I agree with you on this, fandom culture has exploded and become completely unrecognizable, and I was never 100% with it to begin with it!
Call out culture and creating petitions to have things changed... it's become the norm, and it's kind of scary?? People are never just allowed to be wrong or do mistakes anymore, there's always a "villain" and a "victim". It's sad that social media has made people seemingly unable to properly discuss things, people prefer to call things out and gang up on each other??? Or at least that's the impression I get.
Write a fanfic, create playlists, make the art you feel you need to fill the disappointment. That's how fandom culture used to react? Sometimes it would lead to amazing things, heck probably a lot of our favourite shows or movies are results of someone creating something because they were disappointed with something they watched or read.
I didn't follow GoT past the second season, but as a huge fan of Carnivale, I feel I know what they're going through? HAVE YOU SEEN THAT SERIES FINALE? OH BOY. I WAS SO MAD/SAD/ANGRY.
Having existing art changed should never be the answer, creating more art is just a better way to go about it.
YOU GET ME! This is exactly what I was trying to say LOL.
And now I'm realizing...perhaps fandom culture, back in the day or at its core, was populate with creative people. Like, we all made things so celebrate the fandoms we loved, be it graphics, stories or something else. That was what being a fan was all about. But now that these types of stories have gone mainstream, there are less kinds of people that know how to use their creative side to "fix" their shows? Or maybe it is the access to the writers etc. because of social media.
I dabbled in fanfics at one point, but there was too much drama and gatekeeping for me to bother keeping up with it. I took a huge step back from fandom culture as a whole. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy things or create my own head canons for the things I follow. I just keep them to myself, hahahaha.
There are plenty of examples of creative ways to use social media to expand upon a fandom, I've been amused by twitter accounts that tweet as specific characters, for instance.... there's still plenty of creativity around, but there's so much entitlement. Fans feel they OWN their fandoms, and that's just not what creators mean when they say "this is for the fans". The only scenario I can justify creating a petition to have something changed, is if it's a project funded by fans. Like a Kickstarter or other crowdfunded project, where the writing just didn't match the project description of what was promised.
Right - I don't mind "Save our Show" petitions or hashtags to try to something positive because a show you loved was cancelled. But the character or writer hate just gets to be too much and childish (and sometimes is a screen for racism/sexism/homophobia, which makes it more frustrating/gross)
...now that these types of stories have gone mainstream, there are less kinds of people that know how to use their creative side to "fix" their shows? Or maybe it is the access to the writers etc. because of social media.
Being part of the discussion here in your LJ and over on your DW, it's occurred to me that another possibility is that some of it may be people feeling like a "fix" they make themselves isn't a "real" fix. That in order for one to count it has to come from the "writers etc."
oh LOL sort of answered this in my response to your other comment on a comment. Whoops! But, yes, people don't want to accept the fix unless it comes from an "official" source but if the official source has no intention of changing their work, they get all upset.
...heck probably a lot of our favourite shows or movies are results of someone creating something because they were disappointed with something they watched or read.
I don't know if disappointment in something was a contributing factor to George Lucas coming up with Star Wars, but I do know that George R.R. Martin has talked about disappointment being a contributing factor in his coming up with A Song of Ice and Fire--specifically he's talked about having been disappointed by J.R.R. Tolkien bringing Gandalf the Grey back as Gandalf the White. New things can come out of disappointments with old things.
Having existing art changed should never be the answer...
I'd ask what you mean by that, especially since your first piece of advice was "write a fanfic," but I'm guessing that when you say "existing art" you are thinking of that "art" as what fandom tends to call "canon." You aren't seeing the fanfic as changing the existing art, even though it isn't original fic it's fanfic so it is taking the existing art and changing it.
When we start talking about fandom the line between creators and fans isn't the only one that gets blurry. Some blurring is healthy and went on more smoothly in the past than it does in the present. That's why the Henry Jenkins quote, "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations, instead of owned by the folk," is or was popular in fan circles for years. A simple way of illustrating how things are different is--in modern fandom's fan fic terminology The Aeneid, which was completed by Virgil in 19BCE, was secondary character Iliad fanfic. The Aeneid is about Aeneas who was in the Iliad, but definitely not the main character. However, it's generally simply talked about as a piece of Classical Art.
