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Fandom far afield
When was the last time you participated in fandom on the internet not through a journaling site? I don't really mean posting fanfic to something like fanfiction.net, unless you also post and discuss in the forums there. I mean discussion, meta, the posting of fanfic, the making of graphics, etc, all being share through a medium other than LJ, DW, Insane Journal, JournalFen, etc. This would be a forum, website, mailing list . . . if you did something like a fanzine, not online, I'm interested in that too.
1) What fandom was it?
2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc)
3) When was this?
4) Are you still active in that fandom?
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site?
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places?
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation?
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place?
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?)
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site?
11) Which medium do you prefer?
If it sounds like I'm doing a study, I'm not. I'm just dabbling around in this other fandom, the fen of which seems mainly to congregate around a forum rather than playing on LJ/DW. I'm wondering how many people share my experiences there. Forums used to be my main method of fandom access. I was comfortable in them and found LJ inconvenient and not very suited to my style. I became used to it because I decided a lot of cool people were here...and now I'm beginning to think it's the only way!
1) What fandom was it?
2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc)
3) When was this?
4) Are you still active in that fandom?
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site?
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places?
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation?
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place?
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?)
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site?
11) Which medium do you prefer?
If it sounds like I'm doing a study, I'm not. I'm just dabbling around in this other fandom, the fen of which seems mainly to congregate around a forum rather than playing on LJ/DW. I'm wondering how many people share my experiences there. Forums used to be my main method of fandom access. I was comfortable in them and found LJ inconvenient and not very suited to my style. I became used to it because I decided a lot of cool people were here...and now I'm beginning to think it's the only way!
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2) What was the medium? (e.g. was it a forum, a mailing list, etc) Forum, and mailing list
3) When was this? Yesterday? Something like that.
4) Are you still active in that fandom? Yes.
5) Why did you participate there, and not at a journaling site? Because it's not at a journaling site. (Apart from that, I tend to prefer community participation in places less splintered than journaling sites, but it's not like when the fandom is here I have much choice. I just use what the particular fandom uses.)
6) Are you more active in fandom on journaling sites or at other places? Eh, no idea. I post fic currently only at the AO3. I post blog type thing to my dw and lj. I discuss stuff where discussion arises. Meta tends to be in dw/lj. Fic discussion is at both places. I really only write in the JA fandom, and that takes a big chunk of my interaction, I guess, but I read in many other fandoms and discuss fannish stuff in many fandoms, aside for having an interest in meta.
7) How did the different mode of interaction affect your fandom participation? It's more isolated in journaling sites, it seems to me--and there's more connection with you as a person not a fan, as your lj/dw is directly connected with whatever you say.
8) Does there seem to you to be a difference in fen between the other medium and journaling sites? What are the differences? Why do you think those differences exist? Is it the nature of that fandom, or do you think it has anything to do with where that fandom is taking place? There are differences, but I've participated in those types of places in other fandoms (particularly, HP), and the differences were others, so I think that the only thing the types of places determine is that different mediums crosspolinate very little.
9) What were the fen in the other medium's thoughts on yaoi? (No, seriously. What was the general sentiment towards slash?) From indifference to distaste. Some interest, it has been my impression that mainly from people who're already multifannish. (But JA fandom is a very heterocentric fandom--HP had forums where slash was the genre and forums where it was not--for different reasons. I actually have a theory of why, but I think it exceeds this poll.)
10) Was it easier or harder to get into a fandom through a medium other than a journaling site? Er, about the same? Both have the thing about not knowing anyone and thinking everyone knows each other already, and I have no frieeends, who would care about what I think stuff. It was easier for me lj/dw, but that's because when I got into it I already had friends from forums and archives.
11) Which medium do you prefer? Mhh. Depending for what. For blogging? A journaling site (dw). For posting stories? Archives (A03). For community interaction? Some sort of forum, though I haven't found software that really works for me yet.
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I think that the only thing the types of places determine is that different mediums crosspolinate very little.
I wonder why!
From indifference to distaste. Some interest, it has been my impression that mainly from people who're already multifannish. (But JA fandom is a very heterocentric fandom--HP had forums where slash was the genre and forums where it was not--for different reasons. I actually have a theory of why, but I think it exceeds this poll.)
