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

[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.

What worries me about these reactions is the idea that fandom should remain static, that it shouldn't change. How is that a Bohemian or subversive idea, to remain subversive in the same way as fandom did in 1974? Why shouldn't fandom change with the times, with new blood, with new media, with new modes of expression? It certainly is not just fandom people who are contacting the creators and making themselves known-many people on internet boards these days have little understanding of any kind of history of fandom.

Certainly a major piece that the internet and definitely live journal have allowed is for broad-culture fannishness to interact with and overlap with genre fannishness. Is it the same to be a fan of Doctor Who as it is to be a fan of The Who? I look back at that bandom vs. rockfic debate and see folks trying to claim that all fannishness can be traced back to genre fannishness, and people who are fans in a different way tracing their history back to other roots. Same with the anime/manga fans who originated fandomsecrets. Does it require a shift to be generally media fannish, to be fannish of a sitcom like 30 Rock or How I Met Your Mother, or even the number one show in the US, American Idol? I look back at the idea of Harry Potter as a feral fandom because it wasn't created by old school fandom types and yes, HP was wanky, but it was wanky in addition to being a differently-run fandom, not because of it. Certainly Harry Potter fans were less genre-centric than anyone realized at the time, and with genre fiction becoming more "mainstream" those general media fans would come into contact with the more focused genre fans. I think at least part of the current clash of cultures is that.

[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.