The difference between sports fans and boy band fans.

Quote from Serendipity2000

Same with the twilight series.

Well, some things are criticized simply because they're open to criticism. The Twilight audience is very female heavy, true, but when people criticize Twilight it's not always because of that. When you look closely at some narrative developments in the Twilight series, there's some questionable shit.

I've only watched the first movie, but a co-worker of mine summarized to me the whole story back then. When she came to the point when Jacob falls in love with Bella's newborn baby, I was like "Im sorry, what???". Honestly, that's just so messed up! :-D

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Twilight had already been done in 1987. It's called Near Dark and was directed by a woman no less. Same kind of story: an impossible human/vampire love story but definitely more violent because in this one, vampires are brutal rogues, not upstanding dudes who sparkle under the sun. So the stakes are higher. It's also more straight to the point, it doesn't spread itself over 5 movies for no reason.

For fans of vampires/werewolves crossovers, there's also the Underworld movie series. It's nothing to write home about, but it can be enjoyed by both men and women equally I think.

Quote from omnimorphism

I think the foreign aspect also plays a role here. Fans of anime are also looked down upon even when the majority is male.

Nah I see more acceptance for anime stans more than kpop nowadays. Watching anime is now becoming a cool thing which is great I think. But kpop is still far off

I think this is also based on culture. I don’t know whether it’s because I was born in a matriarchal society but women’s interests are not looked down on by men. As I always say majority of my irl armys are actually males compared to females.

But xceleste point still stands. What women like is frowned upon and a guy taking part in women’s interest is disrespected even more

Quote from Serendipity2000

I dunno why you only picked Twilight out of everything I said I mean Twilight wasn't really made to be nominated for an Oscar was it?

It certainly does have plotholes but so does fast and furious, transformers and other money milking franchises that are hardly hated as much. I think this article puts forward my problem with the whole thing a bit better.

I only quoted the Twilight part because it was the only part I had something to say about. And it was enough of an example to make my point that not everything is criticized because it caters to girls and that's it. My point was there's plenty of criticism to address to Twilight, regardless of its target audience.

Now about other movie franchises, I mostly disagree. Transformers is a despised and ridiculed movie series. Michael Bay is a very controversial figure among movie buffs and only the most unapologetic ones defend him and (some of) his movies. F&F works pretty well for some reason, even though it's loud and dumb. But girls too watch these movies anyway so...

Quote from quark12395

Nerd hobbies have been mainstream for like a decade now. There's even a joke about it in the 21 Jump Street movie.

People can mock anything, but men participating in male hobbies are still more socially acceptable than a woman doing anything. If a woman enjoys football, cars, comic books, video games they are still just as ridiculed as they'd be if they were talking about boy bands or rom coms.

True to some extent. But the fat-assed, basement-dweller nerd incel meme is still around nonetheless. See the Wendell character in Key & Peel's comedy skits.

Maybe our environments are different but I don't feel like where I live, women indulging in "male" hobbies get mocked and ridiculed. I think most nerds would find it cool to have common interests with a girl if anything.

Quote from quark12395

Maybe where you, but as a woman with nerd hobbies I can tell you it's fucking miserable interacting with most men who share them.

Well, in that case it sucks.

Quote from SandyBee3

In Sports it’s another thing and that’s probably because men demonstrate their “manliness” through it, so many sports enthusiasts are already extremely sexist and misogynistic and therefore don’t want women to interfere or won’t even watch women sports.

Yes, the sports crowd is a different beast and actually many guys don't belong in it. I'm not a sports enthusiast and even though I happened to follow some international competitions, I never cried of joy (or sadness) because our national team won (or lost). That is these players' achievements or failures, not mine. So I don't understand people who get so emotionally invested in someone else's lives, artists or sportsmen, that they enter a state of frenzy because their faves won a championship or broke charts. In both cases it's a misplaced sense of pride. People desperately want to fit in, to belong in. I don't care so much. That's why I laugh a little when some users suspect I'm jealous of their faves; I don't care that my faves are not #1, as if it would enhance my life in any way. I like my stuff to be a little niche anyway; it makes it more precious.

Huh, interesting topic.

Aside from the fact that misogyny and double standards is a clear, real thing all across the world incl in K-pop - you can already see it with how male and female idols are treated differently in scandals, regarding their looks etc by fans and non-fans, and so many more examples.

But in this case, I think reality is somewhat more nuanced.

When it comes to sports and sports fanaticism, it's been embedded in the mainstream culture of a lot of countries: people have known it and grown up with since they were child, the acceptance of it is widespread and whole nations from young to old have known to grow wild when national and global championship events of their national sports are happening.

Bottomline, it's mainstream.

With things that are mainstream culture, only the excesses (like for example hooligans killing or hurting others) will get frowned upon.

As for those sports - and other hobbies and interests - that aren't mainstream culture in a country, like pingpong, bird watching, air guitar, cosplay, you name it, they're either ignored, trivialized, regarded as an oddity, or if they're too far away from mainstream culture, looked down upon and frowned upon as 'weird' and 'aberrant'.

Switching to K-pop: in South Korea, it's part of their (mainstream) culture, a lot of things of it are broadly accepted.

However, I don't know how it is in other countries but in the US and other western countries K-pop is not (yet) part of their mainstream culture, and you'll notice that 90% of the time, Western reporting and commenting about it is singularly focused on the most negative aspects of K-pop, and highlighting those: the 'slave contracts', the many years of training (as if that only happens in K-pop) to become an idol, the suicides, the scandals etc etc.

This basically happens to all things that aren't part of mainstream culture.

But as soon as it becomes part of mainstream culture, the prejudices and premature condemnations start to fade. Just look at 'geek culture', it's become mainstream now, but in the past, 20th century, when you liked superheroes, computers, computer gaming, cosplay, goth etc, you were considered a 'nerd' or looked down upon for having such weird niche hobbies. Not anymore though (or at least less so).

Which can happen with K-pop too. Only right now it's not part of mainstream culture yet in many countries.

The difference between being sports fan and a K-pop fan is essentially that sports are part of mainstream culture in many countries and accepted throughout all layers of the population, while K-pop is not - or maybe only in South Korea and Japan.

So K-pop will get faced with a lot of prejudices and preassumptions, and fans of it too.

As for prejudices, stereotyping and generalising, that really isn't limited to gender, culture, belief, subculture, type of fandom at all - it's actually more of a human psychology thing, part of human nature.

This thread alone is already filled with all kinds of stereotyping, generalisations and biased, selective prejudices, often by the same people who say double standards is wrong and who condemn prejudices when it's about bg stans.

Thank you so much. 🙏

Quote from omnimorphism

Yes, male fans are even less accepted, but it's because it's considered a girl's thing.

This makes me sad as a man. I don't say I'm a Kpop fan when I meet new people because most people just don't care. But if I was asked, I would say it.