On really, really popular people, fans, and canon

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Title: On really, really popular people, fans, and canon
Creator: thelastgoodname at Fanthropology
Date(s): May 19th, 2005
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External Links: On really, really popular people, fans, and canon; wayback link; archive link
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On really, really popular people, fans, and canon is a 2005 post by thelastgoodname at Fanthropology.

NOTE: all of partly bouncy's (aka Laura Hale) posts have been deleted, either by Hale herself, or as part of a concentrated later effort by people angrily scrubbing her from discussions. These deleted posts can be seen here. Another example of this is the removal of Hale's contributions from Fanfic Symposium.

Some Topics Discussed

the BNFs, according the poll bethbethbeth by that is cited

From the Essay

We've talked about big name fans, but Cassandra Claire seems to be on a completely different scale. When bethbethbeth did her poll on fandom culture, Cassandra Claire was recognized by 80% of the respondents, by far the highest level of recognition for people in fandom. The next highest, Te, received only 60% recognition. I imagine this is because of the HP-focus of the poll respondents, but it is still a strange notion. Not only is she as universally recognized in the fandom world as anyone (only 15% of people recognized the name of the guy who runs Fanfiction.net – bonus points if you can recall him without my naming him), but she is one of the most popular people on livejournal as a whole.

Why? How in the world did this happen? Is it because of the personality? The plagiarism? Something else that I simply am not seeing?

This phenomenon has arisen in Xena fandom as well, but without the wankiness (and I'm sure it's come up in other fandoms, which we've briefly touched on, but I don't know them enough to say). One particular author, Melissa Good, became so well known that she wrote several filmed and aired episodes for Xena in its last seasons. She is also a massively popular convention guest (and then there's the part where someone wrote a fanfiction novel based on the characters she developed, and so is doubly removed from the source material).

We have already established, here on fanthropology and elsewhere in a variety of social sciences, that people tend toward clumping around personalities and leaders. We also know that there is a point where following becomes more about the community and the act of following than the source; this happens in all other fan activities (music, sports), and people have noted it happens here.

Is there a mesa-level fan phenomenon (where mesa means below the original source material at the macro-level, but above the ordinary BNF or fan grouping at the micro-level, and even farther above the individual fan at the nano-level)? [I realize that this theoretical construction might not be as useful in fandom as it is elsewhere, but it's one that comes immediately to mind in this case.] Is this mesa-level fannishness an appropriate notion, where the mesa-level fandom is not subsumed to the macro-level fandom, but is parallel to it? Or are there multiple macro-levels, even when individual levels are based on other sources themselves? Can fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings be considered mesalevel fans to J.R.R. Tolkien's macro-level source? (Peter Jackson is obviously the biggest of the Big Name Fans: are any LotR fans actually and explicitly Peter Jackson fans, and not Tolkien fans?)

By this I mean, is fandom as a subset of society also inclined to the same fannish tendencies as society? Are people fans of Cassandra Claire not as a subset of HP or LotR fandom but in a parallel way that they are fans of other source materials? This appears to be true of fans of Melissa Good, and it also seems true of fans of Cassandra Claire: these are not simply Big Name Fans, they are Big Name Sources of their own (akin to Peter Jackson, possibly), with fans themselves who are differently connected to the original source material.

And if this is true, how recursive can fandom get? We already have three levels of recursivity in Xena (show/Melissa Good text based on show/other author text based on Melissa Good text/fans of other author because of text based on Melissa Good text based on show). A movie-based LotR BNF (assuming that my theory about Peter Jackson is reasonable) would be another three levels of recursivity. What happens when there is a fourth or fifth level of recursivity? It would then seem to be obviously not about the source material anymore, but about the fan reaction.

[And is this like the recursivity in sports, where "canon" as we argue it doesn't matter anymore? You can have fans of a team (Florida Gators), fans of a player (Steve Spurrier), fans of a team-specific announcer (David Steele), fans of a team-specific community gathering (the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party), fans of a larger specific team-based community (SEC), fans of a non-team specific community gathering (Sugar Bowl), fans of a non-team specific announcer (Lee Corso – it could happen), and that's all I've got for sports fandom. These people would all be considered fans of college football and no one could argue that point, but the fandom expresses itself in such completely different ways that it's not even the same kettle of fish.

