/media/ - Media

In most cases people aren't really fake fans, just casuals. There's no real answer to your question, everyone has their own views on the subject.
To give an example, I consider myself to be a fan of the "Tales of" series of video games, but I have not played the games that never got an English translation. I'm sure some would consider me to be a casual because of that, but I consider myself to be a big fan anyways.
Generally imo
>fake fan: 0 interest in the source but pretends to have some (when the brony boom happened I pretended to like MLP because my best friend did for example)
>casual: anyone who knows less about a thing than you do
>real fan: yourself and whoever knows more than you do

I just tried three times to put it into good words, and I'm still failing.

Ultimately though it comes down to a genuine love for the thing in question.
If a person loves it and wants more of it, then they're a 'true fan'.
If a person likes it and might check out more but its no big deal, they're a 'superficial fan', or a casual fan like >>4166 says
But the 'problem' group, I guess, are the ones who have barely checked out (or not at all) the thing in question, but act like the people who love it.
Those are fake fans.

Stuff like cosplaying.
That's the kind of thing that you usually only get from the big time nerds who love the thing to death.
So then someone who's never even watched it comes along and cosplays the protagonist beucase they just like the design - that rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
I personally dont care so much about that - but I think it more comes down to 'cosplays the protagonist becuase the show is super popular at the moment' more than anything. And that's kinda where the issue originally grew from - people using fandoms as a cheap popularity boost, without actually giving a damn about the fandom or the thing its a fan of.

I think what you're referring to by "fake fan" is secondaries, kinda like what >>4169 said with cosplaying. At least that's what comes to mind when I think of a fake fan, even people who engage in video games or watch anime can not be a fan if they didn't like it and don't really care about seeing or playing more, which is a valid opinion. But it is insincere when someone says they like something they have no experience with and refuse to engage with the source material for whatever arbitrary reason they choose. When it comes to manga and anime adaptations it doesn't really matter since it's the same story with roughly the same presentation unless there's a drastic difference in quality (Berserk) or it's some type of anime only spin off.

Am I the only one who doesn't really care about "fake fans"? There are different levels to liking something and I don't think it matters if someone likes something a little less than you lol. Recently a guy at a party told me he thought I was a "fake fan" of something and asked me a bunch of trivia questions to "test" me and I answered them all correctly. He just left mid-conversation in a huff because he was really hoping I'd get them wrong. I think people just really want to be the "most dedicated" or the "biggest fan" of something and it's like…chill it doesn't really matter, there's always going to be someone more dedicated than you anyway. Isn't someone who knows one song from a weird band you like better than someone who has never heard them before? At least you have something to talk about and you can recommend some more. I just don't get it.

>>4232
I don't think that many people outside the cosplay community really care. Personally I like knowing more about something I like than other people, I wouldn't ever do something autistic like quiz someone though. I'm just competitive I guess.

If being a fan means liking a thing in any capacity, then fake fans don't exist.

To me a real fake fan is someone who participates in a fandom specifically because they like the fandom rather than because they like the product the fandom is based around. I don't have a lot of personal experience with them but I've seen a lot of these kind of people online, especially with anime and games that produce a lot of memes because people see the memes and then they want to be in the "cool crowd". From personal experience when I was still in school I knew a girl who was SOOOOOOOOOO in love with Cloud X Sephiroth and it was totes her favorite ship… but she had never actually played FF7.

It reminds me of those people who say their hobbies are "playing video games and watching anime" without being specific about what they play or watch. Basically just casuals like everyone else already said in this thread. Also if they don't hunt down merch or obscure info about the thing they're a "fan" of then they're probably not true fans.

>>4872
>tfw no hobbies
>if anyone asked about my hobbies I'd be torn between nothing and just lying
Shut up. >:'C

>>4872
Guess I'm a fan of almost literally nothing at all because i never blow my money on merch. I once bought a little music box from a video game dev because I liked the music. This is the only bit of merch I've ever had.

I think it's very definitely a sliding scale and fans come in many degrees with only the tiniest portion of the scale being "fake fans".

>>4872
I've always seen the opposite, people who don't say what they play or watch are those with obscure tastes because they know other people won't know what they're talking about.

>>4886
Wow, how'd you know?? This is how I respond whenever someone asks about music or movies or what my hobbies are or whatever.

There's little point in gushing about something very specific that they're unlikely to have ever heard of before or have little interest or knowledge of. I'm always happy to gradually expand on it if they ask though, just a little at a time. If they're interested, they'll keep asking more and more questions. But if I lose their interest somewhere along the way, hopefully I haven't said so much that I sound like a big idiot.

I find it's more polite and humble this way, and I also hope I don't waste too much of their time or mine by yapping on and on.

>>4887
Yes, exactly.

Literally nothing, if you like something and engage in it you are a fan. All the rest is corporate shilling to get you to buy more products to prove something to a bunch of nerds in a shitty community who will resent you anyways regardless what you do or don´t do.

What do you mean by "fan"? You mean the simple stuff like the consumer who simply just consumes whatever media at-hand and does some sort of fanart for the time when said media peak popularity? Or the more advanced stuff where you get with the whole fan-fiction works, world-building, 1 hour analysis videos, cosplaying, and wiki journal editing of said media? Please explain in great details

Personally, I consider a fake fan to be someone who has puddle level knowledge on whatever media content they're currently consume even though they label themselves as "omg the numba 1!! biggest fan of all time!!!1!!111!" You know, the sort of person that bandwagons on whatever is currently popular or obscure to make themselves seem cultured to the other fans.

There's always going to be different kinds of fans from casual to obsessive. You just gotta know who you're talking to and how to talk to them. If you ain't vibing with them than whatever. Just change topics or drop the conversation, no biggie.