Is anybody getting sick of the Rifftrax Forum

[Famous Mortimer]

bathtub said:

And just because crazies like us might have Troll 2 on DVD doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot, they are targetting a slightly wider market. And availability to the general public counts for a lot, I know I couldn't go rent Troll 2 if I wanted to. I am sure sales will count too. If stuff like Crossroads sells well under say Top Gun, then we will get less Britney and more Dangerzone. It is all early days.

Rifftrax, by its very nature, is an entirely online community. I just bought a copy of Troll 2 off eBay for about $3 and it's also available from Netflix, apparently. The "general public" are not fans of Rifftrax.

[BathTub]

They don't specifically need to target us, they already have us.

/queue up posts about how much people hate rifftrax and are never listening to anymore

[gbeenie]

jackie said:

As for the Riff-trax board? They were alright. They didn't strike me as particularly mean or particularly nice. Not as commited to Rifftrax as we are to Mst3k. They haven't gone through the experience of watching a show for years that few understood, falling in love with it, and then fighting the tyranny of Comedy Central and Sci-Fi executives to keep the show on. They haven't seen the blood shed of the Joel vs. Mike wars and then the feeling of conquest as we realize we could still watch those shows from traders.

In other words they aren't Misites.

What the hell are you talking about? I don't know a single RiffTrax fan who isn't also a MSTie. Not ONE. Certainly not among anyone I know.

What is it about subcultures eating their own? Even in a community as tiny as MST3K/RiffTrax fans, why do some people have the need to feel superior to others with whom they have SO MUCH in common?

The RiffTrax fans you're bagging on are exactly the same as you. EXACTLY. Hell, a bunch of the people on the RiffTrax forum also complain about good movies getting The Treatment (personally, I love it).

For any other haters out there, consider yourselves on notice: you are NOT better than the people on the RiffTrax forum. I enjoy coming to both places, but the attitude I'm seeing here doesn't exactly fill me with warm fuzzies.

We are all of us the Children of the Riff. The sooner we realize that and start treating each other like the brothers and sisters we are, the better off everyone will be.

[Hugh Beaumont]

Um, buttons get pushed much?

[gbeenie]

rexdarteskimospy said:

Um, buttons get pushed much?

I tend to say what's on my mind. And I hate the whole attitude of "well, you're not a real fan like ME."

[Famous Mortimer]

I haven't been since they locked the thread about Lowtax participating, then when I complained said Rifftrax was like Wal-Mart and I shouldn't expect any justification for any of their decisions.

I'll still buy most of the riffs, but the forum is absolutely chock full of "notice me, Mike!" and "nothing Mike does or says could possibly be wrong" and that attitude just bores me to tears. I won't bother visiting the forum again.

[gammer]

famousmortimer said:

I'll still buy most of the riffs, but the forum is absolutely chock full of "notice me, Mike!" and "nothing Mike does or says could possibly be wrong" and that attitude just bores me to tears. I won't bother visiting the forum again.

I hate that "Mike is always right" attitude. I try to convince people to be honest when they write their thoughts on a specific trax.

I'm also starting to get very annoyed with certain members there, who are posting just to watch their post count grow. There was even a thread made by the mods that asked if they should scrap the post count idea to see if it would cut down on the post spamming. I guess certain members feel that if they have the most post counts, then they will be Mike's special buddy or be in a privileged group or something???

My participation in the RiffTrax forum has certainly slowed in the last couple of weeks.

[Tarantulas]

The Rifftrax mods occasionally lock threads, but really don't make a habit of it. But I do agree, the "we don't have to justify our actions" comment smacked highly of dickery. It might have been worded differently if nothing else.

Threads get locked when they really no longer serve a purpose. The Lowtax thread essentially came down to a "this is how I feel" followed by a "this is why you can't feel that way" type thing. It was serving no purpose, so it got locked. If you notice, it did get reopened for some final statements and then relocked.

I think the "notice me, Mike!" days are over. Many of the original people who got involved with the site (myself included) never had an aspirations of getting all chummy with Mike but instead just wanted to support this new project.

[gammer]

BTW Spidy, I didn't mean it was you when I said I was annoyed at people posting just to watch their post count grow.

But I think you know who I am referring to.

[Tarantulas]

gammer73 said:

BTW Spidy, I didn't mean it was you when I said I was annoyed at people posting just to watch their post count grow.

But I think you know who I am referring to.

