Coming Clean: 2009 & The End of Dumb Things

[2_perseph]

General Disclaimers: 1) It needs to be said that this does not apply to all fandoms, nor across the board to the ones it does apply. 2) This is how I experienced fandom on LiveJournal, where as far as I can tell, fandom has made its home.

PREMISE OF ARGUMENTOnce upon a time, there was a movement called “Bohemian.” This movement was made up of

Comments

[2_perseph]

Woman, I just thought of you, wondering how you were doing, and came on here, and voila! You'd commented! *covers you with kisses*

No, I'm here in L.A., not in the east at all. Talk of long days, I did indeed post this at ten to six in the a.m. I hadn't just woken up, mind you; that was the end of my day.

I've been writing regularly these days (thank God!) and watched my daily schedule turn on its ear. Writing into the wee hours, sleeping in until the afternoon. Whatever works, I suppose. lol.

[mlyn]

I agree with you in large part. Instead of repeating things back to you to show where we agree, here's where I fall short: I've seen, first-hand, show creators reaching out to fans and fandom. Take White Collar: after the mid-season finale there was reportedly a lot of indignation from fans. Jeff Eastin made some teasing tweets (some later deleted), and then reports came out that Eastin might shift direction away from where the finale had been leading. He mentioned the studio so obviously there was other input than from the audience, but I think the studio looked at audience reaction as much as anything. That's a mild example-I've also heard of fans directly contacted by show runners

[2_perseph]

You know the old saying "be careful what you wish for"? Knowing Hollywood, I think that this is what fans should bear in mind.

Fans and fandom are two different things. As I'm sure you get. We all know lots of show fans who are not in fandom. But whether it's mostly fandom people, or just fans of a show in general who are pushing for showrunners to do their bidding, I don't know.

What I do know is that whatever a showrunner or a studio decides to do with a show, a fandom will always exist, even if the show looses fans. Or a viewing audience. Which is the crux of what I'm trying to say: there are two separate things going on here, and I think we in fandom should realize that.

Love or hate the direction that an originating work is taking, fandom should not mistake it as its function to interfere. Or, if you prefer a less strong expression, to start dictating. That is almost certainly something that will come and bite us in the ass. I may be completely wrong, but then why are we even going there in the first place? Y'know?

[dachelle]

Here via metafandom's delicious links. This post is interesting to me because I came into fandom through Buffy, and more specifically the Bronze posting board, where Joss and some of the writing staff would post, and where we had charity parties in L.A. where the cast and crew would mix with the fans. Honestly, the main reason I chose to post there was because of the presence of the writers - I'd never posted on a message board like that before. Of course, I ultimately found the experience most valuable for the friends I made through the board, but I always enjoyed posting with the VIPs. I actually ran the website for one of the writers for a number of years and spoke to him regularly on the phone. So, for me, the lines between fans and creators have been blurred from the beginning of my entry into fandom. I do think, though, that it was valuable to come into fandom that way because I very quickly learned what was acceptable interaction, and what was not. People who behaved inappropriately towards the crew were smacked down by the

[2_perseph]

Thank you for this. Since my first days in fandom, I've always observed and tried to absorb the different ways in which people experience fandom. I am by no means trying to proscribe anybody's behavior, as it's not in my nature to butt into other people's business, but over the past few years, with the explosion of fandom on the internet, I think things have gotten different. It's become a very different matter from having a forum (physical or print or online) in which the creators show up to interact, or even just fans acting crazy (that'll always be there), versus publicly staking a claim. I think it's the latter that can open up a can of worms for fandom.

If this is a trend that has been steadily increasing in fandom, what I'm arguing is that due to the medium and nature of the internet, we in fandom should become conscious of the effect this could have, and simply bear that in mind. Because it appears to me like the situation of a frog in water that's being slowly brought to a boil

[kylielee1000]

Here via metafandom too. I would say, in general, that fandom is undergoing a big sea change because of the Internet and newbies coming in who are creating their own realities instead of learning about fandom from insiders. New cabals are forming, with new rules, and the people who were there first are like, "WTF, little fangirl? Don't you know you are behaving badly?" and the newbies are like, "Who cares? Look! MY REALITY." And who's to say they're wrong? Annoying maybe, esp. if you judge them by a different set of fannish behavior rules. But probably not wrong.