If you ever post about your theory of why, or wish to discuss, I am very interested! The reason I did this post is that I started in Jane Austen, on a forum, and it was heterocentric. I participated in several other small, heterocentric fandoms through forums and mailing lists. I felt very comfortable and welcomed in all of them. During this time, I tried to get into both HP and X-men (huge, nonheterocentric fandoms) on forums and mailing lists, and felt like I couldn't connect to anyone.
Then I got very into BtVS (another huge nonheterocentric fandom), got an lj, and had a completely different fannish experience than any I had had before. I've been playing here a long time, and have found plenty of ways to feed my HP and Star Trek needs ... but not so much for my fannish interest in literature and period dramas.
Just now I'm extremely taken with North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell's novel and the BBC adaptation), and not seeing any real fandom for it here, I went afield. There's a forum which is very active in discussion of N&S, but it's really driven home to me how different this fen is than that of journaling sites.
What I really want to know is why aren't literature and period drama fandoms big on journaling sites? Is there something about the sort of person who is interested in such a fandom, something that also gravitates towards non-journaling mediums? And does that something also generally gravitate towards het? Or is it just that lit and period drama fandoms lend themselves to het so much more easily?
...Sorry to babble on.
For posting stories? Archives (A03)
How do you feel about the feedback you get at A03? The main reason I post stories on lj is I feel like people comment if I hold stuff up for them to see.
Thanks so much for your thoughts!
Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
My theory is basically that JAF is mainly based on P&P, which is centred around an heterosexual relationship. The point of the book is those two characters and their relationship (as much as S&S is about two sisters). Besides, the fandom has grown with the adaptations, and if the book is not a romance, the adaptations certainly are. Heterosexual romance and its fans tend to be very heterocentric. I'm not sure (and I doubt one could find out) if it's the fandom that shapes the fans or just that the fans that are attracted to it tend to be people who either don't mind heterocentrism (because, for example, they don't feel it), or are actively heterocentric themselves.
I don't think the medium has anything in particular to do with its heterocentrism, besides helping to isolate the fandom from slash fandom. Mainly because I've been in not heterocentric fandoms in those mediums.
(I posted about it here. (http://hl.dreamwidth.org/57007.html?format=light))
There's some N&S fic in Austen forums, too, but I've never found anything that caught my attention. (I like the novel for its political aspects perhaps even more than any other thing about it, and no fic I've found really deals with it.)
Eh, I think they're not big on journaling sites because they're already big elsewhere. People gravitate to those places that are already built. (And those places have been built for a while now.) A lot of people who begin interacting in forums are lost once the interaction moves to something decentralized, so they tend to make forums when the old ones fall, instead of moving to another type of software. In general, I'm not too bothered, except they're crappy to archive fic (as journals are crappy to archive fic--except that forums, at least, are centralized.), because I like having a wide range of possibilities for interaction.
If you really want to have it be bigger here, the best chance is to build it and keep it moving. It may take a while longer to reach critical mass, but that's the only way I know...
(Actually, there's a bit of movement here for the Age of Sails fandom, which is mainly slash, about the navy.)
Re: Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
...I left RoP because I feel like I was effectively stifled there. I wanted to talk about fanfic; they didn't like it. Fanfic there used to be like you described on forums--we would talk to each other, not necessarily even the author, about where a story was going, our theories, etc. I love it when fen can treat fanfic as a canon. This was really discouraged at RoP and I'm pretty sure the rules they started making were a result of me and a small group of other trouble makers. It was very stifling there.
I'm not sure (and I doubt one could find out) if it's the fandom that shapes the fans or just that the fans that are attracted to it tend to be people who either don't mind heterocentrism (because, for example, they don't feel it), or are actively heterocentric themselves.
I think you're right that we probably can't find out, but wouldn't it be nifty if we could get people to contribute their own thoughts on it? E.g., how many people did what I did--went from not minding heterocentricity to having a problem with it, and did it correspond to a change in fandom? To a change in age? Education? Personal experience?
I like the novel for its political aspects perhaps even more than any other thing about it, and no fic I've found really deals with it.
I . . . feel funny about my interest in N&S. I had the very visceral shipper reaction to it that leads me to most fandoms--I want the two main characters to get together and I go to fandom to get it done, whether it's Jim Kirk and Mr. Spock or Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton. But I want to think that the reason N&S sucker punched me the way it did was because the main characters have very strong social concerns, and very interesting social disputes, and I want to see that explored.
