How the fallout community and fandom impacted my enjoyment of the series

Ever since my best friend and I spent countless sleep-overs playing fallout 3 all the way up to me building my own PC and playing through the wonderful New Vegas and the amazing original games, I’ve been a fan. I can’t think of a game in the series I dislike or hate. I’m not saying the games are without faults, but to me they're all amazing in their own right. Fallout as a whole impacted my life forever and I’ll continue playing all of them until probably the day I die.


The fallout community and fandom enhanced my understanding and enjoyment of the series. reading and watching the hundreds of threads and videos about lore, modding, and discussions about our favorite series was something I enjoyed immensely. I was pretty content with the community, for a time. Then the problem that plagues almost every fandom decided to rear its ugly head. Trying to discuss the fun I had playing modded NV, the fondness I had for playing 3, and saying that I don’t hate everything about fallout 4 usually would be met with crude insults and disdainful arguments. It was my first time experience the malignancy of rabid tribalism and contempt the Fallout’s fans had to offer, and it greatly affected my enjoyment of the community and fandom.


After being pelted with toxicity I wasn’t prepared for, the same disappointment I had with the community leaked into the games itself. Playing games I got insulted for playing rapidly sucked any motivation I had for playing in the first place. A series I felt love for was replaced with mixed feelings of disgust and anger. I stopped playing them all together, and stopped watching and reading the content I used to enjoy daily. I wish I could say the reason for coming out of this funk I’ve had with the series and the community was due to the community getting better and more mature, but it was I who became more mature and had grown thicker skin.


In the end it’s really my own fault those things impacted me as as hard as they did, even now and then it’ll puncture my new layer of hide I’ve built. In hindsight it’s silly and a bit embarrassing, but I was younger and things then impacted me more than they do now. Writing it out and sharing it does get rid of some of the embarrassment though, and maybe (although unlikely) it may help someone helps who’s experiencing the fallout funk I once felt.



I appreciate that you’ve used your time to read this. If I’ve made any grammatical errors, if somethings awkward, or you just have any constructive criticism I encourage you to point them out so my writing may get better. I hope rejoin the fallout fandom and integrate into this community. I look forward to discussing many things with you all. I hope that I've picked the right category to post this, if this is the wrong one or if stories like this are not welcome I will promptly fix it.

• Thank you very much for your time, FrighteningCazadores
  

 

I actually don't quite remember what my old stomping grounds were, I know I had a few sites I'd migrated around. I treated them more as a casual discussion type shin-dig. As for motivation, after lurking for a bit the people seemed civil enough, so I decided to make an account and set up shop.

 

I'd be perfectly fine on elaborating. I meant that whenever I stated something I liked about fallout 4 or whenever I said I found it fun, I'd be met with what you'd really expect. I'd either get called a creative and insulting name (bethestard seemed to be popular at that time) or that I wasn't a true fan of the series. What used to really get to me were the long essays people wrote me about how "I was stupid and a worthless human for liking the trash pile fallout 4 is". A lot of them got to me when I was younger, and actually did make me feel inferior for just having an opinion about a game. In hindsight it is silly now, but at least now I have the fortitude to laugh now.

 

Very insightful, I appreciate it.