Thoughts on fandom and LJ, in a roundabout way...
I joined LJ in '03 (I still had to get an invite code, that's how long ago that was... *g*) and yeah, it's been a great time so far and I've met amazing people through LJ whom I adore/respect/love. *squishes her flist/reading list* But when I read 
tinnny's post (which is flocked), a lot of it rang true to me. Namely, that fandom isn't as concentrated/intensified (on LJ) as it was before. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's more accessible now and people can jump in without feeling too intimated.
But feeling all nostalgic, I still remember the good times of '04-'07/'08 when I was totally into football RPS, and the hype (remember the World Cup 2006 in Germany? Aaaah, these were times...), and all the awesome fic, and mittelfeld's footballslash archive, and the one time that footballslash turned up on
fandom_wank and the ensuing hullaboo and elite fics and then the birth of manndecker in 2006. And all the Pimp my ... posts. Awww. *wallows in good, good memories*
Anyway! manndecker doesn't get much action these days - it's being watched by 700+ people and +900 have posting access, but not much gets posted, alas. Of course, I'm myself a lot absent, mostly due to RL constraints, but I have the site on my flist and not in a filter and thus follow it whenever I can. Despite my tries to revive the community, they haven't had much response. (Hint: Any ideas you have to offer, I'm happy for each and every suggestion! *smiles*)
Why is that? I guess it has to do a lot with what
tinnny said - fandom's getting more decentralized and LJ doesn't have the monopol on fandom anymore. I also think - YMMV, of course, and I welcome discussion - that it has to do with the 'tl;dr' mentality - people prefer easily swallowable bites of news/gossip/pictures - basically, quick satiation; ohnotheydidnt and its fellow communities are examples. This is not to say that long, thought-out posts aren't posted on these communities, it's just that they're the exception, and the way LJ is going - just look at the redesign of ONTD, popular posts get listed, and people who comment a lot, too -, it seems to turn into a gossip-y fandom-ish site. This is not to say that all gossip is bad, but it is definitely different from the LJ I encountered in the mid-2000ies. Emotionally, it feels like a loss, but rationally, I know that there's always evolution, nothing is stagnant. Holding onto nostalgia only hinders development.
Anyway, and the kink memes are also a rather recent thing (do tell me if I'm wrong there, I'm not as active in fandom as I was back then), and it seems to me that they have also a lot to do with quick satiation, more especially quick wish fulfillment. Post a prompt, hope someone writes it, and with some luck, get your kink stroked, and voila! And for the other commenters, it's also sort of an easter egg hunt - maybe you find that one kink you didn't know you had, and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. ;-) I mean, I don't have anything at all against kink memes (full disclosure: I once posted a prompt to a kink meme, and I got a lovely short story from it - YESSSS. ^-^), I think they're awesome and they're a great non-shaming exercise where you get to flex your imagination.
I think that they're also related somewhat, in that people are more impatient to get their fix (be it fic-, pictures- or gossip- or however else related), that quantity is more and more preferred to quality (again, there are excellent and awesome huuuuuge fics to be found in kink memes, this is not meant to slander them), that they have - maybe? - less time to 'waste' on fandomish things? I don't know. But I think that there is a definite trend towards quick satiation, and I do admit that I do search for fandomish pictures and the likes on tumblr, because it's really very easy to get a lot of sexy pictures of, say, the cast of Suits or fannish Generation Kill manips/drawings/etc., and don't get me started on Harry Potter, my first fandom love. *g* These sites do have their advantages, you can get your fannish fix a lot easier than before. But it also means that you don't necessarily have to be on LJ.
Also, my LJ's content has changed over the times. Back then, it was a lot more fandom-ish, too, but now it's pretty much 80% RL, 15% football (oookay, maybe the percentage of footie posts is a bit higher *g*) and the rest is miscellaneous/fandom-related. I have about, uh, +200 'friends' (some are friends, but most of them rate only acquaintances or less, to be honest) on LJ, and have friended back +150, but I think many or most of them aren't much into LJ anymore because of various reasons (health issues, time issues, lack of interest, etc. etc.), which I'm not condemning them for. It's understandable. But still, I do miss the activity that my flist used to have back then, I miss certain people's funny/insightful/awww-inducing posts, I miss the way LJ was back then. Nostalgia. *sighs*
The only way to combat this is probably to find new friends, find new interests, find new communities, find new fandoms so that you'll keep (up) your fandom space on LJ - or rather, DW now. *g* Because if I keep going like this, argh, German has such a cute word for this - einigeln, so, wenn ich mich weiter in meiner Ecke einigele, or translated, if I keep protectively curled up in my corner like a hedgehog, I'll become one of these grumpy oldtimers who wax lyric about the past glorious golden times where you had to walk uphill both ways in snow etcetera... *g* But nah, I'll still keep posting about my RL (as boring as it sometimes may be *g*), about my footie obsession, but I'll try to branch out more and find new and interesting communities on DW.