So I almost immediately sit down and start writing the crackiest fic imaginable, where of course there can be a lot of porn, and I can make the two main characters hook up in new ways. But I am interested in the social aspects. So suddenly I have this leviathan of a fanfic, wherein half of it is this very mushy romance that is somehow about Victorian repression of female desire, and the other half is extremely clunky discussion of social politics which doesn't go anywhere, because it was never meant to be there to begin with. It's just sort of stuck in, because I like it.
Um....it's late in the evening and I've become all tangenty. What I find shocking is that, like you, I haven't been able to find any fic that deals with what I find interesting. But my fic only deals with what I find intellectually interesting half the time. The other half the time, my lizard brain has taken over and I just want to ship like my life depends on it. In the novel, I did not find their romance compelling. In the adaptation, I did--but the adaptation has far less intricate social politics, partly because they just did not have time, partly because the format is not suited to a lot of the minor details, and partly because this mini-series is a music video made to hopefully cash in on the Austen crowd.
I think they're not big on journaling sites because they're already big elsewhere.
Well, but I feel like N&S shot up after the adaptation, which came in 2005--why did they flock to a forum first, instead of a journaling site?
(Actually, there's a bit of movement here for the Age of Sails fandom, which is mainly slash, about the navy.)
Yes, I've seen that! It's made me happy. Last time I watched Horatio Hornblower, I got very very obsessed with Hornblower/Bush for about 3 weeks, and lamented what I thought was a serious tragedy: there wasn't going to be any fic about this. But now I see it alive and hopping, and I just . . . wish that was so for N&S, and JA with like minded folk.
Thanks again for the link to your post.
Re: Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
I guess only we can make it active here--I know you're not the only one to prefer the journaling sites--but I wonder how...
Re: Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
I think you're right.
I don't really think journaling sites are reasonable places to suppose there will be a fandom or that fandoms can be built there,
I agree completely. Even though I'm not new, I find journaling sites ridiculous as fandom hubs. It's not true that I actually prefer it here; it's that the people I've found here are . . . more in line with my kind of thinking that people I find afield.
Well, that's not quite true. One of my fandoms is fandom, and while you can get a sense of community in a forum, you don't have that overarching idea of fandom that you do at journaling sites. In that sense, forums/mailing lists are decentralized, and LJ is centralized.
I guess only we can make it active here--I know you're not the only one to prefer the journaling sites--but I wonder how...
We should plan a mass uprising. Or something. I feel like I should've tried to connect with more fen before implementing my fanfic exchange plan--then people might've been able to make judgments about whether it was actually worth participating in. The trouble is I don't know where to go to find fen for these sorts of fandom on lj.
Re: Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
I would be more comfortable participating either on dw or the AO3 (the code for challenges there is improving all the time, even), but I can help you by reaching out to the people I know. I suspect I don't know many you don't, though. Two or three authors, and a couple readers more (and I can't guarantee they will participate).
Re: Part 1 (and you said _you_ babbled!)
Well, I want to move over to DW more completely anyway. If we're starting a movement, we might as well do it where we prefer ;o) I have to check with my friend about what she meant about JA fandom at DW--it's possible I misunderstood her. What I remember her saying was that she knew people on DW who seemed to be trying to use DW for JAF. Anyway, thanks! I guess what I really want to do is just find the people who are active in JAF on journal sites, and then find the people like me who didn't know how to find them, you know?
Part 2
Well, I can't compare it with journal posting because I haven't posted much fiction at my lj/dw. I received quite a few comments for my yuletide fic, certainly not below my expectations, though I've no idea what's the average or anything. I also received quite a bit in a long story I posted (though some were redirected from ff.net, as I tired halfway through of posting in both archives)--again, no idea of averages for longer stories.
What I can perceive is that they're different in type from what I received in the forums. There, I posted every week, more or less the same day (as it's the usual way), and people commented every week, more or less, and not necessarily only to me. As comments were not threaded, people discussed with each other, guessed about where the story was going, and even once got into a discussion about what some lines meant, in a larger context, for a relationship in the story. All in all, they were cooler. I've almost never received detailed, critical comments. The problem with concrit seems to extend itself to all fandoms regardless or medium or subject, sadly.
(And hey, no problem about the babbling! I enjoy reading it as much as doing it myself. :P)