Most Controversial Apolitical Topics

Today’s entry is going to be interesting.

As you know, one of the rules in my Commenting Policy states that any controversial topics are prohibited discussion unless if it’s related to the topic of the entry, and even those entries are not very common. Obviously, the top subjects that come to one’s mind when I say “controversy” are sex, religion, and politics. Sex is an adult topic, so that’s being said. But for the other two, here are what’s unique about both that other controversial discussions don’t have:

• Politics is about the law and society and how it impacts us. Like all topics that involve a debate, politics tends to lead to heated discussions online to the point where it gets out of control. But not like those other debates (like gaming, shipping etc.), the topic is about what should be legal and who should be in charge. If something is illegal, you can go to jail for doing it, and debating about whether something should be illegal can upset many people. As for leaderships, no country should be led by an oppressive bigot (like Hitler) or a Marxist socialist (like Stalin), but some people would fight for stuff like that. This is why political topics don’t belong on places like gaming forums and most TV show forums. This includes the following:
  • Voting, Elections, and Leadership
  • Current Issues
  • Actual political controversies an organization, a celebrity, or a producer are engaged in
  • Hot news stories involving highly controversial matters, like crime and discrimination
• A person’s religious beliefs are very important to them. Trying to convert them, force them into violating their beliefs, or inhibit them from practicing their beliefs is highly immoral. Additionally, while all religions have their own way of achieving peace, how the world is created, and the afterlife, people with contrasting religions tend to fight over “who is correct”. Even sub-religions (like Sunni and Shi’ite) tend to fight against each other.

Other highly sensitive topics include race, LGBT topics, and crime. If you’re fighting against another person’s right to exist or fighting for superiority over others, then you’re going to get into a lot of trouble. Also, politics and religion, as well as the other sensitive topics, are universal controversies. Talking about them anywhere will cause drama.

What today’s entry is going to be about are the most controversial topics that are not like what’s mentioned above. While it’s a good prevention tip to ban politics and religion, doing that isn’t going to stop heated debates or discussions completely. Nor is it going to stop negativity. That’s because within one fandom, there are going to be many other controversies. While every fandom has their share of toxicity among the community, some fandoms are more toxic than others. That’s where you’ll see more controversy in, even with the absence of the highly contentious topics like politics and religion.

Top Ten Most Controversial Apolitical Topics:

While this list is subjective, these topics have caused a lot of controversy from my experiences and knowledge in online communities. I’m not even going over AI on this. Here is a list of what I consider “highly controversial”:

