Enlighten me, please?

[ladywhizbee]

Do any of you know anything about this fanfiction archive:

Archive of Our Own

I've begun to see more and more stories on LJ linked to this site. The format reminds me a bit of FanFiction.net in that every fandom is accounted for (in much smaller quantities) but all of the stories I've read so far have been really, really good (or mostly so).

There is

Comments

[ladywhizbee]

ACK! I totally lost my first response to your comment, and now I have to regenerate it. Which sucks because it was so much more succinct than this. Grrr...! I apologize.

So, here we are. Take two.

I completely understand the draw of the underground/ephemeral nature of fandom. I think that there's a part of each of us that finds this appealing. For me it is also coupled with my desire for a creative outlet, so it's both really.

The thing is, now every show, every book, every movie has a fan-site, fan-fiction and even fan-videos--and (secretly) wouldn't you find it odd if they didn't? Producers even seek out fans for their approval. 'Ships' and 'shipping' are terms used in mainstream media.

Given all of this you have to ask is fandom really subculture any more, or instead a part of our culture?

This is the historian in me speaking, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. :-)

Like jazz music, marvel comics, rap music or tattoos. These all started off as subculture (were even snubbed) and then grew in such popularity to become a part of the fabric of who we are. Legitimate culture.

I find this point of transition from subculture to culture fascinating. What qualifies? What doesn't? And has fandom reached that point?

I think there is a point to documenting it, though (again the historian speaking!). Living histories are always the best--in the moment thought rather than the haze of retrospect. There's so much more there when you can read a letter written from that moment. It's honest, real, and not tainted by time. Legitimizing it or not, I think it has value. Whether AO3 or OTW is the place for this, I don't know, but I do think it's worth noting before it all slips from memory.

[magglenagall]

Ha! LJ tried to undo all the work I put into writing up this comment, but I outfoxed it by saving my comment before hitting "Post," and thus nothing was lost. :-)

*

I'm a historian too, so there's this little voice in my head wondering quite loudly what the hell I'm doing. ;-)

As I see it, though, the "history" being laid down and preserved by OTW is not, and cannot ever be, a true history - it's a manufactured history. Part of this manufactured history is unintentional, because they simply can't preserve everything. Some of it is already irretrievably lost (old fanzines, for example, or stories posted to Usenet that might have been lost during the transition from DejaNews to Google Groups, or old mailing list logs). Just because something has been preserved for now, though, doesn't mean it can survive indefinitely, given the way technology keeps evolving. I simply can't bring myself to believe that an electronic library has a better chance of long-term survival (in its entirety) than, say, the library of the abbey at Cluny.

Now, just because I think this effort at preservation has no chance at success doesn't eman I think no one should try; the historian in me applauds that compulsion and the efforts of those contributing to it. Even if I have no intention of cooperating with it myself. :-P

What bothers me most, though, is the OTW's (with AO3 and Fanlore included) efforts to establish itself as the "official" voice and historical archive of fandom because there is already a narrow, exclusive perspective built into its foundation. Not maliciously so, but it's there, and this is where I think OTW/AO3/Fanlore is preserving a manufactured history akin to a royal chronicle. The OTW is very fic-focused, for starters, whereas in certain corners of fandom activities lean more towards vidding or cosplay, for example. One of the biggest and most frequently repeated complaints I've seen leveled against it is its Western media focus - I've seen many anime and manga fans express frustration with feeling shut out, not least by the ignorance among the upper-level organizers of how their fandoms work. It's also very anglophone-centric, US-centric, and illustrative of acafannish perspectives and interests and motivations in participating in fandom.

What you end up with, then, is this subset of a subset of a subset of a very huge and hard-to-define organism defining itself, and then claiming that its self-definition applies to the whole organism. And so, when Major Media comes poking around because someone's filed off the serial numbers on their Twilight fanfic and sold 500,000 copies and MM wants to find out more about these myserious goings-on, they get the OTW's version of What Fandom Is All About.

Again, I'm not suggesting there's any malice, and I believe the impulse is good, but it's not history and it's not a true representation of what fandom is and what people in fandom do and why they do it. I worry that the more OTW becomes the "face of fandom," the more "public" fandom becomes, the closer fandom creeps towards officially-sanctioned fan activities - those established and generated by producers and creators of the source material fandom draws on - and the less organic, the less original, the less uninhibited those activities become.

I have no idea if any of the above makes sense, because I don't think I've ever really sat down and tried to spell out my doubts and concerns like this before. Mainly I want to stress that I don't think the people behind OTW & co. are bad people for doing what they're doing, but I also firmly believe that fandom flourishes best in the shadows and on the fringes, beyond the periphery of the historical record and scrubbed-up-for-mainstream-America presentations.

[ladywhizbee]

I am LOVING this conversation! :-)

There is a continuing debate about digital preservation and how it should be handled throughout the archival community. Endless conferences, ongoing discussion, etc. It is a challenge. The digital world is not a paper world. Media isn't saved once it is updated. Life goes on while the historical record disappears. Not to mention the technological evolutions and challenges of seeing old media, which you have already brought up.

While I totally see your point about it be a subset and partial record, we should start somewhere--shouldn't we? Websites go up, websites go down and everything that was archived there is suddenly out of the public record. I can't speak for anything other than the HP fandom (as far as fandoms go) because that is where I have immersed myself, but having a repository for some of it (that isn't subject to the ups and downs of the original website, blog, community) seems valuable. It's true that isn't complete--won't ever be complete--but the benefit of it being a Wiki is that anyone can add to it. Add new categories, commentary or overlooked information. It isn't ever static.

And when has the mainstream media ever gotten it completely right? ;-)

I understand why the record will never be complete--even though I have immersed myself in the HP fandom I do not claim to know everything about it. There's no way. But if I add my piece, and you add your piece, and someone else adds their piece maybe someday there will be a collective whole.

Perfect? No. But a start.

I don't know that I've really sat and gave this any serious thought either. It is an interesting concept though. For so long my world centered on preserving a historical artifact--something that you can touch, feel, hold--but digital media as popular culture? This is brand new beast that has emerged over the last twenty years. Before this popular culture could still be found in letters, paper, magazines, recorded interviews, etc. How do you capture something that's always changing, emails that were never archived, not to mention an abstract concept like fandom? It's very complicated. But I still think it's worth trying.