Fansite trends that irritate me
It must be the recent heat wave here where I live. I’ve been feeling extra grumpy since getting back from my trip to China. I really don’t want my blog to turn into nothing but bitch sessions but bleh - sometimes it’s all that seems interesting to write about. I’m sure none of you want to read about my boring day of cleaning the house lol.
Anyway… I’ve been in the fansite world since 2000. When I started, it was such a wonderful little community. People helped each other and shared photos and information. Now it seems to be more about the competition than the supporting of the celeb. Things have gotten totally out of hand. I’ve heard stories of fansite owners turning in competing sites to agencies, spreading malicious lies, and more. And I seriously want to find the person who started the photo tagging trend and slap them.
I collect celebrity photos. I don’t sell them, or post them on my sites without credit - I just collect them. I sometimes use them to make graphics, but mostly I just like looking at the pretty pictures. TAGS RUIN THE PHOTOS! Small ones, I can deal with. My friend Mycah tags photos at her site but they’re small and unobtrusive. I can totally work around them if I want to use the photo for a graphic. But take this photo for an example:
Is a tag that large necessary? Really? Tagging has just gotten ridiculous. Especially since the photos people are tagging don’t even belong to them in the first place. They were stolen from an agency or grabbed from a forum who stole them from an agency. Most people just use the excuse that they’re not claiming the photos are theirs, they just want people to know where it came from. If that was really the case, a small tag in the corner would be just fine. It really boils down to people saying “nyah nyah, look what I have and you can’t have it.” Bugs the fuck out of me.
Another recent trend I’ve noticed is sites claiming to be stalkerazzi free. I completely get where they’re coming from - I’m on the fence about paparazzi photos myself. I do my best to not post any where the celeb looks unhappy or angry about having their photo taken. What bugs me about the sites that claim to be “100% stalkerazzi free” is that 90% of the time, you will still find candids in their gallery. Not of the celeb getting coffee or having lunch or anything - but of them on the set of whatever project they’re working on. Now I understand that the celeb is technically at work and expecting to have their pictures taken but these are still candids. They are still taken by the stalkerazzi that the sites claim they don’t want to support. What I’m trying to say is… don’t claim to be 100% free of something when you’re not.
Today’s rant over. I hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:10 am
im starting to hate wrestling fansites espeicially for the women. I dont like wrestling but its just boring and half of the ones which get made some how, amazingly turn in ‘official’ ones
July 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I agree with almost everything you said. I have such an issue with paparazzi. God, I could just kill whoever thought, “Hey, I liked ___’s movie, how about I ruin their life as my hobby?” - I’m sorry, but being a fan is like the simplest thing in the world to do. If you screw it up, you’re a steaming dungbag, lol.
This is exactly why I not only refuse to use images/media found at other fansites on my fansites, but I refuse to visit those sites unless the people who run them are friends of mine. There’s no point, because a lot of these fandoms (Shia, for instance) have webmasters who are so competitive that they won’t let you support or cheer them on. I used to *love* that. Buffy fandom, damn it, Buffy! We were all so close once upon a time, I still occasionally talk to Jaina from Dusk til Dawn when either of us has time (she’s on my twitter, for Odin’s sake!), why are fansite owners not this close anymore? Wah. I’m sorry, people can suck it, if they want to race with me they can do it all by their lonesome because I’m not competing with them.
I also agree about tags, I’m getting away from them with my newer sites (zoe, etc.) but I do still tag on several sites but we’re talking a 5-10px bar at the very bottom, not like a freaking banner across the middle of the image. Why even do that? I’ll likely keep on tagging on some sites, even though it’s dangerous I’m just set in my ways and, to be honest, I don’t want to cut the tags off of 50,000 images in one single gallery - yes, I am very lazy lol.
Still, you could’ve created an example image with an example tag instead of calling out another webmaster like that. Maybe that’s just my damage, but I always think that kind of finger pointing is best left… unpointed, lol.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
@Faith Yeah, I thought about that after I posted the example photo. But like you, I tend towards laziness at times lol. To do that would involve me having to make the tag and put it on a photo. I doubt the owner of the site in question will even visit this blog but if they do, my apologies to them. I just happened to be trying to find a nice photo of Megan to give to a guy friend of mine and came across that site which sparked this post. It really could have been any number of sites out there that use ridiculous tags like that.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I’m being a griper, coming here with my bible, forcing my personal beliefs on you. See, now *I* am the one being offensive.
Truthfully, dude, it’s your blog - call out whoever you want. It’s a bit hypocritical of me to call you out publicly for calling them out. I think I’m stuck in a loop now. :O
August 9th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Good job, yeah the whole copyrighting or tagging any kind of image that does not belong to you is wrong. its like seeing people’s “original” “portfolios” and have it all being nothing but meshed up pictures of celebs or landscapes from random photographer’s…compiled with ps brushes and “stock” from other web-artists. that not originality at all……you never made any of that stuff yourself, you just.. put it all together in one spot. not impressive.