Occasionally Snarky and Meta

 Day 3: In your own space, talk about a fandom opinion you hold that has changed over time.
 
First, for transparency's sake, I actually struggled with this question as I've held a lot of misconceptions over the years. I've been in fandom since 2000, after all.  I'm also not entirely sure what I've covered before.

But I think one, which was touched on in sarajayechan 's post, is the strict standards a lot of the internet held people to. Fanfic writing in particular - as their entry points out, it was considered fine to criticize or even openly mock a fic because "you posted it, it's fair game now". Which I don't think was fair. But it was also acceptable to make fun of how people typed on forums and on LJ comms. The kinds of things people said.  

I even corrected people on forums I belonged to, and when I say I didn't see anything wrong with it, I really mean it. I thought I was saving them, the way  terse forum mod sonce "saved" me. Except what were mods saving me from? What was I saving those people from? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It was also common to make fun of individual fandomers, whether their fics or just who they were in fandom. Often the comments were way too personal, especially when it came to fic writers. Even when it came to people who deserved personal criticism, sometimes comments still went way too far.

It's interesting. This isn't really fandom, but stick with me here. I was thinking about the site STFU Parents, which made fun of the way parents (usually moms) talked about their kids on social media. I remember feeling like the blog was very harsh, and I recently gave it a re-read. While there were certainly awful posts that deserved to get sporked, a lot of them were just... people daring to talk about their kids instead of whatever was "cool" to like on the internet at the time. Sometimes they'd USE ALL CAPS or word something a little awkwardly. Okay? It happens. And no, I didn't care about people's kids either, I was online to geek out about stuff, but I also realized Facebook wasn't where geekery was happening. (I'm not saying that people necessarily thought that, either, I'm just. Saying.)

Even the reaction to Rebecca Black's "Friday" is arguably part of this idea that the internet had to be protected from... something. You're Wrong About (I think) had a whole episode about that, where they pointed out that those kinds of videos were outliers on YouTube back then. I get why Rebecca Black stood out like a sore thumb, but let's maybe not make fun of thirteen year old girls? That bothered me too. (And can I just say, Party in the USA, released around that same time, wasn't a whole lot better? Miley Cyrus just sings like, well, Miley Cyrus, whereas Rebecca Black just sang like a teenage girl. Because she was a teenage girl. Maybe Glee made us forget how most teenagers sing.)

So yeah. The internet is a lot worse in many ways, unfortunately. But I'm glad I can read YouTube comments now without losing my faith in humanity, I'm glad people aren't flamed on Ao3 as frequently as they were on fanfiction.net. (At least in my experience.)

I had trouble thinking of five things for the Snowflake prompt, and I've settled on Five Fannish Things I saw online to respond to. I basically just punched "fanfic" and "fandom" into AskReddit.
 
I tried to balance negative/positive discussion points. Fandom has a lot of ugly. It also has a lot of good. 


What was a fandom you missed out on?

This is actually my own question, because I thought of it while scrolling. I really wish I hadn't seen Firefly so late in the game. I loved Firefly when I finally watched it, but by the time I did, most of my LJ flist was into SuperWhoLock or not into any fandoms at all anymore. The only active forum for Firefly I found was very critical of the show, they basically hated everyone except for Mal. I settled for userpics after a while. Part of the problem is that I was boycotting fanfiction.net because censorship, and I had trouble finding fic on LJ, even though I'm sure there was still fanfic being written.

Ao3 was probably a better bet, but I used LJ for most of my fandom needs at that point. Which is another regret; in the case of Firefly, I think Ao3 was still new, so there might not have been much there anyway. But I kind of just left fanfiction.net and stuck with fic archives on fan websites and LJ, so once those stopped being a thing, that was that. :/

Going back to Firefly, I will say I now like OFMD better, even if it has also been unceremoniously canceled. Also, I think I feel the same way about season 2 that I feel about Serenity. 

Really interested in hearing your thoughts!

For some reason, the cut wouldn't work on the first version, then when I tried editing, it put everything in one paragraph.

Anyway. Spoilers.

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In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'll copy off a manifesto I wrote for Our Flag Means Death on tumblr. Original post here.

It's from 2010, when I was still in college. (I went to college for a very long time.) It's an issue I faced when a college professor incorporated fandom into a class of people utterly unprepared for it. I was talking about it with a friend, and decided to repost to look at the issue from current lens.

