#blockthehate

We all know about fandom and peoples love for their specific show, movie, characters, or texts, but there is another side to this where people hate against the specefic media. Anti-fandom is when someone focuses on a source text purely for the entertainment value of mocking it. Most of times these people were not ever fans of the riginal source to begin with, but they were fans who became increasingly angered or repelled by the source and it led to them creating derivative works about the piece of media. Lots of times they try to parody or rail against the media. 

You may be confused as to how someone can keep up with  specific media just to hate on it, but it is something that has increased, especially with the rise of social media. For every great fandom, there is an equally vocal anti-fandom, that is bringing it down a notch or two. Anti-fandomers will introduce upon fandoms and try to tear them down. They will argue back and forth with true fans and do anything possible to bring down that specific media. These people will spread rumors, bash the media, and harass other fans. The most wild part about it is that while most of these people are just haters, some are still truly dedicated fans who just find enjoyment in finding the little things about the media that upset them or that they dont like. 

There are many examples of anti-fandom and I think for me where I see it most is within sports. I actually see it a lot between Vanderbilt and Tennessee fans. These fans are true anti-fans who have no desire to appreciate or care for the other schools sports teams, city, or anything else that resembles the opposite school. Twitter is where most of the beef goes down and where I find the most hate between the two. It is so bad that it is to the point where the hate doesn’t even come when the two schools face eachother. Tennessee can post something about their win against a non-conference team, and Vandy fans will talk trash under their post. This then leads to back and forth between the two fanbases under the post. These anti-fans have no desire to appreciate the other fanbase, and they purposely try to bring the other side down.

On the other hand, there are anti-fans in sports that arre still major fans, yet they pick and choose when they are going to support their specific team. You see this a lot when someones team loses a game or when a player on a specific team has a bad game. When its good its good, but when something bad happens, thats where the anti-fandom comes to play. For example I remember one playoff game the New Orleans Saints were playing the Vikings, and the Vikings scored on the last play of the game in the playoffs. The Saints safety, Marcus Williams, missed the game winning tackle and Saints fans tore him apart on social media. However, he had been one of the best safeties in the league that year and the whole year he was being praised, and all it took was one mistake for him to get dragged.