Fandom Ennui and the Need For Fandom Engagement
It all starts like this...
One day, for any number of reasons, you decide to try something new. Read a new book/manga/comic...watch a new movie/anime/tv series/play...and you find yourself hooked. Not just hooked, but itching for more in a way that only comes when you've found yourself a new (or first) fandom.
So, you dive head first into finding communities, pimping it out to your friends, reading fic, looking at art, creating for it...
And you find great fic and awesome art and you are not only hooked, but downright addicted. You want to write and have fests and draw and you want others to do the same...
And then it happens...
You realise that ninety percent of fandom has what you refer to, quite nicely, as crap.
The people that wrote the fic or drew the art you like have moved on (to other fandoms, to other places entirely, to everywhere that isn't that fandom) and you're stuck, desperate for more of that good stuff and you're surrounded by what's left...
And that's when you realise...
There's tons of bad!fic, the characters are ooc, the porn has gratuitous references to manflesh and other unsavoury descriptors. The English reminds you of your kid!sister/brother/cousin/friends' version thereof third grade essays on What I did during summer vacation because they forgot about it and wrote it ten minutes before class.
The fandom's also small (or not) and there seems to be a general consensus that Person A and Person B are OMGOTP4EVA!!!! and your otp of Person A and Person C is just not welcome, written, drawn, in existence. Light/Ryuk (nonsexual) anyone?
So what happens next?
Does this kind of experience drive you out of fandom? Does it dampen your enthusiasm? Or does it drive you try to engage the fandom more?
As a creator of fanworks, do you feel that other creators of fanworks you enjoy are essential to maintaining fandom interest?
Fandom, as I've experienced it, is a group dynamic. A Fandom of ONE is not fun. Nor is feeling like a fandom of ONE because everyone else in that fandom clearly does not view it anyway compatible with your views.
If one is feeling a sense of disconnect, what can be done about it? If anything?
(ETA: I, personally, write, pimp, mod communities/fests for almost all fandoms I'm involved in...)
One day, for any number of reasons, you decide to try something new. Read a new book/manga/comic...watch a new movie/anime/tv series/play...and you find yourself hooked. Not just hooked, but itching for more in a way that only comes when you've found yourself a new (or first) fandom.
So, you dive head first into finding communities, pimping it out to your friends, reading fic, looking at art, creating for it...
And you find great fic and awesome art and you are not only hooked, but downright addicted. You want to write and have fests and draw and you want others to do the same...
And then it happens...
You realise that ninety percent of fandom has what you refer to, quite nicely, as crap.
The people that wrote the fic or drew the art you like have moved on (to other fandoms, to other places entirely, to everywhere that isn't that fandom) and you're stuck, desperate for more of that good stuff and you're surrounded by what's left...
And that's when you realise...
There's tons of bad!fic, the characters are ooc, the porn has gratuitous references to manflesh and other unsavoury descriptors. The English reminds you of your kid!sister/brother/cousin/friends' version thereof third grade essays on What I did during summer vacation because they forgot about it and wrote it ten minutes before class.
The fandom's also small (or not) and there seems to be a general consensus that Person A and Person B are OMGOTP4EVA!!!! and your otp of Person A and Person C is just not welcome, written, drawn, in existence. Light/Ryuk (nonsexual) anyone?
So what happens next?
Does this kind of experience drive you out of fandom? Does it dampen your enthusiasm? Or does it drive you try to engage the fandom more?
As a creator of fanworks, do you feel that other creators of fanworks you enjoy are essential to maintaining fandom interest?
Fandom, as I've experienced it, is a group dynamic. A Fandom of ONE is not fun. Nor is feeling like a fandom of ONE because everyone else in that fandom clearly does not view it anyway compatible with your views.
If one is feeling a sense of disconnect, what can be done about it? If anything?
(ETA: I, personally, write, pimp, mod communities/fests for almost all fandoms I'm involved in...)