Re: Do you think "fandoms" have become more and more toxic?

Interestingly enough, I almost brought up the tribalization and group-think that seems to be inundating politics and modern society as a whole in my previous post. I held off because I wasn't sure how that would interact with the site's rules. I'm glad that seems to be accepted in this discussion.

I don't agree with everyone on everything, and I think we would be hard-pressed to find someone who agreed with every single thought and idea of ours. However, I am willing to have a constructive discussion on why my views may differ from another and how the other individual(s) may think. The problem is that there are so many out there that don't like their ingrained views challenged and refuse to hear the other half of it. What bothers me even more is when many take a random off-comment, sensational news story, etc. as fact without doing any fact-checking.

To use my previous example, it bothers me, as a long-time Pokemon fan (we're talking Gen I and Season 1 of the anime here) how much the fandom has bashed Yo-Kai Watch for being a "clone". The gameplay is in fact very different, and in fact I would argue that the story elements (well, sidequests, anyway) are more refreshing than anything Game Freak has cooked up recently. I think some of the fear here was that fans were afraid that this series would replace Pokemon; not only did I think this was a crazy notion to begin with, but Pokemon is going stronger than ever. What bothers me the most is that so many were quick to write off what is, overall, a decent series of games.

This is precisely the main reason why I stopped posting on IGN years ago. I still check articles there on occasion, but I rarely check the comment sections on the articles (and usually regret doing so) and swore off using the forums there completely.