This... got long. Heh. *g* That's what insomnia does to you! ;-)
crossposted to Dreamwidth with
comments
tinnny's post (which is flocked), a lot of it rang true to me. Namely, that fandom isn't as concentrated/intensified (on LJ) as it was before. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's more accessible now and people can jump in without feeling too intimated.
But feeling all nostalgic, I still remember the good times of '04-'07/'08 when I was totally into football RPS, and the hype (remember the World Cup 2006 in Germany? Aaaah, these were times...), and all the awesome fic, and mittelfeld's footballslash archive, and the one time that footballslash turned up on
fandom_wank and the ensuing hullaboo and elite fics and then the birth of manndecker in 2006. And all the Pimp my ... posts. Awww. *wallows in good, good memories*
Anyway! manndecker doesn't get much action these days - it's being watched by 700+ people and +900 have posting access, but not much gets posted, alas. Of course, I'm myself a lot absent, mostly due to RL constraints, but I have the site on my flist and not in a filter and thus follow it whenever I can. Despite my tries to revive the community, they haven't had much response. (Hint: Any ideas you have to offer, I'm happy for each and every suggestion! *smiles*)
Why is that? I guess it has to do a lot with what
tinnny said - fandom's getting more decentralized and LJ doesn't have the monopol on fandom anymore. I also think - YMMV, of course, and I welcome discussion - that it has to do with the 'tl;dr' mentality - people prefer easily swallowable bites of news/gossip/pictures - basically, quick satiation; ohnotheydidnt and its fellow communities are examples. This is not to say that long, thought-out posts aren't posted on these communities, it's just that they're the exception, and the way LJ is going - just look at the redesign of ONTD, popular posts get listed, and people who comment a lot, too -, it seems to turn into a gossip-y fandom-ish site. This is not to say that all gossip is bad, but it is definitely different from the LJ I encountered in the mid-2000ies. Emotionally, it feels like a loss, but rationally, I know that there's always evolution, nothing is stagnant. Holding onto nostalgia only hinders development.
Anyway, and the kink memes are also a rather recent thing (do tell me if I'm wrong there, I'm not as active in fandom as I was back then), and it seems to me that they have also a lot to do with quick satiation, more especially quick wish fulfillment. Post a prompt, hope someone writes it, and with some luck, get your kink stroked, and voila! And for the other commenters, it's also sort of an easter egg hunt - maybe you find that one kink you didn't know you had, and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. ;-) I mean, I don't have anything at all against kink memes (full disclosure: I once posted a prompt to a kink meme, and I got a lovely short story from it - YESSSS. ^-^), I think they're awesome and they're a great non-shaming exercise where you get to flex your imagination.
I think that they're also related somewhat, in that people are more impatient to get their fix (be it fic-, pictures- or gossip- or however else related), that quantity is more and more preferred to quality (again, there are excellent and awesome huuuuuge fics to be found in kink memes, this is not meant to slander them), that they have - maybe? - less time to 'waste' on fandomish things? I don't know. But I think that there is a definite trend towards quick satiation, and I do admit that I do search for fandomish pictures and the likes on tumblr, because it's really very easy to get a lot of sexy pictures of, say, the cast of Suits or fannish Generation Kill manips/drawings/etc., and don't get me started on Harry Potter, my first fandom love. *g* These sites do have their advantages, you can get your fannish fix a lot easier than before. But it also means that you don't necessarily have to be on LJ.
Also, my LJ's content has changed over the times. Back then, it was a lot more fandom-ish, too, but now it's pretty much 80% RL, 15% football (oookay, maybe the percentage of footie posts is a bit higher *g*) and the rest is miscellaneous/fandom-related. I have about, uh, +200 'friends' (some are friends, but most of them rate only acquaintances or less, to be honest) on LJ, and have friended back +150, but I think many or most of them aren't much into LJ anymore because of various reasons (health issues, time issues, lack of interest, etc. etc.), which I'm not condemning them for. It's understandable. But still, I do miss the activity that my flist used to have back then, I miss certain people's funny/insightful/awww-inducing posts, I miss the way LJ was back then. Nostalgia. *sighs*
The only way to combat this is probably to find new friends, find new interests, find new communities, find new fandoms so that you'll keep (up) your fandom space on LJ - or rather, DW now. *g* Because if I keep going like this, argh, German has such a cute word for this - einigeln, so, wenn ich mich weiter in meiner Ecke einigele, or translated, if I keep protectively curled up in my corner like a hedgehog, I'll become one of these grumpy oldtimers who wax lyric about the past glorious golden times where you had to walk uphill both ways in snow etcetera... *g* But nah, I'll still keep posting about my RL (as boring as it sometimes may be *g*), about my footie obsession, but I'll try to branch out more and find new and interesting communities on DW.
This... got long. Heh. *g* That's what insomnia does to you! ;-)
crossposted to Dreamwidth with
comments