Fandom Term of the Day: Manbase

[seriousfic]

It may surprise you to know that everyone you speak to on LJ is in what ammounts to the 99th percentile. As female, fannish, slashers, they put the minor in vocal minority. The vast vast VAST majority of people do not watch a show and think "That was good, I think I'll write gay porn about it on the internets." This is why all those titles you see SQUEED about on Scans_Daily, like Blue Beetle and anything by Gail Simone, linger around the bottom of the sales chart while All-Star Batman & Robin rakes in the dough (the thought that Frank Miller brings in money that is then used to publish those less profitable books should not be mentioned in polite company unless you want a beating). Thus we have the force that stands in vivid counterpoint to the fanbase... the manbase.

The manbase is quite simply males aged 18 to 35, that oh-so-coveted demographic, who consume media. They're prized more highly than the female fanbase, and thus the target of eternal ire. Anything introduced to please the manbase is subject to the highest degree of scrutinity. For instance, the producers of Supernatural introduce two "hot" female characters every season in order to please male viewers, who are rumored to like breasts. This greatly offends the female fanbase of Supernatural, which finds having strong female characters on their screen to be completely anti-feminist as it takes attention away from the boys.

LOOK, I'm NOT in Supernatural fandom, don't ask ME!

The manbase has a vicious reputation of being homophobic and prejudiced, which keeps production teams from depicting the canonical gay text of McKay and Shepherd's relationship as they'd like to. Any suggestion that perhaps the production team intends for two male characters to be straight and not romantically interested in each other is, of course, ludicrous. (Note: I'm being sarcastic here, but this is literally true for Team Cardiff. So, FYI.)

The manbase is not to be confused with the general audience, which is usually their arch-nemesis. When fanboys wonder why Galactus has to be a fucking cloud instead of how Jack "God" Kirby intended him to be, it's so that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer could appeal to the general audience. You'd think a better tactic would've been to make a movie that wasn't utterly mediocre, but that's why you're not a high-powered Hollywood executive. That, and you're not a Scientologist.

Comments

[pokadotvelvet.livejournal.com]

Good points. I can't say I disagree with any of that at all.

[galamb-borong.livejournal.com]

Be careful. Now that you've identified the Manbase, it can be slashed.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Manbase/Advertisers OTP!

[parsimonia.livejournal.com]

Hmm...the manbase does hold a huge amount of sway, I'll give you that, but can't help but think the fanbase is always a little bigger than it seems, simply because it isn't the most vocal. (And "vocal" can also translate to buying...)

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

In comics fandom, the incestuously small size of the buyers can give you false positives. This is what Marvel is counting on when they roll out something like OMD/BND. Even when a relatively small amount of fans get pissed, they can still be so loud that the noise carries.

Unfortunately, there's a reason that comics like Manhunter sell peanuts despite being every feminist's wet dream.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Things like BND don't even work within the limited direct market, though. Three-times-monthly Amazing is ALREADY selling less issues per month than all three Spider-titles combined were selling per month last year, and the number of actual readers for Spider-Man is now lower than it's been in YEARS. Especially after the boom-and-bust of the early 1990s, anyone who seriously thinks it's a good idea to rely on LESS customers to generate MORE sales should be beaten to death with a tire iron.

[parsimonia.livejournal.com]

In comics fandom, the incestuously small size of the buyers can give you false positives.

No, I get that part, I really do. But I think the fan tendency to be online also raises the number of people who read but don't buy, and therefore seem like a smaller group. I actually made a post (http://parsimonia.livejournal.com/137328.html) talking about this issue the other day.

(And hey, I'm a feminist, but I don't care that much for Manhunter to be honest. Cool costume, cool concept, but she just doesn't hold my interest outside of guest-starring on BoP, and even there I could take her or leave her.)

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I think the fact of the matter is that there ISN'T any such thing as a "general audience" anymore, except as an averaging out of the tug-of-war between all of the countless disparate audience segments, including the manbase and the female fans and any number of others. After all, for years, the myth was that nerds and fans held no sway over "mainstream" media, and yet, a quick glimpse of the top 25 most money-making movies of all time shows that only about three can't be classified as either science fiction, fantasy, superhero or cartoon movies.

In that sense, it's much like politics - at last, almost EVERYBODY now has a significant portion of the power pie, which is why NOBODY has any actual power anymore, unless they sell out their own interests and consolidate with other groups whose interests are only vaguely similar to their own (see also: conservative Christians having no alternative other than John McCain, whom several conservative columnists have gone on record as saying they literally hate more than they ever hated Bill Clinton).

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I never said the "manbase" or "general audience" wasn't mythical (there's a reason a nine-hour-long, faithful adaptation of a trilogy of dense books by a director known for his gory horror movies made money hand over fist), but Hollywood can be desperately behind the times. After Batman & Robin, they tried to give Akiva Goldsman the script for Batman Vs. Superman.

Of course, Deal Or No Deal is the hottest thing on television now, and no nerd I know would be caught dead watching that...

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Of course, Deal Or No Deal is the hottest thing on television now [...]

That doesn't actually mean that a majority, or even a plurality, or people are really watching it, though, since television's own statistics show that less people are watching TV now than they have in ... well, just about ever, really.

Here's the problem with game shows and "reality TV" - compared to scripted dramas, their production values are INCREDIBLY low, which means that, with the right format, a network or a studio can make MASSIVELY more profit with a game show or reality show that's watched by a FRACTION of the audience that watches any other type of show.

What this means, unfortunately, is that the supposed balance between supply and demand, that free-market capitalists assert will magically make everything okay in the long run, completely falls apart in the media, because what you now have are people who have a VESTED FINANCIAL INTEREST in DELIBERATELY producing entertainment that people DON'T want.

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

If only there were a way to make reality TV and game shows more expensive. Like, kidnapping contestants and forcing the studios to pay ransoms. Sabotage. The occasional destruction of an unoccupied building.

I'm not saying terrorism is okay... well, I guess that is what I'm saying.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

Who drew that?

[mcity.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how many times I've felt outnumbered by the sheer amount of estrogen on LJ and JF. I'm starting to find the leads of Supernatural hot, and that should tell you something, since I'm straight. Unfortunately, the only internet groups with equal and opposing amounts of testosterone are the furry fandom, gaming blogs, and /b/.

Lord help me.

[euqen.livejournal.com]

http://euqen.livejournal.com/3915.html

Yes, it's myy story, so what?

[v5-vendetta.livejournal.com]

Simply put, these things happen because humans are irrationally self-divisive. Nearly every bit of human interaction is done solely, if not necessarily consciously, to identify others as being "like me" or "not like me." If a random person is in the former, it's "friendship time"; if said random person is in the latter category, it's "killing time!" Don't look at me like that; that's how it almost always ends up in the real world, particularly in the so-called "less civilized" parts of the real world. And I know the fangirls or the fanboys would be acting the same way if they had the stones to actually take an axe to somebody like those heroes they drool over.