I went to a Toronto Trek that had A. S. Head as a guest(OMG HE IS SO PRETTY but I digress). The Buffy fans were not behaving "properly," and it caused a lot of tension with the Trek fans. Trek (and most media cons I've been to) really protect the Talent: you can't just go up to someone you adore and tell him you adore him. Opportunities to engage are carefully controlled: at photos, you don't ask for an autograph, and vice versa. And no touching! They even assign a Talent

[jlh]

I couldn't agree more

[ratcreature]

I don't think the urge to be acknowledged by creators is new. In a way it is inherent in both large parts of SF fandom as well as comic fandom, where people first write or draw for fanzines (with original works) but often hope to make it pro. Getting the attention of the people you admire (showing your drawings at comic conventions to your favorite pro artist etc etc), thus happens all the time. Media fandom grew out of that, so naturally when media fans made fanzines those weren't all suddenly hidden from show creators and actors at the conventions from what I heard. And sometimes kerfuffles over that happened because actors saw zines with naked people on the covers even back in the 1970s

[2_perseph]

No, I'm not saying it started with the internet, I'm only saying that the internet could end up doing something to fandom it did not anticipate, and that if there's a medium that could do it, it would be this one.

I do attend cons, big and small, and I see the interactions with creators; I know of the countless charity drives, etc. But -- and if I'm incorrectly stating facts, I really would like to know -- at no time in the past has fandom taken the kind of stand (staking a claim) in relation to originating works that it seems to take for granted nowadays. Am I wrong about this? Have I missed other such directions in fandom? This coupled with the way the internet exists, is what is making me so nervous.

The "save our show" drives I don't think are what I'm talking about. In fact I think that's the kind of thing fandom is all about.

Thank you for commenting, and I hope I was able to make my position a little clearer.

[ratcreature]

I don't think I witness this "claim staking" much. Maybe because I never go to forums where the creators are, and am squicked by celebrity fandom as well as by RPF, so I don't go everywhere in fandom. I mean, I do have seen plenty of criticism of how racist or sexist etc a source is, and I have seen fans take those complaints to the creators (like the racebending.com campaign to protest the casting of Avatar the last Airbender and other yellowface casting) demanding change, but I don't think that fans protesting racism in Hollywood and trying to get the producers to be less racistis going to ruin fandom.

[2_perseph]

But I think that the internet is something new under the sun.

Maybe fifty years from now that statement will seem funny and shortsighted, with the perspective that our views on the availability and rapid spread of information via the internet turned out to be no less amusing than what we think of people’s reactions to the invention of the telegraph.

But the telegraph was something new, and it did change communication and society. I’m not saying even a little bit that fandom holds so high a position, but what I am trying to put forward is the notion that this new means of exponential dissemination of information is actually, permanently changing the nature of fandom

[jlh]

Because the one thing I have seen is that from the 20s till pretty much today, fen have managed to hand down to us something that we can all still recognize.But that's because you're looking backwards for the commonalities, and not forwards into the uncertain future. I'm sure that if we brought people from the 1920s forward they wouldn't recognize what we're doing, and in fact ficcing itself represents a pretty radical shift. I'm sure that in 20-30 years fandom folks will look back on now and before now and find the roots of what they're doing

[2_perseph]

Thank you for this truly excellent reply.

I am by no means advocating for fandom to remain static, and fandomsecrets incidentally is one of my favorite fandom places. Perhaps you're right about my looking backwards for commonalities, but the commonality I see is that a recognizable space, or thing, called fandom exists. Whatever fen are doing in that space.

I think I've stated as clearly as I could my pov on the issues in the comment you responded to, so I don't have to repeat things here. All that's left to say is that I hope I'm wrong, I hope my concerns are unfounded, and I hope, with the aid of the nature of the internet, fandom is not biting off more than it can chew vis a vis everything else outside of fandom.