[Haruhi] This is Haruhi on Drugs

[Brian]

This review is by request, so I am going to set it here.  I'll also be giving the author C&C, so expect some grammatical corrections.

The title alone should warn that this is a crack-fic.  The 'rave reviews' from the 'not actually Haruhi fic writers, but use characters with their names and post them in the Haruhi section' crowd give me a bad feeling already.  Quoting the Old Man's words of wisdom:

What's the worst that could happen?

Join me on my journey, if you dare....

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7539904/1/

Vitriol moved to the ECB forum.



In review: This is actually a series of unconnected and fairly dull vignettes with disappointingly little to offer in the way of humor -- and an utter lack of respect for the cast.  That's ... about it.

[sarsaparilla]

The basic problem I see with reviewing the fic in question is that it's a representative example of a particular genre of fan fiction that is easily identifiable but still lacks a common label. It is usually called crack, but that's a misnomer, as the style is closer to troll fic with its heavy-handed canon defilement aspect and the willing embrace of stylistic suck, or possibly hate fic with the indiscriminate mocking of all aspects of the original material. It's presented as parody, but the inherent drive to the lowest forms of comedy sets it closer to burlesque. Fundamentally, it's a manifestation of bile fascination -- satisfaction and an illusionary sense of superiority derived from defiling and disgracing something otherwise unattainable.

I do not envy your task. >_>

[Brian]

That neatly encapsulates my views, only without my typical vehemence.

Edit: There's a thought lurking in my mind that this sub-genre basically uses the concept of fanfiction as a platform for a popularity contest.  I'll try and develop that and see if I can't generate a relatively neutral article trying to explore the concept later.

[Anastasia]

That neatly encapsulates my views, only without my typical vehemence.

Edit: There's a thought lurking in my mind that this sub-genre basically uses the concept of fanfiction as a platform for a popularity contest.  I'll try and develop that and see if I can't generate a relatively neutral article trying to explore the concept later.

Oh this, absolutely. People troll for reviews for popularity, and making the most outrageous and 'amusing' thing gets reviews. It's attention whoring.

[Dracos]

Needs more fire.

Mmm.

Perhaps I should add some.

[Brian]

Needs more fire.

Fair enough; give me enough time to get to the capper/conclusion, though.  I'm trying to remain constructive right up until I delivery the final analysis.

[Arakawa]

My grandmother's side of the family is Canadian, incidentally.  We have a sense of humor, but that segment was just dull -- I admit I only skimmed it.  Script format is banned on ff.net, as a reminder.

Canada needs no bashing. Canada already does a perfectly good job of bashing itself. For instance: I walked into a Tim Hortons the other day. They were selling something called a "Canada Donut". It was a donut. With little candy maple leaves stuck to it. You know, to make it Canadian. Because Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution. So their donuts have to be special Canadian donuts. Eh?

I wonder how quickly that particular comestible will be discontinued due to the typical sugar-hungry office worker being unwilling to say "Canada Donut" with a straight face, and then to look like a complete doofus eating it. Having the Boston Cream is far less emotionally taxing, I can tell you that.

Edit: having spent twenty seconds skimming the actual story, I seem to remember that Chapter Five is the one written completely in Kuyou-leetspeak.

[Arakawa]

So, I have to ask.  Did you really want to improve?  Did you just want to (for some reason) try and get a positive review from me, not understanding how much I hate the type of fic you write?  Or, worse, did one of your 'friends' think it would be 'funny' to play a trick at your (and my) expense, sending you to me, knowing how I would react?

I had a similar suspicion, in point of fact. With the added suspicion that any harsh words this exercise generated would then be widely misquoted in order to "prove" that when Brian lost patience with dealing with that crowd of people and quit ff.net, that Brian was "wrong" and those people were "right".

Anyhow, this is rapidly becoming not even remotely funny to watch. Was it really so difficult for the person who submitted this to predict that it's impossible to give general constructive advice to such a fic besides "write a different fic"?

