"Text-centric" versus "character-centric" fandoms.

[eclective]

I've been slowly coming to realise something about fandoms and how they operate. I haven't quite pinned it down yet, but this is as far as I've got so far; let me know if you have further thoughts.

Comments

[seika]

Videogame fandoms, while small, seem to stay text-centric until a certain critical mass of people is drawn to the fandom, at which point they become character-centric fandoms.

Actually, I was seeing a lot of character-centric FF7 stuff on the web early on; maybe we were just looking in way different places. (I do think it's a good description of Suikoden fandom, though.)

[baxil]

Good observations, although the phrase "text-centric fandom" is hard for me; it makes it sound like there's an image-centric or video-centric fandom it's in opposition to. Maybe "fact fandom" vs. "fic fandom"?

[eclective]

Oh, good point. I actually thought in retrospect that "character-centric" was a bit confusing; it's more about facts versus speculation, so basically as you said. :)

[luna_manar]

I think it's also true that certain types of stories invite certain types of fandom, and the stories that are both rich in character/plotholes and rich in worldbuildy are likely to attract both types of fans

[eclective]

That's the issue with a lot of anime, in fact, and the reason I think anime fandoms tend to be more character-fannish than canon-fannish; canon relies on a suspension of belief on the player/viewer/reader's part, and as such there isn't much to personalize on a creative level.

Actually, I want to speculate that it's this very lack of detail and excess of Applied Phlebotinum that causes such fandoms to tend more towards creative play than canon adherence. In order to make the vagueries of the canon work, you have to throw in a lot of your own speculations and hypotheses and little additions to canon; whereas with more intricately constructed tech, people are more likely to obsess over the details of what's there.

[36]

Ah I've discussed this topic around Doctor Who fandom quite a lot, to the point that I was on a panel at a convention talking about 'Doctor Who and the Invasion of the Fangirl

[36]

New fandom loved the new 2005 series of Doctor Who and instantly went online to find the rest of fandom. They flooded Outpost Gallifrey wanting to squee about their favourite pairing and talk about what happened between scenes (old fandom would only do this if they were speculating whether missing adventures could fit there). New fandom had fan fiction but rather than exploring what would happen if the third Doctor had met the Cybermen or tying up the continuity around the Daleks, they would explore moments the Doctor and Rose shared between episodes or create 'bizarre' hurt/comfort scenarios