Fleshing Identity: Why We Can't Stop Talking about BNFs

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Title:	Fleshing Identity: Why We Can't Stop Talking about BNFs
Creator:	Thamiris
Date(s):	June 25, 2004
Medium:	LiveJournal
Fandom:
Topic:
External Links:	Fleshing Identity: Why We Can't Stop Talking about BNFs; archive link, page 1; archive link, page 2
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Fleshing Identity: Why We Can't Stop Talking about BNFs is a 2004 essay by Thamiris.

Some Topics Discussed

• identity on the internet, choices in presentation
• BNFs and why the topic and practice perseveres
• fans don't have a lot of vocabulary to describe other fans regarding "cyber-identity" beyond "BNF," "lurker," "pseudonym"
• fan identities are about position and visibility
• what is "self" and what defines the boundaries of self
• fans juggle identities online, and labels make this easier
• "The term, [BNF], limits identity, or pretends to: if you're a big name fan you're arrogant, overrated, attention-seeking, talented. If you're not a BNF, you're marginalized, honest, jealous, underrated."
• who owns your identity?
• "I remember the first time I met online peeps in RL: no one looked like I expected AT ALL, nor did they behave as I thought, either. It was a relief in some ways just how normal everyone was."
• Smallville, and a recent blow-up about that fandom, perhaps on Fandom Wank

From the Essay

Is the term "BNF" (Big Name Fan) so endlessly fascinating for fandom -- and it must be, since it never goes away, no matter how much you wish it would be sucked into the acronymal abyss -- because fans have such limited options to demarcate cyber-identity beyond a pseudonym, some entries in a Livejournal, some comments on a mailing list, some words in a chat? There's the term "lurker," true, and people certainly self-identify as such, but it doesn't generate as much attention, I'd suggest, because the position is inherently about silence and absence, while BNF, either as one or against one, is all about presence and often high emotion, and in a world where we're physically invisible, where we float like ghosts, presence requires constant affirmation.

Online fandom challenges any lingering belief in a congenital, static identity. If you're fairly active here, your self-perception not only will crash continuously against others' perceptions of you, but that conflict will leave more visible traces than in real life, written 'facts" available for downloading and bookmarking. The SV hate-thread and the responses it generated throughout LJ, publicly and privately, offer instances of this crash and the ongoing fascination with the term "BNF," though I'm going to use as my starting point a less volatile example.

If I say that I'm funny and believe it, does that make it true? What if you don't think I'm funny, but the most unfunny thing since dead kittens? What if you secretly do find me funny, but tell me I'm not because you don't want to give me the satisfaction? What if I believe you and discard my previous notion, while behaving in the same way? What if, unconsciously, I don't actually think I'm funny, but cling to this self-identifier because I want to be? What about "funny" as a shifting term defined variously by different cultures and times? What if I have a general reputation either for funniness or a lack thereof? What if "Thamiris" is perceived as funnier than S., my "real" identity or the opposite? Is my cyber-identity not sufficiently real because it exists only as words? Do words define identity? Don't they?

Conversations about BNFs, then, while they doubtless serve multiple purposes, can be said to masquerade as a means to stabilize the shaky subject, especially since self-identifying as not-a-BNF is just as strong a position as being/being labelled a BNF. That is, a statement like "I hate BNFs because they're oppressive bitches" represents through othering your subject position as kind and tolerant. Mocking the whole phenomenon could allow you to believe/show that you're someone with a good sense of humor. None of the positions is necessarily an accurate self-representation, if there is such a thing, but, if you accept my argument, assuming one of them will give you a stronger sense of self, or at least confirm your existing one.