This post had very little context. I took a class on Digital Media, which ended up being about social media and various facets of online culture, including fandom. None of this was in the course description, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. The course descriptions were always so vague, they were the academic equivalent of clickbait articles at time. Except you know, we spent thousands of dollars instead of clicking and wasting a few minutes...

On to the entry. Italics is what I originally wrote.


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Some spoilers for Schitt's Creek below.

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On that note, anyone have any fanfic recs?

Have you ever wished for icons for a character(s) or a fandom; art for a story, podfic or fanmix you’ve created; a podfic for a story you’ve written; or a story for some artwork you’ve created? Do you have a plotbunny you’d like someone to adopt?

Maybe you'd like to find more people to squee with over your favourite fandom; or someone to collaborate with over a project? If you are new to a fandom would you like some story recs, or communities to join? Or would you like some recommendations for a new fandom?


1. I would love links to fanfic - either your own or someone else's - that explores the canon, be it 'missing" scenes, what-if scenarios, scenes from the POV of other characters. My interests are Harry Potter, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schitt's Creek, Buffy, or Firefly. Doesn't have to be gen, but can be. I'm definitely not one for romance-only fic. AU's are also fine, but less "they're all in high school" and more so exploring what might have been if such and such had happened.

2. Speaking of Firefly, I would like a complete fic that explores what the series may have turned out to be, if anyone has any recs? There was a "Firefly season two" fic probably fifteen years ago, but IIRC the project was abandoned. (No judgment, I'm certainly not one to talk.)

3. This rec is very specific: Someone posted a wonderful Hogwarts Founders' fic, but adulthood ensued and I had to pause very early in. Then technology ensued, and I lost the tab. Anyone know what I'm talking about? And/or have other Founders' Fic recs?

4. The ability to not be up at the crack of dawn. No one can help me with this, alas. ;)

 From here. This is for a fandom challenge, so non fandom people, feel free to breeze past as it's pretty fandom heavy.


Hi! I'm author_by_night   aka AuthorByNight and a bunch of other variations.

I'm fandom middle aged; I basically spend half my fandom time lamenting that I'm the last generation who remembers going online until the streetlights went out. Or rather, until someone needed to use the phone. I spend the rest of my time trying to impress the new generation of fandom by telling everyone to "take it sleazy". For some reason, that hasn't worked. Beginning to think I need a new method. What music do young people listen to? Anyone know?  I want to be the cool mom, damn it! 

All joking aside, I'm not <i>so</i> old fashioned. I've gotten into watching fannish YouTube videos and listening to fannish podcasts, and I also love getting fannish on LiveWidth when the opportunity presents itself. I don't write fanfic anymore, but I've had the occasional impulse to do so. I have a WIP I really should finish. I stopped because a lot of really bad things happened in the world that were adjacent to themes in the fic, but part of me also thinks the fic needs to be written <i>because</i> of how dark the world has been. 

I'm your typical frustrated millennial who really hates being called one by other people, but still calls herself one. I'm a Hufflepuff version of Luna Lovegood with a sizable helping of Hermione Granger, and a little bit of Jess Day from <i>New Girl.</i> Writing is my passion. Owned by a cat who has tragically never been fed. Or so she'd have you believe.

As for anything else, all I can say is that I work for a top secret agency. If I told you anything more than that, Will Smith would have to wipe your memory. Forever. Also, that weird teacher in middle school may have been an alien. You didn't hear it from me.

Looking forward to meeting everyone, and to the subsequent challenges! :)

I'm making this post public. :) 

I believe that the concept of "parasocial friendships" is only gaining traction in popular usage, although the term itself has been around for some time now.  (As is often true.) Essentially, a parasocial friendship is one where you might feel very close to someone, but the closeness felt is very one-sided. This happens outside the internet social sphere as well, but I'm here to talk mainly about the internet end of it, as well as how making connections with people and engaging in discourse with them is more difficult than it used to be. 

Parasocial relationships include: Vloggers, podcast hosts, bloggers, and even fan creators who've also shared their personal lives. They do not interact with you, though - or if they do, the interaction is incredibly minimal. For example, I listen to a podcast where I feel I "know" the hosts. They'll like my replies to their tweets, but that's the extent of it. They don't know me. They don't follow me. This can even mean that it's easy to cross lines you didn't consider existed. At worst, people can become demanding. Sarah Z of YouTube talked about some of her followers demanding videos of her, the way you might jokingly bug a friend.  Except because she's not their friend, it isn't funny.