Edit: and if the answer is 'yes, it was difficult', then that's perfectly valid. In that case, I hope they've learned something today.

[Brian]

I had a similar suspicion, in point of fact. With the added suspicion that any harsh words this exercise generated would then be widely misquoted in order to "prove" that when Brian lost patience with dealing with that crowd of people and quit ff.net, that Brian was "wrong" and those people were "right".

I'd like to think that such people wouldn't be so petty.

And then I remember the e-mail bombing.

*sigh*

Anyhow, this is rapidly becoming not even remotely funny to watch. Was it really so difficult for the person who submitted this to predict that it's impossible to give general constructive advice to such a fic besides "write a different fic"?

Well, I'm somewhat gratified that my struggles weren't amusing, though I do wish that I could make it so that anyone else reading the thread at least derived some amusement from it.  I really can't envision a way to do it without making it at someone's expense, however.

Edit: and if the answer is 'yes, it was difficult', then that's perfectly valid. In that case, I hope they've learned something today.

I don't ... want to think that, but the alternative is probably even worse. :\

[Arakawa]

Hm. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of having responded to the request in public, as opposed to just sending a response privately (since the author didn't throw the request onto some public forum, you always had the option of doing that). Not knowing the context and tone of the original request, not to mention what set of principles made you stick through to the very end, makes it difficult to say.

Anyhow, the overall review was fairly charitable. I'm not convinced it's vehement enough to merit being moved into ECB territory. (Then again, it's been sufficiently demonstrated that I have a poor sense of what's vehement and what isn't.)

Aside: I generally observe that the most vehement ECBs seem to have been done to people who had reacted inappropriately to receiving prior feedback.

Further aside: I seem to recall a discourse on the nature of laughter which claimed that it evolved as a way to make people feel at-ease within an in-group. When someone falls down but it's okay, laughter is used to communicate this fact to the entire group. (When someone falls down and it's not okay, feeling mirth is the most effective way to alienate yourself from the victim. This is probably the basis for the maniacal laughter of the villain -- at least, before that cliche got overused to death sometime in the Triassic period.) The in-group is differentiated from the out-group by having its own peculiar sense of humour -- if everyone in the room is laughing and you're not in on the joke, that signals very effectively that you're in the out-group.

The relevance to this situation is two-fold: first of all, the situation is not funny, because I just watched you spend an afternoon dissecting a fic which you clearly did not enjoy, uncertain whether it would produce a positive result in terms of actually getting the writer to improve. That would be more in the category of 'painful to watch'.

Secondly, I have a theory (probably more charitable than sarsaparilla's view that this writing is generated by being envious of the original Haruhi series author's ability to write competently) that the crackfic people are engaging in the classic high-school pastime of trying to create an in-group without any basis for differentiating between in-group and out-group in terms of actual merit. Belonging to the in-group is shown by being willing to laugh at their jokes which aren't actually funny to a normal person, and which are especially not funny to someone who's read Haruhi and knows how badly the characterizations are being abused. Because this sort of writing is so un-funny, accomplishing the staggeringly pointless and impossible feat of actually laughing at it, makes you feel part of an in-group much more strongly than just being a normal guy who reads a normal piece of work and enjoys it on its actual merits. Screw that, any idiot off the street can read a fic if it's actually readable and actually funny! Accomplishing the unnatural feat of producing this writing, is double-plus-ingroupey. Or, here, let me just link to C.S. Lewis denouncing the hubris of in-groups not founded in any reasonable basis:

http://www.lewissociety.org/innerring.php

It's interesting to note that some of the particularly horrible travesties within literature and philosophy are produced basically by a similar set of perverse motivations. Finnegans Wake comes to mind (as a work by an ostensibly serious writer, intended to be deliberately unreadable and incomprehensible -- your criticism could apply to it just as well as to the Kuyou-leetspeak stuff -- and thus gobbled up by English departments everywhere who can waste time analyzing it). The Fourth Emperor guy really is in royal company, only instead of mind-bendingly complex and pointless abuse of the English language as his in-group's distinguishing characteristic, he's settling for crude, immature humor.

