Dylan Waco Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I don't buy for even two seconds that the percentage of "smart fans" is smaller now, in fact I think that suggestion is borderline insane. When I go to live shows now there is always tons of chatter all around me from guys who "read something online" or about what wrestler is really hurt or who is leaving or whatever. The sports bar I go to is in a huge redneck area of town and many of the fans that go their are casual in the sense that they don't watch super religiously. Almost every one of them knew Punk was leaving and was talking about that being one of his last matches with the company on Sunday at the ppv. I get kids who come into my work all the time and purchase wrestling books and inevitably we end up talking about what they read on Rajah.com and who they think should be getting "pushed." The number of hardcore fans is probably about the same and will always stay the same, but the as net access has expanded dramatically it stands to reason that more fans than ever before are "smart" by the standards of what would have been considered "smart" ten or fifteen years ago. I would say of the consistent adult fanbase THE MAJORITY are "smart" in the sense that they occasionally go to news sites or are interested to some degree about the inner workings of the business. Children are a different story of course and sense the WWE markets more heavily in that direction than they have in years maybe I am off base about the overall percentage of "smart" fans. But nothing I experience in my daily life leads me to believe that the number is lower than it was in say 96-97 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Log Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I think one thing that gets messed-up too, is that the people that post here, dvdvr, wrestling ko, etc are the norm for "internet" fans. I have a few buddies at work who follow stuff religiously online. They go to like prowrestling.com or something. The sites that basically reprint Meltzer stuff, that kind of thing. They have opinions of wrestling that are nowhere near anyone on here. You know, Kofi Kingston is awesome, TNA is pretty good and doing all these awesome matches. They have no idea who Kawada or Misawa are. To me, they are more the "typical" internet fan that you'd see at a WWE show or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I think one thing that gets messed-up too, is that the people that post here, dvdvr, wrestling ko, etc are the norm for "internet" fans. I have a few buddies at work who follow stuff religiously online. They go to like prowrestling.com or something. The sites that basically reprint Meltzer stuff, that kind of thing. They have opinions of wrestling that are nowhere near anyone on here. You know, Kofi Kingston is awesome, TNA is pretty good and doing all these awesome matches. They have no idea who Kawada or Misawa are. To me, they are more the "typical" internet fan that you'd see at a WWE show or something. Absolutely true. Message board wrestling culture is not the same as internet wrestling culture Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 Yeah, the IWC, man. We account for over 10% of the wrestling fanbase. Our fingers hurt after all of the angry blogs we were forced into typing out. The bastards.Really? The sarcasm isn't obvious? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJH Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I don't think your sarcasm was missed, rather rzombie's post after yours segued into a separate mini-discussion on that old "10%" figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I have no idea what the current percent of fans are that read about wrestling online, but it has to be big. I don't think I've met any fans who don't read about wrestling online. I'd love to know what the current number is and to end the 10% talking point for good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 To be fair, I think the percentage of fans like us is still comparatively low to people who just "read about wrestling". The casual fan does not own hundreds or thousands of DVDs, and before that the same number of VHS tapes. I doubt the casual fan would pay the insane prices for Observer or Torch subscriptions. I mean, unless there are hundreds/thousands of die hard wrestling fans that do not post on message boards (of any kind), then I guess I just don't believe the smart fan (fans like the majority of us here) population to be that great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted June 22, 2011 Report Share Posted June 22, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Probably he means that attitude that old wrestlers have towards smarks as a group. There's still plenty of grumpy old veterans who dismiss "those internet marks" as being some kind of Borg-like hivemind collective, where everyone has identical homogeneous personalities and opinions. "The internet marks all think that..." and such. And the guys a few posts up were right about the current crop of younger semi-informed internet fans vs the hardcores like us. The casual fan is much more likely now to know a little bit more about backstage stuff than they ever were before. But I dunno if the percentage of seriously devoted "scholars", if you will, has risen from previous eras. Actually, there would be one easy way to measure it. Does Meltzer ever release the number of subscribers he has, and has had in the past? That would be a handy estimation to use for the size of the hardcore smark audience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I'm not sure if Dave's made any claims in recent years but he already claimed to have about 900 subscribers by early 1985. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rovert Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand? I refer you to the case of Bruce Mitchell vs Derek Burgan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand? I refer you to the case of Bruce Mitchell vs Derek Burgan Plz explain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 All these one liners are hurting my head. Elaborate for us ignorant folk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand? "There is no Cabal" John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Oh god, what are you talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkelly Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 John is enjoying messing with you (and me), which he already messes with me enough by knowing soooo much about wrestling, especially puro and lucha related tidbits. I grew up on the Internet reading his DVDVR pimping posts. My initial wrestling want lists were created from those posts. Yeah, just a casual fan, eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rovert Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I always thought the concept of "The IWC" was pretty laughable. John Not sure what you mean here. Care to expand? I refer you to the case of Bruce Mitchell vs Derek Burgan Plz explain. There was a big debate (really just lots of yelling) about it on Torch radio on whether or not the IWC exists which created a bunch of drops and website based memes. Mitchell strongly thinks there isnt one as there isnt one collective being - a community to him is a bunch of people living and/or working together. Wrestling fans are different people with different tastes. Even the message boards are VERY different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Bruce is right. The term always felt a little toolish to me too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Bruce is right. The term always felt a little toolish to me too. Given that the term is often used condescendingly, if it feels "toolish" when you see it, it's having the desired effect, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I doubt the casual fan would pay the insane prices for Observer or Torch subscriptions. Agree few casual fans would bother paying for it but it's only like $2.30 a week for the Observer site if you get a year long sub. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Bruce is right. The term always felt a little toolish to me too. Given that the term is often used condescendingly, if it feels "toolish" when you see it, it's having the desired effect, no? Meaning "Recently, the IWC has been in an uproar over HHH's antics" is a little toolish. It doesn't make me think of the people in this supposed IWC at tools, more that the person who uses it sounds like one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 Meaning "Recently, the IWC has been in an uproar over HHH's antics" is a little toolish. It doesn't make me think of the people in this supposed IWC at tools, more that the person who uses it sounds like one. There is that. There once *may* have been an "Internet Wrestling Community": rsp-w in the extremely early 90s. But by the time Prodigy and AOL Grandstand kicked up, there was little community. Just a bunch of fans. Anyone among us who was the old Federation Forums (i.e. WWF, WCW and ECW) back on AOL Grandstand can attest: they were just fans. Perhaps more hardcore than your average fan watching the WWF in MSG, but vastly less hardcore than WON readers who *were not* "The IWC". By the time I got online in 1996, there was little community on rsp-w. You had your fans like Dean. You had some massive WCW or WWF fanboys who just ripped the shit out of the other promotion as the Monday Night Wars took off. You had your trolls. You even had non-wrestling fans like Zoggs just fucking around. And you had your people who were hardcore WON readers like Herb Kunze. In turn, rsp-w was an entirely different beast from AOL GS (and one would assume Prodigy where RYDER ruled the roost). Once websites popped up? There was no singular "IWC". That's the reason why there is no IWC: the way in which people use the term doesn't accurately describe _anything_ other than the one (or handful) of websites they read/post to. Exactly how many of us have a clue of what folks on WWE.com have written over the years? Go to youtube, but in a PPV name and you'll pull up a *ton* of people doing videos of them simply reviewing the PPV. He'll, put in the name of a PWG card and the same thing will pop up. I know this because I've tried to find some of the DVD pimpage that PWG puts out only to pull up a crapload of people talking into their fucking webcam about the show and uploading it to youtube. That's barely scratching the surface. Some of you are massive torrents users, and you know that there are wrestling torrents "communities" (i.e. boards) that service those interests. Do you think that Alverez or Bruce or Burgan mean those things when they talk about the "IWC"? The CM boards? Do they mean all those videos that are up on DM? What about stuff that's uploaded to MU and RS and a host of other file sharing cites? The people who toss around the term are probably in touch with 1% of the totality of online wrestling fandom/activity. The wrestling internet isn't a "community" anymore than the United States is a "community". It's a fucking country. We passed out of "community" before the terms IWC was even created. Here's an uncomfortable analogy: The folks who use "IWC" are the wrestling fan equiv of those older whites who still use the term "Coloreds". It simply dates the user of the term and reflects how completely out of touch they are. For anyone who thinks 1% is off base: 6,138,623 people like this facebook page... probably best not to look at the #1 wrestler linked to on that page, since he has a million more Community? Out of fucking touch. Train left the stay long ago, folks. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 23, 2011 Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I think people are getting hung up on the word "community". When most people use the term "IWC" it usually is a blanket term for people on the internet who follow behind the scenes stuff and maybe (but not always) have a WON or Torch sub. Someone who only visits WWE.com or likes them on Facebook certainly wouldn't be in that group. If anything, perhaps there needs to be a revamp of terminology to come up with a term for that type, like how gaming has "hardcore" and "casual" groups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2011 I think that's the appropriate way to classify wrestling fans -- hardcore fans and casual fans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.