Fandom is a big place, full of people swimming in/spitting out an ocean of words. Is it any wonder that we're drawn to the term "BNF", either to appropriate or reject it? If nothing else, the acronym allow us the illusion of fixing our identity, of delineating ourselves with (superficial) clarity, whether you think you're a BNF, don't think you're a BNF, want to be a BNF, don't want to be a BNF, hate BNFs, are perceived to be a BNF, once were a BNF, couldn't give a shit either way. The act of choosing any of those positions or a dozen others shows that we're still grappling with who we are, a question trickier because our cyber-identity is in its adolescence (if you read years in cyberspace as you would a dog's life). The constant discussions about BNFs, angry, playful, arrogant or otherwise, gives us a chance to look into the computer screen and say, "Yep. I'm real and I'm not you."

Fan Comments

pandarus: BNF. Hmm. I guess I tend to take this as meaning FanOfWhomPeopleInFandomXHaveProbablyHear​d, and leave it at that. But it's true that there are an awful lot of different connotations glued on to it. I've not read the Smallville Fandom Hate stuff, but I dipped into the Buffy/AtS thread yesterday, and I found it rather startling. Very thought provoking - that people are getting so incensed about various writers (and it was more directed at writers than individual fics, although there were some genuine attempts at criticism) and the whole piling-in-and-bonding-over-shared-sense-o​f-dislike thing. Weird. Bonkers, really, imho, when we're mostly (or so I tend to suppose) adults.

[jfc013]: Y'see, I use the term "BNF" like tabloids use the term "star". It signifies HUGE amounts of name recognition, fan adulation, and sort of incidentally talent and excellent product. I don't include the derision that some readers might choose to add, but do consider BNFs as being "famous" on another level than I could ever be. This is separate from the SMOF (secret master of fandom) tag that I saw mentioned the other day. I don't know if I know any of these, or if I am one (if I am, it's in another fannish circle altogether). That's just the way it is.

Meanwhile, no, sir. Still fuckwad.

[the pouncer]: I've always been fascinated by the nature of identity, especially how we perceive ourselves in contrast to the Other. I call myself a geek, and I think it's true, but even that label has different meanings and connotations to different people. And I have other identifiers that I think suit me just as well. I know that I'm sometimes surprised by how others choose to describe me, but I can usually see their validity. Maybe that's one benefit of psychotherapy - I have managed to obtain a state of self-knowledge that I hope falls short of self-absorption. My most frequently used modifier is multi-faceted, which I think encompasses my contradictions. I can be serious, smart, pouncy, and naive depending on the moment. And I like that I have that power.

The Big Name Fan debate always baffles me, because my experience has been that some people are stand-offish online, and others are friendly and likely to interact, and supposed BNF status has nothing to do with it.

[calligrafiti]: I think terms like BNF are related to attempts to create something like a physical community out of a virtual space. In physical social groups there are often leaders, the ones who have the ideas of where to go and what to do on a Saturday night. Sometimes they fall into this space because no one else is speaking up. Sometimes they take over their group because they really are oppressive bitches, yadda yadda. They usually have followers, and there's sometimes a scapegoat of some sort that is made miserable, deliberately or not.

The thing is, I don't think physical world community setups really map that well to virtual world communities. [Note: "you" in this is a generalized "you", not Thamiris or any other reader.] You're not stuck in a small town with a limited number of peers defining "cool" and "popular". Is someone talking smack about your favorite pairing on a list? Well yahoo lists are free -- you can run your own ideas up and see if anyone else wants to join in. Set up the lana'n'lex4evah list. No one can stop you. Of course, no one else has to join in if they're not thrilled with the idea, and all the whining about the BNFs oppressing your point of view can't make them.

With any luck, people will move beyond being miserable in high school (who wasn't, really?), and stop trying to push old ideas of community on a new medium. Meanwhile, I'll continue reading what thrills me (whether written by BNFs or not) and ignoring what doesn't.

[gnomi]: Coming from RL science fiction fandom first and foremost, I'm always wary of these statements about what any fannish term means. Online fandoms (and each one is different, admittedly) seem to use the same terms to mean different things from the "meatspace" SF fandom ("meatspace" being the term bandied about so that we don't denigrate online life as being not real).

