Let the bodies hit the floor!
So, I started reading Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the internet: new essays, which is the hot new fandom theory book. Let be me clear, I have not yet finished the introduction, so I'm mostly writing in response to their explanation of the structure of the book, which includes a sketch of the contents of the essays.
But the book, speaking strictly from the summary, seems to view the pleasures of fanfiction as the pleasures of communal creation, of reading/writing/reenacting sexual/romantic relationships, and maybe of insider knowledge. Which leaves me going, did y'all not wonder, even a little bit, why media fandom tends to form around shows with fantastic elements, when they aren't outright speculative fiction shows?
Look, yes, the interpersonal relationships and the cult of personality are a big part of why mediafen cling to any particular media fandom. But there's also a deep and persistent thread of mapping going on, of stories that say, "This show/movie/book has this extraordinary premise. How would you live life in the face of this premise?" Dumb shows like The Sentinel (and I presume Supernatural) have people saying, "Yeah, I know the fantastic element is done really stupidly on TV, but if we take it seriously, how does it work? Smarter worlds like Star Trek and the X Files and Lost have people doing elaborate culling of canon, secondary sources, and factual data to figure out how life might be lived, wars might be fought, and the day might be saved by one of our heroes (or one of their enemies.)
It's very frustrating to me, as someone who likes science fiction but is a media fan, when these mapping tendencies which recur in fanfiction are ignored as if they're vestigial remnants of science fiction fandom which cross infect us. No, I say! No! Look, we ask, "how do you create a spell name? What is it like for an Andorrian in Star Fleet? How does agriculture work in the New Republic? Who is running the Syndicate in order to do what for the Alien Conspiracy? How have Sam and Dean been able to keep their car ghost free?" because we want to know, we want to embroider, we want to map the world in which our imaginations are vacationing.
Dude, it's not all about fucking. It's not even all about strained silent looks and fighting back to back in a perfect comraderie, or trying to kill the one person in the world who really, really understands you. Sometimes, it's about, so what would you do if your nomadic people were uprooted to a supersophisticated yet totally decrepit city being run by some crazy people from another galaxy? Sometimes media fandom is about figuring out the source text.
I'm just saying.
But the book, speaking strictly from the summary, seems to view the pleasures of fanfiction as the pleasures of communal creation, of reading/writing/reenacting sexual/romantic relationships, and maybe of insider knowledge. Which leaves me going, did y'all not wonder, even a little bit, why media fandom tends to form around shows with fantastic elements, when they aren't outright speculative fiction shows?
Look, yes, the interpersonal relationships and the cult of personality are a big part of why mediafen cling to any particular media fandom. But there's also a deep and persistent thread of mapping going on, of stories that say, "This show/movie/book has this extraordinary premise. How would you live life in the face of this premise?" Dumb shows like The Sentinel (and I presume Supernatural) have people saying, "Yeah, I know the fantastic element is done really stupidly on TV, but if we take it seriously, how does it work? Smarter worlds like Star Trek and the X Files and Lost have people doing elaborate culling of canon, secondary sources, and factual data to figure out how life might be lived, wars might be fought, and the day might be saved by one of our heroes (or one of their enemies.)
It's very frustrating to me, as someone who likes science fiction but is a media fan, when these mapping tendencies which recur in fanfiction are ignored as if they're vestigial remnants of science fiction fandom which cross infect us. No, I say! No! Look, we ask, "how do you create a spell name? What is it like for an Andorrian in Star Fleet? How does agriculture work in the New Republic? Who is running the Syndicate in order to do what for the Alien Conspiracy? How have Sam and Dean been able to keep their car ghost free?" because we want to know, we want to embroider, we want to map the world in which our imaginations are vacationing.
Dude, it's not all about fucking. It's not even all about strained silent looks and fighting back to back in a perfect comraderie, or trying to kill the one person in the world who really, really understands you. Sometimes, it's about, so what would you do if your nomadic people were uprooted to a supersophisticated yet totally decrepit city being run by some crazy people from another galaxy? Sometimes media fandom is about figuring out the source text.
I'm just saying.