An example  of these relationships in blogging community is a popular blogger who posted parodies as well as personal entries on LJ around 2003-2008 or 9.  She was on my flist, but we barely interacted, at least as far as I can recall. I knew her best friend's name, I knew some personal things I'm not going to get into (even if she did post them publicly to her hundreds of followers, that still feels weird), but I was just another comment. And you know, that was fine. I LIKED her, but didn't really need to be friends with her. I just enjoyed her stuff. (ETA: Since this is public, I omitted the name.)

Conversely, there were creators I did reach out to back then where the  friendships were mutual.  They shared stuff, I felt I had something in common with them, we became friends on IM or on LJ.

The fun thing about LJ is that I sometimes knew people without knowing I knew them elsewhere.  For example, very early on in the Harry Potter fandom I read a fanfic that was amazing, one of my favorites, and much to my sorrow I never heard of the author writing anything else. One day I clicked on the link to the author's website... it was a good LJ friend of mine. I was like, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHY DID YOU NEVER WRITE AGAIN?" because in that context, it was an entirely appropriate response. :P   

That being said, even seemingly mutual friendships weren't necessarily as close as they seemed. There were a few people who I thought I was close to, only to realize we really weren't that close. That's another phenomenon not entirely exclusive to the online sphere, it happens IRL as well, but I think lack of tone - and, at times, nuance - on the internet makes that even more of a challenge.  I found out one "friend" who wrote a fic I liked never liked me. I discovered a forum post where he said he couldn't stand that I IMed him. So don't give your IM name on the forums? Don't have conversations with me, which implies you enjoy my company? Whatever, his problem. The point is that it was complicated even when there was apparent reciprocity, because it was still one-sided even with interaction on his end.

Despite situations like those, I do miss the opportunities fans have to meet other fans through their work, as well as engage in fannish discuourse. Vloggers and podcast hosts aren't really trying to get to know their fans, the way a lot of people on LiveWidth and other mediums were back in the day. Twitter's algorithms make truly following people and exchanging conversations harder, because you don't necessarily see what your friends post, nor do they see yours. Reddit is very much based on upvotes and downvotes. It's also harder to engage in discourse due to the reactionary nature of so many websites.

I sometimes wonder if that's another reason LJ and DW are so quiet these days - people aren't meeting and coming here to engage further the way they were before. I've come across so many people who are shocked LJ and DW even still exist. They aren't realizing their favorite creators or random people on forums have LJ and adding them. Often, people aren't looking to meet anyone at all, as much as they are relaying their thoughts to a larger audience. Which, so we're clear, is not a bad thing - no one is obligated to socialize with anyone else, to exchange theories or meta with anyone else, to respond to comments or retweets. But there's far more of this one-sided discourse than there was before.

We're floating in the same water, which has its own beauty, to be sure; but it's not a communal beauty as much as it is an intuitive one, which can, at times, make it all rather bittersweet.

 Share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme

First, I gotta ask, and this isn't a criticism at all - am I the only person in fandom who doesn't care that much about sex? It would never, ever occur to me to read a fic specifically for a kink, or have a long conversation about which characters secretly want to do it, or who I'd fuck, kill, marry. Maybe that's why I'm more of a fandom outlier these days. Now, I do not judge anyone - you (universally) love what you love, and that's cool. It's just not something I personally care about.  And I rarely read kinky stuff in fic. Or R-rated fics at all, really. (Which isn't to say the media I consume is squeaky clean. Some of it's on the tamer side, but some of it  decidedly  NOT tame. Looking at you, Fifty Shades of Furrowed Brows/Earth's Children.) Anyway, I'd love to know if there are any other non-kinky buzzkills out there. ;)

As far as motifs and tropes  in ORIGINAL works go, I definitely like worlds where at least a few characters  generally get along. There *are* exceptions - for instance, I loved 30 Rock, and none of the characters are overly sympathetic or really rooting for each other. But even then, you still at least have Liz and Jack, and Tracy and Kenneth, and Dot Com and Grizz. (I would've watched a Dot Com and Grizz spinoff.) I'm not averse to characters having conflicts here and there at all, because isn't that what makes a storyline good? Conflict? Still, it's easier to relate to the characters when they're pointing their guns at a common enemy rather than each other.

I also like to see worlds where there's more than one kickass leading lady.  I feel so many works in the past especially have really just made do with one character is kickass, and everyone else is a bland or cliche female character. It's always nice to see more women sharing the spotlight.

With respect to fanworks, I love fanworks that explore backstory, missing moments, alternative POVs, minor characters, speculation on future canon events, stuff like that. Which is probably the biggest reason I'm not so into kinks - it's just not what I'm here for, usually.