Writing fanfics doesn't affect the source material. The author and readers of that particular fanfic might end up enjoying the fanfic more than the source material, but the source itself is still available, untouched, for people to love, or hate. Either way, the fanfic is a product of the source material, it expands on it, it doesn't change or take away anything in the source.
Not sure if I failed to make clear what I was talking about when I said, "When we start talking about fandom the line between creators and fans isn't the only one that gets blurry," or if you are defining "fanfic" very narrowly. I think, if you'll allow me, I need to ask-- Given that George Lucas created Stars Wars, not J.J. Abrams or anyone else creatively involved in the Disney Star Wars films, and George R.R. Martin created A Song of Ice and Fire which is what Game of Thrones was based on, would you say that the Disney films and the HBO series are fanfic? They are products of a "source material" that they "expand" on.
My two cents - I think fanfic is generally defined as being made by non-official sources.
Unless you're being mean, like I tend to call HP and the Cursed Child "fanfic" because I don't count it in my personal head canon LOL. But I think the mainstream definition is written by fans for fans, not employed by a owning corporation.
Which is why the fans get so upset because these "official" movies mess up their head canon and rather than just shrugging it off, they freak out because it has "ruined their childhood" or their show.
...I think fanfic is generally defined as being made by non-official sources.
Aaah, but there is a dictionary definition of "fan fiction," a Merriam-Webster one not just an Urban Dictionary or Fanlore one, and it goes: "stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet."
We can set aside the internet mention, since the entry also says, "First Known Use of fan fiction, 1944, in the meaning defined above" making "fan fiction" as a term considerably older than the internet. Setting aside the internet mention leaves us solely with "stories ... written by fans." Written by fans is different than "made by non-official sources." Saying "non-official sources" opens up the question of who decides what's an "official source" how, and changes the definition by narrowing it so that it excludes works by fans that happen to be from "official sources," whatever an official source actually is.
Unless you're being mean...
There is nothing mean about acknowledging that the writer/producer/artist is a fan. It's just acknowledging them as a fellow fan. I personally would say the Disney Star Wars movies, at least the ones that are genuinely made by fans are fan fiction. They have "popular fictional characters" and I know with at least J.J. Abrams he is a huge Star Wars fan, TFA is fan fiction. I don't know other people involved in creating the Disney movies so I can't say how many of them are actual fan fiction versus just Disney derivative product.
...I tend to call HP and the Cursed Child "fanfic" because I don't count it in my personal headcanon...
I don't know much about HP and the Cursed Child, but from a quick google--it is a fine example of how the question of "who decides what's an 'official source' how" is a messy one to open up. With it, not only is there the, "Does having legal rights to use the characters make it 'official'?" question, but there is also the question, "Does J.K. Rowling having been involved in the writing of the story the play is based on make it official?" Frankly, even if we set aside the whole "official" question, whether or not it's fan fiction is a muddier question than the Disney Star Wars movies or HBO's GoT because with The Cursed Child the fans got to write the story the play is based on with J.K. Rowling. At that point is the story "original" because of J.K. Rowling's direct involvement while the play is fan fiction? *Shrugs.*
But I think the mainstream definition is written by fans for fans, not employed by a owning corporation.
Heh, I haven't even managed yet to get my response written to your last post in your DW version of this entry (and explained how I see corporate involvement as a complicating factor between storyteller and audience), and I've got you talking about "owning corporation." I didn't use the Henry Jenkins quote here because I think it's entirely accurate to say we live in "a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations." I did use it because I thought his talk about fan fiction as "a way of the culture repairing the damage" illustrated that a) the extent to which we do live in that system is damaging, and b) that damage is modern self-inflicted damage. Course, the dictionary definition of fan fiction might not illustrate the damaging part, but it definitely illustrates the modern part by dating "fan fiction" only back to the mid-twentieth century.
Which is why the fans get so upset because these "official" movies mess up their headcanon...
If they're accepting corporate fan fiction and-or corporate derivative product as "official" and letting it mess up their headcanon, they have a variety of issues.
...they freak out because it has "ruined their childhood" or their show.
