Fandom shift

[author_by_night]

So there's a lot of talk these days about the "death of fandom," usually attributed to LJ sucking, Dreamwidth (which I personally think could replace LJ if it caught on more), other social media (tumblr primarily gets the blame, but twitter and Facebook as well), and so forth.

I think that fandom IS changing, and for those of us who were into it "back then", the changes are depressing. Of course, "back then" is totally relative to not only when you got into fandoms, but where.

For me, "back then" was the early 2000s. I started out at the AOL Harry Potter messageboards - good lord, what a wank storm. But an awesome wank storm. Around the same time I got into ecfans, one of the few Earth's Children websites and certainly the largest. The Harry Potter boards I went to tended to change, sometimes going in a circle, but I largely visited forums and websites. Around 2004 I got into LJ... however, LJ was really only for Harry Potter fandom and some of my lesser fandoms - with Earth's Children, it was always primarily that one site.

I've seen people on LJ who have only ever been on LJ say that LJ IS real fandom, though, because they never got into messageboards. At the same time, I have friends who used to go on usenet, so to them that's "old fandom." (Or so I assume?) Nobody's really right or wrong, it's just all relative.

But I think that the other problem is that the internet has changed drastically in that "everyone" is into it, and in that people use it a lot differently now - it's not a matter of mailing lists versus messageboards versus LJ, but the purpose itself.

Although I'm no social media scholar (and I'm skeptical of most people who say they are, because it's often like they did the equivalent of looking up a country on LonelyPlanet and writing a 500 page book about it), I think it's safe to say that the internet has become less interactive. One of the things that made messageboards fun was the fact that fans could talk to each other. Now the idea is that you generally send out ideas, rather than topics. The sharing element is still there, but it's not interactive sharing. There's no real discussion. And if that's why you loved fandom, that might suck.

Additionally, I think that fandom's been hit by a lack of "blockbusters" that really took off on the internet, or that seemed to collide fanbases. When I first got into the Harry Potter fandom, I also knew a lot about Buffy. Back then, I'd never seen Buffy.  I had no idea who the hell this Spike guy was or why everyone compared Remus to some Giles person and shipped them in some cases. But I heard about those characters all the time, and a lot of my friends were in both fandoms. The fandoms seemed to play off of each other. Then the Lord of the Rings movies came out, and suddenly not only were people comparing Willow to Hermione, they were comparing Gandalf to Dumbledore. I don't think we've really had any sort of intertwining that since. (Have we? I could be wrong, so someone please tell me if I have.) Meanwhile, the Harry Potter fandom has quieted down a lot  and seems to be primarily memes and ficfests these days, and I think it's the same with Buffy and LOTR fandom. I'm not really sure, though.

This isn't to say people aren't enjoying the same things - a lot of them are. But they're not necessarily crazy about the same things. And I think that makes a huge difference too - buzz feeds off of buzz. It seems to me everyone's now in their own pockets. Even though LJ does allow for discussion, I have to say, I hardly see any even in fan comms I've joined. Of course, LJ has also really complicated the way notes work, so that's part of the problem. (I'm honestly surprised DW hasn't kicked off more, as it IS more like old school LJ that was comment friendly.)

And all of this being said, do I really think it means fandom's dying? No. I think, like everything online, it's just that it's changing. I do miss the way people would interact and hope something comes along that's about interaction again, but I think it's still alive and kicking. It's just kicking different places.

ETA: Just to clarify, I'm not talking about the Harry Potter fandom specifically - it was/is my primary fandom so that's why I use it as my main example. I'm talking about fandom, period.