melannen | Me & Fandom

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Me & Fandom

So, if people ask me what fandom I'm in, I have two options: pull out the long text file that I use when I'm offering to beta or write in a multifandom fest; or say "just fandom!"

I have been "in" a fandom a few times, in the sense of really working to build relationships and creations within a particular canon, but I never quite felt comfortable; we were brought together by one thing only, and it was fun, but just by nature of being limited to that one shared interest, there was a lot of conformity and round pegs jammed in square holes. And then I went multifannish, and then panfannish, and then just plain fannish, and this is where my head belongs, really always has. But right now, I'm, to a really kind of strange extent, keeping my fandom-as-community separate from my fandom-as-creativity.

By which I mean, the people I interact with fannishly are the people on my friendlists, message boards, and local RL fan gatherings. Sometimes we're consuming and creating in the same story worlds. Just as often, we're not. Sometimes I read their fic, sometimes I don't, sometimes we've stopped writing fic. It isn't actually all that important, because we click as people, and we don't just talk about story worlds; or we talk about them in ways that apply to all stories. But it's still important that we're culturally fannish, because without that shared ground, we wouldn't be able to talk about those- our stories, our lives, our random brainfarts- with the vocabulary and strategies and modes and shared allusions that fandom has given us. I don't think it's possible to be panfannish without shifing to this mode in some way; you simply can't be active in *every* fandom the same way you'd be active in one, nobody has the time. And internet social networks, and cross-fandom tools like

fandom_wank and

metafandom, have let us find a happy medium, and I think panfannishness in this sense is getting more common.

But the other side of my fandom activity - the part that involves vids and fic and art, and discussion about things like that one scene in that one episode - I get, these days, in less personal ways. It's not a strict wall: there's still a few pairing-based LJ communities I keep up with, and engage with (a little bit) on both levels, and there are good fandom friends I share stories with, but to a large extent, that part of fandom I've been keeping private or anonymous. Most of the fic I read comes from recs, del.icio.us ( http://delicious.com/popular/slash is the best way ever to keep abreast of good fic), or mad googling sprees when I simply *must* have MOAR HL FIC NAO. And the things I create for myself - mostly stay for myself.

Part of the reason I was so ready to move to Journalfen when I stormed out of LJ in a huff is that I'd been feeling very constricted at Livejournal then - I'd somehow convinced myself that my LJ friends were expecting the second type of content, when I was more interested in the first. And Journalfen is a great place for someone who is a fan, just not in any particular fandom: in some ways, it's the last refuge of people who aren't really into fandoms any more but still like being fans; and a sanctuary for people who are in a fandom and need to go someplace where nobody gives a damn about their pairing wars.

But it's also really, really encouraged me in my complete lack of traditional fannish production lately. For a site that's supposed to be all about that, there's very little of it on JF; and when nobody else is posting it, and I have no indication that the people I interact with would be interested, and the people who would be interested are people I have no investment in - I have little motivation to do the work of making something fit for public consumption.

So one thing I'm hoping my new fresh start here will do is help me make a place where I can be panfannish, butterfly around and be attached to no particular fandom, but still be both productive and connected in a new way. I'm going to keep my JF account, and keep posting there the kind of things I've been posting, and try to post here the sorts of things I've been failing-to-post there, and build a network that'll help me do that. I think the watch/trust split will help with that, too; I can have reading-people and interacting-people and they can be both, but they don't have to be.

We'll see if it works!

(So far, so good. This was originally going to be a very different post about how cool it is that, according to del.icio.us, the most common fandom tags for fanfic at the moment are Merlin, bandom, SGA, SPN, Torchwood, Harry Potter - and Yuletide. Apparently I am not the only person who's engaging through tiny fandoms as much as large ones!)

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Oh, an interesting perspective. I also feel my community-fannishness is largely separate from my fanwork-fannishness, because my closest fannish friends are mostly people who I no longer share fandoms with (but still really love), and my newest fandoms (the ones that I am starting to obsess about, la la la) are ones I don't really know anyone in.

I am not sure yet what I am going to get out of DW, other than perhaps the fresh start in that so many people who friended me way back when I was into Harry Potter, who never defriend anyone, can finally say, "whew, I don't have to pretend to read HER journal any more!"

Yeah, it's kind of a new way of doing fandom, isn't it? I almost feel like if this was ten or fifteen years ago, I would have been said to be gafiated, except that I'm really, really not.

Are you planning to do a complete break with LJ and come here, or do some sort of cross-posting for awhile? I haven't even announced that I'm here on my LJ yet; I might wait till we're a lot closer to open beta before I do that. Or till I actually have some real fanwork up here to brag about!

(Of course, the people there who haven't found me on JF or DW yet probably *are* the ones who were glad they could drop me with no drama! And I don't blame them.)

I really don't know what I'm going to do. Even whether I will import my LJ here, or what. I was able to get an account early because of

metafandom - we are working on getting it up here. But I have to say, getting MY ACTUAL PSEUD as a username biases me greatly in favor of DW. :-)

I didn't realize you were still an active metafandom mod! Well, that explains a lot. :D

And it's so much fun to see the people show up here with slightly-different usernames and realize that must be what they meant all along.