I wonder, with the Star Wars fans freaking out about the Disney films, if they accepted all the "expanded/extended universe" fan fiction/derivative product that was "officially licensed" by George Lucas because they figured that getting licensed meant it had been directly blessed by George Lucas, and they can't handle the Disney fan fiction/derivative product because they can't pretend anymore that it's blessed by George Lucas. Me, I lost any interest in what George Lucas thought was a good Star Wars story with the prequels, and judge all Star Wars stories now based solely on whether or not they manage to appeal to me.
I've never read a George R.R. Martin book or seen any GoT so I can't say much about them personally. I can say there are people in this conversation who might not have referred to GoT as fan fiction or a derivative product in those exact words, but they have said either they didn't bother trying GoT or they didn't bother sticking with GoT because it wasn't enough like the books for them. That is saying that not only did they think it was derivative, but badly done derivative. The single biggest reason I find the petition to have the last season of GoT redone sad is that it seems to assume that GoT is the only film version of the books that will ever be made, and if the books are genuinely good books rather than just popular currently it might be the first film version of the books but it won't be the last.
Call out culture and creating petitions to have things changed... it's become the norm, and it's kind of scary?? People are never just allowed to be wrong or do mistakes anymore, there's always a "villain" and a "victim". It's sad that social media has made people seemingly unable to properly discuss things, people prefer to call things out and gang up on each other??? Or at least that's the impression I get.
Write a fanfic, create playlists, make the art you feel you need to fill the disappointment. That's how fandom culture used to react? Sometimes it would lead to amazing things, heck probably a lot of our favourite shows or movies are results of someone creating something because they were disappointed with something they watched or read.
I didn't follow GoT past the second season, but as a huge fan of Carnivale, I feel I know what they're going through? HAVE YOU SEEN THAT SERIES FINALE? OH BOY. I WAS SO MAD/SAD/ANGRY.
Having existing art changed should never be the answer, creating more art is just a better way to go about it.
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And now I'm realizing...perhaps fandom culture, back in the day or at its core, was populate with creative people. Like, we all made things so celebrate the fandoms we loved, be it graphics, stories or something else. That was what being a fan was all about. But now that these types of stories have gone mainstream, there are less kinds of people that know how to use their creative side to "fix" their shows? Or maybe it is the access to the writers etc. because of social media.
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There are plenty of examples of creative ways to use social media to expand upon a fandom, I've been amused by twitter accounts that tweet as specific characters, for instance.... there's still plenty of creativity around, but there's so much entitlement. Fans feel they OWN their fandoms, and that's just not what creators mean when they say "this is for the fans".
The only scenario I can justify creating a petition to have something changed, is if it's a project funded by fans. Like a Kickstarter or other crowdfunded project, where the writing just didn't match the project description of what was promised.
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Being part of the discussion here in your LJ and over on your DW, it's occurred to me that another possibility is that some of it may be people feeling like a "fix" they make themselves isn't a "real" fix. That in order for one to count it has to come from the "writers etc."
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I don't know if disappointment in something was a contributing factor to George Lucas coming up with Star Wars, but I do know that George R.R. Martin has talked about disappointment being a contributing factor in his coming up with A Song of Ice and Fire--specifically he's talked about having been disappointed by J.R.R. Tolkien bringing Gandalf the Grey back as Gandalf the White. New things can come out of disappointments with old things.
Having existing art changed should never be the answer...
I'd ask what you mean by that, especially since your first piece of advice was "write a fanfic," but I'm guessing that when you say "existing art" you are thinking of that "art" as what fandom tends to call "canon." You aren't seeing the fanfic as changing the existing art, even though it isn't original fic it's fanfic so it is taking the existing art and changing it.
When we start talking about fandom the line between creators and fans isn't the only one that gets blurry. Some blurring is healthy and went on more smoothly in the past than it does in the present. That's why the Henry Jenkins quote, "Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations, instead of owned by the folk," is or was popular in fan circles for years. A simple way of illustrating how things are different is--in modern fandom's fan fic terminology The Aeneid, which was completed by Virgil in 19BCE, was secondary character Iliad fanfic. The Aeneid is about Aeneas who was in the Iliad, but definitely not the main character. However, it's generally simply talked about as a piece of Classical Art.
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Given that George Lucas created Stars Wars, not J.J. Abrams or anyone else creatively involved in the Disney Star Wars films, and George R.R. Martin created A Song of Ice and Fire which is what Game of Thrones was based on, would you say that the Disney films and the HBO series are fanfic? They are products of a "source material" that they "expand" on.
