Vocal Minorities

By Minorities, by I mean those who have unpopular opinions on popular products and complain about how a long-running franchise is going downhill and how companies are becoming sellouts. These type of people are common on the internet, they're found on 4chan, Youtube, Reddit, GameFAQs, and other forums (PokeCommunity is no exception to this category). Popular web show hosts such as the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic, as well as obscure web show hosts such as RandomDCE and Hellsing920, also fall into the vocal minority. I have one question about this certain group: can they be seen as a potential threat to companies? What if the old school Trekkies are fed up with Paramount because of the new Star Trek movies and start a revolution for them to stop "raping" what they love, or what if these people are the sole target audience for certain companies like SEGA, and after the product became a major flop by the majority, they quit? A friend of mine from Skype has something about the minority:

"The minority has 'less wrong' opinions.
Well, more likely to have 'less wrong'.
You have a point because most of the world is stupid apparently
And therefore a lot of opinions are stupid
Which is the mainstream
But, it's like rolling dice, he says
The majority can be right
The minority can be wrong
Minorities can be extremely stupid
For example? The Westboro Church
They're a minority
Does that make them smarter than the rest?
No, it doesn't
They're stupider in fact
So, really, you can't say for sure the minority is always smarter
Plus there are different kinds of minorities"

Click to expand...

How should we deal with the vocal minority? Should we leave them alone despite becoming one day a prominent threat to the things we enjoy, or should we do something to change their views and become more open minded?

You cant force people to like things. If people dont like a company/product/whatever, that is their choice. People have the freedom to make choices and that's not going away. While open mindedness and research of certain products/companies/things should be encouraged, in the end it's up to people to choose what they like. I dont think there's much of a way of "dealing" with that, and there shouldnt be. I dont nessesarily think it always dooms something if a bunch of people dont like it, as long as it makes enough of a profit, it will continue. There will always be unpopular opinions on things, but that is just human nature. People are allowed to not like things.

In my opinion, it's always better to let the minority be vocal. Ignore them if you must. Let them speak their minds. Don't be fooled by their volume, their tenacity or their perseverance. They're just a minority, and their position matters no more or less than one expressed quietly. They just want you to think it does so they can have it their way.

If they're right, people will come to see it somehow. If not, they'll be ignored. You can't really do anything about a vocal minority except consider their argument and decide for yourself whether they're right or not. You don't even have to agree or like their volume when it comes to the subject. Sometimes it's possible for a minority to be too loud, and thus cause damage to their position as they angle for enough support to be considered more than just a minority

Sometimes it's good to have a vocal minority though, and they aren't always disruptive. Often enough, they do bring a fresh perspective to the discussion more frequently than larger groups do. Because a minority has fewer members, it's ideals are a lot more capable of being flexible and perhaps even more capable of changing or compromising than a majority might be. So sometimes you can bring about peace just by compromising and listening when possible and considering their input equally.

This is especially true because sometimes there are more supporters than there are loud voices. Sometimes the Vocal Minority heralds the presence of a Silent Majority, and others it can just be a bluff at such. You just have to watch and see. Maybe there's not a silent majority, maybe it's just Majority Apathy, but it still means that something may be worth thinking about if that's indeed the case.

Does it matter what the headcount is either way? What matters is the content of an argument, not how many people support it. You seem to be suggesting that minority opinions can't be right, which is absurd.

The "vocal minority" messes everything up, since they tend to not represent every different opinion. For the more statistically inclined, this is called a skew.

Now, I'm not trying to bring this whole thing to a heated debate about magical ponies and wizards, but this is the biggest and most common example I see.

"Hardcore" atheists and "Fundamental" Christians.

Now, there are atheists who are normal and can respect humans for being stupid like they aren't, and that's most of the people in this world. However, some of them have to come up and act like a moron and say that I'm stupid for believing in the Magical Baby Jesus or whatever.

And now, there are Christians who are normal and can accept the fact that atheists. However, some of them think "omg ur goeng 2 hell" is a weapon of mass destruction, and there are those who think gay people are icky and should be aborted etc.

But is everyone like that? No.

For example, I have an atheist friend, but we ignore the fact that atheists are raging beasts with *******s for eyes, because we're friends, and having a serious intellectual discussion/argument over trivial things isn't a thing that friends generally do, if you haven't noticed.

A typical day with him would reveal conversations like this:

"Oh man, the College Board must be an evil organization!" "Why?" "Do you know where their headquarters are?" "Good point."

Now, does that sound like the "typical" atheist-and-christian exchange to you? Because it is.

And ask yourself, do you know people like this? A lot? Why? It's because we're the majority. We find no need to be ridiculed by everyone because of our beliefs.

And think to yourself for one second, how many people regularly protest gay abortions on military funerals.

…

Yeah, not a lot, huh? That's because we're the majority; they're the minority. They're the weird ones.

There are a lot of people in the world, guys. Ignore the ones you hear and go look for the ones you don't. You'd be surprised.

twocows said:

Does it matter what the headcount is either way? What matters is the content of an argument, not how many people support it. You seem to be suggesting that minority opinions can't be right, which is absurd.

Click to expand...

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm trying to say is how should companies deal with the vocal minority? Should they try to please them, but at the cost of possibly alienating the majority who loved their previous product, ignore them even if the situation worsens and eventually kills off the company in question for not pleasing the said minority, or find a way to change their opinions to become less vocal and more open-minded but can largely damage unique tastes?

Pinkie-Dawn said:

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm trying to say is how should companies deal with the vocal minority? Should they try to please them, but at the cost of possibly alienating the majority who loved their previous product, ignore them even if the situation worsens and eventually kills off the company in question for not pleasing the said minority, or find a way to change their opinions to become less vocal and more open-minded but can largely damage unique tastes?

Click to expand...

For the most part, just embrace you vocal fanbase. Doesn't matter if they're complaining. They're getting word out on your product. Publicity is good. That's why you see such a media conglomerate / celebrity presence at events like comic con now. They're going to be the ones to talk about it on the Internet, create a buzz, and that slowly spreads out to everyone else.

At the same time, you should also use them as gauge. They likely know your product better than the corporate heads do, so they very well may have legitimate concerns. So, you do an analysis to see if what bugs them would bother the larger audience, and then cause a drop in sales. If so, you adapt. If not, don't need to.

Pinkie-Dawn said:

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm trying to say is how should companies deal with the vocal minority? Should they try to please them, but at the cost of possibly alienating the majority who loved their previous product, ignore them even if the situation worsens and eventually kills off the company in question for not pleasing the said minority, or find a way to change their opinions to become less vocal and more open-minded but can largely damage unique tastes?

Click to expand...

There's this weird attitude among consumers (in the video game market in particular) that any sort of criticism is some sort of personal insult to whoever developed the product (let's say a video game). A lot of times, you'll see a lot of people defending some aspect of a game not because they care about that aspect, but because they liked the game as a whole and feel like the developer shouldn't be subject to any negativity. This is unfortunate, as criticism is an integral part of the process of making better video games.

How does this play into your question? Because of the above, there's a huge bias toward defending features in the face of criticism. Take such reactionary opinions with a grain of salt, minority or majority. Don't forget that part of the process is looking at more than just one message or one discussion; you have to look at these in a larger context and see what they're suggesting as a whole.

And of course, judge by content, not just by numbers. It's very easy for consumers to fall into a mob mentality.