what makes certain fics popular?
Okay, so this post was mostly inspired by some recent wank on fanficrants. (The link goes to the ffrantsrants post with screencaps because the original was deleted, but the content is the same.)
A short summary of what happened: a certain user posted a rant about a fic in her fandom, discussing how she didn't understand its popularity due to its poor grammar, extremely poor characterisation and blatant ableism throughout. While her post was badly worded, inflammatory and posted to the wrong places (she posted it to, amongst other places, the main fandom comm where the fic was extremely popular and where such a post was definitely inappropriate), the whole incident raised a point that I personally found very interesting.
While I am not condoning the way this user critiqued the fic and handled the situation, she did raise some perfectly valid points about the story itself, which were criticisms that other authors had also previously made. But, some of the comments she received on her post in the fandom comm (and, admittedly, ffr) were downright vicious. (And I mean vicious; we're talking death threats and the like.) It seemed that the people in the community, who knew neither the poster nor the author of the original fic, were prepared to go to great lengths to defend the integrity of this fic, even though the poster's comments were legitimate in their content and well thought out. (She even said that she had read the whole fic before posting her critique.) Which leads me to the question:
Why are some fics so unbelievably popular in certain fandoms, and why do the fans often react so personally to any criticism levied against said fics?
Every fandom has one: the story that everyone feels obligated to read, despite its plot or quality, simply because it is "the best" or "the definitive" fic for a plotline or pairing. The fics are, in my experience, often poorly plotted, worded or characterised -- the fic in this case being an example -- and yet, they induce such tribal feelings of devotion in most fans that they will, often without motivation from the author, defend the fic as viciously as seen above.
Why do you, fandom, think this is?
ETA: So, we have the original user returning to stir up more drama. Keep watching; this could get interesting.
ETA II: Some people just never learn.
A short summary of what happened: a certain user posted a rant about a fic in her fandom, discussing how she didn't understand its popularity due to its poor grammar, extremely poor characterisation and blatant ableism throughout. While her post was badly worded, inflammatory and posted to the wrong places (she posted it to, amongst other places, the main fandom comm where the fic was extremely popular and where such a post was definitely inappropriate), the whole incident raised a point that I personally found very interesting.
While I am not condoning the way this user critiqued the fic and handled the situation, she did raise some perfectly valid points about the story itself, which were criticisms that other authors had also previously made. But, some of the comments she received on her post in the fandom comm (and, admittedly, ffr) were downright vicious. (And I mean vicious; we're talking death threats and the like.) It seemed that the people in the community, who knew neither the poster nor the author of the original fic, were prepared to go to great lengths to defend the integrity of this fic, even though the poster's comments were legitimate in their content and well thought out. (She even said that she had read the whole fic before posting her critique.) Which leads me to the question:
Why are some fics so unbelievably popular in certain fandoms, and why do the fans often react so personally to any criticism levied against said fics?
Every fandom has one: the story that everyone feels obligated to read, despite its plot or quality, simply because it is "the best" or "the definitive" fic for a plotline or pairing. The fics are, in my experience, often poorly plotted, worded or characterised -- the fic in this case being an example -- and yet, they induce such tribal feelings of devotion in most fans that they will, often without motivation from the author, defend the fic as viciously as seen above.
Why do you, fandom, think this is?
ETA: So, we have the original user returning to stir up more drama. Keep watching; this could get interesting.
ETA II: Some people just never learn.