General Fandom Questions (and sigh, more on computer decision making)

[shadowkat]

The poll that I did at lunch regarding which computer I should buy - a Mac or a PC is in a dead-heat. Five to Five (not Five by Five...unfortunately, and only Buffy fans will get that joke.) And it reflects perfectly how I feel about getting a new computer - I honestly don't know which would be the better choice. I'm bloody tired of spam and spyware, that much I can tell you. But...am leery of a new gadget. OTOH - been told that you can transfer Windows items to a Mac. Guy at work told me that his friend who is a financial analyst won't buy anything but Macs now - and yes you can use spreadsheets. The new Mac Pro - will use both OS/X operating system and Windows. I don't know. I don't really want to spend 2K on a computer right now - I'm still saving for a condo-co-op, albeit it is looking grim. And my salary appears to be stuck in place like everyone elses - well everyone who isn't in the entertainment/marketing/ad profession (those guys either are multi-millionaires, billionaires or dead broke. Weird profession.)

So, frustrated, I posted the same question more or less to my Facebook - which has a lot of tech heads on it (most of whom are in my family or former co-workers). But Facebook is weird - you can post and no one will notice.

Fandom related Questions:

1. Question for the Whedon fandom - assuming there are still Whedon fans on my flist? Do you think that Whedon resented Angel and Spike? That he truly intended Buffy to be a black and white universe where vampires represented disease and sickness and evils of immortality and nothing else? That the network and David Greenwalt are the sole reasons we got Angel the series and Spike for more than four episodes? And if it weren't for their considerable popularity - they would have been staked as originally planned? Finally - how do you know what the writer was thinking? Are we merely speculating based on assorted comments from actors (because we all know how reliable they are) or interviews with the writer and/or writers themselves? And to what degree is this information even reliable? Can we ever know? [I don't think so personally, but am curious what others think.]

2. This is a more General Question - that relates to both fandoms and well just anything that makes you want to rant on your blog - but is decidedly of the cultural persuasion and not, about politics, your co-worker, or your commute (because we all know why people rant about that. To rant is human.) By cultural persuasion - I mean music, art, books, tv shows, theater,
film...fictional characters and/or stories and their associated fans.

What turns you off? Really makes you decide - okay I'm done - I don't like this writer any more or don't like that character or can't stand that fictional relationship or
that tv show? Is it something you can pin-point or just a gut reaction? Do you know? Can you really explain it? Or better yet - do you even want to explain it? And what will make you want to scream at an innocent fan shipping or loving or adoring that character, relationship or tv show? Is it how they are shipping it or loving it? The mere fact that they are loving it? Or the reasons they've expressed for loving it? (I'd say why they are loving it - but I don't believe we can know that - unless people tell us and even then, I've seen people online completely misread the explanations given.) Do you know why it pisses you off?

What I'm really curious about - I guess - is what motivates us to dogmatically launch into a full-scale attack or rant on a fictional (relation)ship, character, or fan response to it. Sort of the opposite of the squee post. What motivates the rant post? Because let's face it - rant posts are more likely to back-fire and cause us pain. (Who here has defriended someone, banned someone, or been defriended as the direct result of a rant post they did? Show of hands? Oh come on, I can't be the only one, at least I hope I'm not the only because, ahem, that would be embarrassing.) So we have to be pretty motivated to launch into one, right? What motivates us to do it?

[I know those are complicated questions. Hoping people will respond, because I don't really know the answers myself. You can either answer in the comments or in your own blog - if your own blog - please provide a link so I can read it. ]

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Well I hope I understand the questions (it is late at night and my brain doesn't always function properly) but here goes:

#1. my impression from my viewing of the TV shows AND from listening to commentary AND reading interviews is that Joss loved both Spike and Angel, he (Joss in my opinion) believes in redemption and welcomed the opportunity to explore what redemption would mean for a monster... I think Joss also thought that just gaining a soul doesn't guarentee redemption or good behavior. And exploring mistakes, and no-win situations, were always going to be part of the package for Spike and Angel but also for Buffy and Giles and Xander and Willow and everyone....
JMPO (just my personal opinion) of course.

