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selenakOr, as the prompt puts it: My feelings about fandom - what originally drew me to it,what keeps me there, what turns me off.
While I've been fannish about certain books, writers, movies and tv shows - and some music - all my life, fandom was something I only discovered in my early 20s. Inevitably (for me) via Star Trek, which was going through a revitalization in the early 90s. TNG had taken off and after that awkward first season and a half had found its own voice. DS9 was either in the works or had already just debuted, I can't pinpoint the year and since I'm sitting in the train, googling it would take eons. The internet hadn't arrived yet (for me), so my very first convention - FedCon in Bonn, which even then was the biggest in Germany - was also the first time I met fellow Star Trek fans who were excited about the new show(s) instead of holding to the There Is Only One True Trek credo, and wanted to talk about the show(s) and characters. (Actually, this was the first time I met any other ST fans, full stop. In school, the only thing my classmates semed to talk about were the Neue Deutsche Welle musicians.) This was fabulous, especially for someone like me who had spent her adolescence having zilch idea how to interact with other people and had felt either awkward or bored or both at any type of social gathering. This was also where I got introduced to fanfiction, via fanzines, which I bought in fascination.
As the 90s progressed, I did get online, and thereby got introduced to another very appealing aspect of fandom: that shared enthusiasm for something could lead to discovering other tv shows/films/books as well. My first online fandom was Highlander, which led to befriending some fellow fans who were enthusiastic about some show with an incredibly hokey name called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and others who kept telling me about an old British tv show called Blake's 7. One fellow fan kept raving about this new Sci Fi show Farscappe Then there was the generosity of many fans: I rememberkathyh sending me Buffy and Angel episodes on video from England (both shows were broadcast in Germany as well, but usually a year or two behind the American broadcast whereas the Britis got it only months later or simultanously, I can't remember which), watervole sending me a video of the old miniseries Morgan's Boy starring Gareth Thomas which since it wasn't available on sale anywhere I'd never have had the chance to watch otherwise. And the creativity that showed both via fanfiction - often comparing very favourably to the official tie-ins - and fan videos was inspiring. I got over my cold feet and started to experiment with writing stories in English. Finding out I could write fiction in a language not my own, just as I could debate in it, was another great feeling.
A lot of this still holds true as to what makes fandom - any fandom - appealing to me. Being able to share enthusiasm, learning about new things, debating, getting creative, enjoying the creativity of others. But participation in fandom also inevitably introduced me to its far less enjoyable sides. Highlander wasn't just my first online fandom, it was also my first experience with what was and is by no means unique to HL - double standards for male and female characters, fannish hatred, bashing and demonizing of one particular female character because she had the bad taste to have excellent cause to hate the most popular male character in the fandom. Discovering slash via those early ST fanzines had been exciting; discovering online that any woman perceived as "coming between them" (be it because she was the canonical love interest of either party or for some other reason) got a lot of fannish bile directed at her got more and more disconcerting. (This was already true for fictional characters who never existed. But good lord, when I started to get into Beatles fandom for real...)
In the last decade, another type of turn-off online fandom phenomenon became more and more apparant to me, which I guess is the shadow side of the ability to share enthusiasm and to rally to causes. It's the tendency to mass jump on virtual throats, complete with dealing exclusively in hyperboles (everything is "The Worst!"), often using social justice language to dress up what to me often looked like cyber bullying in a righteous robe. (The current cause celèbre Winterfox/Requires Hate is anything but new or unique in this regard.) Fandom seems to have an amazing capacity for hate as well as generosity and support, and there is an echo hall effect to both.
Being a multifandom person with fluctuating enthusiasms instead of a One True Fandom person means a larger area to evade both the bashing and the must-destroy-the-sinner types of hate, but one inevitably comes across both variants again sooner or later. And if fandom introduced me to some of the smarted, kindest and most creative people I've had the privilege to meet (either virtually or in rl), it also introduced me to some of the most unpleasant and vicious. Which I suppose reflects humanity, and did by no means only arrive with the internet. One famous 19th century theatre anecdote involves fans of one actor burning down the theatre of his rival, after all. I doubt this made other people quit the theatre altogether, and I can't imagine quitting fandom, either. But every now and then, I feel like backing off... with the knowledge that I will be back.
December Talking Meme: The Other Days
While I've been fannish about certain books, writers, movies and tv shows - and some music - all my life, fandom was something I only discovered in my early 20s. Inevitably (for me) via Star Trek, which was going through a revitalization in the early 90s. TNG had taken off and after that awkward first season and a half had found its own voice. DS9 was either in the works or had already just debuted, I can't pinpoint the year and since I'm sitting in the train, googling it would take eons. The internet hadn't arrived yet (for me), so my very first convention - FedCon in Bonn, which even then was the biggest in Germany - was also the first time I met fellow Star Trek fans who were excited about the new show(s) instead of holding to the There Is Only One True Trek credo, and wanted to talk about the show(s) and characters. (Actually, this was the first time I met any other ST fans, full stop. In school, the only thing my classmates semed to talk about were the Neue Deutsche Welle musicians.) This was fabulous, especially for someone like me who had spent her adolescence having zilch idea how to interact with other people and had felt either awkward or bored or both at any type of social gathering. This was also where I got introduced to fanfiction, via fanzines, which I bought in fascination.
