Years ago as another bad game was being celebrated and heralded as the greatest thing to ever grace this earth since that asteroid gave us dominion, I came into a realization. Those who had road the hype train were carrying out the five stages of grief as they gradually came to terms that the product they had previously hyped and loved lacked quality. Through the years it hasn’t always been an unmitigable trash heap, but the process has without exception played itself out like clockwork.
As we deal with yet another bought of “Terrible remakes are great” it has brought this old concept back to mind. We could argue for hours regarding the root cause of the phenomena. Whether we are looking at Nietzsche’s “Last Men,” the manifestation of NPC behavior, or the inevitable conclusion of raising children to be self-absorbed in their own opinions after raising them to believe in postmodernist rhetoric of subjective emotionalism over objective rationalism. Regardless of what conclusions we draw there is no denying people consume, hype up the product and then defend it as if it were principle. Before they and the zeitgeist simply move on.
Why not then mock it? Ridicule it for being the absurdly over-investment that it is? The speed may vary from person to person, from product to product, but to varying degrees, the stages are the same. For instance some people today are finally completing the process over Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the Rise of Skywalker saw its acceptance as a bad product break the sound barrier and complete in a week. Give or take a day or two.
When the hype train runs its course though, you’ll see those really into something through the five stages of which I present to you now.
Stage 1: Denial
“No, it was a great movie”
They’ve just experienced or are experiencing the product. It’s fresh, the buzz is roaring around it and nothing will be able to change their mind. Any confrontation will be met with denial that there are any issues with the product or if the point is even acknowledged it will be downplayed as minor or insignificant.
During this stage circular arguments and appeals to the majority are common. Stage 1 tends to blend into Stage 2, so expect to see both in early conversations.
Stage 2: Anger
“Fuck the haters, they just want to ruin a good thing.”
At a certain point either the newness and dopamine high has worn off or you’ve hit upon arguments they cannot dismiss. At which point you will have invoked their ire. Receiving most often responses that have abandoned being calm or civil. You’ll have your fandom questioned, you’ll be told your reasons aren’t your reasons a strawman is, and you will be berated at this juncture.
Expect them to use insults, post long rants about how a product is a good and the haters are just ruining for everyone. Also, you know the evolutionary mechanism that allows you to put stimuli together to form complex thoughts, decisions, and evaluations without having to experience the incident directly. AKA knowing fire will hurt the entire length of the time it takes you out? Yeah, that doesn’t exist anymore. If you haven’t set yourself on fire then you can’t know that the product is inherently bad.
Stage 3: Bargaining
“Okay, it wasn’t perfect, but it was good in spots.”
This stage nearly everyone has experienced at some point or another. The point when a group of defenders begins to acquiesce some points of their argument or position. Acknowledging that X, Y, and Z were indeed bad, but overall the product was still good. Other aspects of the product make up for those negative points leaving a mostly enjoyable product.
Often they will ensure you know they are acknowledging these points. Either pleasantly as it “yeah these parts did kind of suck, but” or negatively as they mock you for focusing on the wrong qualities of the game.
Stage 4: Depression
“Why couldn’t they just have left/done (blank)”
At some point, discussions will begin on how the product could have been better. Alternatively, people will just quietly stop talking about the product altogether. Those that persist will discuss ideas that could have fixed the product or form fan theories that fill in the product’s various gaps. “What” or “How” articles and discussions crop up during this stage discussing who did what to ruin the product.
Occasionally people will double back around to bargaining utilizing a few played out adages. “Owe it will be good in a few months.” “after a few patches.” “Mods will fix it.” “The X Cut…” Even if any of these does prove to be correct as occasionally they do, it does not negate the product’s current poor quality. Any more than how beautiful an end house looks undoes construction screw-ups that had to be fixed.
Stage 5: Acceptance
“I always thought it was a bad game/movie.”
Eventually, people will reach acceptance. Be it quietly or vocally most people get there. What gets old is many of those content to insult and berate those that didn’t fall in line with the party’s message of the product’s second coming of Jesus levels of quality suddenly are rewriting history. For you see they always thought the product sucked or they have some historic modifier. Such as they were into the community or the hype, not the product itself.
If not outright denying they ever liked a product they will be hating and mocking it. The strangest example of this I’ve experienced is how it played out with Nintendo Switch Defenders. At launch, the console had some hardware issues and to me, I just didn’t think there were enough games. I wanted one eventually but said it wasn’t time just yet to get one. Big mistake, but when we finally got to the new edition being filled with uncensored goodness, then they were laughing at how underpowered the console was and how it had no games. All those hardware problems, they now existed whereas something was wrong with you if you thought so previously.
Stage 5 is also where you will see those blow-up posts. Where people just reach that real-life critical failure threshold and explode in a single post or rant after a particular incident or straw to many. Their grievance airing will often come with remarks about the various specific issues they overlooked while defending the game for a certain period of time. You’ll sometimes be amazed by these posts as you never were aware they were even defending the game or overlooking issues. Now though you know they’re done and you know the reason. Sometimes during these blow-ups, they’ll even apologize to those they criticized for previously having issues with the product.
None of this is a blanket denial of any other opinion. You can be irritated by people without going through the stage of anger. You can articulate why certain features do make up for other features shortcomings or how those meh features were never the focus of the game. Each of these is a rationed position that you can articulate in full with some form of evidence or reason. Not something you see from those that are blindly consuming and defending that consumption. Sometimes though we do just convince ourselves a product is good when it isn’t. Sometimes we do get too caught up in the hype. The magical secret there is just don’t be a Karen or Scumbag Steve over it.