Evil Figment
You are not the target audience.
by , 4th June 2012 at 03:29 PM (1347 Views)
I have to admit, I have a problem with internet fandoms. (And it's not exclusive to pokémon)
It's the general sense of entitlement fans seems to come up with at the drop of a hat. It's found in just about every fandom, and it,s ridiculous.
In short, the idea seems to go like this: "We are fans of the show, and the show wouldn't be as popular without us, therefore it's an insult/attack for the creators to take the show in different directions from what we want!"
It's bollocks.
1)A show doesn't survive on its internet fandom.
There are a few thousand active members on Bulbagarden forums. Numbers vary, but this seems about average for a discussion forum. Even putting all the major forums together, and assuming none of their active members overlap, we might not even reach the five digits. Even if we do, these numbers include a lot of people not into the anime - game fans, etc.
You don't build a show by appealing to a few thousand people. In fact, a show built to appeal to only a few thousand specific people, is going to be a dead show pretty fast, because it won't have the numbers to justify the money being sunk into producing it.
All the more so given that...
2)The internet audience is NOT representative of the overall audience.
Harsh, but true. The internet audience (especially on forums) grossly oversamples certain demographic group (call it...teenagers and young adults, introverted, prone to obsessive fascination with a show). And, of course, it grossly oversamples the "obsessing over the show" demographic, because the people who simply like the show, without being obsessed about it, aren't going to be joining online discussion forums - they'll just tune it once a week, watch their show, maybe buy a few items of merchandise.
At the end fo the day, because of the sheer number balance, it's also that second group that's going to be responsible for the success or failure of the show.
This is especially true for cases where...
3)The internet fandom is completely outside the target audience
And yes, pokémon is one of them. Pokémon aims (per ShoPro's webpage) at preschool to elementary school age kids. (My Little Pony aims even lower).
If you are outside the show's target audience, you have no right to expect the show to be made according to what you'd like to see. Period. Complaining that the writers are "pissing in your face" or similar when the problem is that you're outside the target audience altogether is in no way, frm or shape justifiable; it's self-centered to the point of idiocy.
Oh, maybe you'll get the passing nod here and there (or every other scene, as in some episodes of Friendship is Magic), but the show's plots, characters and level of continuity are going to be made with the target audience in mind, not you. Continuity will be kept to what can easily be explained within the episode (eg, either in the "Previously on..." segment, or directly referenced during the discussion), or to throw-away gags that don't impact the plot. Characters, rather than growing and evolving, will tend to revert back to their default self more often than not. Not because the writers don't care, but because the character was created the way they were in order to fill a certain role in the show's formula.
If they stop filling that role, the show's formula doesn't work anymore, and since the show's formula is what sold it to begin with, the writers are not going to want to do that without a damn good reason. A damn good reason would be flagging numbers. Not "internet fandom outside the target audience upset".
Bottom line here: accept the show for what it is. Don't expect the writers to change target audience to YOU, because that's not going to happen. Ever. You can still, of course, criticize specific elements of the show; writers are not perfect. But never forget who the target audience is, and never delude yourself in thinking the target audience could (or should) be you instead.
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