Sorry, Harry, but smaller fandoms are gold.
Even though I have loved Harry Potter for years and could be pressed to occasionally peruse fanart or fics, I don't know if I will ever be involved heavily into the actual fandom. I think the reason for this is because it is so intensely popular that there are wankers everywhere. The age and demographic is so universal that finding people you can actually agree with and relate to on a lot of things seems kind of dauntingly difficult, especially when there is an overwhelming amount of characters/ships/theories involved, both in- and outside of canon. In the past week, I have only dwelled briefly in my post-OOTP movie excitement, and I'm already pissed off. *sigh*...Wankers who bitch about how they hate the movies because, "My favorite part of the book isn't in the movie whine whine.." like they literally don't understand that it's impossible, when adapting a book into a movie, for them to be exactly the same. And this dumbass today who accused Sara of not being adequately obsessed because she is not currently rereading any of the books for the third time in preparation for the next one. Uh-huh. Even though her reasoning was that she wanted the books to feel new to her when she picked them up to reread them for as long as possible. Even though she's been in-and-out of hiatus on finishing her Marauders-era fic for years, but is not giving up on it. It feels like the fandom is full of a bunch of snobby losers who compete over how many tiny-ass little details from the book they can remember and who's theory is going to be right. OMG SHUT UP. SO NOT MY FANDOM TODAY.
This is kind of making me realize that I'm extremely favorable to smaller fandoms. I mean, BBM has a small bunch, and that was the first fandom I really got into on LiveJournal. I just like fandoms that strike a good balance between sadly inactive and unpleasantly huge. Even though some people might get bored with the lack of bustling activity in a smaller group of fans, I've had experiences of running into the same people on different websites or message boards, and I think it's kind of cool. And you could even argue that a small fandom has louder staying power than a big one after the show is cancelled or the books are finished, etc., because it's easier to make friends. People form really interesting relationships through fandom (christ, just ask "the wives") and sometimes that keeps them coming back when the actual subject of the fandom isn't currently the first thing on their minds.
Oh, and of course the other advantage is troll patrol. In a huge fandom, when the idiots are just everywhere, it gets to be kind of a mess that people can't really fix by banding together. But when everybody more or less knows each other and suddenly some total psycho shows up out of nowhere, you get more of a one-against-the-rest level of ultimate wank combat.
It's kind of funny when I go on and on about stuff like this when I haven't actually been involved in tons of fandom life...
This is kind of making me realize that I'm extremely favorable to smaller fandoms. I mean, BBM has a small bunch, and that was the first fandom I really got into on LiveJournal. I just like fandoms that strike a good balance between sadly inactive and unpleasantly huge. Even though some people might get bored with the lack of bustling activity in a smaller group of fans, I've had experiences of running into the same people on different websites or message boards, and I think it's kind of cool. And you could even argue that a small fandom has louder staying power than a big one after the show is cancelled or the books are finished, etc., because it's easier to make friends. People form really interesting relationships through fandom (christ, just ask "the wives") and sometimes that keeps them coming back when the actual subject of the fandom isn't currently the first thing on their minds.
Oh, and of course the other advantage is troll patrol. In a huge fandom, when the idiots are just everywhere, it gets to be kind of a mess that people can't really fix by banding together. But when everybody more or less knows each other and suddenly some total psycho shows up out of nowhere, you get more of a one-against-the-rest level of ultimate wank combat.
It's kind of funny when I go on and on about stuff like this when I haven't actually been involved in tons of fandom life...