Snowflake Challenge 15: Future of Fandom

[ysabetwordsmith]

Challenge #15

In your own space, opine on the future of fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So Twitter is going great, but that's okay because you can buy two blue check marks on tumblr! Seems like every other day I hear about a new platform, either because it's starting up or because it has a data breach. Which is to say that fandom at this moment feels a little bit more in flux than usual, both in terms of online spaces and in terms of ways of doing fandom. Where are we all going? What does it all mean? What do you, personally, plan to do?

This can be positive, negative, ambivalent; about fandom as a whole, your own fandom(s), or your own plans. Alternately, what do you hope fandom will do? Imagine a best-cast scenario, and tell us what that would look like.




On Venues and Fandom in Cyberspace

Regarding Twitter, it's a great example. I have posted about this in "Twitter Exodus" and "Twitter Exodus Continuing" previously, and I also contribute to twitter_refugees which is a good community for newcomers to Dreamwidth with lots of resources on how to use this platform. In the past few months, I've seen a bunch of new folks join Dreamwidth, and several have become members of my own audience. I always watch for things like this, because they're such wonderful opportunities. This isn't the first -- we've seen people move from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth (or DeadJournal, InsaneJournal, etc.) and from Tumblr to Dreamwidth. What makes Twitter particularly distressing is that there is no close analog of it for people to move into.

Every time an online venue has some problem serious enough to make lots of people leave, that creates an opening for every other venue to scoop market share. Look at why people are leaving it and what they are complaining about. Then check that against your favorite venue(s). Which of yours meet those unmet needs? In this case, Twitter had poor moderation and privacy tools, such that it was prone to hatespeech, and it had become very unpredictable. Conversely, Dreamwidth has great moderation and privacy tools, so if you aren't into hatespeech -- or anything else -- then you can find venues that block it and you can keep it out of your own blog, with only an occasional need to ban wandering trolls. Dreamwidth is also a lot more stable. It's nothing like Twitter, there's no close replacement for that, but it has attracted some Twitter refugees because of the differences.

So watch for these opportunities in the future. Whenever you see some other venue struggling, reach out to its former users and tell them how Dreamwidth (or another favorite venue) could solve the problems they had with their old venue. Help them find communities and make friends, because then they'll be more inclined to stay. Drop by twitter_refugees or getting_started and make welcoming posts. Use the promotional communities like dw_community_promo, fandomcalendar, followfriday, promote, and promoting to advertise communities, events, activities, and other resources for newcomers to enjoy. The more users we can attract and retain, the more active and interesting Dreamwidth in general -- and thus fandom in particular -- will become.

For me, blogging is the best type of venue, and I do little with others. I need the room that blogging offers, because I tend to have large-scale ideas that do not condense well into the small spaces typical of more recent venues. I do what I can to make my little corner of cyberspace a great place to be. We have a lot of deep conversations. Sometimes they get intense, but it's rare for real flames to break out. Most of my readers find internet foo and fandom wank to be tedious rather than entertaining. The occasional problems are usually caused by a random person wandering in and complaining about what I am or how we do things. I kick them out, clean up the mess, and go on with what I'm doing. Don't like, don't read.

Always remember that cyberspace is like the Jedi Tree or Underhill. It contains only what we bring into it and it becomes whatever we make of it. Choose mindfully.


On the Future of Fandom: Hopes and Fears

Fandom has changed a great deal in the decades I've known it, and I am also aware of how it has changed since it coalesced as a community a few decades before that. There is a lot more content now, but that creates some challenges. When things are scarce, people tend to appreciate them more; when things are common, people tend to turn critical. That's as true of people as it is of content. What used to be a tight-knit community of friends meeting a few times a year to squee over rare jewels of content has become a crowd of people arguing over which pieces in a glut of mostly garbage are the good pieces. For me, that's not nearly as much fun as it used to be. I'm really not into most of the things people today seem to find amusing. Online, I can still find some venues worth visiting, but conventions have drifted out my range, which is sad.

Another part of that is the dramatic change in entry routes. Used to be, most people found fandom through books. Bookworms tend to be quiet people, they tend to like logic, and they have been bullied enough that they really don't like bullies. This lends itself to a relatively quiet and congenial subculture, punctuated by some vigorous debates. The rise of television contributed to the cohesion of fandom as a community, particularly Star Trek. However, it took a while for this to become a leading route of entry. People who watch television are more eclectic and often more boisterous compared to bookworms. So too with movies, another entry route. And both of those are more mainstream than books. Comic books, long considered a fringe, have spilled over into television and movies, thus reaching a much wider audience. The newer parts of that audience don't always get along great with the older parts. The same is often true of books made into movies or television shows.