Fan Comments

[degreeabsolute]: Man, I understood about three words of that.

[dragonscholar]: Frankly? I think that it can get extremely recursive. And it's important to keep in mind that in measuring LJ you're already measuring a limited population.

In my experience LJ draws people already drawn together. I got into it because it was a way to keep track of my friends. I inevitably networked with them and related groups. I definitely think fandoms migrated to LJ enthusiastically, so there's going to be levels of recursion, especially among fandoms that were internet-heavy.

[alixtii]: Hmm. That would be an interesting thing to look into. I moved onto lj because I realized that all my favourite authors at www.fanfiction.net had journals--and I would be able to get not only fic but also meta here. For many months before I got my own journal and my own flist I was folllowing others'.

Yet I agree with what you say about being drawn together; I sometimes wonder if there is a huge chunk of Buffy fandom out there on lj somewhere that the su_herald just never links to because they have the same flist as I do.

[thelastgoodname]: Livejournal does seem to be a closed enough community that it is trackable, yet large enough that the results are meaningful (thus the original research). But it doesn't cover much of anything: most of my fandom experience is not on livejournal, and the people I fan with are not involved, because they have a variety of other (internet and non-internet) methods for keeping in touch.

[speshulduck]: teh_indy is probably the most famous and imitated icon-maker on LJ. You can barely find a post of decent icons anymore without 1. tripping over her resources or 2. seeing something that mimics her intensely. One look at her memories and you can see that she's not in any one fandom. She icons whatever the hell she wants, and it's brilliant iconing so she's popular. I've never watched Lost but I check her journal frequently for her icons of the episodes, so I would definite call myself a fan of teh_indy specifically, and (generally) not a fan of her source material.
[thelastgoodname]: Thanks, and there you go. This is certainly a fandom that would not have existed before livejournal. And if you started to do something based purely on those icons (make vids, or something), thn we'd have three levels; and if someone became a fan of your work based on those vids, and wrote stories about them – without ever having seen the source, or the icons - would be another level.
The question is, does this level of recursivity happen (as in other fandoms like music or sports), or do "our" sort of fans search out sources and become fans, or are more of them like you, or are they like you and just fan the creator, at a level removed?

[speshulduck]: In my experience most of the people I've met in fandom have sought out the source specifically. The most noteable exceptions have been where someone was recced some fic based solely on the quality of writing, then loved it so much she then sought out the original source material.

For me the levels of recusivity have to do with the high prevalence of multifandom fans. I've got people on my flist who I friended because they liked one show, but because they also happen to put out icons or fic based on another show I'll check those out too. If I'm browsing around FFN (god help me) and I find someone whose writing I really like, I'll read most of what they've written, even if it's for a fandom I've never heard of. In the end if it's something I really liked I'll seek out the source material. If not I'll remain a fan of just the creator. I can't speak to the general fandom experience, but that's how I do it.

Cassie Claire as discussed upthread is actually a really good example. There are a lot of people that like her characterization of Draco more than they like his characterization in the actual books. Are they fans of Cassie Claire? Sure. Like her more than JK Rowling? Maybe. But I'd be willing to bet that a most of her readers sought the source material before they sought her fic, and the ones that were drawn in because "OMG it's Cassie Claire!" ended up liking the source material just as much as they like her fic.

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a bit incoherent. The sports analogy is messing with my head because I keep trying to equate sports figures to actors. My favorite sports player gets traded and I'll probably cheer a little bit for his new team too. Whatever Connor Trinneer does after Enterprise I'll watch no matter what. If my favorite fic author moves on to a new fandom, I'm highly likely to start reading it too, even if I'm not familiar with the source material. I guess it's all the same in the end.

[worldserpent]: Hmm, I really don't. I tend to define "artists" by what they create. A poet doesn't need to use narrative, but I still consider them writers. It's just a sematic division between whether you want to use it to refer to "art" as in all art, or art as in graphical/visual arts.

