Saturday, June 27, 2015

Word from the Herd: Hatedoms (aka mean girl syndrome)

**Just a quick note first: Yall I'm crazy behind in blog visits. We had an internet outage in my area and now I'm working on the auction (and making 50+ graphics by Monday) now that I have the internet back. I promise I haven't forgotten yall. I'll be around as soon as I have them done.


Earlier this month I reviewed a book and got a nice front row seat of the phenom known as hatedoms. 
Ah, yes, it was "lovely". And yall are gonna get to hear about it. lol

'Hatedom: A Fandom that is dedicated to hating a work, idea, community or author, instead of loving it.


It left me rather stunned with how other readers behave and that it's just...accepted for some authors and okay to hate on them and no one says anything about it. 

It all started because I reviewed Laurell K Hamilton's newest book, Dead Ice.
And I had the nerve. The NERVE! to actually like the book and review it as such over on Amazon.

I posted my review over there like I do any other book that I feature on the blog. And then I got hit by a Hatedom.

See. It's cool to hate Laurell K Hamilton, don't ya know?
Stop by the reviews page over there and see what I mean.
For reviews over on Amazon it's not uncommon to get 1 or 2 unhelpful votes for each. (I have a special 'fan' of my own who likes to vote mine down in batches lol) It happens but it's not too big of a deal

But this time. Oh, this time within a couple hours I'd gotten 20 unhelpful votes.

20! And it dropped my percentage 2 points and my ranking by the end of it a few hundred. All because I left an actual review and didn't rail on the author like everyone else.

And unlike last time I got hit by a mass of unhelpful votes it wasn't the author egging it on.
Nope. This time it was other readers who love to hate Hamilton and anyone who supports her.

I'm just using her for an example for this post but other authors like Charlaine Harris and Maya Banks, for example, have a little bit of it happening too. I haven't seen one as strong as Hamilton's though. 

Anyways, about 14 books ago, Hamilton changed her writing style for the series.
It went from urban fantasy/paranormal romancey to erotic paranormal/erotica.

And people flipped their shit.

Some hated her new books. Which is fine.
Normal people would move the fuck on after a book or two and noticing 'eh, maybe not my style anymore'. 
And I'm sure some did. But there's a large number that just can't seem to do that. And a hatedom was created where it's cool to bash the author and the series while claiming to be former lovers of said author/series. And I'm not talking about in every day conversation where someone would say 'oh yeah, I used to read that series but not anymore, just not for me'. I mean HATE.
And yet...they keep reading the books.

They keep supposedly buying them...just to trash them in reviews.

It's all very "mean girls"ish and just amazes me.

They found someone to pick on and they're going to do so mercilessly.

They're going to rally behind the other haters and attack those that still enjoy the series.

This makes NO fucking sense to me.

If you hate a series or an author....move on!

It has been nearly 15 years since the series changed styles. 15 fucking years. That's a lot of damn years and a lot of damn books. And yet people are STILL fanatical in their hate for the series and author and seem to relish ripping it apart while lamenting how it's nothing like the 'good old days'. Again...15 freaking years ago and 14 books! Move the hell on!

I am ALL for leaving a review if you don't like a book. We discussed that back at the start of the year. But this. This is different. And in my opinion, this just makes you an asshole. I don't get how it starts really. Why it's become acceptable to behave this way against a few select authors and so hardly anyone says anything about how shameful the behavior is. It's just brushed over for some authors as par for the course. I think that's almost what bothers me most. Readers picking on each other over liking a book or not and the fact that it's just okay to be mean and hateful about an author if it's the "right one" to hate on. It had me feeling very merargy! at my fellow readers and quite disappointed in them as well.

Have you ever seen a hatedom in progress?





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