I think I could probably pull out scenes from the shows, as well as quotes from commentaries and interviews to support my belief in Joss' affection for Spike & Angel. But at the same time I wouldn't waste my time arguing with someone who feels that Joss hates his characters. It is pointless to argue something which will always come down to personal points of view. I would avoid websites where someone is constantly arguing w/my POV just because it would be irritating without any possibility of either one of us changing the other's mind.

#2. In my experience the thing that usually turns me off of a book, movie and/or TV show is hackneyed boring dialogue and plots and two dimensional cardboard cut out characters. I become disgusted with repetitious plots and the feeling that I always know what is going to happen next (which is a danger with most TV shows since they want 'stand alone' stories that always end up at the same point).
I ranted and complained about 'Lost' because I felt that they kept telling me the same background stories about the same characters, so that I wanted to fast forward through more and more of the episodes (I stopped watching fairly early in the series... I heard it got better, but I no longer cared).
I ranted and complained about 'Heroes' because they took characters who had seemed layered and interesting but then kept twisting them about so that they seemed to have no personality at all....

I also have a huge torture button... and personally I felt that '24' was way too gung ho about secret government agencies that invade privacy, break international laws and engage in torture. I have to confess that I never attempted to watch or like the show, I just hated the premise too much.

I have to confess that as far as I know the only time I've been defriended was about politics, but I have defriended quite a few people who became too vocally anti-Joss or anti-Spike or annoying me with their politics... I don't bother to read that many blogs, and I don't waste my time on blogs that irritate me.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

But at the same time I wouldn't waste my time arguing with someone who feels that Joss hates his characters. It is pointless to argue something which will always come down to personal points of view.

True. I've discovered this as well. It's also apparently true when it comes down to computer ownership. Very odd. Mac owners or PC owners who became Mac owners - posted a comment, PC owners did not.
But the rivalry has a feeling very similar to Spike vs. Angel.
Who knew?

I keep reminding myself that people think differently than I and each other do. I'm highly analytical and that does affect how I view things. I've been analyzing tv shows, books, plays and films since I can remember - my mother is highly analytical, as is my father. We spend hours analyzing the plot of book, film or tv show - each characters motivations and often predict what will happen next. So for me, situational tv series - where the biggest risk is well situational (ie. put the characters in jeopardy, kill off a character, or flip them back in time) tends to bore me if they don't take a huge risk with the character as well. I like it when they take huge risks with character arcs. I like to be surprised - and it is hard to surprise me. And well, I'm admittedly a frustrated psychologist/philosopher at heart. But, after stating all that - I don't think it is that easy to explain why I like what I do and really dislike what I do. I'm moody. My tastes change based on mood and what I'm thinking or doing at any given time. So, unpredictable. And it is hard to remember that other people may differ, they don't think like me, and even though we are watching the same thing - they may be focusing on a part of the story, that I'm completely oblivious to, while I'm focusing on a part that they are.

Which is actually why it's so fun to get or read other's takes. Especially when they vary from my own. It can be frustrating too.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and for the advice on the computer. Emailed Alice - who suggested I ask you, since you've had both. My cousin, Heather, for some reason thinks the learning curve on Mac's is steep, but everyone including my brother vehmentally disagrees. My brother - I sort of trust on this - because he was the only one who could figure out the extreemly unfriendly and annoying MS-Dos computer we had when I was a kid.
He's telling me to get a 12 inch MacBook Pro lap-top - that's his preference.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

regarding PCs, I had had way worse problems than you: I got hit by a number of viruses, I got screwed by microsoft making things obsolete so certain functions of my old computers would suddenly not work.... and no one who has an Apple/Mac product ever has that happen (that I've ever heard of).
When microsoft down loaded a new 'protection' for my old laptop they made it so I couldn't get online at unsecure coffee shops, which is the only thing I wanted to do! So I spend over a month trying to get their 'protections' back off of the computer....
but when I get a download for my iMac it never screws anything up, I can have confidence that it will just keep running really well. That confidence is worth the extra $ in my opinion.

So my distrust of microsoft isn't just Vista, it dates back to Windows95! lol

But I do know a lot of serious computer geeks who really love their PCs, and those people usually (in my experience) buy Dell.

Re: fandom stuff: actually I do enjoy reading/hearing other people's takes... but sometimes I feel that it just becomes like hate speech... and life is too short to have to listen to that.