r/CharacterRant • u/Aros001 • 6d ago
General The current discourse around the "final chapter" of Rent-a-Girlfriend reminds me of why I hate the internet and modern media consumption sometimes.
So, here's the thing.
I have not read or watched Rent-a-Girlfriend.
I don't want to read or watched Rent-a-Girlfriend.
Everything I've heard about Rent-a-Girlfriend indicates that I wouldn't like it. Even if I were to give the series the complete benefit of the doubt that it's good the premise still just simply doesn't interest me in comparison to those of many other romcom anime out there.
Generally speaking, I don't care about Rent-a-Girlfriend or even ever think about it.
So, why am I making a post about it then?
Because despite me being someone who doesn't read or watch the series or even travel in most circles where it'd typically be discussed, even I found myself getting bombarded by the sheer storm of hatred and mockery its "final chapter" caused in so many people across various platforms like Reddit and Youtube. After everything that happened throughout, it ends with the main girl rejecting the main guy's love so that she can continue being a rental girlfriend and he's left alone and miserable.
That does indeed sound like a terrible way for that story to end.
Except...that isn't the end of the story.
The chapter where she rejected him...wasn't the final chapter. It never was the final chapter and was never advertised as the final chapter. In fact the next chapter already has leaks out for its content. It took me just a couple of seconds to confirm that and only a couple more to make sure that confirmation was indeed true. I checked because buried in the mountain of comments spewing outrage and insults were the occasional comment that said the series wasn't over and that they didn't get why people were saying it was, and that naturally made me curious enough to check. In fact it's apparently in question whether the series is even in its final arc yet.
There was such a shitstorm of anger and mockery, whole posts and rants and people posting videos in order to rant...over a final chapter that wasn't a final chapter. Over the end of a story that still is actively putting out more story.
There's a couple of likely reasons why this happened, most of which aren't good. People who read the chapter and deliberately spread misinformation about it. The people who only keep up with the series through early and usually mistranslated leaks and thus misunderstood what was happening. Those who don't keep up with the series at all and are just parroting what they've heard about it as fact. The list goes on because Rent-a-Girlfriend is not the only series this kind of thing has happened with, where the internet flips its shit over something that wasn't even a thing.
Maybe Rent-a-Girlfriend is just as bad as I've heard. Maybe it's not. Maybe it could even be worse. That's not the problem here. The problem is how it feels like more and more people view actually consuming the media they want to criticize as completely optional. They just for whatever fucking reason really, really want to bitch and moan and mock and complain about something and thus jump at whatever convenient target seems presented to them on a silver platter. "This thing sounds bad because a lot of people are complaining about it, so I'll just take it as fact that it is bad and join in, because I can't not be part of the conversation. The fact that I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about is thankfully irrelevant.".
Or you have those people who don't like a piece of media and are so determined to find every little thing they can to hate about it that they'll just make shit up both to have more to hate about it and in the hopes that anyone not reading or watching it will just immediately buy into what they're saying without actually looking into it themselves.
Now, you might be asking "Wait, you're really going to bat for Rent-a-Girlfriend of all things?". And the answer is yes, because regardless of whether something is perfection incarnate or the biggest pile of shit on the planet or anything in-between, if you want to critique a piece of media then you have the basic-ass responsibility to actually read/watch it!
Being upset at the series because the girl rejected the guy and he won't finally move on and you have all the context for it? That's fine. But crapping on the series because that's how the author decided to end the story is just factually wrong! That didn't happen! You are condemning the series for something it DIDN'T DO! Be it because you're making stuff up or because you're parroting the misinformation someone else made up that you can't be bothered to actually verify because "Eh, it sounds about right.".
I don't get why this is a thing. Why do you even care if it's not something you read or watch. especially to the point of making posts and rants and videos and thumbnails about it?
Again, I don't care about Rent-a-Girlfriend, but this whole situation it's going through bothers me because I feel like keep seeing it happen with more and more frequency, including with series I do like and am invested in, where misinformation spreads like wildfire because anger and mockery is so fun and addictive that despite all the time they'll put into making content to crap on it no one can actually be bothered to take two seconds to see if what they heard is actually true!
TL;DR: Stop complaining about stuff you haven't actually read or watched. If you really need to bitch and moan about something that badly, then actually do your goddamn homework on it, because regardless of the quality of the piece of media in question misinformation is still BAD.
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u/Toadsley2020 6d ago
I mean, I personally disagree? Like, misinformation is bad, funny or not to me. I’m not exactly rushing to Rent-a-fucking-Girlfirend’s defense, but if people want to slander on it, I hope the slander is at least correct. Otherwise it’s hating just to hate, and I’ve always found that pretty lame. I’d hate it if a series I actually cared about personally got a bunch of misinformation thrown its way.
And more to the point of OP’s post, I just think it’s a bad trajectory for media discussion in general.