World of Weird Al Yankovic

Recently, I've been frequenting a couple of other fan boards for other musicians/bands that I like. I've noticed that the other fans are not as rabid for facts as we are.

'Ferinstance, last night I was surfing over at youtube for videos, and found a vid of the lead singer giving an interview about how/why he wrote a particular song, and then he broke it down as to how to play the song, chording etc. Pretty interesting stuff, especially for those of you who know how fascinated I am with the process. Anyhoo... I had never heard of even a peep of this interview, so I went back to the fan board to share it.

No one even commented on it! I'm still flabbergasted. IF there was something similar involving Al or TBITB, we'd have a whole topic and 35 pages of discussion about it.

I have done some basic surfing and have found tons of pics that none of these other fans had ever seen. Including pics that apparently were taken by the band themselves and not necessarily meant for public viewing. (Not bad, just very candid.)

As good WAY fans, we know about stuff almost the same microsecond it's posted. We find obscure interviews and facts, photos, mentions on blogs etc. We're like Weird Al google bots.

Anyone else notice this from their activity on other fan boards?

What do you think makes us so weird? Or are we?

From what I've seen, there's a lot of divides in most fandoms. (See here)

I've never seen this sort of thing with WOWAY, aside from rare occurrences like Al's Band... It's just one of those fandoms where there generally isn't any difference of opinion on.

Also, I think that the closeness that Al seems to have with his fans is another deciding factor; I've seen forums where the creator of [whatever] is put on such a high pedastal and anyone who thinks differently is a bad fan... so then someone else defends the bad fan and it escalates into a broken base.

Well, there is a bit of a divide in the fandom here, but I think it's minor. There are WOWAY fans, and the ones who never/seldom join us here. I'm sure we can all think of a few of those people. (And is it weird that we know who we are?)

I think it's the closeness factor.

Artists who are closer to their fans will tend to have more rabid fanbases, where those who are isolated, shy, and in some cases, downright rude to their fans, tend to not

I think that's part of it.

But I wonder if there isn't something basic to the kind of person who's drawn to Al in the first place? I tend to be a tad compulsive in a lot of areas, I find that if I'm interested in something, I will study and research it to death. I drive my co-workers crazy sometimes because (for example) I need to know what the test the doctor ordered is looking for. It's not my job to know, it's only my job to order it, but I have to know. So I'll look it up in the books. As a result, sometimes I know what the doctor is trying to diagnose based on what tests he orders, and sometimes the nurse doesn't have a clue.

This is interesting. I've never thought about this. I've noticed that everyone i know who like Al is into rock. But hey i'd like to beg to differ with the closeness to fans thing. Eminem is a dick all the time to all of his fans but he's huge. Slipknot try to kill people and destry stuff but there fan base is huger than ever. It must just be that the people who like Al are nice freindly people.... I've done a study on how music affects people psycologically and the way Al and TBITB play and make music even turns songs that were bad for you (Eminem - Lose Yourself) into good for you songs. And comedy music promotes laughter which promotes brain health. Then of course smart people love facts and dumb people just don't get Al's lyrics......

There you go..... Geek speak to the max but ah well. I just culdn't go past this topic without putting my thoughts in lol

It has to do primarily with the fact that people who like "Weird Al" tend to be very geeky and obsessive about it. I like tons of other bands, but I'd say there's only a 60-70% chance I would watch a video of most bands I really really like, as compared with Weird Al who I would literally buy anything he released, read anything he posted, etc.

I think "Weird Al" fandom has far more in common with Star Wars fandom than with, say, Weezer fandom.

Interesting topic! I am a figure skating fan and a fan of a certain soap opera and I have seen these things Scottidog describes on fan boards/mailing lists. It's not hugely unusual. For example, on a fan list for a skater I am a fan of, the person who runs the list actually talks to the skater's manager from time to time and gets us first hand news about the skater. Most of the people on that list could also name his skating programs like we can list Al info. I am not sure what to attribute this to, though. Although with my 3 main fandoms these days(Al, skating, and soaps) they all are kind of on the fringe of the mainstream...

iv been on afew fan forums, and this is the most updated one iv come across, and the large majority of people that are on daily, are friendly funny people, who are simmilar to Al.

I think that its awesome that there are other people out there who have a file cabenet fulled with Al info, for half a brain, like me (no offence intended to those who are like me) and on the plus side were all "clinically insane" or weird as some may put it, but at least there is a friendly place for us all to meet! and on the plus side, its all about Al!

And the only time i have seen fans on this forum get "divided" is if we spell Yankovic wrong. And thats fair enough....and we dont devide, just tease....so i have heard

I don't think spelling Yankovic wrong divides anybody. We all hate that!