Nerd-i-Gras

Things that have cult following, and rabid fanatic fan base always has pratfalls.  Take cult literature, sci-fi, graphic novels or movies for instance.  The genre ones that were deemed good, seem to keep getting better and better in retrospect, especially on a comparative basis, but even as standalone. 

But to become panned and be rated among the worst over time, you need not be just bad.  you could be average, fair, decent or even fairly good.  But that just will not cut it.  Over a period of time, that one mildly weak link, or decent attempt at entertainment could well end up becoming the worst thing to happen to geeks/nerds/fans across the world, the pox on an otherwise worshiped franchise etc. etc.

Here is my theory:  Average common, non-obsessed, sane, non-dysfunctional people with no developmental disorders, real jobs, who aren't on major medication view, review and give their opinion of what is a normal source of temporary entertainment, and their view of that particular form (book, movie, comic) as such: something to pass the time, a few hours with.

This is then built upon by obsessed fans whose world centres around that and that thing alone.  They will dissect the offering, then put the individual components under an electron microscope, before sending the resultant anomalies for further testing at STAR labs.  And of course, as geek technology advances, more and more anomalies come to light.  And something decent becomes hated over time.  Case in point: Star Wars prequels, the last Indiana Jones movie (don't believe me, check out their original Metacritic and RT ratings).

My point is - never have too many specialists.  Specialists are obsessive.  And they take the fun out of things.

Binge - Chandler Binge

So its the age of binges now.  We binge eat, binge read and binge watch.  Compartmentalization is the key, you say?  Sadly, that is a word that only exists in the vocabulary of Indian Railways, Airlines cabin crews and HR seminars and expositions discussing organizational structure.  But i digress, which is a cardinal sin in binging.  Carry on, follow through.  Never, ever, ever digress.

We overwork, we over think, we more often than not tend to over eat (thank you, expesnive buffets and MBA classes teaching value for money concepts).  Stands to reason we would extend the same courtesy to our poor beleaguered recreational outlets.

Sure we can put fancy titles on things - longform, limited anthology release and what not (fancy titles always makes things better.  If I was Graphical Data Representation Expert, Niche Service Development Consultant, Purveyor of all things Analytics and Connoisseur of all things Caffeine, Instead of Asst. Manager - (random boring tag), I would be much happier).

It probably all started when people started using disposable stuff.  That's probably when the use and throw mentality set in.  I blame this all on the disposable camera trend.  We now lean on things, till they break, till they disgust us or we grow sick of them.  And then we move on to the next.  Wanna know the scary part?  We do that to people too, now.  Yep, Assistant Managers come in two variants.  The classic one and the Disposable one.