fandom yay and nay

[schmerica]

I actually went to check out the fanfic_hate thread on Smallville, but it turned out to be incredibly horribly boring. Honestly, if I'm going to go to the effort and guilt to go through all of that, you'd think it could at least be entertaining in a car-crash or I'm-a-horrible-person-for-reading-this sort of way. Instead it just seems to be round #8,000,124 of the "Smallville is mean to newbies" argument.

On the other hand, I am anticipating the ds_undercover stories with much excitement. So much new fic by so many cool people! All at once! Whee!

Comments

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I found it reassuring, actually. Like everyone else, I have an "Oh, no!!! Maybe I do suck!!!" anxiety or two at various points. But after reading that thread, I feel so much better. That's the worst that can be said, even with the critics hiding in anonymity and hunting in their own little herds of chickens? That's it? Whew! I can write in confidence again.

[basingstoke.livejournal.com]

I learned that BNFs can cause you to be struck by lightning and eaten by carpenter ants.

At least, I assume that's what people are so all-fired terrified about.

None of my stuff has been mentioned. I've been forgotten! ;_;

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

BNFs have wonderful powers!

Although I like how the fandom is apparently in and of itself evil. All the old evil BNFs seem to have left, and yet the people are just as oppressed! I thought one of the BNF powers was to *prevent* others from achieving such status.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Eh, I hadn't been expecting to mentioned anyway; I haven't written in SV in ages and I was never particularly interesting and polarizing to begin with. Seeing one's own name must add some interest to the proceedings, though.

I have a theory that all the really interesting SV fandom drama occurred during the s1 hiatus or very early season 2. No one puts in the effort anymore.

[not-vacillating.livejournal.com]

Instead it just seems to be round #8,000,124 of the "Smallville is mean to newbies" argument.

The thing that really gets me about that? It may be some people's experience that SV is mean to newbies, but when I wandered into the fandom (mostly, admittedly, on lj) about a year ago, I distinctly recall remarking on how friendly it was and how welcoming people were-- it's not quite as friendly as M*A*S*H, which is so tiny everyone knows each other more or less, but it's a lot friendlier than HP.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

but it's a lot friendlier than HP

...and yet, I've had almost nothing but positive experiences with HP from the moment I wandered in, knowing nobody. You know, it strikes me that all these discussions about friendliness in particular fandoms boil down to two things: (1) where you first pop up in a fandom (i.e., what corner of the fandom) and (2) how much you care about being in whatever you perceive to be the "in crowd"

(Note: there's almost never a single "in crowd" in a fandom. HP, for example, has scores of people who are called BNF's, yet half of them don't even recognize the other half's names when they're mentioned because the fandom's just too big.)

I mean, yes...I was lucky with HP. I wrote a couple of joke stories (and was roundly ignored *g*), then posted some comments about the movies and characterization (and...um...was ignored again. *g*), then posted a story that had *no* pairing (pure gen) and a not-terribly-happy ending (usually a recipe for disaster, in terms of being read) and *that* was noticed, at which point people started actually talking to me.

My friend Becky (blunaris), who's pretty much out of SV now, similarly entered that fandom without really knowing anyone and after a time (she's not a writer, but she is an artist) was taken under the wing of some people there. Whether you perceive a fandom as "friendly" has more to do with the luck of the draw than anything else, I think.

And as for my second point - i.e., how much you care about being in the in-crowd - one of the things that always strikes me as so weird in the discussions of how exclusionary certain cliques are in various fandoms is the number of people jumping on the bandwagon to say they were excluded...and they all know each other! *g* It's like, "But...you're all friends! And there are a lot of you! Isn't that enough?" Because really, even if the BNF's of a fandom (and I'm not even going to pretend that the term BNF is meaningless, but to me it just means "well known for participating in a fandom") all decide together at their secret meetings (*g*) to unfriend you or not friend you or not rec your stories or whatever, well...hell, there are still hundreds of other people who might like your work or might like you as a person. Ignore the 7 or 8 people you think are so important, and they'll stop seeming as if they matter so much.

(And amchau? I'm not directing this toward you...just using the universal "you" *g*)

BTW...Erica? Have you *seen* all the posts from people writing for ds_undercover, still desperately trying to finish their stories at the last minute? I wouldn't be so sure about the "so much new fic" thing. :)

-Beth, desperately trying to finish my story at the last minute. *g*

[not-vacillating.livejournal.com]

...and yet, I've had almost nothing but positive experiences with HP from the moment I wandered in, knowing nobody. You know, it strikes me that all these discussions about friendliness in particular fandoms boil down to two things: (1) where you first pop up in a fandom (i.e., what corner of the fandom) and (2) how much you care about being in whatever you perceive to be the "in crowd"

Yeah. I'm not much worried about (2), but I think I was unlucky with (1). There are some really great people in HP fandom as a whole-- and I'm starting to come back to it-- but my experience is that you have to tread carefully to get the nice people and not the crazy people.