• #1 – Professional Sports: This one is without a shadow of a doubt the most controversial topic on this list. Not only have fandoms taken stuff too seriously in this day and age, but professional sports teams also symbolize pride in a city or location. This is especially true for both football and baseball. People who come from one city tend to be so loyal to the team that they’ll disregard anything they did wrong. And fans of teams that done better tend to be more obnoxious and belligerent about liking their team. When you’re rooting for one team over another, it’s not just about your team. It’s also about your city or state, which could lead into discussing which city is better or which state is better. This also includes sports controversies. And what I mean “sports controversies”, I’m not talking about the NFL National Anthem Protests or the MLB Players’ Strike. I’m talking stuff like cheating, player conduct, and team management. From the last decade alone, we had Deflategate and the Astros’ Sign-Stealing Scandal. The dismissal of these behaviors or the failure to forgive teams that did wrong adds more fuel to the fire. This is pretty much the reason why I throw in “sports” when telling others to refrain from discussing controversial discussions like religion and politics.
• #2 – Celebrity Scandals: Not only would this veer into the politics/religion territory (like JK Rowling’s anti-trans lobbying), but like I said before, fandoms have taken stuff too seriously. This includes celebrities. When you talk bad about a celebrity, you’re going to generate a lot of vitriol from fans. It gets even worse when the celebrities engage in something scandalous. There’s also the notation that some celebrities (like Jared Fogle and Harvey Weinstein) lose all respect from fans and admirers for engaging in something terrible, while others are more polarizing once they evoke controversy. And let’s not forget the many times celebrities or opponents of celebrities received multiple death threats from many people. The biggest celebrity scandal of all time was when OJ Simpson murdered his wife and her boyfriend.
• #3 – Fandom Behaviors: As I go further down the list, this is when we’re starting to look into toxic fandoms. All fandoms have their faults, but the biggest controversies are some of the unusual behaviors of fans. Some fandoms, like furries and weeaboos, have people who pretend to be something that they aren’t. They get so obsessive that it affects their identities. And I know all about those who make creepy fanfics (like the Cupcakes Fanfic) and those who sexualize characters in fanart. Those behaviors show that the fans have psychological problems. We also have the many who are normal fans who appreciate the art like how a true fan would, but then they get criticized because the art they like is not made for their demographic. For example, bronies.
• #4 – Fandom Rivalry: Going further into fandom behaviors, one behavior or attribute that I do not like about others is their toxicity towards other arts or fandoms of those arts. Back in my TV.com days, I witnessed a board war between SpongeBob fans and Avatar fans (for your information, it’s Avatar: The Last Airbender). Some of the Avatar fans would invade the SpongeBob board and trash the show, provoking fights with the SpongeBob fans. And there are some SpongeBob fans who complained about how Avatar won the Kids’ Choice Award back in 2008, which provoked another fight with the Avatar fans. While this is just one bad case of fandom rivalry, I believe that this is not the only case of this. We had Pokémon vs Digimon, Legend of Zelda vs Final Fantasy, 1971 Willy Wonka vs 2005 Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and many more I can think of. The point is, the intense hatred towards another art or fandom from one fandom is one of the biggest controversies, as this tends to be a lighter variation of bigotry and discrimination based on demographic.
• #5 – Shipping Wars: Oh please! Do I even have to explain this? Well, since this is related to fandoms, I’m now going into the actual controversial topics within fandoms that aren’t about other people. If I have to say it again, fandoms have taken stuff too seriously these days. They’ve taken fictional relationships even more seriously, to the point that they fight each other over it. Shows or games with more relationships or potential relationships tend to have even more toxic fandoms than others. For example, Total Drama Island. The biggest relationship fandom battles are Gwen x Trent vs Gwen x Duncan and Gwen x Duncan vs Courtney x Duncan. They fight each other a lot that anyone who favors one relationship over others will get a lot of hate. The worst shipping war among the cartoon fandoms in my opinion is Kataang vs Zutara, a relationship battle among the Avatar fandom. Kataang (Aang x Katara) is the canon relationship as decided by the creators, while Zutara (Zuko x Katara) is the fanon relationship about two characters with like personalities or backstories. On TV.com, there was a huge fight over the shipping that even the site’s official administrators had to step in.
• #6 – Piracy/Hacking: Yes, pirating or modding video games is bad and disrespectful to the game developers, but another controversy worth mentioning is this. Some people defend pirating because the purpose is to make older games available for future generations. Some people defend modding or hacking because they want to play the way they want to play. People tend to fight each other over this. And then, the developers step in and take action. Whether or not the developer is justified in doing this adds even more fuel to the fire. This controversial topic is even more controversial among Nintendo fandoms. Not only are their games more popular, but also Nintendo tends to be very aggressive when it comes to fighting piracy and modding.
• #7 – Pokémon Controversies: The controversies surrounding the Pokémon fandom deserve a special mention. It’s because, in my personal opinion, it is the most toxic fandom on the internet. Probably even more toxic than Yankees fans. Not counting the topics previously discussed or the way it’s being dubbed or censored, here are some of the worst controversies surrounding Pokémon and its fandom:
  • Game Freak’s decision to not include all Pokémon in Sword/Shield.
  • The debate on if all Pokémon after the first 151 species are legitimate.
  • The debate on if Pokémon that aren’t strong enough are even worth using.
• #8 – Game Development Decisions: While video game companies will always have bad decisions when making a game, when a decision is widely hated by many people or going to cause more controversy, almost nothing can top this on the topic of controversies. The worst one of them all was the Dexit controversy with Pokémon Sword/Shield, but that’s already been said. Some of the other decisions that come to mind are the LittleBigPlanet update that removed the “boo” rating, Mario Kart 8 having battle tracks instead of proper battle arenas, and any time censorship occurs due to localization. And no, as disappointing Animal Crossing: New Horizons was compared to its predecessors, the worst of the changes haven’t gotten this controversial.
• #9 – Star Wars Controversies: Just to clarify what kinds of controversies I’m talking about, these are the controversies involving all three trilogies. In particular:
  • Prequel Trilogy – Jar Jar Binks, Midi-Chlorians, use of CGI, and bad character development
  • Original Trilogy – Greedo shooting first, changes in Special Editions
  • Sequel Trilogy – Remake of older movies, Disney putting profit in front of product, the necessity of expanding the story
• #10 – Jumping the Shark: Whether a franchise is going downhill may be local to one franchise or fandom only, this is a common topic among all fandoms. This includes bad character development, worse story-writing, negative changes due to the creator screwing up, negative changes due to change in management, and games having worse gameplay. When you’re within the fandom surrounding that franchise, it becomes a controversial and cynical topic that would bring in more toxicity, hence why it’s controversial. But when you discuss it outside the fandom, it becomes a safe topic.

