Help the Internet Decide Who Has the Absolute Worst Fan Base

We love fandom. This site only exists because of fandom and because everyone that writes (and reads) here has their own specific passions, but I think we can all agree that the dark side of fandom is really, really dark—like, harassing-women-off-Twitter, doxxing-fellow-fans, petty-petitions-to-remove-creators-that-don’t-give-us-what-we-want sorts of dark. Fandom is a beautiful thing, but when it turns bad, it’s toxic.

Now, The Onion and Clickhole writer Michelle Spies has created a bracket tournament to decide which is truly the worst fan base, so I hope you’ve all been helping root out the toxic elements in your fandom of choice!

In this tournament, fandoms face off against one another in a contest of true toxicity. Also, yes, she knows she missed a big one.

Spies says over 17,000 people voted in the first round.

We’re currently in Round Four of voting, and there are some tough competitors in there. As Spies notes, fans of individual men are largely dominating larger fandoms. INTERESTING.

Here are a few of the remaining fandoms:

Rick and Morty: Great show. Fans started an actual riot over a McDonald’s condiment.

Elon Musk: Elon Musk stans beat Fortnite stans, which is a feat. I can tell you from personal experience, writing anything even mildly negative about a Fortnite streaming star comes with a hefty dose of personal insults, but Musk’s “fans” are a particularly vicious breed of terrible.

Big Bang Theory: Have you ever told a Big Bang Theory fan that the show might not be the best depiction of real-life nerds? It doesn’t often go well.

Supernatural: I’m pretty far removed from this fandom, but when I asked the TMS Slack channel if this fan base was toxic, I was met with overwhelming, scornful laughter. So I think that’s a yes.

Woody Allen: Wow, I didn’t think I’d have to acknowledge Alec Baldwin twice in one day, but these seem like a pretty good example. (TKAMB = To Kill a Mockingbird, BTW. Mayella = the girl who falsely accuses a black man of rape.)

My guess is it’s come down to Rick & Morty and Elon Musk. What do you all think?

(via Michelle Spies on Twitter, image: Adult Swim / Marvel / Christian Petersen/Getty Images / CBS)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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