It also seems to me that the main thing that creates BNFs is not the BNFs or potential BNFs themselves, but the fear of BNFs. I've never actually encountered a BNF who was seriously trying to make a cabal, only people who were complaining that cabals existed.

I'm not directing this toward you...just using the universal "you" *g*

Yeah, understood. *g*

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

The funniest part for me is when they're explaining about how the old 'cabal' may be gone from SV, but there's a new bitchy elitist ruling class! Like-- OMG-- Slodwick and Happyminion and, uh, Velvetglove!

Slod? WENDI? Velvetglove? *giggling* Oh my God. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS FANDOM!

How timid of a mouse do you have to BE, if people like Slod and Velvetglove, (who's actually on record as saying that she doesn't think it's right to say mean things about people, ever) are the evil BNFs that you are soooooo scared of?

I mean, baby, what happened to the good old days? Like, when you had to churn out fic AND run all kinds of fandom shit AND be a complete jackass in public on a semi-regular basis in order to be a BNF, man? I'm just sayin', I'm sure Slod and Wendi and Velvetglove are giving it their best shot, keeping busy with the shunning and the elitism and the secret death chats and all... not that I would really know, since apparently they have some kind of secret pact to exclude me... bitches... but really. It's obvious that standards have gone WAY down since *I* was on the jackboot squad. :D

[copracat]

No one puts in the effort anymore.

I know. Ain't nothing like the serious wars we used to have in the old days. Tsk. Those newbie fandoms with their baby kerfuffles.

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, they're not doing it to be entertaining. They're doing it to...that is...their pupose is, um...

Well, whatever it is, someone in the Buffy thread assures us they're succeeding.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

Seeing one's own name must add some interest to the proceedings, though.


Not when it's just another post from that same poor girl from fandom_wank who's still hung up on "Organic" as if it were some definitive classic of the fandom recced and beloved by all the sycophants instead of a vignette written in the first days of the fandom that I doubt even my friends remember. Of course, it's also at the top of my SV stories page, so if you want to trash me without actually investing much effort in reading my stories, it must be pretty convenient, but come *on*. At least trash the incest story or something! It's so disappointing.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

BTW...Erica? Have you *seen* all the posts from people writing for ds_undercover, still desperately trying to finish their stories at the last minute? I wouldn't be so sure about the "so much new fic" thing. :)

-Beth, desperately trying to finish my story at the last minute. *g*

I *believe* in you all, Beth! I *believe*!

*crosses fingers*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Heh. I think I'm too recent for a lot of the *really* classic fandom kerfuffles, really.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Dude, I KNOW. I mean, what sort of standards did the evil cabal set, anyway?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

But that doesn't help me any, does it?

I mean. Good for them? Or ... not.

[copracat]

No, you were early SV, first season, yeah? You haven't missed a thing.

Checking on when you started postign SV, I just went back to read one of the first feedback emails I ever sent you (yes, I keep it) and I said, " I wish you'd gotten into fandom years and years ago so there was megabytes of your stories to be read. I wish time would go faster for me and slower for you so you could write more and I could read it more often."

And then you turned out to be amazingly, wonderfully prolific. And there are megabytes.

Yay. :)

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

We had standards. Sekrit ones.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Too sekrit, apparently.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I was thinking too recent in fandom in general, not SV in particular. Although now that I think about, maybe that's not true either -- new crazy things do sprout up all the time. It's just easy to go "Everything really crazy-ass and weird happened before my time!" (The due south fandom I entered, for example, is a cute little fluffy bunny.)

(I remember that feedback! It made me all warm and fuzzy and happy then, and it does now, too. Thank you!)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

*shoots Livia* *summons the secret ninja assassins to dispose of the body* No, we didn't.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ninjas! Yay!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I'm still hoping the BNF complaints will lead on to the "het and gen writers are so oppressed!" theme. That one's my *favorite*!

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! *dies*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

...You haven't even seen that show.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Er. Well, but I...

...curse YOUR sudden but inevitable betrayal!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*snort*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Oh, people with good experiences never count. You're strange anomalies -- nothing to worry about. I learned that back when I tried to pipe up with *my* experiences, back in the first few hundred rounds.

[not-vacillating.livejournal.com]

You're strange anomalies -- nothing to worry about.

Well, obviously: anyone who has good experiences must be a freak.