I've been a member of SF fandom since I was 11. There are folk there who are considered BNFs, and, yes, the term is used. But BNFs, in my mind, are the people who do the most for the fandom as a whole. So the people who are crazy enough to volunteer to run Worldcon (and who have enough credibility from working on past conventions to convince people to let them). BNFs are the people who are the ones who always go toe-to-toe with the hotels, so that we'll have the space we need to have the convention. BNFs are the people that you can go to when you have a situation that you know has been handled before so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel when encountering the same problem again. And all the BNFs I know personally would never identify themselves as such; the more common term I've heard is "old pharts." :-)

So it was a shock to me to get involved with online fandoms where BNFs were reviled, where people self-identified as BNFs, where people avoided those identified as BNFs like the plague. It was jarring. And it's why I tend to stay more on the periphery of those fandoms than I do in fandoms that don't seem to have as much of a deliniation between the BNFs and the rest of the fans.

I identify myself as a fan. It's not my only identity, but it's an important part of who I am.

[sageness]: Fandom, or even fannishness, has its own set of potential axes. Reader or writer? Fannish monogamy or polyfannish devotion? Awe of BNFs or respect of them as living, breathing people who happen to have a large online presence?

In my case, I'm still a newbie to fandom. Hell, I'm a newbie to fiction, even though I've been a writer in other genres for ages. *That* above anything gives me a different outlook on BNFs, I think. I mean, sitting in seminar with world-renowned poets taught me to view other writers as colleagues, no matter what their genre of choice, and no matter their skill level as compared to my own. For me, a BNF is someone who has written a lot and is read by many -- just like a lot of "famous" poets I know. They're just people. Words are simply what they *do*.

What this really brings up is a question of professionalism. BNF, to my mind, sounds a lot like a job description. It has practically nothing to do with whether the BNF is a likable person, has kids, pays her rent on time, likes SUVs better than sedans, or has a secret foot fetish. If one takes on the mantle of the BNF, then one is signing up for a public life, like actors are forced to embrace celebrity if they want to build a career. Likewise, when private citizens are paraded in the media (due to scandal or crime, for instance), a certain amount of celebrity is foisted upon them. There's a clear parallel here to the predicament of the "unwilling-BNF"...which is the lion's share of what I've seen on my flist.

I think the whole issue of BNF-ness continues to be a matter for discussion because it is a completely bizarre thing to realize that something as relatively insignificant as fanfic is being used as justification for personal attacks...as if one were a worldfamous!author who's supposedly used to receiving scads of hatemail with each new release. It's an alien and alienating situation. Especially for authors who are writing simply because they love their characters and love to write.

I always see writers as people first. I identify BNFs as authors whom I respect (and respectfully disagree with from time to time), look forward to reading, and would seriously miss if they stopped writing. Often, I genuinely like them as people, but it's not necessary. After all, I don't need to like Mick Jagger to appreciate the Stones' music (and vice versa). Nor does liking "Let it Bleed" guarantee that I'm going to like "Paint it Black". Should I waste my time, energy, and writerly skills on composing hatemail? Hell no. I've got a WIP folder full of stories to finish.

Honestly, I'm probably more a fan of fandom than I am of Smallville, heretical as that may sound. I do love the show, but I love the fictive medium more than I do television. That's why this...drama...has incited me to shout from the rooftops: "Write! Create! Drown out the critics with STORIES!" (Or art, or meta, or cooking, or digging in the garden -- the result is as-or-less important than the process.)

[iamaza]: I'd like to think I have a better idea of who I am as a person, and what my identity is, than anyone I've met online. I live with me 24/7, after all. I am the one with access to all my thoughts, and memories of most of the events that have shaped me as a person. No offense, but I think that makes me infinitely more qualified to judge who I am as a person than anyone I've interacted with online. :-)

Of course, people online likely have a very different idea of who I am than I do. That doesn't make their perception of me accurate. When I submit stuff online, I choose the aspects of myself I wish to share with the world. For the most part, I choose to present myself as reasonable and courteous--that doesn't mean I am either reasonable or courteous in real life (though, um, I'd like to think I am). My online persona is not necessarily the real me. Or, rather, it is not the whole of me. It is the person I'd like to be perceived as being.

