No Longer a Newbie

[harmony_bites]

I came across an old post I made on a cross-fandom group asking why HP was so different-it’s a year old. Then I look at Ashwinder and notice I became a member on 9/23/05. So I guess it’s official-I’m not a newbie. Harry Potter fandom is different in so many ways, and I thought I’d list them here before I completely forget the shock and take it for

Comments

[harmony_bites]

But even in the newer fandoms that I've looked into, HP significantly dominates, not only in numbers and fan base, but also quality. Even though I've read some trash, quite a lot of what I've read has been of good quality, where as most of the other fandoms have only one or two universally recognized quality works - but that also reflects size again.

I wouldn't go so far, at least in terms of Trek, but I was active there years later than you were and left around the time the quantity and quality crashed with the end of Enterprise I did do Star Trek Recs for the hell of it on my LJ, for those few who might be Trek fans too, and came up with over 100 recs--and I seriously cherry-picked those--I didn't want to overdo the recs for certain authors. Classic Trek (the Original) predominated because I was far less well read in the other series, and because I prefer Het and Gen I wasn't that enamoured of many slash works many would consider classic, so my list is far from comprehensive. Just reflective of what I read over the 3 years I was active in Trek. I'd say in terms of the proportion of quality stories Trek was as high or higher than HP--in terms of sheer storytelling, even if not in comma placement.

But what Trek didn't have (besides a fandom anal to the point of insanity about grammar) was a lot of long fics. HP, and for some reason particularly SS/HG, seems to have the edge there, and I suspect HP has a better shot at growing pro writers, because it's actually easier to sell a novel than do well in the short fiction market which is very, very tight.

I've always attributed my 'culture shock' to the changes in the internet in the past 10 years, but as you show, there really are other significant differences.

I doubt the changes in the net has much to do with the differences between fandoms. I only "left" Trek about 3 years ago and my best friend who is one of my betas is still active there. Not much has changed in Trek, except the fandom did add a new archive--one along user-friendly efiction lines. Not surprisingly, it's a Kirk/Spock archive.

When I did ask about the differences a year ago in a multi-fandom list, it was suggested that HP being a "book" fandom might be the source of some of the "cultural" differences--like the tolerance and even liking for WIPs and longer works. But it really does seem there's HP and everything else. That LOTRs, X-Men, Final Fantasy, Sailor Moon, DC Comics, Buffy, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc have much more in common with Trek than any of them with HP.

Also for me one difference is that in Trek I didn't have to deal with people Vulcan-Picking me:-) It's much more nerve-racking trying to get a real, and foreign country right. Or at least not embarrasingly wrong.