So what used to be a small and fairly cohesive fandom has become massively bigger and totally different from where it started. It no longer functions like a family or a tight-knit group of friends, and it's not much of a subculture anymore. It's more like an extension of the mainstream with elf ears added. The culture of fandom is now more like the mainstream, with its conformity demands and its tone policing, than the refuge of weirdos it used to be. I don't know where all the real freaks have gone. I wish I did. They're not in the same places they once were.

Conversely, however, some other interesting things have happened. The publishing bottleneck is broken and the film bottleneck is cracking. It is now possible for anyone to get online, or go to a print-on-demand publisher, and put out whatever they want. Crowdfunding is a tremendous force for connecting creators and fans. I actually know a few people and projects that did crowdfunding before the internet made it much bigger and easier, but those were rare a few decades back. Now, well, my crowdfunding has outstripped even the biggest of my conventional publishing work. While mainstream publishing has largely devolved to cookie-cutter novels, I can browse Dreamwidth or AO3 or Kickstarter and find really innovative stuff. More diversity, more stories. My holiday shopping went like this:

Amazon: In addition to the thing you actually asked about, here are 20 books that all sound the same.
Me: Meh.

Kickstarter: Here is a book about an autistic Yeti. Or perhaps you'd prefer a Neanderthal comic book?
Me: Shut up and take my money.


My hope is that we'll take the new tools and opportunities to make awesome things. My fear is that we'll use those tools to hit each other over the head. I see some of the former, and a lot of the latter. It's easier to find content nowadays, but harder to find community. That's a problem, because most humans (and many otherkin) are communal creatures who don't do well alone for long periods. Even introverts, who like lots of solitude, tend to want a few close friends rather than the casual mob that extroverts enjoy. And nobody likes being picked on for who they are, what they are, what they do, or what they enjoy. So reach out to each other, and don't be a dick.

I have created some resources for people wanting to make fandom a better place...

Resources for Fandom and Activism

"Activating Communities"

"Activism: Ignore / Complain / Do Something?"

"Firing the Fandom Police"

"How to Build Community"

"How to Do Online Profiles or Introductions with Less Stress"

"How to Handle Book Bans"

"How to Host an Introvert Party"

"How to Make Fandom More Inclusive"

"How to Support Your Favorite Author"

"Improving Communities on Dreamwidth"

"Improving Community in Fandom"

"Membership Retention"

"Outrage and Social Media"

"Peacemongering 101"

"Transformative Works Policy"

"The Three Laws of Fandom: The Laws Themselves"
"The Three Laws of Fandom: Additional Exchanges"


Resources for Coping Skills

"Coping with Emotional Drop"

"Hippie Coping Skills"

"How to Accommodate Special Needs While Attending an Event"

"How to Be Happier"

"How to Care Less About What People Think"

"How to Feel Less Shame"

"How to Increase Calm and Connections"

"How to Manage Your Energy at Conventions"

"Resources on Kindness"

"Self-Care Links"

"Working Around Microphones"


Resources for Creating Content

"Aspecting Characters Exercise"

"How to Build a Novel from Themes and Symbols"

"How to Deal with Writer's Block"

"How to Draw for Beginners with Dexterity Issues"

"How to Make Time to Write"

"How to Overcome Artist's Block"

"How to Write Genderfic"

"Identity Literature"

"Recurring Posts"


What I Have Written

As an activist, I have tried many techniques over the years: protests, pickets, letter campaigns, boycotts, rowdiness, that silent vigil for peace that the Quakers hosted, you name it. The technique that has the highest throughput of people telling me "I did the thing" turns out to be plain old storytelling. So that's what I do. I find wonderful worlds and tell people all about them. Sometimes, it catches on. Come and walk with me through some of the worlds I visit ...



"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry


Love Is For Children

Over time, the Marvelverse has gotten darker and meaner. I'm not entertained by 2 1/2 hours of domestic violence, and that's what happens when you leave your superheroes on duty 24/7 with no care. Back when I was still really enjoying some of the movies, I started what has become my most popular fanseries, and it takes a much more positive tone. It started a quote from Natasha in The Avengers, and the premise: "What if Phil Coulson noticed that the Avengers were floundering, and found a way to fix that?"