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I think fanfic is generally defined as being made by non-official sources.
Unless you're being mean, like I tend to call HP and the Cursed Child "fanfic" because I don't count it in my personal head canon LOL. But I think the mainstream definition is written by fans for fans, not employed by a owning corporation.
Which is why the fans get so upset because these "official" movies mess up their head canon and rather than just shrugging it off, they freak out because it has "ruined their childhood" or their show.
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Aaah, but there is a dictionary definition of "fan fiction," a Merriam-Webster one not just an Urban Dictionary or Fanlore one, and it goes: "stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet."
We can set aside the internet mention, since the entry also says, "First Known Use of fan fiction, 1944, in the meaning defined above" making "fan fiction" as a term considerably older than the internet. Setting aside the internet mention leaves us solely with "stories ... written by fans." Written by fans is different than "made by non-official sources." Saying "non-official sources" opens up the question of who decides what's an "official source" how, and changes the definition by narrowing it so that it excludes works by fans that happen to be from "official sources," whatever an official source actually is.
Unless you're being mean...
There is nothing mean about acknowledging that the writer/producer/artist is a fan. It's just acknowledging them as a fellow fan. I personally would say the Disney Star Wars movies, at least the ones that are genuinely made by fans are fan fiction. They have "popular fictional characters" and I know with at least J.J. Abrams he is a huge Star Wars fan, TFA is fan fiction. I don't know other people involved in creating the Disney movies so I can't say how many of them are actual fan fiction versus just Disney derivative product.
...I tend to call HP and the Cursed Child "fanfic" because I don't count it in my personal headcanon...
I don't know much about HP and the Cursed Child, but from a quick google--it is a fine example of how the question of "who decides what's an 'official source' how" is a messy one to open up. With it, not only is there the, "Does having legal rights to use the characters make it 'official'?" question, but there is also the question, "Does J.K. Rowling having been involved in the writing of the story the play is based on make it official?" Frankly, even if we set aside the whole "official" question, whether or not it's fan fiction is a muddier question than the Disney Star Wars movies or HBO's GoT because with The Cursed Child the fans got to write the story the play is based on with J.K. Rowling. At that point is the story "original" because of J.K. Rowling's direct involvement while the play is fan fiction? *Shrugs.*
But I think the mainstream definition is written by fans for fans, not employed by a owning corporation.
Heh, I haven't even managed yet to get my response written to your last post in your DW version of this entry (and explained how I see corporate involvement as a complicating factor between storyteller and audience), and I've got you talking about "owning corporation." I didn't use the Henry Jenkins quote here because I think it's entirely accurate to say we live in "a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations." I did use it because I thought his talk about fan fiction as "a way of the culture repairing the damage" illustrated that a) the extent to which we do live in that system is damaging, and b) that damage is modern self-inflicted damage. Course, the dictionary definition of fan fiction might not illustrate the damaging part, but it definitely illustrates the modern part by dating "fan fiction" only back to the mid-twentieth century.
Which is why the fans get so upset because these "official" movies mess up their headcanon...
If they're accepting corporate fan fiction and-or corporate derivative product as "official" and letting it mess up their headcanon, they have a variety of issues.
TBC
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I wonder, with the Star Wars fans freaking out about the Disney films, if they accepted all the "expanded/extended universe" fan fiction/derivative product that was "officially licensed" by George Lucas because they figured that getting licensed meant it had been directly blessed by George Lucas, and they can't handle the Disney fan fiction/derivative product because they can't pretend anymore that it's blessed by George Lucas. Me, I lost any interest in what George Lucas thought was a good Star Wars story with the prequels, and judge all Star Wars stories now based solely on whether or not they manage to appeal to me.
I've never read a George R.R. Martin book or seen any GoT so I can't say much about them personally. I can say there are people in this conversation who might not have referred to GoT as fan fiction or a derivative product in those exact words, but they have said either they didn't bother trying GoT or they didn't bother sticking with GoT because it wasn't enough like the books for them. That is saying that not only did they think it was derivative, but badly done derivative. The single biggest reason I find the petition to have the last season of GoT redone sad is that it seems to assume that GoT is the only film version of the books that will ever be made, and if the books are genuinely good books rather than just popular currently it might be the first film version of the books but it won't be the last.
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