In a fit of nostalgia, I decided to rant a bit and spew obnoxious generalizations for a while while asking questions I don't ever intend to answer.
How do you measure the expiration date of a fandom? When the source material is x years old? When the population hits critical mass at y number of people? Is it different for one-shot sources (movies, games) versus ongoing sources (tv shows, comics)? Is it a point of no return, or is there hope?
I'm measuring the quality of a fandom by the quality of the fic it puts out; I rarely invovle myself in fandom politics or discussions, so I can't actually judge them, and therefore can't really present an accurate picture. People can still have heated discussions over the real meaning behind the hug between Sirius and Remus long after the Harry Potter fandom expires. (Actually, I refuse to touch Harry Potter with a twenty foot pole, because that's a sociology study in and of itself- and, eeew, social sciences.)
Fandoms tend to have Golden Ages, when the fic is amazing, the discussion is thought provoking, and the BNFs are polite, sensible, and intelligent. We saw this seven years ago in Final Fantasy VII, with people like The Captain, Second Impact, Salah, and the Technomancy crew being involved; we saw it a year and a half ago in Naruto, with Rondaview, Suzukiblu, and The Beach writers; it's going on right now in Stargate Atlantis, with Rageprufrock and Shallot.
Is the quality of a fandom determined by its Big Names? Have those fandoms that have expired reached that point because a few key people lost interest and moved on? One could argue that Naruto has gone downhill because of the dub and the influx of new idiots, but I figured things were getting dodgy when it became clear that Silvaren was never finishing "At the End of All Things." Sure, new BNFs crop up all the time, they're a bit like daisies, cockroaches, and termites- but the priorities are different. Fandom is no longer a brave new world of ideas; it's a vicious struggle to find some new spin on an old concept. After that initial burst of creative energy from people who are there in the beginning- the people who build the fanon, and work out of what is essentially a creative void- what's left? Why is it that when those people leave, nothing ever has quite the same oomph to it? If I were more of a twit, I'd make references to the inner poetry of things, but I try to avoid being a twit when I can help it.
It's not that you can't find quality fic or discussions in expired fandoms- because you can, you just have to look a little harder. But there's a shift in attitude that I feel is very marked and really quite fascinating. At the same time, it also makes me quite sad; the Golden Age is an exciting time to be following a fandom, and once it's over, it's done. No more chats with Ramus or Christmas carols, no more crazy beach town AUs or three hundred words of poetry and insight, no more speculative relationship disasters and tales of exploration.
You can't even find Second Impact's fic anymore: a whole generation of fans is gone because the internet is such a transient place, because fandoms no longer orbit around systems of personal websites, fic archives, and message boards. If you search long enough, you'll find some of those old archives, but not in the same number as they once existed. The whole phenomenon has moved away from Geocities to Livejournal, where things are less personal and more about the mob mentality.
That's a rant for another day, I suppose, and less a rant than a discussion debating the merits of poor html layouts that all look the same versus livejournal layouts that all look the same.
In conclusion, pirates, and also, I love the internet. (You thought I was going to say ninja, didn't you?)
1 comment:
Hmm. This is a bit of a tangent from what you were actually talking about, but y'know, I never thought of Naruto as having BNFs at all. Granted, I'm a relative newbie with less than a year under my belt in the actual fandom, but I read anything and everything I can get my hands on, and I have a lot of free time to do it in... and of the four Naruto 'BNFs' you mention, I've only heard of Suzukiblu/Sunfreak (and her only because I knew her stuff from Yuugiou, my previous fandom). It's not like Harry Potter where you have people like Cassie Claire and Rhysenn and Aja who are household names; I don't really think there's a single author in Naruto fandom, no matter how great or popular in one section thereof, who wouldn't be a complete unknown in another section of fandom. I mean, outside of KakaRin and Kakashi fans, who knows who sna is? Outside of Sandcest fans, who knows who infinitefirefly is? I couldn't tell you who the favorite SasuNaru authors are; I don't read it and I don't travel in those circles, so I have no idea. I think that's one thing Livejournal has done to fandom -- unlike you I actually feel it makes things more personal, because with the emphasis on the friends list and filtering content so you only see things you choose to read, people tend to splinter off into subgroups (sub-fandoms, almost) rather than being thrown together into one big morass.
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