This is also the series that got me to using footnotes for more than rare obscure references. Consequently it has a ton of resource links about trauma and recovery, the care and feeding of superheroes, and so on.

Love Is For Children series (The Avengers)


Polychrome Heroics

Over in my original work, Terramagne is the setting for my superhero fantasy series, Polychrome Heroics. This is the best and brightest world I've found in my wanderings across the dimensions. It's a eutopia: a place where it's easy to have a happy life. Not perfect, but plausible. And it's a protopia: a place that gets a little better every year. This is where my readers hire me to fantasize about doctors who listen, police with self-control, and a world that's actually worth living in. We get fascinated by exploring, not just what it does differently than here, but how they make it work. I am constantly amazed by how much of that is replicable here with extant resources, and how little of it actually relies on superpowers or advanced technology. So I write it down.

You want two boys kissing? A natural disaster handled responsibly? Enemies to friends? A cop who's a nice guy? I got you covered. I don't have a thread page for Rutledge yet, but the first poem in that thread was "Because We Are All Unique," in which a shrinking town discusses solving its population problem by inviting Syrian refugees to join them.

One of the things I noticed early on was a huge diversity in heroes and types of heroism. This led me to start collating how-to posts on different types of heroic skills, which are applicable even here. You don't need super powers to be a hero; you just need super compassion.

Skills Heroes Need tag


These are some entries you might find useful...

Public Places, Projects, and Practices

"Addiction Care in Terramagne"

"Encouraging Physical Activity in Terramagne"

"How to Make Your Hometown More Like Bluehill"

"The Mall as Agora in Terramagne-America"

"The NAACP in Terramagne"

"Quiet Rooms"

"Shock Rooms"

"Stocking Glass Beaches in Terramagne-America"

"Value Per Acre"


Tools, Techniques, and Kits

"Emotional First Aid"
"How to Do Emotional and Spiritual Triage in an Emergency"
"Promoting EFA for Adults"

"Games for Blind People or Blackouts"
"Inclusive Games from Terramagne"

"How to Boost Your Mood: Sit by a Sunny Window"

"Party Monitor Kit"


Entries with useful concepts that are elaborated in their notes:

"A Better Place for Everyone"
and its content notes about social alert buttons, notification cards, and an accommodations closet

"Blink"
and the game of the same name, all in one post

"Bring Out the Best"
shows how heroic vision works

"Bring Soul to the Recipe"
and its notes including the algorithm for red rice

"Build with the Mind"
This poem is long, so its character (writers, artists, miscellaneous and professor), worldbuilding (instructions, links, storyworld physical notes, storyworld population), location and content notes appear separately.

"To Feel Safe and Warm"
and its content notes with the algorithm for soup

"My Responsibility to Make It Better"
with a description of the Beach Hero kit, all in one post

"The One That Keeps Demanding"
and "How to Write Social Stories That Work"

"When Someone Is Vulnerable"
"Through Weakness and Vulnerability,"
and their discussion about the spectrum of consent

Comments

[yelp]

I love the idea of seeing the Twitter Exodus, and others, as opportunities for alternative venues. I relate to what you said about preferring blogging-type platforms, so I would love if more fandom activity came to DW, rather than short-form venues like Twitter. I think part of what makes Twitter unique is the userbase, and that's going to be hard to capture whole (rather than splintering to various different platforms).

Very interesting musings about how fandom changes as the content and people become less scarce, and as the entrypoints have changed from books to other media. I've observed this on a per-fandom basis too: smaller fandoms tend to have closer, tight-knit communities, and fanworks for book fandoms are definitely different from those for e.g. video games and anime. It's hard to recapture the early days of fandom, but I'm guessing it would be possible to get a similar feeling by engaging with e.g. small book fandoms, rather than fandom as a whole.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I love the idea of seeing the Twitter Exodus, and others, as opportunities for alternative venues.<<

The more people who can see it that way, the more it will become a productive challenge instead of a negative misery.

>> I relate to what you said about preferring blogging-type platforms, so I would love if more fandom activity came to DW, rather than short-form venues like Twitter.<<

:D We can hope.