Oh I didn't interpret it as an insult... I think we all know who you were referring to.

[BathTub]

Oh god yes.

[conoratrifftrax]

famousmortimer said:

I haven't been since they locked the thread about Lowtax participating, then when I complained said Rifftrax was like Wal-Mart and I shouldn't expect any justification for any of their decisions.

The post was locked because untrue things were being said about Rich that were unrelated to his participation in the RiffTrax of Troll 2, things that as Tarantulas said, were later retracted and appended to the discussion. Criticisms of him have been plentiful since the RiffTrax came out and are encouraged, whereas slander is not. Interpreting Erik's analogy about Wal Mart as a direct comparison between the two companies was not the intent of his post, and most people hopefully realized that. The reason the thread was locked was explained, and quite apparent I feel.

I think that at the forum we have quite a unique environment and it is fun to keep a finger on the pulse of fans. Hopefully more minor things such as people posting frivilously or the rare locked thread won't discourage people from participating in a unique and enjoyable environment.

[gbeenie]

famousmortimer said:

I haven't been since they locked the thread about Lowtax participating, then when I complained said Rifftrax was like Wal-Mart and I shouldn't expect any justification for any of their decisions.

Sorry, Mortimer, but I would have locked that thread too. The discussion had seriously veered far away from anything even remotely on-topic, and became EXTREMELY repetitive, to boot. As for your "contributions" to that discussion, after you stated your opinion (which I think you did pretty well), your subsequent posts came across as completely self-indulgent; far more indicative of an abiding love affair with the sound of one's own voice than of a sincere desire to contribute to the dialogue. Also, your tone in that discussion smacked of an expectation on your part that your strenuous objections to Lowtax's participation should somehow carry more weight than most posters' more-reasonable attitude of "wait and see". "Notice me Mike!" indeed. Obviously, these observations are not based on my knowing you personally, which I don't, but that's just the way it all came across to me.

famousmortimer said:

I'll still buy most of the riffs, but the forum is absolutely chock full of "notice me, Mike!" and "nothing Mike does or says could possibly be wrong" and that attitude just bores me to tears. I won't bother visiting the forum again.

See, that just hasn't been my experience. Maybe it's because I only showed up there a few weeks ago, and not at the beginning, but I've found people to mostly be pleasant, and interested in decent conversation. Frankly, I've felt more attitude and negativity coming from this forum. I realize that, in all likelihood, is a symptom of my own inexperienced (in this forum) perception, so I'm trying not to judge. But I still fail to be given so much as one reasonable explanation why the people in both forums can't get along perfectly well.

[Hugh Beaumont]

gbeenie said:

rexdarteskimospy said:

Um, buttons get pushed much?

I tend to say what's on my mind. And I hate the whole attitude of "well, you're not a real fan like ME."

Yes, but I know Jackie well enough to know that she isn't elitist. Jackie Frost is one of the nicest members of this board and my point is, primarily, that you might try to learn who you're speaking with before you make too many assumptions about the intent behind someone's post(s). I'm sure that Jackie would clarify her statements (which do appear potentially inflammatory, from a point of view) if she were here more often. Effectively, I'm saying, "Chill out."

Jackie does, however, have a point: long-time MST3K fans have gone through a lot with the show and certainly, in many cases, would be much more committed and have much more personally invested in MST than a Rifftrax fan would typically have invested in Rifftrax. Most devoted MSTies have many, many fond memories of the show and, if they've been fans for years, their love for it obviously runs much deeper than it would for someone who's just discovered something that was started within the past year or so, regardless of how fond of it they are. It has nothing to do with one group being better than the other - it has everything to do with experience and personal history, an old oak versus a sapling. Also, Rifftrax is the sort of thing to more easily attract casual fans than MST3K does, since it deals with modern movies and is much more heavily promoted than MST3K (these days, at least; at MST's height, it was, of course, fairly well-promoted for a time), so she has a point there, too.

It's a bit much to say that they aren't MSTies, but many of them probably aren't hardcore fans, even if they enjoy the show. Besides, names like "MSTie" or "Trekker/Trekkie" have always, in my view, indicated a level of, uh, hardcoreness... hardcorousity? Otherwise, they're just someone who happens to enjoy the show. Not a bad thing, but we're talking about differing levels of fandom.

[In_Stereo]

sampo said:

(Or at least as bad as Ann Coulter)

Don't you start with me.