Changing Fandom Culture
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| Title: | Changing Fandom Culture |
| Creator: | Flamingo |
| Date(s): | August 15, 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
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Changing Fandom Culture is a 2001 essay by Flamingo
It was posted to VenicePlace, a closed Starsky & Hutch mailing list and is posted to Fanlore with Flamingo's permission.
Some Topics Discussed
The Essay
In the short time I have been in fandom I have seen a sea-change in the culture of fandom itself, and frankly, it's not one I care for, though it clearly seems preferred by many others. A mere 10 years ago the primary activity at cons was fans focusing on their fandom, the characters in it, fiction generated around it, and all the stuff that goes with that. In those days people would ask you (if it weren't obvious by what you were wearing) "What fandom are you in?" People did move from fandom to fandom, but generally whatever fandom they were in at the moment had all their attention until they tired of it -- which usually took a considerable time -- and moved elsewhere and then *that* was their fandom. At any rate, people's interest seemed primarily focused on their current fandom of passion.
That seems to have largely changed these days. This weekend, while at a small, new con local to my area, I ended up in the elevator with a fan I didn't know. Since I usually wear t-shirts with flamingos on them at cons (so list sisters can identify me pretty easy) I often don't have any blatant fandom identifiers on me. So, the fan, in an attempt to be friendly, asked me not what fandom I was in, but, "*How many* fandoms are you in?" The general assumption today is that everyone is into multiple fandoms at one time. The question really struck me. She didn't seem interested in what fandoms they were, she was only interested in how many I had. When I said, "One. Starsky & Hutch." She looked as if I'd thrown a dead fish in her face. Her jaw sagged open and her eyes opened wide. "Only ONE?" It was obvious she knew no other fan who only was interested in one fandom. I suddenly felt like the whooping cranes I've spent my career trying to save. Think there'll be a refuge someday for endangered single-fandom Flamingos? ;-)
Seriously, the exchange rattled me. I didn't think I was *that far* out of things. But that's how far the culture has changed in the ten years I've been in it. Convention panels now have less fandom panels about specific shows and more about the fans themselves. Why do fans do this? Why do fans do that? Fandom, which used to be exclusively about The Show is so far removed from that now as to be nearly unrecognizable. So it is no wonder that it has become more important to worry about the feelings of the people producing fanfic than the quality or subject matter of the fanfic itself. Fandom is now more of a social club than a gathering of people with a single interest. So, that explains why it is turning into a community designed to help people by being supportive all the time.
Frankly, I get enough of that at my neighborhood watch meetings. I'm in fandom, to have an avenue to explore my interest, which is not the *why* of fandom but the focus of it.
I don't think fandoms have been about fic for a long time. And quantity has been prized over quality since the dubious invention of the mixed-media zine where many editors' (and I use the term loosely) objectives were simply to get a zine out ever few months and sell it than to care much about the quality of the fiction. In Vice, which was too small a fandom to support single-fandom zines, your only avenues to getting published (pre-internet) was mixed-media zines. And I had editors who would get *furious* if you remarked on the huge and terrible typos and glitches in the zine. Those weren't important, we were told. Don't bother me about that. This is *fandom*, not professional writing. I don't have the time to deal with that. Ah, but you have the time to take my money.... I think the value of quantity over quality accounts for the low number of LOCs and a lot of this writer-coddling and reluctance to open discussions. We are all fiction-junkies, and who knows where that next piece that shakes our tree will be coming from. Discourage someone and it might not get written!
Another thing that has changed radically in fandom is that the desire to "keep the fandom going" seems nearly non-existent, or certainly not very focused. Nowadays fans work very very hard to get everyone they know into the flavor of the month. It doesn't matter if their friends are heavily into whatever fandom they are, it doesn't matter if they're happy there. What matters is that everyone tries this new thing and gets into it, at least for an hour. The amazing amount of migration through fandoms doesn't help writers develop better writing skills and certainly doesn't give them the time to investigate complicated motivations of their canon. As a result, tons and tons and tons of fandom stories today are limited to the most over-used, pedestrian plots and storylines which are repeated over and over as fans migrate to the newest, latest interest. Complicated ideas take time to develop. It takes time to know the characters adequately enough, to know the canon, to reach through it and plumb something worthwhile. How can this happen when, most times, fans start putting together stories after they've seen six episodes and will lose interest in the fandom before they've seen 12? (Seriously, I was putting together tapes for a fan and when I finally got them done -- this took about 6 weeks -- was told not to bother sending them since she'd already moved onto another fandom.) When I got into Vice, most of the people writing in it had seen so few episodes they didn't know where Sonny slept on his boat!!!
I think that fans are finding a greater need to connect with other *fans* than they have to explore the world of their fandom. That may be a good thing, I don't know. It's normal for people to want to interact with real people and develop real relationships rather than focus on imaginary ones (isn't it?). That may be why I find myself so far outside this kind of gestalt community. My need for those kinds of relationships is satisfied by my many mundane friends, and while no one can argue that I haven't made tons of meaningful friendships in fandom, most particularly in SH, when I spend time here, it is largely to focus on my obsession, which I can't do with my mundane friends. I've tried discussing fanfic with them but it's too one-sided and they start looking bored quickly and they hate it when I force them to read stuff. ;-)
I'm sorry if one would get the impression that this was a "bad" vs "good" discussion, or a "right" vs "wrong." Cultures change as society does. Twenty years ago we weren't communicating in this way at all, but only by phone, letter, or face to face. Like feelings, there is no right or wrong to any of this, only advantages and disadvantages, and cultural change. I'm glad you brought up your concerns, since this issue is rather baffling to me, so perhaps your insights can enlighten me. Whether or not I would ever choose to do as others do, or whether I can ever understand why they do it, isn't a value judgment, just curiosity. Understand that most of my very closest friends are multi-fandom, and even I occasionally still dabble in Miami Vice, if only very rarely. My friends go from one fandom to the next then double-back again, something that truly baffles me.
There are no standards for showing one's loyalty to the fandom, or what is a good fan. This is entirely too subjective. These days, the community seems to be more interested in one another -- fans interacting with fans about fannish issues and dealing with the whole phenomena of fandom -- rather than their interest in a specific show or characters. This is a cultural change from the past. As someone else said, in the past, there was so little opportunity to interact with others regarding what was and is still largely considered a "weird" interest, that fan get together for the purpose of watching eps, or putting together a zine, or finding someway to support the fandom (which in those days meant the show) was a driving need. Now, all you have to do is get on line. It's way easier. In the past, being a good fan and supporting fandom meant producing something, stories, art, zines, vids, whatever. If you didn't write or draw, you helped collate zines, an effort that often took as many people as you could assemble. It helped create community. Now a machine does it for 4 cents a side. ;-) Less reason to get together. Interestingly, when the internet was new, the issue of contributing to it was significant. Early internet ethos said if you used it, give something back to it. You never hear people say that anymore. And I know that the number of fans on the internet who are passive consumers -- log on, read a story, log off, end of involvement -- is huge. We can take fandom for granted. It's everywhere. Just do a search on Google. You can search for slash. A mind-boggling thought to those of us who had to fight to get people to put SH slash on the internet a mere six years ago (or was it seven). So, the fact that you are a creator, not just a consumer is a clear show of support.