Meta: Fandom Changes

[ysabetwordsmith]

marchmetamatterschallenge is offering prompts to inspire new meta. This is the first:

How have you seen your main fandom change over time? This could be:

* change in who major contributors are or what main fests/challenges exist
* change in the style or frequent tropes that gets written
* certain events that have happened
* expectations of or common views on canon

If you don't have a main fandom, you could compare and contrast experiences in different fandoms you've been in.


I don't really have a "main" fandom. I enjoy many different canons. I like fannish culture in general, including panfandom events such as snowflake_challenge.


Positive changes I've seen over time:

* It is now common for people to write book-length or even series-length fanfics. Decades ago, it was rare to see anything beyond short story length.

* I admire the rise of hobby-editors, who used to be called first-readers and are now called betas. Used to be this was something people did only as a favor to writer-friends, but now it is a hobby in its own right and there are folks who make a habit of editing things for a bunch of different fanwriters.

* The use of "!" as a compound word maker amuses me. The format is adjective!noun, like little!Tony. Fanwriters use it to designate specific iterations or interpretations of a character. Punctuation and word formation modes are among the rarest things to change in language evolution, so when you see them, it usually marks a period of high-change like English is in now. This usually lasts only a few decades. A century from now, people will find it really hard to read things written in the 1900s.

* I honestly credit fanfic for a substantial role in the acceptance of homosexuality. All that Kirk/Spock helped change "the love that dare not speak its name" to "Aww, da KYOOT!"




Negative changes I've seen over time:

* They really all amount to the same thing, which is that mundania has colonized fandom to the point that now it's just mundania with elf ears. It's just as vicious, intolerant, cliqueish, and judgmental as the rest of the world. The quirky, easygoing, welcoming atmosphere of the past is long gone. What's left is not really worth pursuing. I still enjoy reading fanfic, but I no longer feel attracted to cons, and even the quality of online events has sunk dramatically. People used to talk about how fun and freeing fandom was and they'd finally found a place where they could be themselves. Now they talk about being driven out of a fandom because somebody decided to hate them and attack them every time they showed up. Which is what we used to come to fandom to get away from.

I don't know where all the freaks have gone, but they're not in the same places they used to be. Some folks have suggested zombie culture, which is no use to me because I don't like zombies; or goth culture, which is no use because I scare them.

I miss fandom-that-was.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> It's interesting. I think it must depend on where in fandom you go. <<

It depends on where, in person or online; where, in which fandom; but also when someone came into fandom. I've known people who were part of the campaign to keep Star Trek going, and their experiences were a wonder beyond what I knew when I came into fandom as a community, let alone what it is now. And even now, some fandoms and some venues are more welcoming while others are just vicious.

>> it wasn't just "OMG you like this ship you're delusional", it was "you're racist if you ship this pairing". <<

Yeah, that's just ghastly.

>> I'd be lying if I said it wasn't one of the reasons I didn't get into the fandom. (Mostly I just started losing interest in the show, but the fandom was so unwelcoming.) <<

It's a large and growing problem. If fandom drives away people who like the canon, because the fans are assholes, the culture will die out. And that's happening. I've seen several people lamenting the reduction in convention activity and pleading with people to attend so the cons don't disappear. But maybe folks just don't like the changes and don't feel the current offerings are worth the bother.