Factors that determine Toxicity in Fandoms:

While we’re at it, I would also like to discuss why some fandoms are worse than others. Like I said, all of them have their bad apples. We got the nice ones and the mean ones. But there are some factors that make some fandoms more toxic. It depends on the content and the subject matter of the art in question. Even though larger fandoms will mean more toxic fans and more groups that are divided against each other, the proportion matters more.

Gaming:

Starting with video games, the content and nature of a game may have an impact on the fandoms. Here are examples of games that would bring in more toxic fandoms:

• Games that involve or focus on creativity. Examples: Animal Crossing, LittleBigPlanet
• Games that involve or focus on competition. Examples: Pokémon, Super Smash Bros.
• Games that are made for hardcore gamers. Examples: Halo, Call of Duty
• Games that changed a lot over time. Examples: Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokémon

Starting with that first group, while it’s true that some artists get snotty about their work, the very nature of creativity-based games can cause toxicity among the fandom. In Animal Crossing, people take Bells, items, and villagers way too seriously, to the point that it leads to scamming or trashing towns that have stuff they don’t like or not having stuff they like. In LittleBigPlanet, people who make better levels tend to be more divisive, while others get worked up over statistics. Needless to say, the focus on creativity tends to make people more competitive. This is one of Club Penguin’s biggest flaws.

Competition is a major driving factor in toxicity. When a game focuses on competition, some people care about being above everyone else, as the ones who do better tend to be vain about it. Ragequitting is quite common in communities about games like this. There’s also “specialists” who make tier lists for certain characters or creatures. If you like playing as something from a lower tier, or you don’t like tier lists, you’re going to get a lot of hate.

The causal/hardcore factor in games can also impact toxicity. In particular, certain game genres (like action-adventure, first-person shooter, and role-playing games) and games with a T rating or M rating tend to lead to more toxicity. Not all gamers are mature, no matter how old they get. When they play a game like this, they tend to look down upon causal gamers, thinking that they are better because they’re playing hardcore games. That is downright immature.

As for the last group, games that change the core gameplay or some features may create a division among the community. Older gamers would criticize new games because they think they changed for the worse, while newer gamers would criticize old games because they think they’re too primitive. This will result in more toxicity.

Oh, and one more thing. Games that are more popular may have fans who brag about their games being more popular.

Cartoons:

Believe it or not, the cartoons with more toxic fandoms are the cartoons geared towards younger audiences. While adult shows like South Park and Family Guy may discuss serious subject matter and be more inappropriate, the fans are generally grown adults who are capable of handling responsibility. That’s not to say that they are without toxic fans because all cartoons have bad apples in their fandoms. The ones made for kids, teenage fans and adult fans tend to take them way too seriously, showing that they have not matured. And yes, cartoon fandoms are more toxic than live-action show fandoms.

The following cartoons would bring in more toxicity:

• Serialized TV shows
• Long-running TV shows that went downhill
• TV shows made for kids that have more mature themes
• TV shows with potential and official relationships
• TV shows that were the top-watched shows

On all three major cartoon channels, there was at least one TV show that had some incredibly toxic fans. For Cartoon Network, they had Total Drama. For Nickelodeon, they had Avatar (both The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra). For Disney, they had The Owl House. What did Avatar, Total Drama, and The Owl House have in common? They had relationships, serialized plots, and more mature themes than most TV shows from the same channels. Some other things to point out about each:

• Avatar was in competition with SpongeBob, which Nickelodeon treasured a lot.
• Total Drama was about a survival contest where each episode, one contestant gets voted off.
• The Owl House had a bisexual protagonist with two fathers, while also covering LGBT themes.

While none of these are bad things to have in your show, the nature surrounding these can be polarizing. And that’s why there’s more toxicity. Another thing, while this may not be true about Total Drama, both Avatar and The Owl House had fans who constantly bash other shows from the same channel for not being like them.

And let’s not forget The Loud House. The Loud House fandom is just as toxic as the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom.

Toxicity and Politics:

Even politics and religion have different groups with varying levels of toxicity. While they are unsurprisingly the most controversial subjects, some columnists and activists are more toxic than others. Here are the kinds of people that are more toxic in politics:

• People who are intolerant based on race, religion, sex, ability, age, class, sexual orientation, or gender identity
• People who are intolerant of those who disagree with them politically, those who are neutral or indifferent, or those who call for civility
• People who support extreme ideologies or terror groups
• Conspiracy theorists
• People who try to balance stuff out to evade responsibility
• People who protest elections

Not like most of the controversies discussed in today’s entry, these are way more serious. That’s another reason why politics are prohibited discussion. I won’t pick any examples or go any further, so let’s leave it as that.

Let me know if there’s anything you disagree on.