Honestly, was it possible that they could be pulling back to shield themselves from you? It's been my experience that TF fans can be a moody, argumentative bunch with little provocation. Possibly because the canon is so flawed, contradictory, disperate, and open to interpretation that it lends itself to such snarky snafus? The people that gave you the cold shoulder might have had a couple bad interactions with TF fans in the past. I know I have.

 

Nerds hate other nerds for reasons that make no sense.

Okay, too general.

PEOPLE hate other people for reasons that make no sense. And why?

Because they're competition for resources, money, jobs, plastic figures, you name it.

When you're one player in a 7 billion player game, sometimes you exhibit hate on a group because they're easier to hate then just one guy.

At least, that's my theory about why Racism, murder, or terrorism happens.

So, to answer your question, yes, Geeks do look down on TF Geeks, not out of a good reason, but simply because TF Geeks exist.

 

I always thought Furries were on the bottom rung of the nerd ladder. I've never heard of anyone looking down on Transformers fans before.

 

I think what doesn't help is that I can't think of any one solid classic or largely respected piece of fiction which would work as an entry point or to show off to someone who is uninitiated and therefore minus our nostalgic forgiving of all transformers fiction side.

I love G1 to pieces as its fun but it falls to pieces when placed under even mild criticism. Beast wars kind of works but takes a while to get started which is crucial in winning people over. Animated and prime are pretty good entry points but not perfect.

The current idw comics are in my opinion the easily the best transformers fiction ever, but you really need lots of knowledge of transformers mythology to get into idw's continuity, for example the amazing reveal at the end of the shadowplay arc would be lost on a new fan who didn't even know who that senator was revealed to be.

Pacific Rim has shown us that not all giant robot movies have to be embarrassing low brow razzie bating rubbish but sadly that's just the way things have worked out

 

I'm a reformed heavy metal geek.

 

This, yes, was one of the undercurrents of the conversations I was feeling.

This seems pretty much true to me. Same kind of folks with only nominal differences.

Yes. It is very much non-geek-chic for a nerd to like anything Michael Bay, and sometimes anything financially successful is looked down upon for the reason that it is financially successful and therefore can't be "deep" enough.

I was definitely sensing that this was part of it. Criticism for merchandising concerns is hard to take from a guy who's carrying a lightsabre, wearing a "Rock Her with the Spocker" hat, a Super Mario Bros. jacket, a Doctor Strange t-shirt, Pokemon pyjama pants, Final Fantasy wrist bands, Daredevil flip-flops and a Marvel Comics condom with Stan Lee's head on the end of it, but I guess everybody wants to feel superior in some way.

All very "gotcha" arguments for an intellectually superior geek, right?

That's more 80's nostalgia than Transformers geekdom, though. Plenty of the guys in the tight Decepticon shirts can't tell Shockwave from Soundwave. The 80's are hip now just like the 60's were in the early 90's.

Definitely some of that going on, to be sure. Very little acknowledgment of the headier stuff from the comics or the core concepts.

I don't think that was it. Usually when I meet a TF fan in person, we both end up trying to find common ground. Online's different.

Very true, though I am not among those praising Pacific Rim, I agree with everything else. Just because it's big robots without Michael Bay's style of humor, doesn't mean it did anything for Transformers in particular. I felt the rest of the movie was bland and uninspired, so I don't point to it like some guys and say "Yeah Bay, that's how you should do it".

 

It counts as part of the nerd ladder?

 

Considering the pathetic shitstorm MP-10 and MP-Soundwave generated it's not really hard to see why other fandoms look down upon Transformers fans.

 

It depends on who you ask, really. Some say it does, some say it doesn't. But no matter white side of the fence you're on Furries have been the internet's whipping boys for years now. I've never seen any group that has been more thoroughly mocked and/or reviled than the Furries. Some of it is unfair. But there are also those Furries that make even the most rabid, whiny Transformers fanboy look like model citizens. The lesson here? Don't write off a whole group because of the actions of a few.

 

I can't see why, we are so graceful and sophisticated when we bitch, moan, cry, whine, complain, curse and throw hissy fits over childern's toys.

 

So for those of us who are uniformed... what was the shitstorm over? I'm curious to hear what would cause other fans to look down upon TF Fans because of it.

 

The TF fandom, as a whole, is no better or worse than any other toy collecting fandom.

 

Let the other so-called "geeks" look down on us. We got the coolest toys suckas!!!

 

I would say TF geeks look down on other TF geeks, especially on Twitter.

 

This can apply to enthusiasts involved in one fandom or hold devotion as essential to their identity, but what of individuals involved in several fan communities? I never noticed a nerd hierarchy divided by fandom rather, a division in how fan interests are displayed (with cosplay and fanficition being the ‘geekier’ activities).

 

Yeah, everyone wants to feel superior, especially in an area they feel self-conscious in. "I may be a geek, but least I'm not as bad as X."

I can kind of see where TF would be looked down upon by some other fandoms, in that TF fandom is really more toy-based than the others. Sure, the others have plenty of toys, but it's really the fiction the drives comic characters or Star Trek or whatnot. With TF geeks, the figures are really the forefront and the fiction the secondary thing.

I suspect many a self-conscious geek tries to find some justification for their geekiness as something other than a futile attempt to recapture childhood in an adult world that scares them, and many seem to hide behind the fiction being in some way high-minded or grown-up, whereas TF can't do that quite as much.

In the end, the truly self-aware and confident geek has no need to look down on other fandoms of any sort. They can be comfortable with who they are and not take it to heart with people sneer at them for having a hobby that isn't drinking, gambling, sports, womanizing, or some combination thereof.

After all, at least we can agree that we're cooler than those Lord of the Rings wierdos, amirite?

 

I think its because transformer fans may not be as geeky/nerdy as other fandoms.

to me this isn't really a bad thing.

 

My robots > your force, federation, fur, etc.

Human nature to want to look down on something and want to be "alpha", everyone deep down wants to be megatron status and top of the food chain.

Plus like others have said ours was based on toy sells vs some repeated and slightly modified story that has exsisted in some manner since humans began talking and written.