"Text-centric" versus "character-centric" fandoms.
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.
( Elaborate speculations ahoy! )
( Elaborate speculations ahoy! )
In Who fandom in 2005 when the Ninth Doctor and Rose series started, 'old fandom' started getting 'invaded' by strange alien creatures who used unfathomable words like 'squee' and had a completely different definition of 'fan wank'.
This comment's getting too long so I'll do new fandom in a follow up comment, but here's a description of old fandom...
Old fandom's number one question was 'but is it canon?', they would speculate about what would happen next often postulating ludicrous theories involving fan favourite characters. They argued over if the Doctor was created in a 'Loom' on Gallifrey or half human on his mother's side. They'd argue about whether the Big Finish audio plays or Virgin New Adventures and/or BBC Eighth Doctor novels were canon for the 8th Doctor, or they argued over whether the 8th Doctor counted at all.
They had 40 years of continuity and almost that many of active fandom, and their show had been canceled but kept alive for 16 wilderness years by fan fiction, plays and films, some of which were officially endorsed and professionally produced.
Some fans worked tirelessly to create chronologies for 40 years of stories (much like Sherlock Holmes fandom, but even more contrived) and quibbled over 'UNIT dating problems' that could not actually be settled. Others wrote fan fiction that went to ridiculous lengths to fix continuity errors and plot holes -- this came to be known as 'fan wank' (a decade or two before other fandoms picked up this term to mean something else), with time fan service stories such as those which referenced a lot of continuity rather than presenting a good story got called that (cf Revenge of the Cybermen) and eventually this became the main meaning.
Typical questions were who would play the next doctor, will the doctor's face come out of the vortex in the opening credits, what monsters will return, will there ever be a black doctor or a female doctor etc.
In the UK at least, old fandom was mostly male and had a very prominent gay contingent. US and Australian fandom had a better gender mix.
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New fandom loved the ongoing character storylines, like Rose's family and boyfriend, Old fandom disparagingly called this 'soap opera'.
New fandom gradually discovered the 40 years of continuity but came at it from a different direction, there was no 'the forth Doctor' it was 'Four' and 'Nine' and 'Six'. New fandom saw the relationship between 'Two and Jamie' in a whole new light and realised that Five and Adric's love knew no bounds :) They wrote fic and drew fan art to prove it. New fandom also brought crafts to Who fandom, creating more than the traditional long stripy scarves but branching out into crochet Daleks and knitted Ood.
But oddly, as time went on and the series did more and more 'fan wank' showing Sarah Jane, The Master, The Sontarans, the Fifth Doctor and Davros, new fandom started to go native, getting the same interest in continuity and chronology and speculation as old fandom. Meanwhile old fandom picked up the language of new fandom, many using 'Five' and 'Ten' over 'The Fifth Doctor' and 'The Tenth Doctor' as useful short hand, and began to agree that the 'soap opera' elements were actually good, worthwhile and made the series better.
As a result, we've ended up with a hybrid fandom and one that's split into a number of different venues -- there's different places for discussing chronology, sharing slash fiction, drawing fan art etc, but often you'll find that the slashers know just as much obscure continuity as old fandom, or even that some of the most keen chronology obsessives are also fangirl slashers.
I think in part the reason we've managed to get to this point is because the new series was written by fans of the classic series who had been influenced by shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, they've managed to include the classic continuity in the show but still write good stories. Also a lot of the people who are now writing the show are gay fans, who always had a bit of sly slashing of the Doctor with male companions, and never took the show 100% seriously even though they loved it.
The Old Fandom/New Fandom divide is no longer fans of the classic series vs fans of the new series, as the new fans eventually went off and watched all of the classic series and fell in love with that as well even though parts of it are very different, and obviously a lot of the classic series fans now love the new series as well and just see it as 'Doctor Who' rather than something different. We're now one big multi-faceted fandom with a huge age range.
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