Terrible Fans and How to Spot Them

Since the advent of social networking sites like Twitter and Tumblr, being a fan of an artist has never been the same. Gone are the days where you could simply put on a Metallica t-shirt to show your loyalty to the band. Nowadays you have to change your cover photo, retweet everything they post and update gifs on your Tumblr every hour. At least that's what some people do. And while they might believe that they're being "true fans," some of their handiwork might even be detrimental to the artist and other fans. Here are some things that most bad fans do:

Twitter Wars
It's a well-publicised fact that celebrities sometimes act like children and argue over the internet, sometimes going as far as encouraging their fanbases to attack each other. But what is clearly wrong with Twitter is when fans get into absolutely heated arguments over who they think is "better." They might believe spewing insults and swearing at anonymous people shows support, but in reality it's just showing what hateful fans the artist has.

Oversaturation
So you've recently fallen in love with Supernatural and now all you want to do is tell everyone how much you love it. Coming out of your room after binge-watching 6 seasons in 4 days, you start recommending it to every single person for every situation possible. Action show? Supernatural.
Comedy? Supernatural is funny sometimes. Period-Drama? Well Supernatural had time travelling once. Now every time a person shows an interest in the show, they get treated with the bad memory of you flooding their News Feed with pictures of shirtless Jensen Ackles every day and decide against watching it. 

Refusing Change
Most super-fans have their own ideal image of their favourite artist and they cling onto it so tightly that even a minor alteration causes them to go absolutely hysterical. Granted that major change is sometimes hard to digest, but fans need to remember that artists are people themselves and not corporate robots (at least most of them aren't). Who'd want to be stuck doing the same thing for the rest of their lives? They could want to broaden their horizons as artists and it would be seriously discouraging if their fans reject every step they make outside their comfort zone.

Blind Fandom 
It takes a big man to admit that his favourite artist might not be the best artist ever. However awesome the artist/team of your choice is, they have all had a couple of stinkers and off-seasons. And while any sane person recognises their shortcomings, some fans blatantly ignore the bad things or even worse, try to explain it away as genius beyond comprehension of others. A dud's a dud, man. Get over it.

Being an Elitist
There's nothing worse than a smug know-it-all. Imagine that you like listening to a band's music and have heard most of their more popular songs, so much so that you'd call yourself a big fan. Now you meet a person who likes the same band and right in the middle of the conversation he says "Dude, you've never heard the top-secret unplugged session the band did in their friend's basement twenty years ago? How do you even call yourself a fan?" Never be that guy. Seriously. Don't.