After the End: Harry Potter Fandom in 2010
May. 2nd, 2010 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
author_by_nightThis was originally an entirely different post, but I got off topic and onto another one: Harry Potter fandom three years after DH.
It's interesting to see who left, who stayed, who came back, and who joined - in terms of people and communities/websites alike - after the final book.
Around HBP and definitely by the time DH had been on shelves for a few months, websites and communities (Livejournal and otherwise) w ere much quieter, if not down completely.
But I don't think that means Harry Potter fandom has died. Quite the opposite. Under the cut, I have explored how Harry Potter fandom has changed over the years.
I don't know how accurate I am, I've done no research (this is just a Sunday morning musing), but I think there were certain things throughout the ten years that the books were released that you could call the "key spots" in fandom, the places that really defined it. At first, it was a few fansites - meghpfan's site, Mena Baines, The Unofficial Harry Potter Website, and The Daily Prophet - plus fanfiction.net.
Then it was the larger websites that were created mainly by fanfiction.net writers and included fanart, fanfiction, and discussion all in one; FictionAlley, Sugar Quill, Gryffindor Tower, The Werewolf Registry, and Sycophant Hex - amongst other sites. Around that time, news sites such as MuggleNet, HPANA, and "The HP Galleries" (now The Leaky Cauldron) were becoming more popular.
At some point OoTP's release, LiveJournal started allowing people to post without being invited. Suddenly Livejournal was just as much the center of the fandom as the big sites - possibly more, depending on who you talk to. ;) And it makes sense for a number of reasons.Slowly but surely, it seemed more fans were on LJ than on the websites, at least to me.
I don't think there's really many discussion communities anymore, on LJ or on the internet in general. But something I've noticed is that LJ ficfests seem to be picking up where everyone else left. There seem to be more now than ever - and some of them really seem to be part fic, part speculation. In one recent ficfest, there were two AU fics - but rather than AU fics that simply ignored canon, they seemed to really explore alternative possibilities. To me, that's speculation. Regardless of whether there's more or less speculation in the fests, they really do seem to be the glue that's holding a smaller fandom together.
It's just interesting to see how that's happening. I wonder if that's going to change? And I wonder why it's become LJ - perhaps it's because as far as fansites go, the social networking era has changed how that works. Come to think of it, many fan based pages and communities seem to be on blogging websites, Facebook, and YouTube. When I do find messageboards, they're usually quiet or inactive, and they're often boards that were started - and perhaps died - between 2000-2005.
What do you guys think?
It's interesting to see who left, who stayed, who came back, and who joined - in terms of people and communities/websites alike - after the final book.
Around HBP and definitely by the time DH had been on shelves for a few months, websites and communities (Livejournal and otherwise) w ere much quieter, if not down completely.
But I don't think that means Harry Potter fandom has died. Quite the opposite. Under the cut, I have explored how Harry Potter fandom has changed over the years.
I don't know how accurate I am, I've done no research (this is just a Sunday morning musing), but I think there were certain things throughout the ten years that the books were released that you could call the "key spots" in fandom, the places that really defined it. At first, it was a few fansites - meghpfan's site, Mena Baines, The Unofficial Harry Potter Website, and The Daily Prophet - plus fanfiction.net.
Then it was the larger websites that were created mainly by fanfiction.net writers and included fanart, fanfiction, and discussion all in one; FictionAlley, Sugar Quill, Gryffindor Tower, The Werewolf Registry, and Sycophant Hex - amongst other sites. Around that time, news sites such as MuggleNet, HPANA, and "The HP Galleries" (now The Leaky Cauldron) were becoming more popular.
At some point OoTP's release, LiveJournal started allowing people to post without being invited. Suddenly Livejournal was just as much the center of the fandom as the big sites - possibly more, depending on who you talk to. ;) And it makes sense for a number of reasons.Slowly but surely, it seemed more fans were on LJ than on the websites, at least to me.
I don't think there's really many discussion communities anymore, on LJ or on the internet in general. But something I've noticed is that LJ ficfests seem to be picking up where everyone else left. There seem to be more now than ever - and some of them really seem to be part fic, part speculation. In one recent ficfest, there were two AU fics - but rather than AU fics that simply ignored canon, they seemed to really explore alternative possibilities. To me, that's speculation. Regardless of whether there's more or less speculation in the fests, they really do seem to be the glue that's holding a smaller fandom together.
It's just interesting to see how that's happening. I wonder if that's going to change? And I wonder why it's become LJ - perhaps it's because as far as fansites go, the social networking era has changed how that works. Come to think of it, many fan based pages and communities seem to be on blogging websites, Facebook, and YouTube. When I do find messageboards, they're usually quiet or inactive, and they're often boards that were started - and perhaps died - between 2000-2005.
What do you guys think?
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Date: 2010-05-15 07:04 am (UTC)I miss discussion communities about the books, not the fans or fanfic, too.