>> I think part of what makes Twitter unique is the userbase, <<

To some extent, that's true of most online venues. They offer particular tools, which attract some people more than others. Then they develop their own culture, which increases the "like attracts like" factor. But it's more distinctive with some venues than with others.

>> and that's going to be hard to capture whole (rather than splintering to various different platforms).<<

It's actually rare for an exodus to move in large groups that stay together. Usually people do scatter. When LiveJournal caused several waves of exodus, there were multiple blog platforms that were very similar both to LJ and to each other. So the LJ refugees dispersed to those. It wasn't an even split, though. A majority of people moved to Dreamwidth because of its tools and culture. Almost all of my former LJ audience moved here, for instance.

A big problem with Twitter is that there is no analog at all, nothing even remotely close to what it did. So not only are its members dispersing, they are choosing new venues based on completely unrelated factors. That will make it difficult or impossible to maintain an audience from Twitter to any other venue, which really sucks.

>>Very interesting musings about how fandom changes as the content and people become less scarce, and as the entrypoints have changed from books to other media.<<

Thanks.

>> I've observed this on a per-fandom basis too: smaller fandoms tend to have closer, tight-knit communities, and fanworks for book fandoms are definitely different from those for e.g. video games and anime.<<

I appreciate the added input.

>> It's hard to recapture the early days of fandom, but I'm guessing it would be possible to get a similar feeling by engaging with e.g. small book fandoms, rather than fandom as a whole.<<

That makes sense.

I've seen it in some types of crowdfunding, where creator and audience can form a tight-knit community.

This also touches on a more widespread problem today, which is that popularity can get destructive. Most really great things aren't big and aren't equipped to handle huge demand. If you find a great out-of-the-way place, the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut about it. Because if it goes viral, hordes of people will stampede in and ruin the small, quirky vibe that made it good.

With fandom, we need the underground. We need places that aren't too easy to find -- that you can locate if you search for them, but that don't advertise to the general public. Otherwise, we're outnumbered and overrun. :/

[mdlbear]

I saw a blog post somewhere that said that people who have moved over from Twitter to Mastodon are seeing fewer followers, but that they're much more engaged because they're seeing every toot from everyone they follow. Like Twitter used to be. (There are also a couple of tools that will look at the profiles of all of the twitter accounts you follow and return a list of all of them who give a mastodon address.)

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad people are finding ways to reconnect.

[kengr]

In Blink you refer to "the incident that created Undertaker". Is that in a published work?

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

See "Enter the Dark Horse."

[hoarmurath]

This is a very cool post!

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[see_also_friend]

Useful links.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you found these helpful.

[chicating]

and write something tonight.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's a good idea.

Re: Yes ...

[chicating]

Thanks. One thing I would say is that I kind of miss when the internet was more DIY, and filled with more weirdness and labor-of-love websites, etc.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I miss that too. Especially I miss blog rings that gathered a bunch of individual sites based on topics.

Re: Yes ...

[chicating]

Still kind of a wormhole to lose track of time in, but a bit more pleasant than scrolling news sites like we work for Radio Free Europe.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I dislike scrolling sites. >_< I've only found a few places that list a wide variety of topics and have static thumbnails of articles that I can click on, and they tend not to last long.

The way modern people like to consume things is minimally compatible with the brain I am wearing.

Re: Yes ...

[chicating]

Sometimes I can relate to that!

[galadhir]

I do like to think of DW as a place where we could rebuild some of the old ways of fandom, although honestly I have seen more people connecting over being fannish rather than any specific fandom. But with comments from Ao3 and a community here who cheer you on even if they're not part of your fandom, you can make do. And it's better than the continual cycle of being monetized and then banned.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I do like to think of DW as a place where we could rebuild some of the old ways of fandom, although honestly I have seen more people connecting over being fannish rather than any specific fandom. <<

I am hopeful.

>>But with comments from Ao3 and a community here who cheer you on even if they're not part of your fandom, you can make do. <<

True.

>> And it's better than the continual cycle of being monetized and then banned.<<

Yeah, that sucks.

[colls]

I'm pretty confident that DW will remain a good fannish space in the coming year - and I'm thankful for the promotions and guides for newcomers and those sorts of communities (some of which you listed here).

DW doesn't require immediacy - which is why I think it works long-term as a style of engagement over places like Twitter. Especially for the sort of engagement that requires reflection - like meta. Although I may be projecting ;)