1. People making spots for themselves.
It's one thing when a popular user has a spot made for them by someone else, because that's people showing their appreciation for someone they like, and it's also less pointless because when it's a popular user chances are more than 3 people will actually join and things will get posted, but when someone's like "Hey guys, I joined twenty minutes ago, and have spent that time creating the spot of me! Come join, and lets all talk about our favourite thing. ME!" I don't get it. Very few people ever join these spots, and the few who do never seem to add anything (aside from the user who made themselves the spot).
My angry brain's solution:
We just make one spot called the egotists spot, and they can all join that instead of making themselves a spot each. It's a quicker way to send the same message.
2. The rise of text speak.
This is not about spelling or grammar mistakes, that I'm fine with, heavens knows I'm not exactly the quickest bunny in the hutch, so it would be hypocritical of me to get mad at errors. This is just about text speak. I hate text speak. The more popular it gets the more I feel like a granny telling kids to get off her lawn when I complain about it. I just turned 21 and Text speak has turned me into a little old lady (and if those hypothetical kids don't get off my imaginary lawn I'm going to turn the sprinklers on). It's intentional stupidity as a trend, and every time I try to read it I feel my IQ drop a point. Besides, on a site like fanpop it's not just stupid, I also find it inconsiderate. Not everyone who uses the site speaks English as their first language, I can barely understand text speak and English is my first language, I can't imagine what it's like to decipher when it's not.
My angry brain's solution:
When people address me all in 'TXT spk' acting as if they have some terrible phobia of vowels, I should respond using only vowels. See, I can speak in code too! e o y a u i! (that's 'get of my lawn you kids' in reverse text speak)
3. Twilight content leaking into unrelated spots.
There are lots of Twilight fans who are nice, mature and perfectly capable of accepting that not everyone on the planet wants to hear about Twilight 24/7. Unfortunately it's become easy to see them as an endangered species since they aren't as loud as the fans who love Twilight and want everyone in every spot to talk about it with them. If it's a pick relevant to the spot featuring Twilight I usually don't mind (though I am sick to death of being asked "do you like ____ or Twilight more?" I know Twilight is popular, but so are things like House yet there aren't "____ or House?" picks on every spot) Twilight seems to have more spots than anything on fanpop, so I just don't understand the need for it to spill out, and I'm out of ways to bitch about it. Seriously, I have nothing more to add here because I have officially used up my whining on this.
My angry brain's solution:
Every single spot that is not related to Twilight has 'not Twilight' added to the end of it's title as a gentle reminder. So this spot would be called "Fanpop users...not Twilight" Buffy would be "Buffy the vampire slayer...not Twilight" and so on :)
4. Bribing.
I've seen lots of people following requests with "I'll prop if you do" and the reason it bothers me is that it sometimes actually makes me less likely to help someone. I don't need a bribe to help when I can, and when someone ends something like a question on the answers feature with "I'll prop and fan you" I don't want to answer and seem like I'm prop fishing. Also, I don't want a prop someone felt obliged to give me, I'd rather no prop at all. Fanpop is full of lovely people, you don't need to offer to 'pay' with props to get help. As for the users who ask people to fan them in exchange for props, I don't understand that, I'd rather have one fan who actually wanted to fan me than a thousand who only did it for an easy prop.
My angry brain's solution:
The "I'll prop you if you help me" thing seems to solve itself, really. When people spend enough time on Fanpop to see the users are nice enough to help without prop bribes they tend to stop. My solution for the fan proppers is we give them the ability to make their profile say they have as many fans as they want. You want it to look like you have fifty thousand fans? Knock yourself out.
5. The medal obsession.
I don't get the medal thing at all. When they were simply seen as a nice acknowledgement of someone's work to add to the site I totally got it, but now they're so important to people I just don't get it. I'm not just talking about the people cheating for medals, because the people who moan about the cheats are contributing to the problem too in my eyes. Even if you're getting the medals the fair way if you are letting having a little red dot on your profile become so important to you that it lessens the fun of the site, adds disappointment or jealousy to your fanpop experience, then you also contribute to the bad atmosphere the medals have been generating lately. Fanpop's a community, not a contest. If you're looking for a contest go enter a karaoke competition or something, don't try to turn Fanpop into a competition. You should be adding content because you think it will be enjoyed, not to be #1 or to have the most medals, so someone gets one they don't deserve? So what? them having that little red dot doesn't take away anything from you, and there's no reason it should make the site less fun if you have your priorities right. In fact if people stopped treating the medals as so important there would probably be less cheating anyway, because it's only worth cheating for while we treat them like they are so precious.
My angry brain's solution:
The F4 should stop handing out solid gold porches with the red medals...wait...they don't do that? Ok, now I understand the competition even less.
There, I got my moaning out of the way, never to whine about these things again. Oh, who am I kidding, I'm not letting the text speak thing go. I know these things might not bother other people (I imagine the medals thing will probably have a fair few people who disagree), and my suggested solutions were not serious, but now I've got my complaining out of the way I can go back to enjoying the site whine free.
The Beautiful Mind: Cinders