[themaris]: No offense taken, but I'd say that just because we live with ourselves doesn't necessarily mean that we know ourselves. We tell ourselves lies, choose modes of self-identification because they make life easier, rely on internalized comments made years ago that might have no basis in reality...

[ex muj135]: The way I see it, there are three definitions of BNF: the objective one meaning a person whose name other people recognize, the negative one meaning someone other people find arrogant, obnoxious, wanky and/or bitchy, and the positive one meaning someone who does something nice for fandom, whether that's, for example, writing widely read stories or running an archive. I think one of the reasons the whole BNF debate won't go away is that when people try to discuss it they often aren't discussing the same thing. Someone who's using BNF as a swearword aren't talking about the same thing as someone who exhorts her fellow BNFs (in the objective sense) to embrace their inner BNFness (in the positive sense). Or at least I don't think they're talking about the same thing, but who knows? :-) What I'm trying to say is that when someone identifies as BNF or Not, my first reaction is always: "Which definition of BNF or Not are you identifying as?"

If I write "I'm not a BNF" I'm really the only one who knows whether I mean "because no one knows who I am" or "because I'm not an arrogant bitch". In fact, because BNF is such a, as you phrase it, "unstable" term, it can basically mean whatever you want it to mean, fluctuating from moment to moment, depending on the situation and the people you're talking to. Which is why, if I had to describe my online identity, it would never occur to me to mention me nonBNFness. I prefer terms that everyone has the same definition of. Or at least almost the same definition of.

My online identity is wildly different from my offline identity and both my on- and offline identity shift depending on the situation and the people I'm interacting with. And I don't think I'm the only one who does this. How many people are the same person at work as they are at home? How many people who identify as slashers online tell their RL friends about their interest in hot men fucking each other? Some obviously do, many don't. There are some labels that I can agree fits with who I am (white, woman, Swedish for example), but the more "unstable" the term, the more definitions and meanings you can cram into a word or a phrase, the more I start to object. For years I saw myself as the shy quiet girl in the corner no one noticed, until one day at university I happened to mention to my friends that I was a shy quiet girl and they laughed at me, mockingly, for the rest of the day, because to them, as they promptly told me, I was the loud, opinionated, snarky girl who the teachers turned to if no one else wanted to answer the question. And they were right. Sort of. Only not. Identity is so fluid to me, both my own and other people's, that I'm constantly amazed how willing people seem to be to label themselves, whether it's as a BNF or a Not BNF, or, for that matter, anything else completely unrelated to BNFness. But that's just me, and I realise I'm probably weird like that.

[musesfool]: Online fandom especially is full of identity-through-exclusion, isn't it?

"I'm *not* [this, that, or the other (or yes, the Other)]. I'm not like [them]."

We all seem certain of what we're not and we seem to define ourselves by that exclusion from whatever group is doing whatever it is we dislike/feel excluded from (owning we're not part of or pretending not to want to be part of the group that excludes us). And the definition of that group changes depending on the weather and the phase of the moon. So any identity based on such a construct is necessarily going to be shifting, depending on the the current definition of whatever one is not.

Of course, this applies to offline life as well, but I see it a lot more - I *do* it a lot more myself - in fannish areas than in other places.

[bettina]: I have this definition of a BNF in my head, but as usual I don't really know if I can put it into words. For me, it's someone who is widely known in fandom. It's a popular person and most fans know her for whatever reason. Sometimes, when I think of someone as a BNF, someone else would very much disagree with me. I consider people I've "known" from other fandoms as BNFs, too.

