Fandom vs. The Real World

[radio_silent]

This is a little bit different from my normal posts, but I want to talk about social networking. As in, TwitterFacebook  LiveJournalYoutube and now GoogleBuzz. Social networking, and fandom.

Comments

[smartyshortie]

Only a couple of my RL friends know about my LJ...but that might be because not very many would be comfortable with some of the stuff...nor do I want my friends knowing all my rants and things and sometimes I rant too much about RL XD You do have a lot of LJ followers and that is a good sign but I don't know if I'd let employers see. Unless you maybe create a different account to build up that you plan to show employers later...ya know, an employer friendly type thing and keep this one away from them.

As for American Torchwood. FUCK THAT. We Americans ruin everything. Have you SEEN the stuff for the American version of Death at a Funeral? No fucking way.

[radio_silent]

LOL to your American Torchwood comments. I'm avoiding the American death at a funeral stuff because it makes me SAD.

As for your comments, I think you're totally right--I actually edited the post a bit to reflect some of that, because I have considered creating a more formal blog. I guess I'm just not sure why fandom and fandom creations aren't employer-friendly. I understand that they are, but I can't exactly see why?

That said, I would be cautious to show employers my (seemingly random) lacks and bursts of capitalization, because I'm totally an English major like that. :) And slash can be very controversial, but honestly that mostly makes me sad!

Facebook and blogs are really blurring the line between professional and "rants and things," even those about RL. I guess I wonder how fandom figures in to that.

[smartyshortie]

LOL I've never seen the original Death at a Funeral, but I heard it was awesome so I KNOW it's getting ruined now.

Fandom is a very fine line. Personally I think its stupid. The same people that make fun of us act like they're an actual freaking member of the sports teams they support. SERIOUSLY?! And all they do is sit on their asses and watch tv and drink beer. At least we write and create and associate and expand knowledge.

LMFAO @ being an English major. I'm one too and I so know what you mean.

I hate the employers are getting all over facebook and trying to add you as a friend, only to fire you for personal shit. I almost had that happen on myspace once. I was NOT happy. Had to create a new myspace after that. I can see if you're the VIP for some huge company and your persona is public but come on, no one gives a fuck about the average person and we all have a right to a ranting space to massive amounts of people who probably couldn't care less XD

[radio_silent]

The same people that make fun of us act like they're an actual freaking member of the sports teams they support.

hm, that's a really interesting point! i wonder if the difference is that sports team members are real, and characters are fictional? i'm not sure i see how liking a fictional character is any better than over-idolizing a flawed person, though.

we should have an english major party! there can be semicolons. ; ) <--and you can see the lower caps making a return, too! : p

yeah, the stalker-y-ness of employers is a little weird. that's pretty much why facebook has limited profiles.

[clockwork_jo]

Only one friend knows about my lj and this is because she stumbled across it. And tbh, I was just left filled with fear and dread and what she could have read about me, what I'd made public, what I hadn't-- and I didn't like it. But I'll admit that a lot of this "OMG OH NO" reaction was about my foray into fandoms, and how embarrassed I was about it. I agree, I think fandom is this wonderful intricate world where everyone can be a part of the same thing, share opinions/ideas, creativity, whatever. Just because you're playing with a world that already exists doesn't make it easier or less important to the people creating these things. But I think the pornography of it can be the thing that makes most people like *raises eyebrows with dubiousness*, you know? Like if I was to say "oh, I was reading some fanfiction the other day" most of my friends first thoughts would be "OH YEAH. NC-17, R, blah blah" and I think that can be a big reason why people are so... well, ashamed

[radio_silent]

d I just flashed bright red, and made up some crappy story about how when I don't know the names for my original characters, I just use ones that are similar to them in shows and change them later.

um, that is SO MUCH MORE CLEVER than ANYTHING i could have come up with. seriously.

i think you make a reeeeally good point about porn being the downside to fanfiction's reputation. or you could almost argue the internet is more liberal, except that the really kinky stuff out there could make "liberal" sound like a bad thing. :_(

honestly, i'm pretty open about my internet habits. i mean i just have no shame. : )
...if i wrote porn, which i wouldn't, no one would EVER know about it (though i don't!) but short of that i'm pretty much okay. my closest RL friends all know about my slash fanvid, for example. most of them like it.

[jenepel]

I think it's really difficult to bring fandom into ordinary life, because you're completely right in saying there is a line drawn. People have an automatic negative reaction to it, which is ridiculous when you consider how much fabulous artwork, writing and general creativity fandom produces every day. It makes sense to me that it could be used as a background for any internet, graphics or writing related job, but just because it makes sense doesn't make it true. I think people who aren't on the "inside" just won't understand and will probably write it off

[radio_silent]

It makes sense to me that it could be used as a background for any internet, graphics or writing related job,
yay! i completely understand about people not getting it, but i love that you validated the fandom creations in some way. because they are pretty amazing (not mine here, but there's some great stuff out there).

well they maybe know about the Gilmore Girls virtual season I run
um, they should, because it's pretty amazing! : )

i completely understand about RPS. i understand it, and i'd probably even read it, but i have a moral line drawn there for myself. i'm not really judging the people who create or read it--but i feel that in the VERY least i have too much fic to read and shows to watch as it is!

