abstract
| - A fan is shocked to find that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has made so much money! Surely the low Rotten Tomatoes rating should have tipped viewers off. Okay, even if they didn't care about those, surely they would have seen how horrible it was for themselves after the first weekend. What are they? Sheep? Conversely, how could Serenity or Scott Pilgrim not have made loads of money? Okay, people didn't know about them, but surely word of mouth would have carried. Well, the truth is that some people genuinely like Michael Bay movies such as Transformers, and that works like Firefly just don't appeal to everyone. If the fan can't or won't understand that, then they have Opinion Myopia. This, by the way, is pretty much the original definition of the word bigotry. A bigot was once simply someone who wouldn't allow anyone else to have an opinion that differed from their own. The older definition has become semi-obsolete now, but it still turns up on occasion (for example, repeatedly in the play version of Inherit the Wind). The formal academic term for this phenomenon is "the false consensus effect." Fan Hater and Complaining About People Not Liking the Show are Sub Tropes, where some seem to take offense at differing opinions. Compare Fan Myopia (thinking a work is more popular than it is), It's Popular, Now It Sucks, He Panned It, Now He Sucks, Broken Base, Bias Steamroller, and Vocal Minority. Contrast Your Mileage May Vary (recognizing an opinion isn't shared). Examples of Opinion Myopia include:
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