#ignore the presenting strike out but i cant in good faith call glenn howerton heterosexual

[charmac]

I’m new to this fandom and was hoping you could provide some insight. How come people seem to really dislike Rob ? What are your thoughts on him?

We need a welcome packet to the Fandom at this point, honestly.

I'm not gonna go through the exhaustive list of things you could call Rob McElhenney out for, but I will give you some insight on the fandom relationship with Rob.

Rob was always the more "humble" of RCG, having actually come from Philly, growing up in the lower class, no college education, basically completely scraping by to become an actor and create Sunny.. well, you know that story. Up until very recently, Rob has always seemed to hold to his values in the core idea of Sunny, that creatives should have control of their work, that the best stuff comes from the people who have the ideas and create it.

Since meeting and going into business with Ryan Reynolds, he's kind of done a complete 180 in that regard. Buying into NFTs and Crypto, believing A.I. has a place in writing for television and we should be using it.. (you can look into his company Adim for more on that) and straight-up admitting he wants to be in the "Ownership business," and is moving away from the creative side of his endeavors. Every other thing out of Rob's mouth nowadays is to build this new image of "Ryan Reynolds magnitude": that he's a businessman, that he should be seen as Hollywood elite, that he wants to be worth billions...as opposed to, you know, a guy that has cool ideas and makes really cool things...

So the Fandom watched Rob go from a humble, "doing it for the love of it" guy to "owning as much as possible and exploiting new technology to get there" business man, and that's rough, and gross, and sucks (and backseats Sunny.. a lot). On top of that there's the history Rob has, especially with Sunny, satirising/commentating on certain subjects poorly and doubling down on having done it, and him having the political views of what I'd call an "Obama Democrat," (take a walk through his older Instagram posts and off-handed remarks on TASP)... It's enough to kind of pick your poison or pile on and actively dislike/hate Rob as a person.

My personal thoughts are.. complicated. I don't "stan" Rob (or any real person for that matter), I love the show, and I will continue to see and value what Rob has to say about it because it's his show. He's the creator of my favourite thing in the entire world, and he still does put a lot into that thing, and you can't shake that Sunny is not Sunny in any way shape or form without him. On top of that, I have met him and I can't understate how genuine he was to meet and talk to, and how kind he was to me holds a lot of weight in my opinion of him (unfortunately? lol?). So I can't say I dislike him, but I can say I continue to be disappointed by his recent endeavours, and I hope he snaps out of it (though I don't think he will).

I don't blame people who dislike him or even hate him, I don't think there's any expectation for a fan of Sunny to like RCG (whether they never talk about them or openly talk shit about them), and I don't think there's a reason for fans to argue over liking/disliking them as people. They're all white, cishet (presenting) middle-aged guys in Hollywood who live in million dollar houses, there's no brownie points for defending them and there's no morality awards being handed out for calling them out. Feel how you want, Sunny's the focus here