[Brian]

Moving my responses to the ECB forum because it needs some love.

I did have the option to reply privately, but I felt there was something to be gained by making it public.  Namely, I do point out some genuine grammar errors and how to avoid them.  Beyond that, I felt a shallow need to vent, and express why I loathe this type of fic so much on a public forum.  This is probably very petty of me.  :\

[sarsaparilla]

Secondly, I have a theory (probably more charitable than sarsaparilla's view that this writing is generated by being envious of the original Haruhi series author's ability to write competently) that the crackfic people are engaging in the classic high-school pastime of trying to create an in-group without any basis for differentiating between in-group and out-group in terms of actual merit.

That's a very good point of view, and it's supported by the evidence. Even with a minimal amount of observation it can be noticed that these fics share a certain set of memes and in-jokes that are repeated over and over with minor variations, regardless of the author. In a sense, they form an in-group lexicon, or an argot, through which the voluntary members recognize each other. Although I'm not intimately familiar with imageboards, I've understood that those tend to grow their own set of vernacular as well, with the specific intention of excluding those that aren't 'leet' enough to recognize the connotations. Thus, any inherent humor in a particular meme is completely coincidental since the actual feeling of satisfaction is derived from being an insider, in contrast to everybody else who doesn't 'get' the joke. That way, any word or concept may become riotously funny in the eyes of the insiders if it's seen as a way to reinforce the division to 'us' and 'them'.

I hadn't even thought about it that way, as the social dimension is not one of my strong points, but in this light the first chapter of the fic looks like a membership application -- repetition of common (mis)characterizations and (non-)jokes, with a self-admitted intent to defile and a call for support. Sounds very much like the people who express their creativity by posting trollfaces (or whatever is the meme du jour) on 4chan.

[Brian]

Well, that does seem valid -- especially the first chapter being a membership application.  Having read it, I can verify with certainty that the author does go out of his way to try and glorify similar authors (targeting the most popular ones unerringly), including giving them shout-outs in narrative.

I want to say, in defense of memes, the better ones escape the control of the group that creates them and become applicable to all.  Just like tropes, memes are not inherently bad.  I have an interest in memetics and memes, so I want to say something in their defense.

But this usage of them is unquestionably 'bad' in my mind.


Upon closer examination (I hadn't read the author's profile), he claims to be thirteen years old.  I honestly find the technical quality of his writing a bit too high for that.  He also starts his profile off with a parody of the Shaft! theme song, which I have a lot of trouble knowing how someone his age would even hear about.  And what thirteen year old is into stoner comedies?

Growing suspicion that this is actually just a troll. :|

[sarsaparilla]

Upon closer examination (I hadn't read the author's profile), he claims to be thirteen years old.  I honestly find the technical quality of his writing a bit too high for that.  He also starts his profile off with a parody of the Shaft! theme song, which I have a lot of trouble knowing how someone his age would even hear about.  And what thirteen year old is into stoner comedies?

Growing suspicion that this is actually just a troll. :|

I also thought that the purported age was rather improbable given the style, topics and overall technical level of the fic. Also, for an alleged first fic the author is very familiar with the aforementioned in-jokes of the Haruhi crack scene, as well as with infamous examples of horribly bad writing in other fandoms (the My Immortal spoof). A sock puppet, perhaps?

[Brian]

Quite possibly.  Well--  By occupying my time, the troll has been successful.

I should do myself a favor and stop worrying about it so much. -_-


Edit: I have an exceedingly strong suspicion (unable to stop thinking about it) that 'the4thEmperor' is actually a sock-puppet for JonBob0008, specifically.  This seems to fit his modus operandi, and the writing style is a match.