Hmm, I don't know if that's really been a positive thing for CC. Most of it the attention outside the HP fandom and LoTR has been primarily negative. So it seems that f_w really has been the prime factor in creating panfandom BNFs? I'd say about 3/4 of the people on my flist read f_w, and of course I and others influence this by reposting wankage. (Hah, so fandom_wank has oddly become a major defining factor of LJ fandom?)

[worldserpent]: I would think is partially because Peter Jackson took much more of an auteur role with LoTR. After all, he was involved in conceiving the project, and was a producer in addition to being a director, and all the news stories and articles reflect how important his vision was. There's less of that with the HP movies, so even outside of fandom he is far more identified with LoTR than either of the directors is with HP. But since I'm not that familiar with movie fandom, there may be other reasons.

We are talking about people being famous across fandoms, aren't we? Melissa Good has not influenced people beyond Xena and related fandoms, while CC has. Thusly, Good is irrelevant to a discussion of BNFs famous beyond one fandom, because she has not "transcended" Xena fandom.

I wouldn't call CC's stuff satire, more parody. But is film adaptation purely "fannish?" Are Merchant and Ivory fanboys? Are all adaptations of books inherently "fannish?" I don't dispute that Peter Jackson definitely is a fan, but I think that because it's official, it can't only be thought of as a fan activity.

[nostalgia_lj]: Fandom_Wank? Cos that's where I first heard of Cassandra Claire. So I'd possibly suggest F_W is a tabloid of fannish celebrity. Anyone who gets big enough in a single fandom *and* is wanky or outspoken or whatever is going to get F_W'd sooner or later. Plus, it's first port of call in terms of grudges, which will inevitably build up when fandom gets competitive.

One thing I'd also suggest re: CC is that there *is* an LJ-specific use of Reflected Glory. Lots of people friend BNFs in the hope of social-climbing and lots never dump a BNF in case they get ostracised. I mean, I used to kepe BNFs even after they migrated to another fandom, because ditching them seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Now I don't really care, but then there's folk that think *I'm* a BNF some places so... maybe I no longer feel such an urgent need to get noticed and listened to? Omg, I wonder if anyone friended me for glory. *gets paranoid*

And there's plenty of friending that goes on not because the poster is interesting in themselves, but because they're unusually well-connected and link to interesting fannish stuff. Plus, there's always some who hang about to see if they're anything Fandom_Wank'able.

All said, I honestly don't think the big fannish LJs would be so huge if the source didn't exist, even if it's only because it gave them a leg-up into LJ fame.

[idlerat]:

I think F_W is key- it's a tabloid, but it's also the closest thing we have to a paper of record (see, e.g., halegirl's citation above as a reference- it comes before Wikipedia).

I think in Claire's case it also has to do with the fact that she was the premier *early* BNF in what became the monster fandom, bigger than any and full of first time fans. I would be interested in knowing for how many people CC's fic was the first they ever read- it was for me. People got introduced, heard about it before they were in fandom, and then passed that on because fame builds on itself- in a vast, unweildy fandom full of people who have never heard of each other, CC becomes They Thing You Have Heard of because Everyone Has to Have Heard of Something. I'm not being very articulate, but I think her fame serves a purpose in and of itself, and is thus preserved and enlarged.

[nostalgia_lj]: There's totally a reliance on how big the fandom is in terms of how big the BNFs get. I think the most net-active fandom I've been in was Buffy, and that certainly seems to follow me *more* than my other fandoms. In that I'll occasionally meet someone who says "Oh, I read that Buffy thing you wrote" when I go into a fandom, but I've yet to meet anyone saying "oh! I know you from that Ringu fic you wrote" and I was hardly a BNF in either of those fandoms.

[...]

I kind of wonder what happens to BNFs when they leave fandom entirely. Does the fame carry over into "generic LJ fame" or does it just dissipate?

[idlerat]: We could find out in a really big way in CC's case, because she has a big contract for her original fic and may publish it as CC. In which case, the value of a fannish name takes on a whole new meaning.

On newbieness- A lot of CC fans are teens. And that kind of presence is more than n00b in the old sense, if you know what I mean, because at a certain point they create their own, new sense of what fandom is, their own way of being online fic fans. It's more than not-yet-being-inducted (though there's that too), there's also just a different thing, with its own rules and customs, that overlaps.

