Pottermore Rant
Is there anyone in the HP/Snape fandom who hasn't seen this yet? I'm a little upset that I didn't think of it first. But then again, I've not written any Snape fic in a looong time.
I was having a chat with a few people over the last few days about Pottermore, and also about the Boosh fandom. And I feel perhaps I'm not alone in this. But the HP fandom for me is so much about our collective creativity. COSplayers, writers (both fanfic and intellectual), podcasters ^__^, artists, vidders, local groups who get together to watch the films or discuss the books, hanging out at cons and just being in that world. It's decidedly NOT about JKR.
Pottermore is leaving a very sour taste in my mouth. The way JKR treats her fans, in comparison to the way the Boosh boys treat their fans, is striking, and furthers my love for those guys. I don't mean to squash anyone's enthusiasm and if you're all excited about Pottermore then that's great. But what I see is people bending over backwards at odd hours of the night in the hopes of being one of the first to click the right link, get the right clue, jump through the right hoop, just to join a beta version of a site whose primary purpose is likely going to be the sale of ebooks and other money-making activities. She simply enjoys winding people up. And then when they've jumped through the hoops, they don't even get to choose a username or house. Talk about stripping people of their identities.
I compare this with Noel Fielding and Dave Brown's latest project. They actually reached out and asked for pictures of the fans to put in the upcoming art book - and worked hard to use every photo possible (so long as it met the criteria of face on white background), and insisted every member of the fan news site The Velvet Onion be included. Before that, Noel had postcards made of his art show so that his fans who cannot afford the price of the paintings could still walk away with something if they wanted it, for only £5.
Now, I enjoyed debating the merits of Snape for many years. And I enjoyed the clue-finding and interpretation that was generated with each successive book. But it never escaped me that the books were merely a starting point. WE created the community. Now I feel rather a bit like JKR is exploiting it. I'm tired of jumping through hoops. I still love the HP fandom, but the cracky, goofy, ever-expanding creativity and love-based inclusiveness of the Boosh fandom feels like the antidote to JKR (and AR to some extent) that I didn't know I was looking for until I found it.
I was having a chat with a few people over the last few days about Pottermore, and also about the Boosh fandom. And I feel perhaps I'm not alone in this. But the HP fandom for me is so much about our collective creativity. COSplayers, writers (both fanfic and intellectual), podcasters ^__^, artists, vidders, local groups who get together to watch the films or discuss the books, hanging out at cons and just being in that world. It's decidedly NOT about JKR.
Pottermore is leaving a very sour taste in my mouth. The way JKR treats her fans, in comparison to the way the Boosh boys treat their fans, is striking, and furthers my love for those guys. I don't mean to squash anyone's enthusiasm and if you're all excited about Pottermore then that's great. But what I see is people bending over backwards at odd hours of the night in the hopes of being one of the first to click the right link, get the right clue, jump through the right hoop, just to join a beta version of a site whose primary purpose is likely going to be the sale of ebooks and other money-making activities. She simply enjoys winding people up. And then when they've jumped through the hoops, they don't even get to choose a username or house. Talk about stripping people of their identities.
I compare this with Noel Fielding and Dave Brown's latest project. They actually reached out and asked for pictures of the fans to put in the upcoming art book - and worked hard to use every photo possible (so long as it met the criteria of face on white background), and insisted every member of the fan news site The Velvet Onion be included. Before that, Noel had postcards made of his art show so that his fans who cannot afford the price of the paintings could still walk away with something if they wanted it, for only £5.
Now, I enjoyed debating the merits of Snape for many years. And I enjoyed the clue-finding and interpretation that was generated with each successive book. But it never escaped me that the books were merely a starting point. WE created the community. Now I feel rather a bit like JKR is exploiting it. I'm tired of jumping through hoops. I still love the HP fandom, but the cracky, goofy, ever-expanding creativity and love-based inclusiveness of the Boosh fandom feels like the antidote to JKR (and AR to some extent) that I didn't know I was looking for until I found it.