my deep thoughts of the month

[schmerica]

Here is my question of the day for you all:

One of my favorite things about fandom (and I think a lot of people share this) is the sense of community that's evolved with it -- the fan to fan connections. But there's this thing that comes up in pretty much meta discussion we have, and that's the question of what we mean by community.

What do we mean by community? What does it take to be a member of that community? Is it a matter of self definition, so that what it takes to be part of the community is acknowledging and accepting yourself into it? Or is community framed by actions, a structure based on us all doing the same things together? You read fic, you write fic, you make art, you participate in fannish infastructure and interact with other fans, therefore you are a Fan; you make slash and see slash, therefore you're a slasher? Is it just a general sort of collegiality? Is there an ideological component -- some fixed ideas or thoughts that we expect members of the community to generally share or agree on, as a base?

What do you guys think?

Comments

[annakovsky.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I am trying to think about this in terms of fan communities, and it's hard to exactly define. There are people who are huge fans, who spend time over on TWoP or whatever message boards, etc, talking about shows, but who I wouldn't consider part of FANDOM at all. I think fandom, for me, is people who have to do with the creating of extra-textual material about the show - either as creators or consumers. So vids and fanfic and whatnot.

The funny thing is the issue of who's on the margins of the community - because you could write tons of fic in an active fandom over on ff.net, but not have the same ideology and shared vocabulary as people who I consider part of fandom - even though those people maybe don't have an active fandom right now, and aren't even reading and writing much fic. Hmm.