Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 12
Jan. 12th, 2014 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saelindDay 12
In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom. What are your hopes and dreams for fandom? Do you have any predictions about what the next five years holds for fandom? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Fandom is a funny thing. To be perfectly honest, I think it's a bit ironic that I'm making this post on Livejournal--if you'd asked me a year ago if I'd start using Livejournal regularly again I wouldn't have believed you. I think I had maybe three or four people left on my friends' list who updated regularly, and the rest had simply left the fandom entirely or had moved on to Tumblr.
And that's the way the tide turns. Mediums change, and fandom changes with it. The Archive is my base now, and while I've had some issues I truly think it is one of the most positive things the OTW has done--creating an archive by fans, for fans, with the kinds of searchability functions we want/need. Tumblr became my primary blogging platform about a year and a half ago, and I've met far more people there than I ever did on LJ/DW (which is ironic, because the ability to effectively communicate on Tumblr is next to none, but WE PERSEVERE ABOVE IT ALL). It's easier to use for me, and I view the general migration there as a pretty positive thing. And I'm sure, in five/ten years time, fandom will have moved on to some other website and I'll be sitting in my proverbial rocking chair with the Carol Corps grousing about these kids and their new-fangled whatsits.
But, I think the fact that I am posting this on Livejournal again, the fact that I'm participating in this Snowflake challenge at all, alongside my old friends in the Tolkien fandom, is an indicator of that old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I never dreamed I'd be coming back to this fandom and writing new stories, more and better stories than I ever did when I was involved in high school/college. But even as I grew and moved on to other fandoms, I never truly lost what drew me to Tolkien in the first place--it had just been slumbering for awhile (and I got enough distance from the wank that drove me out that I could come back without that being on my mind). And, also, no matter what fandom I'm in I have always been IN a fandom--it was Harry Potter before Tolkien, Battlestar Galactica after Tolkien, Avengers after Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars always as a minor undercurrent through them all. I have this drive and pull towards the stories I love that will always push me towards fandom, and no matter what story that is that will never change.
In the end, we'll all still be united by our love for the stories that brought us here, we'll all still want to engage in them--whether to praise, critique, and/or expand--and we'll all still be creating. Fandom's not going anywhere, it's just a question of where it's going to be hosted next. So I guess my hope is just that--that we'll still be here, flying, as Malcolm Reynolds would say. And I'm here for that, always, wherever it may be.
(On a slightly different topic, I also do think that fandom's fourth wall is rapidly crumbling, and I have mixed-to-positive feelings about that. As long as people can respect those who wish to keep their pseudonyms separate from their real lives, I think that the fact that in some places it is becoming more socially acceptable to be seen as a part of fandom is a great thing. I'm never good at secrets, and I appreciate that I can share my fannish side with people I know IRL with an increasingly minimal fear of being judged. Though no one I know in RL is ever getting to read my fic, nope, not ever. And I do hope that it becomes easier for talented fanfiction writers to be able to USE that as a base and building block when it comes to getting their own original works published).
In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom. What are your hopes and dreams for fandom? Do you have any predictions about what the next five years holds for fandom? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Fandom is a funny thing. To be perfectly honest, I think it's a bit ironic that I'm making this post on Livejournal--if you'd asked me a year ago if I'd start using Livejournal regularly again I wouldn't have believed you. I think I had maybe three or four people left on my friends' list who updated regularly, and the rest had simply left the fandom entirely or had moved on to Tumblr.
And that's the way the tide turns. Mediums change, and fandom changes with it. The Archive is my base now, and while I've had some issues I truly think it is one of the most positive things the OTW has done--creating an archive by fans, for fans, with the kinds of searchability functions we want/need. Tumblr became my primary blogging platform about a year and a half ago, and I've met far more people there than I ever did on LJ/DW (which is ironic, because the ability to effectively communicate on Tumblr is next to none, but WE PERSEVERE ABOVE IT ALL). It's easier to use for me, and I view the general migration there as a pretty positive thing. And I'm sure, in five/ten years time, fandom will have moved on to some other website and I'll be sitting in my proverbial rocking chair with the Carol Corps grousing about these kids and their new-fangled whatsits.
But, I think the fact that I am posting this on Livejournal again, the fact that I'm participating in this Snowflake challenge at all, alongside my old friends in the Tolkien fandom, is an indicator of that old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I never dreamed I'd be coming back to this fandom and writing new stories, more and better stories than I ever did when I was involved in high school/college. But even as I grew and moved on to other fandoms, I never truly lost what drew me to Tolkien in the first place--it had just been slumbering for awhile (and I got enough distance from the wank that drove me out that I could come back without that being on my mind). And, also, no matter what fandom I'm in I have always been IN a fandom--it was Harry Potter before Tolkien, Battlestar Galactica after Tolkien, Avengers after Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars always as a minor undercurrent through them all. I have this drive and pull towards the stories I love that will always push me towards fandom, and no matter what story that is that will never change.
In the end, we'll all still be united by our love for the stories that brought us here, we'll all still want to engage in them--whether to praise, critique, and/or expand--and we'll all still be creating. Fandom's not going anywhere, it's just a question of where it's going to be hosted next. So I guess my hope is just that--that we'll still be here, flying, as Malcolm Reynolds would say. And I'm here for that, always, wherever it may be.
(On a slightly different topic, I also do think that fandom's fourth wall is rapidly crumbling, and I have mixed-to-positive feelings about that. As long as people can respect those who wish to keep their pseudonyms separate from their real lives, I think that the fact that in some places it is becoming more socially acceptable to be seen as a part of fandom is a great thing. I'm never good at secrets, and I appreciate that I can share my fannish side with people I know IRL with an increasingly minimal fear of being judged. Though no one I know in RL is ever getting to read my fic, nope, not ever. And I do hope that it becomes easier for talented fanfiction writers to be able to USE that as a base and building block when it comes to getting their own original works published).
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no subject
on 2014-01-12 05:31 pm (UTC)So do I. I hate hearing people deride someone's work with 'ugh, they used to write fanfic.' So what if they did? So what if fanfic was their springboard into "real" writing? Just because it might have used someone else's scenario and characters doesn't mean it didn't take as much time, thought, and effort as original fiction. It doesn't mean it didn't count. (Really, when you think about it, TV and movie writers are also playing in someone else's sandbox a lot of the time. What's the big difference?)
no subject
on 2014-01-13 06:50 pm (UTC)