La la la linky. :-)

And: after thinking about this post for a while, I realized that most of the people I interact with on lj in a fans-of-fandom sense are the ones talking excitedly about DW (er, that's DreamWidth, not Doctor Who), and the people in the fandoms I am lurkishly fannish about (like Sharpe and LotR) are not. But unfortunately the split is not perfect, so I will still have to think about what I want to use my various accounts for.

I don't know how I missed this comment the first time through, but:

I think that there's a core network of fans-of-fandom who are the people currently talking excitedly about DW, and have had shared topics of conversation many times in the past. They are my people, in a way that people-I-just-happen-to-share-fandoms-with aren't, but I don't really know how to define them other than that.

Sometimes I wonder if I was ever anything but that type of panfannish. Before LJ and the ability to befriend PEOPLE rather than participate on a specific forum or ML, I was lurking. And after, even if I was thinking of myself as being *in* fandom X or Y, my main interaction, my flist was still panfannish.

So yes, I think I've always been more than anything a fan of fandom. Even when 80% of my icons are Shep and Dean :)

Yes! I pretty sure if it weren't for LJ, I would be completely lurking right now. That kind of interaction is somehow easier for me, too.

(My icons have less to do with what fandoms I'm currently in and more to do with what comic I have scanned for icons recently.)

Love this post, and love to see DW acting as a sort of impetus for change for people moving in. I'm one of the sad-sack people who somehow ends up Embracing One Fandom in all seriousness despite their will, but still likes reading and talking with people who dabble.

I have always loved

metafandom because it gave me a sort of shallow selection of people who were into all kinds of things and talked about all kinds of interesting things, without me having to find or friend them and feel bad for skimming the fandom-fannish content in order to get to the good stuff. Here on DW, tracking feels more like a granular extension of subscription, so I'm definitely going to get to tracking people like that all over the place now. It'll be like having my own metafandom, except as individual posts all over my reading list :)

I went through a period of about two years where I lived, ate, and dreamed Harry Potter (*literally*), so I know where you're coming from! Occasionally I'll find a new fandom and be there for a month or so, but I guess HP spoiled me: if fic isn't coming out at a ridiculous pace, I get distracted and go somewhere else before I really get comfortable. One of my close RL friends has one fandom, a small one, and she never has any fic to read unless somebody has just posted something new. That is so weird. I need lots of good fic all the time! (I am so spoiled.)

Andyay! I'm seein a lot of people going for a "fresh start". (I got my code so that I could test the importer, so that was never an option for me. Subscribe-not-friend and tag tracking (and pingback, once DW has it) will be so helpful, I think, for all different modes of fannishness.

What interesting things you've got to say here. I wish I had an as interesting reply - more than yes, that, at any rate.

LJ's architecture of friends lists and communities really let fans act the way they wanted to: tight communities of one fandom right up to fan of fandom. I treasure the way I can keep in touch with people I don't share fandoms with, but do share a fannish history or a superfandom interest, like the other volunteers at OTW or fans who run newsletter communities.

I am keen to see how Dreamwidth's changes affect how we do fandom. This time, the changes have, in part, been driven by improvements fans want, rather than fans adopting new technologies and mcgyvering them into suitability. It's going to be interesting.

It is going to be interesting. (It's already interesting. DW being down for a few minutes in the middle of the night already feels like having a bit of my brain cut out! I've been here, what, three weeks or less?)

I do wonder if it isn't just one sort of fan that LJ's architecture works for, though. I know a lot of people who are one-fandom types, and many of them have never really started fully using LJ as a fandom community; they have personal journals and flists here that are only incidentally fannish, and still do the majority of their fandoming other places.

It's already interesting. DW being down for a few minutes in the middle of the night already feels like having a bit of my brain cut out!

It was the middle of the afternoon for me and I felt definite withdrawal.

they have personal journals and flists here that are only incidentally fannish, and still do the majority of their fandoming other places.

Yes, of course, you're right. I just had a bit of LJ-blindness there.

That sounds a lot like how I feel. These days when people ask what fandom I'm in, I kind of stare at them and blink a few times. Then I rattle off whatever I've been watching/reading recently, but I find what's really what's important is whether we're both fans in a similar way, not of a similar thing.

I may have to subscribe to you once I get an account proper. :)

And, account proper has been acquired! Subcription made!

Hooray for getting real DW accounts! :D

Yeah, I used to rattle off a list of current-enthusiasms, but I realized that it can change so fast that it was out-of-date before I finished listing it. (Because just making the list changed how much I was interested in the fandoms!)

Right now, it's Dr. Who/Torchwood on the back burner, where it's been for a few years now, Lord Peter Wimsey (except I've kind of got distracted from that), Leverage, Eroica because Leverage makes me think of Eroica, and Highlander because every time I start a new fandom I want to cross it over with Highlander. Oh, and Stargate! I thought I was done with Stargate, but it seems to be back. And Le Guin, because I'm working on a Stargate/Le Guin crossover. And Heinlein. And ... wait, if I keep thinking I'll think of some more.

(My weakness for crossovers and AUs doesn't make my list of fandoms any simpler!)

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Me & Fandom

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