FOMO hype and I was able to find it at a price I was comfortable paying by simply waiting. Another trap I see a lot of consoomer types or someone addicted to being "on the latest trend" when it comes to collecting is just collecting everything, no matter if they actually want it or not. The golden rule of collecting, no matter what it is, is only collect what you want. It's that simple.
They wrap all this up as being "more accessible" and "gatekeeping bad"/"gatekeeping is bullying". So it's not just that it's acceptable to do things on easy mode, it's existing within a whole ecosystem of weakness as virtuousness.
And this is why gatekeeping a hobby should still be enforced, more or less. It's superficial if you only joined the hobby just to be a part of the "kool kidz klub" in the first place without knowing what the hobby is about. Even worse if someone injects their socio-political beliefs in the hobby itself.
Content creators are more or less guilty of this, they want viewers to know that they already got the latest item for popularity points and engagement.
This is a microcosm of current society. It's not seen as a positive trait to take charge of or protect what you care about in general.
I'll give them a pass on this honestly, it's a calculated investment in their case. It's a lot harder to justify when you don't routinely make a profit on this behavior.
Ironically its these people who end up gatekeeping the most in the end, telling original hobbyists how they are also totally heckin valid because of this rule, this rule, and that rule that they've pulled out their ass to justify their poserism.
That is absolutely also a thing. I have seen more than a handful of people who are real sticklers for the rules to the detriment of the activity. (e.g. People who play tabletop games "by the book" and don't just not have "house rules", but who will adamantly reject them if proposed.)
Most of that shit is a giant scam of sellers bidding up their own listings to inflate prices.
Homestuck was one of the first to fall to this shit. Already been brought up countless times but the current fandom" is just gatekeeping troons and zoomers who never read the actual comic or the comics and just went off video essaysist "explanations" of the "deep themes" and shit before going in with pre baked opinions long after basting in the "community" for some amount of time if they ever actually get around to reading the comic. But oh no! They might see a SLUR! YIKES! Don't worry ,they have ANTI SLUR EXTENSIONS for that now! Can't consoom if I see a naughty bad word like say uhhhhh FAG!
Ah yes, the classic webcomic gay joke. I mean there were others but that one seems to have had the most staying power for a number of reasons.
Or the guys who hoarded Speed, or Titanic, or even Click. You get the picture. When most collectors are buying games and hardware; posers by the same DVD because no one cares about old movies.
Fanart was allowed by the creator, but there was a stint of time where his psycho GF or someshit was just false reporting shit forcopyright left and right online from what I remember. it started getting really merch heavy in terms of t shirts towards the end but then died downtill it reared back up as an eternal milk machine with forfansbyfans to the pointof even having a fucking "extended zodiac quiz" that's sole function was to sell t shirts that were 10 dollars more than the regular t shirts for some reason. Then it sputtered out once that site died.
HS was cool in the sense that like MLP, people made OCs in correlation with the medium. Furries can and will make any and all things with no restrictions.
Nah Homestuck wasn't cool "because of the OCs." It was cool because you got to watch a webcomic where some dumbass stumbles around his house trying to do shit and it somehow spirals into a goofy adventure where the world blowing up is really only the start of things. The user suggestion aspect of MSPA before they shut it down permanently at some point during homestuck was one of the best fucking creative decisions a webcomic has ever made.
