And the hits just keep on coming...

Happy Valentine's Day!
Sorry I don't get back here as often as I should but it IS Idol season...besides, with Mom coming home soon I have lots to do to get her adjusted to her new way of doing things.

My return here was hastened by some information I stumbled upon while surfing. It could help us understand why Clay has attrached such a negative element of late. Check it out:

Anti-Fan Clubs
Anti-fan and hate blogs in the US are relatively new phenomena which has reached a new height with the advent of Computer message board sites and blogs. American Idol added to the stream of Anti-fans with the most popular contestants having the most anti-fans. Anti-fans and hate clubs have been prevalent in Korea (as an example) for many years with the most popular super-stars having the most anti-fans, beginning with Jang Woo Hyuk having the most and TVXQ! a close second.

In Korea a website is created for a new hot celebrity once he debuts and the haters will follow that particular celebrity to the point of stalking - tracking all movements, even joining fan clubs pretending to be fans in order to get the inside scoop to share with their anti fan groups. Their goal is to get others to hate the popular celebrity as much as they do and some are considered not just crazy by the general populace but can be dangerous. They don't just spend hours of their time on a celebrity - but years depicting every flaw, every mistake no matter how minor or irrelevant it is to a career - picking apart and exaggerating everything they read, see or hear about the victim of their hatred.

One young star - Yoon Eun Hye suffered a lot at the hands of the anti's and was terrified of meeting fans up close because she couldn't tell a fan from an anti. One man who pretended to be a fan shot her in the eye with a water pistol filled with vinegar and soy sauce, she was hospitalized and unable to open her eyes for days, as well as traumatized. Most anti-fans probably won't physically harm their victims - but within these groups are hidden the unstable - and they have been known to carry their hatred out to the point of wiping out a life. Some want to end careers, or for the object of their hatred to just disappear and will stop at nothing to make it happen!

Anti- fans will also spread their hatred to the fans of a star as well. Fans are always a positive thing for any celebrity, and if one dislikes them, there are plenty more to like and promote. Why does one waste such a short life on someone they don't know or like with such an unhealthy pursuit? Studies have proceeded in Korea - maybe the US is next?

Sound familiar? The above was borrowed from the comment section of an anti-fan community of Aiken's. Makes sense to me.

This next article comes out of the New York Times. That fact alone tells me that there might be some credence to all of this:

Anti-Fan Club
By ROB WALKER
Published: November 26, 2006

Rachael Ray Haters

Consumer culture, and indeed popular culture, revolve in large part around shared admiration, shared likes: fandom, in a word, is a thing that can bring us together. But what about shared dislikes? Can a community form around that? What is the opposite of a fan club? The answer is the Rachael Ray Sucks Community. Gathering by way of the blogging and social-networking site LiveJournal, this group has more than 1,000 members, who are quite active in posting their latest thoughts and observations about the various shortcomings, flaws and disagreeable traits of Rachael Ray, the television food personality. “This community,” the official explanation reads, “was created for people that hate the untalented twit known as Rachael Ray.” The most important rule for those who wish to join: “You must be anti-Rachael!” As with any community, the key to attracting members is not just a clear core idea but one that can be fulfilled in a variety of ways. Members of the Rachael Ray Sucks Community certainly do this, criticizing her cooking skills, her overreliance on chicken stock, her kitchen hygiene, her smile (often compared to the Joker’s), her voice, her physical mannerisms, her clothes, her penchant for saying “Yum-o” and so on. The general tone is suggested by the community’s name for the object of its united spite: “Raytard.”

The founder of this enterprise is Misty Lane, 32, of Lansing, Mich., who turns out to be not an angry sociopath but an upbeat-sounding woman who punctuates every other sentence with a friendly laugh. In the context of anti-Rachael Rayism, Lane was an early adopter: she founded the group three years ago, when Ray’s “30 Minute Meals” was just another show on the Food Network. A cooking enthusiast who enjoyed picking up tips and inspiration from “true chefs,” Lane complained that Ray trafficked in culinary “common knowledge.” And that she kept waving her arms around. “She just used to drive me crazy,” Lane said, laughing.

Sounds like a good reason to change the channel, but instead Lane started her community and alerted the 40 or so people on her LiveJournal friends list. Only a few joined, and the community remained relatively small until it was mentioned last year (in a pro-Ray essay) in the online magazine Slate. By then, Ray was on her way to becoming the pop-culture juggernaut that she is today, with a couple of Food Network shows, a syndicated talk show, a magazine started a year ago that is expected to top a million in circulation in the next few months, plans for a restaurant and even CDs of her favorite songs for kids and the holidays. Meanwhile, Ray-bashing has flourished, too.

Which raises a curious point: While the community is now mentioned in practically every article about Ray, and new members keep chiming in, it seems to have had no impact on Ray’s rise whatsoever. Ed Keller, C.E.O. of the research-and-consulting firm Keller Fay Group, says that while some brand managers live in fear of negative chatter, what really matters in gauging “talk share” is whether positive talk dominates. “If you’ve got a fan base,” he says, “you can weather negative word of mouth.” (And the anti-Ray sentiment may be a special case, given that many of her fans are almost certainly motivated by an anti-sentiment of their own, against complicated cooking and “foodie” culture.)

Lane has wondered why her particular community has received so much attention. “Most celebrities have anti-sites on the Internet,” she points out, and so do plenty of prominent brands, like Starbucks and Dell. Perhaps the real lesson of communities of disregard is that they’re a sign of brand health: nobody bothers to get together to hate an irrelevant entity. Where would the fun be in that?

And while the tone of the Rachael Ray Sucks Community sometimes seems a little unbalanced, fun is basically the point, Lane maintains, of her “silly hobby.” She spends an hour a day or so on the site, doing basic maintenance, commenting on new posts and, most of all, being entertained. The anti-Ray community is funnier — and far more active — than any Ray fan site she has seen. “It’s nice to find like-minded people,” Lane says. “You think for the longest time that you’re all by yourself, and you’re the crazy one for not liking something. Then you meet other people who dislike the same things you do.

“It’s like a family reunion!” Lane concluded. And then she laughed, quite cheerily.

Let's see what more I can dig up. Tell me what you think of this. It sure answers some questions for me.

Carry on!