[idlerat]: Except that becoming a bnf on a scale that would make a real difference to your career isn't easy- it's not like you can just ask for and receive it...

I think it's more likely that publishers will start to see this as something they want, to recruit genre writers from the ranks of ff. And that people will be more likely to make that jump. And, yeah, that maybe fanfic will become an accepted, widely recognized route to pro authorship. Which comes pretty close to what you're saying :D.

[nostalgia_lj]: I think that's *why* I'd defend it as a 'historical source for fandom'. Cataloguing events isn't really what historians want, and it gives some nice insights into what was going on behind the scenes in a lot of fannish events, partly *because* it'll tend to focus on the negative. Biased sources are just as good (often *better*) than the rather dry reportage we'd otherwise be dealing with.

It may not be the 'perfect source' but for historians there's sadly no such thing. You dance with them what brung you, as it were.

[degreeabsolute]: To be honest, re: fandom and the creative process, I'm highly biased. I have little to no respect for fandom communities, especially those that toddle about and squeal over the latest release from [BNF Du Jour]. Yes, I know that this is a rather hypocritical stance, that point doesn't need to be rehashed.

I know next to nothing about Melissa Good, as I never watched Xena, but with Pete Jack, I tend to fall to the line of thinking that once you're paid for it, it's no longer fanwork.

(Though, simultaneously, this logical thread falls apart when one considers the existence of cover bands and re-creation type acts like the Dark Star Orchestra, who play Grateful Dead concerts live, note-for-note.)

Either way, I see where you're coming from with the concept that fanwork promotes fan interest. That's where the entire concept of fanon is spawned from. And that's something of a more tangible starting point when asking the question of whether it's good or not, IMO.

[thelastgoodname]: What happened in Highlander and Sentinel, and to some extent from what I can tell due South fandom is exactly what I mean. Later, people who had never seen the source wrote fan fiction in that universe based on those fics and people's characterizations as written in fics. So if the fan writes based not on the source (macro-level) but on other people's interpretations of the source (mesa-level), is that somehow different? Does it matter what your source is? Does fandom operate differently depending on the level of your source? The mere existence of kerfluffles on the topic, and the distinction between fanon and canon seems to indicate that yes, there are differences, but what about things that are not kerfluffled, or fanon that is canon for a subset of fandom?

[...]

It wasn't just you; lots of people seemed to think that I was somehow making this about Cassandra Claire, when that was very far from the intent. I guess everyone projects their own ideas wherever they read.

If you're a canon purist. See, this is one of the places I'm interested in: what constitutes a canon purist if canon has multiple legitimate and illegitimate sources. Do you still count as a purist if (to use the Peter Jackson example), the movies are your canon? Or can the books be the only canon? To push your example of the Star Trek people who went on to publish: for the ones who wrote ST books, can those count as canon for some people? Or are they necessarily ever fanon, and never the twain shall meet?

I realize no one has the answers to any of these questions, but I am eternally curious.

[thelastgoodname]: Xena fandom has the market cornered on this one (not without problems). There are a gazillion writers who have published books which, while not entirely commercially successful (no one's quit their day job yet), do move. The vast majority of these books were originally published online as fanfiction; a great number of them are still extant online. There is a parallelism there, where people buy copies of stories they have already read. The same thing happens in downloading generally, however, with music and manga and movies; the online free stuff hasn't dissuaded people from buying the offline priced stuff. I wouldn't venture a guess as to the numbers of fans versus non-fans who read this material, because I don't have any of that data. I also wouldn't want to extrapolate outside the lesbian community on this one, because lesbians of a certain demographic (strangely, the same demographic that watched Xena) have a different sense of shared offline community than most straight people do.

[thelastgoodname]: ...Jackson is a mesa-level fan, in the way that I'm thinking about it. And if we can then think of fan/producers of the movie as third-level recursive fans (three times removed from the original source, Tolkien-Jackson-fan produced material), how many more times of recursivity can we get to, and still consider people fans of Tolkien?

References

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