Fangirls scare me!

You know the ones I'm talking about. Those posters at the author loops and message boards, as well as more general boards and even Amazon, who obsess over and dissect the minutiae of their chosen authors' creations, and who dismiss even then slightest criticism of said author and her works. Their rebuttals to such criticisms usually include such in-depth thoughts as, "You just don't get it!", "So-and-so is a goddess and I will read every piece of crap she has ever and will ever write!," or "If you don't get it, we don't want youto read so-and so's book anyway." Yeah,hmmm, whatever. As a complete spoiler whore, I lurk around author websites and loops, desperate for hints or excerpts, and I find these types by turns amusing, annoying, and sometimes creepy. Sometimes I love a book, despite the fact that I know that there are (sometimes glaring) flaws. Something about it will just draw me in and make me ignore the flaws. While I may disagree with another's opinion, I can still respect it and often find truth in it. If I like the book, someone else isn't going to change my mind about it. Whatever, if a person's going to put a product out there, they should be able to handle some criticism. It just weirds me out that these fans are so impassioned that they need to respond to everything with they typwritten equivalent of sticking their tongue out. If you don't have anything halfway intelligent to say, don't say anything at all. I've even seen posts where these so-called fans actually post links to negative reviews etc., just so they can reassure the author and the community that this person's an idiot and they're full of crap. Wha? You love this author so much that you'll bring negative info that she might otherwise miss to her attention?

Also, they just seem to be just a little toooo into it. I love paranormals and part of the fun is getting into the world building, and seeing characters develop over time. But for me the fun is seeing what the author does with the character(s) etc. and if I'd do the same if I was her or whatever. I wouldn't go so far as to say that people have completely lost their grip on reality, but I think that some of them are thinking about these characters waaay too much. While I can get fangirly (see my continued devotion to SK while sooooo many things bug me about the DH books), I can recognize that books are books, and sometimes mediocre ones at that. Really though, some of these posters freak me out. I think they might stab someone who doesn't recognize their genius of their object of devotion.

I also worry that some of these authors might get caught up in the slavish adoration of their fangirls. I kinda think that this is what happened to LKH. If a vocal group is telling you that your shit don't stink, well hell, you should keep churning out shit for them. The rest of us misguided fools just don't get it. I'm going to go there and say, that after the stuff that I've read over the past year, Sherrilyn Kenyon is in grave danger of succumbing to this. People adore her no matter how meh it is. Or else she's just overextended and has got to start saying no to her agent.

Is this primarily a paranormal phenomenon? Do the authors of historicals or contemporaries have such rabid and defensive fans? 'Cuz all the examples I'm thinking of are paranormal authors. It's interesting...