Seinfeld Is Unfunny/Fan Fiction

• This effect can happen a lot with online fanfiction as well; any particularly well-executed fanfic that takes source material in a new direction is likely to spawn a horde of imitators, rapidly turning the original author's new and innovative take on the source material into a tired cliche. With fanfics that are Long Runners or suffer from Schedule Slip a story can actually go from innovative to cliched before the author is even done writing it.
  • A lot of older fanfic suffers from this, especially in large, well-trafficked forums like Harry Potter, when a fic that invented or popularised a popular piece of Fanon is examined in light of what went after.
  • Gundam Wing was one of the prime fandoms for this until fans started actually paying attention to the canon rather than the fanon.
• Likewise, the old apas and zines seem quaint and silly in comparison to the internet. Many younger fanfic writers never heard of the days when it was incredible to get four or five novel-length fanfics circulated in a year.
• This is a notable problem with many old Redwall fics, particularly The Urthblood Saga, that deals with the theme of "noble vermin". When these fics where written back in the late 90's/early 2000's, the concept of including good foxes, rats and weasels in a story based on a series that is so strictly black-and-white was fresh and challenging. Nowadays however, it's rare to find a fic that doesn't include it, or that plays the Always Chaotic Evil mantra from the official books straight.
• A vast majority of Ranma ½ fanfics written after 1998 or so were built almost entirely upon Fanon established in earlier works by notable authors; the absolute worst case of this being the Flanderization of Akane into a brutally violent, abusive raging bitch with a hair trigger and no rationality whatsoever--which was given legitimacy in the very dark "The Bitter End", a story which painted a darker picture of the Ranmaverse and reconstructed this portrayal, with a Freudian Excuse, in the process. After TBE, "psychotic Akane" became one of the biggest cliches in Ranma fanfiction to the point that most people roll their eyes and groan when they see a story going in that direction.
  • Also, the amusing parody crossover Sailor Ranko spawned an entire subgenre of Ranma fanfiction.
• In Total Drama Island fandom this happens a lot; Total Drama Comeback popularized Ezekiel, Bridgette and pairings without any relation in canon like Katie/Noah to the point of this has became clichés in most TDI fanseasons (many of them could be rightily called TDC fanfics, not TDI fanfics).
• Harry Potter has inspired one of the most prolific fanficcer communities ever. As a result, tons of clichés have formed over the years. A modern reader might find a fic way back from 2002, filled with clichés and not realize those he's reading the first fic to use some of those ideas.
  • A good example is Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality. At the time of its release, it was heralded as a wonderful, and rational, retelling of the story. And naturally it spawned imitators who began making the characters more rational and steadily began to do so without dancing on the In Name Only border. As little as five years after it finished, the fic can be viewed as a massive Cliché Storm of the worst aspects of Harry Potter fanfics.
  • Harry Potter and the Invincible Technomage. Reception to it was always a Broken Base but it did help normalize the very popular idea of Marvel/Harry Potter crossovers. But with many later Marvel crossovers managing to merge the two worlds without resorting to hating on the Potter Verse, Invincible Technomage is considered by some people to be an example in how not to write a crossover, in addition to it falling victim to frequent usage of Ron the Death Eater and Draco in Leather Pants , despite it blazing the Harry Potter/Marvel trail.
• In the early day of the Fandom many My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fans liked the ideal that Princess Celestia was really evil or at least a Knight Templar. However soon after, fanfics about her being a Hero with Bad Publicity or The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask woobie started showing up. Now Celestia would be no worse than a Harmless Troll.
  • Cupcakes was considered the most terrifying thing ever when it was first published. Ever since then, there have been an awful lot of grimdark imitators that make Cupcakes look mundane in comparison (Example: Sweet Apple Massacre) and now some people don't find it as scary.
  • Contemplate this: a show which has existed all of two years has an internet community so dedicated that ideas in fan fiction have already become accepted conventions and then faded into being boring. The conclusions you draw from this are up to you.
• A Trekkie's Tale. Being the source of the term Mary Sue, people who seek the story out may be disappointed to find that it's extremely short, and a quite basic parody. Then you consider that it was written in the early '70s, when even the idea of fanfic itself was in its infancy.
• Back in the old days, many an Ash/Misty fic had them get together by placing one in danger and forcing the other to realize how much they loved them. At the time, it was considered good, gripping drama. After a thousand or so fics with this device, though, even die-hard Ash/Misty shippers started to find it boring.
• Sailor Moon fandom has a whole list of clichés that fans hated as a result of them being around in the fandom since day one. Similarly to Ash/Misty, Usagi/Mamoru was well-known for its romance-enabling plot devices. (Section #2 of the list)
• Yuri fandom once relied on the trope of a heroine being burned in some way by her canon boyfriend in order to toss her into the arms of her female best friend or whichever other girl she was being shipped with. These days, such a plot device is the bane of many a yuri shipper's existence due to the Unfortunate Implications - namely, the (rather gross) idea that women turn lesbians out of romantic trauma rather than actually being lesbians. (Not that it stops die-hard shippers from still relying on it...)
• Similarly, back during a time when it was practically a pre-requisite in yaoi fandom to bash the female love interests, fics that simply had the girl realize she was a lesbian and run off with another girl were considered revolutionary for the fact that she got a reasonably happy ending rather than dying in a fire or being humiliated by the boys. Nowadays, it's seen as a transparent means of getting the "icky vagina" out of the way while still looking politically correct so people won't get mad.
  • Some yuri fics could also do this with male love interests, though they were much rarer.
• Victoriously Jade among the Victorious fandom. While there had long been fanfics that retold events of the show through Jade's eyes while it was still airing, Victoriously Jade was the first, or at least one of the first, to attempt a rewrite of the entire show from her POV. When the fic first started, its profound and in-depth look at the show, along with its original plotlines that supplemented canon, was revolutionary among the fanbase. But the fic has been on so many hiatuses over the years, that many, if not all, aspects of it have been copied and improved on by other writers. And compared to other fics that were much more direct in plotting and/or had characterizations much more faithful to canon, Victoriously Jade can look like a wangsty and intolerably slow 2000s soap opera Cliché Storm despite pioneering that particular Fandom Specific Plot.
• The Last Son. In 2006, it was an ambitious Canon Welding of Marvel and DC that crafted a wholly original universe like none ever seen before. After the Marvel Cinematic Universe inspired a deluge of Mega Crossovers, like There Was Once An Avenger From Krypton or Child of the Storm, that mixed Marvel and DC together with so many more properties, and doing so without resorting to Character Shilling to hype up DC, The Last Son just looks like a self-limiting amateur job, despite its pioneering work actually being cited as an inspiration for Child of the Storm.