In all your years of Internet surfing, being a fan in a fandom...What surprised you the most?

For me, it was being part of the Invader Zim fandom.

Aside from the slash involving Dib and Zim (which I wash my hands of knowing that people did it against Jhonen Vasquez's wishes and I must state that I find it in poor taste), it was that the Zim fans hated the Butt Ugly Martians fandom. On a mini site for the character Stoat Muldoon, an alien hunter voiced by Robert Stack in his final recurring role, the shoutbox was crammed with messages trolling the show. Forums became battlegrounds for flame wars. Even back then, it was stupid for the Zim fans to pick a fight over a kids show like Butt Ugly Martians.

In fact, looking at the span of time, Invader Zim fans have rather shitty attitudes when they attack a show outside their demographic.

Some time after 9/11, Invader Zim was cancelled and from what I can tell, they cut middle school students ages 12-15, 15 was their highest before cutting off, out of the demographics and attempted to give them their own programming. As of recently, the demographic for Nickelodeon is ages 6-11 (elementary school) NickJr. is ages 2-5 (Pre-K) both have separate channels while Teenick (ages 12-15) air between 6 in the morning and 10-11 at night and The Splat (ages 29 and older), which airs at around 10-11 at night to 6 the next morning only airs 90s cartoons (they share a channel). Invader Zim debuted in 2001 so it would be unlikely that Nickelodeon would bring it back for television broadcast. Netflix users, an Invader Zim movie will debut on Netflix in the future.

But as you may guess, I'm not going to see it. I wash my hands of an obsession that brought out the worst in people.