But I do worry that if I did that I would have no followers there. IDK.SAME. lj is such a wonderful, relatively close community--before i joined i couldn't even imagine making friends with people on the internet. like, i didn't get how people did it. but maybe our tight kintted-ness makes it hard for people on the outside to

[studyofrunning]

Fandom is a geek thing. While the rest of the world has been forced to accept the computer-related aspects of geekiness because their jobs and comforts are in our hands now, they aren't going to give up hating on the rest of it because of things like psychology and outgroups and stuff. It's very easy to compare commonly accepted activities to equivalent unpopular ones, because there are so many examples of that in the world. That logic clearly does not apply. It's perfectly valid, it's just that the majority of people are really, really stupid.

I'm comfortable telling other Americans that I like Doctor Who, because they probably haven't even heard of the show itself, nevermind the spinoffs. (True story: I was just at an actual science fiction convention where three people in a room of twenty knew what "The Fourth Doctor" meant.) If there were an American Torchwood, that would be what people here knew about Doctor Who from, so I'd probably pretend not to have ever heard of the entire franchise. Also the only good Americanized versions

[radio_silent]

hating on the rest of it
i think i must be hanging out with too many (or the right number of) fellow geeks, because i've never met anyone who seriously hated on fancreations- judged, certainty, but never out-and-out insulted.

Your true story is kind of really upsetting. Were these Buffy geeks or Stargate geeks? Not that it really matters...interestingly enough I've gotten into Big Bang Theory fanfic lately (all about geeks) and they reference doctor who (and firefly) maybe 33.3% of the time. I wonder if the show is just really popular on lj, because I don';t know how many Brits write BBT fanfic.

That, and because American Torchwood will probably be bad? I don't want to say that, because I'd love more of RTD's stuff, but I've never been really super impressed with Torchwood in the first place. But maybe it'd give him a chance to start afresh...

What's Big Finish?

Personally, the only thing scarier than letting offline people know that I write (and fic, at that!) is letting them actually read it.
Haha, I completely understand that.

[studyofrunning]

idk what kind of geeks they were. Probably old scifi novel geeks or something. Though they were playing pictionary with nerd stuff and managed to guess "Joss Whedon" pretty quickly, which might say something.

Big Finish do the Doctor Who audios.

There is no non-fannish creative writing from me. I mean I wrote a short story once. It was crap. Nobody has read it and I don't know where it is. And I apparently agreed to write a thing at that con, so someday there will be two, I guess. But really I write fic because I'm into fic, not because I'm into writing. I have no interest in ever becoming "legitimate".

Apparently, I write annoying fluff, annoying shallow angst, and lots of remixes that come out as annoying fluff and/or shallow angst. I plan crack and big epic plotty stuff, but I don't seem to have finished and posted any of it. Ever. It's all pretty G-rated, though the plotty stuff will have PG-13-worthy amounts of violence if it ever happens

[radio_silent]

ack! sorry it took me so long to get to these! :_(

so are the Doctor Who audios like radio episodes? or like a radio show about doctor who? or books on tape? i don't really know anything about them. : P

I have no interest in ever becoming "legitimate".
that's totally fine. and i like that people can write fic COMPLETELY for fun. since there's no other purpose, i guess. but also there's no pressure to be published or uber-amazing or anything.

GoogleBuzz sounds stupid.
you're probably very right. i just got turned onto this site about social marketing, mashable.com, and they liked it a lot...but they're kind of a weird group of people, anyway. : )

[dragonflylady77]

A couple of my RL friends know about my LJ but they are not on LJ. My LJ is when I can let my inner fangirl loose (instead of stamping down on her). ^_^

2 months ago when I had a boyfriend he wanted to read what I'd been writing on my LJ about him. I didn't let him. Everything I write on there is strictly f-locked.

I made myself watch the trailer for the American version of Death at a Funeral and all I could think was WHY???? OMFG WHY????

&hearts

[radio_silent]

Why would you do that to yourself?????????? (watch the american death at a funeral!)
You poor thing!

[dragonflylady77]

I only watched the trailer and it was THE SAME as the movie I shall refer to as the REAL one.

*bleaches brain*

[dragonflylady77]

And seeing your icon reminded me once more that it's been a while since I've watched The Fall and that is just not good enough.

My brain has been on one track lately... *sigh*