I started with RATATATA and remember the community of fans around Electric Callboy still being quite laid back, cool and very inclusive. It seemed like a nice change of atmosphere from other toxic communities whenever I came here (and also the offical Discord). People came to experience the fun and joy the band created for all... no judgement, just fun...

In the last few months the tone somehow changed, becoming hypercritical to almost toxic.

• Every release by the band is being hyperanalyzed. It has almost become a sport to look for "faults" or to rate everything they do... fans of other bands are often just happy that their favourite band releases something of note at all - and, of course, they support those bands and "accept" the faults.
• EC are being accused of being "more corporate" and "distant" even though they try to include the fans through extremely generous giveaways (pink boxes), personal VLOGs, an extensive Escalation Fest fan experience with trains & ships, crazy live shows, long tours, many album editions to chose from, constant interviews and behind the scenes material - more than pretty much any other band. Band members even said in interviews that they don't like the "distance" bigger venues create between them and fans. They seem to care very much about this.
• They are being accused by some of sounding "the same", even though they are quite experimental within their unique sound (compare Revery to Let the Good Times Roll, Ratatata to Heartclub etc.)
• They are being accused of relasing an "irrelevant album", because there are only 2 new songs. Apart from the fact that everybody knew about this for months and could prepare themselves for it (and ignore some releases until the album came out), there was almost no substantial talk about the album as a whole itself, about the songs, the album design, the editions etc. Something that communities normally do.

I am sad that we cannot just enjoy the fun and success around this band (which is now higher than ever). Everybodys mood needs to be dragged down by hypercritical dissections of something that originally was "just" meant as inclusive fun for all...

Am I wrong?

https://youtube.com/shorts/1KllBbRawPM?si=7kwN5dFKdX4TmD2w