As for myself; I consider myself as a "No Name Fan." Not many people would remember me from other fandoms, I'm quiet and shy (not so much in my LJ). That's how I see myself, I don't know if other people see me like this or not, I never asked. I'm just a regular fan, enjoying the fandom and trying to make friends :-).

[goth clark]: I don't know about identity. I usually want people to see me as harmless, and just here to have a good time. I try mostly not to step on toes. It's strange that you should ask this right now, because a few people on my friends list posted pictures of themselves. Of course they didn't look anything like what I expected. I actually thought to myself 'Why don't they look like their icons?' I guess I identify people here on LJ with the image they chose to represent them.

It was a bizarre thing to think, I will admit. I think, in cyber world, where I have no idea what anybody really is like (even the people I interact with on AIM) you put an image in your head about who they are and that is who they become to you. So maybe I am the person others see me as, and maybe I am who I see me as, etc. Maybe I am all those people. Maybe I am a different person every single day I wake up.

I can conclude with I am who ever you say I am. Mainly because even if I tell you otherwise you might not believe me anyway.

[wickedzoot]: I've seen several comments on some kertuffle with regard to BNF (and I'm not sure if it's the term in general or the existence of same), so I'm not sure what's going on.

BNF basically means Big Name Fan. In fanfic, maybe that means Big Name Fanfic Writer. Being a BNF means nothing more than that person's name and/or writing is well known in the fandom.

BNF has, however, become associated with another syndrome, that of the Big Name Diva, who is sometimes also an Insane Bitca Big Name Diva.

None of the above are necessarily associated with talent, although it is true that many apparently Insane Bitca Divas are also extremely talented. A large number of alleged BNFs are not talented so much as much as they are popular. (Not that the talented BNFs might not also be popular, mind.)

Sometimes, BNF is used as a term in place of Insane Bitca BNF, sometimes because the person bearing the sobriquet is really an Insane Bitca, and sometimes because the person bearing the sobriquet is far more popular than the party who bestows it upon them. Like most things in life, real or virtual, the term is misused, and also tends to be a matter of perception. It is frequently used as shorthand, and/or a demented rallying cry.

All one can really be reasonably certain of is that it stands for Big Name Fan. How that is interpreted is entirely up to the speaker and/or the listener. Thus, if one's handle or name is known far and wide among fandom, one might properly be said to be a BNF.

Well, and that being a BNF and 4 bucks might get you a decent latte somewhere, and alas, not even the Cabal still gets a nice tiara any more.

[unknown fan]: Personally, I've got a pretty fluid online identity. I'm not well-known and I've used various names, and being terribly fickle, I find it makes it easier. Although, I've discovered that being on LJ has caused me to define myself more permanently. And in introspection, online I'm much more the me I am when I'm alone than the personality I choose to project offline. Far more brash, harsh, giddy, rather self-absorbed. One way of coping with being horribly shy is to develop a projection of one's self until one is comfortable in the new group. It works for me and I find that it also makes it easier to realize that the personalities you meet online aren't always who they are offline.

[solo]: BNFs. Categorization. Identity-finding, us vs. them. Of course some people are more visible than others, by reason of having lots of interesting things to say (why do you think I hang around your lj anyway? *g*), writing fiction everybody likes or just writing a lot of fiction, or what have you. That's as old as fandom is, and not really a problem if everybody is mature about it. It just ... is. Where the problems arise, IMO (!!) is where you have a fan community which has lots of rather immature, self-doubting individuals in it who have not figured out what their own identity is, or who are unhappy with what they perceive as their own identity and have some kind of inferiority complex, and who therefore feel the need to (a) set themselves apart as a group from the 'other', (b) see the BNF as a convenient 'other' because of their high profile, and (c) attack that 'other' because that's what gives them something to direct their energy at, and helps them bond with their equally immature groupmates. It's like you say: "I'm real and I'm not you." But if that's that's the only way they can define themselves, they're in a bit of trouble.

I'd hate to be a BNF. I'm glad nobody knows me. *g*