Many people today engage with media not for the sake of genuine enjoyment or appreciation but rather as a means to cultivate an online presence or participate in a fandom that gives them a sense of identity. This phenomenon has led to a shallow and performative culture surrounding entertainment, where the discourse is often dominated by surface-level engagement, manufactured outrage, and tribalism rather than meaningful discussion or critique.
Instead of forming personal opinions based on firsthand experience, these individuals latch onto popular narratives, memes, and secondhand takes to align themselves with a particular community. This fosters an environment where people claim to be passionate about a game, movie, or show, yet their actual understanding of it is limited to what they have absorbed from social media discourse. As a result, the conversation around media is frequently reduced to cyclical, bad-faith arguments, where criticism is often driven by online consensus rather than personal experience.
One of the most frustrating consequences of this is the rise of so-called "fans" who spend more time complaining about the very media they claim to love than actually engaging with it. This behavior is particularly evident in gaming communities, where people will vehemently argue about mechanics, story choices, or developer decisions without ever having played the game themselves. A prime example is the Persona series, where many self-proclaimed fans are quick to engage in endless debates about which game is superior or what aspects are supposedly "ruined" by newer entries, despite lacking firsthand experience with the titles they discuss.
This culture of performative fandom, where being part of a community takes precedence over enjoying the media itself, has had a negative impact on how entertainment is consumed and discussed. It has contributed to an online space where reactionary discourse, hyperbolic negativity, and trend-chasing overshadow genuine appreciation and critique. The end result is an audience with increasingly shallow tastes, driven more by social validation than by a true passion for the art they claim to love.