Fandom

The Transformers fandom is most intelligent, discerning, sophisticated and important group of people in the world today. Without their charitable support, Hasbro would be forced to mothball the Transformers brand and would probably enter bankruptcy, taking the entire world economy with it.

Accomplishments
Among the amazing discoveries and conclusions of the fandom are the following:


 * The Transformers brand is hanging onto life by the most fragile of threads, and any attempt to do something new will ruin Transformers forever.
 * Liking things is stupid. If you had half a brain you would realize how terrible everything is and complain about it endlessly.  Further, this is rational and constructive behavior.  Hasblo will never learn and get things right if we don't save them by telling them how stupid they are.
 * Literally everybody hates Playskoolish neon colors, therefore toys will sell better if they are entirely black.
 * Any feature included or removed for safety reasons is a slap in the face to true fans.
 * Children are not an important segment of the Transformers market.
 * Prototypes and test shots that are clearly stamped with the words "not for sale" are actually totally fine to buy over eBay from people in China. There is nothing remotely shady about this.
 * It is possible to determine with complete certainty that a product/franchise/work of art will suck as much as eight months before said entity is completed, much less shown to the public or actually released.
 * The most important thing for the brand to do is release homages of Generation 1 characters over and over and over and over and over.
 * Any homage of a Generation 1 character which is not given the name of the original character is a direct insult to all fans.
 * Any character which is given the name of a Generation 1 character which is not an homage to the original character is a direct insult to all fans.
 * Any character which is given the name of a Generation 1 character and is also an homage of the same character but who doesn't behave exactly like the Generation 1 character is a direct insult to all fans.
 * Because all fans have an inalienable right to own every toy, toys which would never be released under normal circumstances should never be given a chance at release through exclusive channels. It would be better for the toy to never be released at all than for some people to get to enjoy it.
 * Optimus is a truck, not a monkey.
 * Bayformers are much less realistic than traditional Transformers.
 * Armada is exactly the same thing as Pok&eacute;mon.

History
It got its start as an organized entity in the 1980s through the establishment of unofficial fan clubs, most notably TransMasters, but it wasn't until the mid-1990s and the beginning of the Internet boom that fandom (both of Transformers and in general) took off. Starting in alt.toys.transformers and then expanding into innumberable web-based fora, the once tight-knit fandom is now too large for anyone to really know everyone.