As the 90s progressed, I did get online, and thereby got introduced to another very appealing aspect of fandom: that shared enthusiasm for something could lead to discovering other tv shows/films/books as well. My first online fandom was Highlander, which led to befriending some fellow fans who were enthusiastic about some show with an incredibly hokey name called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and others who kept telling me about an old British tv show called Blake's 7. One fellow fan kept raving about this new Sci Fi show Farscappe Then there was the generosity of many fans: I remember
kathyh sending me Buffy and Angel episodes on video from England (both shows were broadcast in Germany as well, but usually a year or two behind the American broadcast whereas the Britis got it only months later or simultanously, I can't remember which), watervole sending me a video of the old miniseries Morgan's Boy starring Gareth Thomas which since it wasn't available on sale anywhere I'd never have had the chance to watch otherwise. And the creativity that showed both via fanfiction - often comparing very favourably to the official tie-ins - and fan videos was inspiring. I got over my cold feet and started to experiment with writing stories in English. Finding out I could write fiction in a language not my own, just as I could debate in it, was another great feeling. A lot of this still holds true as to what makes fandom - any fandom - appealing to me. Being able to share enthusiasm, learning about new things, debating, getting creative, enjoying the creativity of others. But participation in fandom also inevitably introduced me to its far less enjoyable sides. Highlander wasn't just my first online fandom, it was also my first experience with what was and is by no means unique to HL - double standards for male and female characters, fannish hatred, bashing and demonizing of one particular female character because she had the bad taste to have excellent cause to hate the most popular male character in the fandom. Discovering slash via those early ST fanzines had been exciting; discovering online that any woman perceived as "coming between them" (be it because she was the canonical love interest of either party or for some other reason) got a lot of fannish bile directed at her got more and more disconcerting. (This was already true for fictional characters who never existed. But good lord, when I started to get into Beatles fandom for real...)
In the last decade, another type of turn-off online fandom phenomenon became more and more apparant to me, which I guess is the shadow side of the ability to share enthusiasm and to rally to causes. It's the tendency to mass jump on virtual throats, complete with dealing exclusively in hyperboles (everything is "The Worst!"), often using social justice language to dress up what to me often looked like cyber bullying in a righteous robe. (The current cause celèbre Winterfox/Requires Hate is anything but new or unique in this regard.) Fandom seems to have an amazing capacity for hate as well as generosity and support, and there is an echo hall effect to both.
Being a multifandom person with fluctuating enthusiasms instead of a One True Fandom person means a larger area to evade both the bashing and the must-destroy-the-sinner types of hate, but one inevitably comes across both variants again sooner or later. And if fandom introduced me to some of the smarted, kindest and most creative people I've had the privilege to meet (either virtually or in rl), it also introduced me to some of the most unpleasant and vicious. Which I suppose reflects humanity, and did by no means only arrive with the internet. One famous 19th century theatre anecdote involves fans of one actor burning down the theatre of his rival, after all. I doubt this made other people quit the theatre altogether, and I can't imagine quitting fandom, either. But every now and then, I feel like backing off... with the knowledge that I will be back.
December Talking Meme: The Other Days
no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 02:11 pm (UTC)double standards for male and female characters, fannish hatred, bashing and demonizing of one particular female character because she had the bad taste to have excellent cause to hate the most popular male character in the fandom
I've been in and around at least the periphery of fandom for going on two decades now, myself, so I have of course heard a lot about this phenomenon. I've never seen it in any of my own fandoms, though--and it's something that I would notice, because if anything my natural preference is to gravitate at least slightly more toward the female characters. Do you have any thoughts on which fandoms get like this and which ones don't?
-J
no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 04:37 pm (UTC)Anyway: it's not that fandoms with several female characters, let a lone a amajorly female cast, are without hated female characters (or hated male characters, for that matter), but in my experience the hatred doesn't tend to be directed solely at one or two of them, and it's balanced out by the characters having defenders as well. Moreover, fandoms with more women in the cast tend to have popular m/f or now f/f 'ships, so the perceived rival character drawing fannish ire has a good chance of being male instead of female.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 04:54 pm (UTC)Occasionally, this can happen with a female villain as well, in which case the villain's actions will all be whitewashed as justified feminist rebellion, even if she did horrible things to other women who were just as, or more, repressed as her, and the female heroes will be vilified as reactionary Stepford Wives.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 10:28 pm (UTC)I have seen lots of bad stuff in fandom, but burning down the theatre of a rival does seem to beat most of it...
no subject
Date: 2014-12-05 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-04 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-05 03:39 pm (UTC)