Question about reccing

[emmagrant01]

Last night, MDH and I went out with charlotteschaos and her hubby to see Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park get MST'd by a comedy troupe. It was hilarious, but I think Char and I giggled the loudest at all the Harry Potter references that were worked in!

And now, I have a question: on another post, some folks are talking about reccing, and a few comments have been made that seem to imply many people don't read fics that they think have been over-hyped. This is honestly a bit baffling to me, because if everyone on my f-list is reccing something, then I tend to assume it has a good chance of being a great read. People don't rec fics they don't like, after all, so if the pairing is something I'm in the mood for, I figure I should at least give it a shot. If I don't like it, I can hit the back button and go on my merry way.

But why would someone not read a fic that's getting a lot of attention on principle? If you do this, I'd appreciate an explanation, because it doesn't make any sense to me at the moment.

Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about a situation where it's a pairing and a scenario you would ordinarily find appealing, but you choose not to read the fic SOLELY because it's getting recced by everyone out there. Maybe no one actually does this and I'm overgeneralizing...

Comments

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put fanfic in the same category, though!

After all, I choose who is on my f-list, and I respect their opinions. If a large number of those people think something is good, the odds are high I will think so too. If nothing else, my curiosity is piqued.

It's not simply popular opinion -- it's the opinion of a group of people whose journals *I* chose to read.

[daybreaq.livejournal.com]

Yes, and another thing that makes fanfic different than Hillary Duff et al is that fanfic doesn't have major corporate entities that initiated the hype.The "hype" fanfic usually receives are from readers who have genuinely enjoyed a particular story. They are not a record company creating a buzz to sell their artist, they are not radio stations paid off by said record companies to play said artists, and they are not critics/reporters paid off by said record companies, TV/movie studios or agents. With fanfic, it's just people. Now occasionally you'll have someone rec a friend's fic simply because that person is a friend or as some sort of fanfic rec exchange. But if the fic isn't really good, it won't receive recs from other people. Therefore, the stories some see as "hyped" are not really hyped because if multiple ppl are rec'ing the story, they are doing so because they all genuinely enjoyed it not for some other strange ulterior motive.