Okay, this elitism of believing something sucks simply because it's "popular" needs to stop. NOW.
This bullshit never happened when I was younger. "Hey, what's your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?" "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!" "Dude, WTF! Turtles suck! It sucks because it's popular with normal people, and normal people have shitty taste in cartoons, so therefore, Turtles suck! AND THEIR NOT REEL NINJAS!!!!!1111111ELEVENTY-ONE!!!!!" How, peoples? How could you backslide like this?
I remembered this happened back when GTA: Vice City, first came out. Everyone outside of angry parents loved that game, save for retarded "hardcore" gamers who didn't like the idea that Joe Schmo was also a fan of GTA. I couldn't believe it when I read it. "Maybe . . . they don't like the control scheme." I thought. Nope. That's not why. "Maybe . . . they don't like how you can't carry every weapon possible like in GTA3." Nope. That's not why either. Some hardcore gamers feel threatened when a game they cherish is noticed by the mainstream. They don't want to be associated with a demographic that doesn't normally play games. Think about it, when you think about hardcore gamer, you don't picture, say, a 40-something husband and father of two, right? Yet, my father was in his forties when we got our old NES, and he played more games on that system than I ever did. (until I got my NES emulator, anyways.) For all intents and purposes, he was more 'hardcore' than me, and he played many NES games popular with 'normal' people, but nobody threw a shit fit over SMB 3, curiously enough.
But yeah, some nerds just don't like sharing their hobbies with the large majority. Think about this, when Naruto and Bleach became popular in America, I started seeing the same bullshit again. Now, granted, I don't like the Bleach anime, and I do think Naruto the manga and anime could be better, but I really like the Bleach manga, and I LOVE the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja games. Their popularity did not faze their quality one bit. But yet some anime nerds will condescend to you if you say, "Yeah, I think Ichigo and Rukia are cool." or, "Hey, remember that Naruto where Neji was fighting that dude with six arms? That was awesome!" If anything, it's the ones who would condescend who are pathetic, not the Bleach and Naruto fanatics.
Do you realize how ridiculous this is, Internet? I mean, there are some popular products of pop-culture I despise, but I don't hate them because they're popular. For example, I don't hate Halo because I know 'casual' gamers who bought an Xbox just to play it. I hate Halo because of its crappy AI, levels, weapons, and unexciting gameplay. I can just as easily hate a game that's only popular with hardcore gamers, and not with the large majority. And as such, don't ever ask for my opinion on Earthbound.
But seriously, do you know how ridiculous you sound when you hate something because it's mainstream? Did people of my parents' generation hate the Rolling Stones simply because they were popular? No. Besides, who hates the Stones anyways?
Knock it off, peoples. Seriously. Just because your mom likes Devil May Cry doesn't automatically mean it's a sucky game.
