Epiphany about fans

[sqbr]

So I've read a bunch of online fannish arguments where people go "These sorts of fans are crazy" and give examples, and then talk about the way fans should actually think, and end up conflating "Crazy fans" and "People whose attitudes are rational, but different to mine". And I had thought about where one should draw the line.

Some examples of sane attitudes for a fan (most people won't have all of these at once):

• The one true text (such as it is) is the canon. Fanfic can be fun and all (maybe even better than the original text), but it's not the way the story actually happens;
  
• There are infinitely many possible interpretations and offshoots of canon, all valid and interesting, and potentially as worthy of being taken seriously as the original source;
  
• It's the authors perogative to write whatever they like, but we're under no obligation to like it;
  
• You can enjoy something while also enjoying picking it apart and looking at all it's flaws, but that's not the only way to enjoy something;
  
• If the author wants to be any good they should pay attention to constructive criticism (especially on stuff like unconscious bias).
  

Crazy attitudes for a fan:

• There is One True Version of the text. Anyone who doesn't see this is a fool. Anyone criticises the One True Text is an evil heathen. Anyone who enjoys thinking about or writing different versions of the story is an evil heretic who Misses the Point;
  
• ..and that one true text is imperfectly reflected by the "canon", meaning that the author is an evil heretic too, who must be made to see the light about how their story actually goes.
  

I feel a bit weird using the words "crazy" and "sane", but no better ones come to mind. Also, I banged my elbow this morning and it still hurts :( (Yeah, ok, so those of you who know sonnlich may not see my mild twinges as all that terrible. I don't care, I like whining!)

Comments

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Nonononononono. It's much simpler than that.

Crazy(batshit) attitudes for a fan:
• Being in Avatar fandom.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Pain is still pain. :) Pain that is less painful or long-lasting than my pain is still sucky and I endorse your right to whine about it.

I agree with you, although the question of canon as One True Text gets more complicated in fandoms that have internally inconsistent fandoms. (e.g. Star Trek, which is more or less the Original Fandom even, and comics fandom, which... well, Pick Your Own Canon, for reals.)

(wank wank)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

The biggest issue I have with fan culture is its tendency to exalt that which I consider most base. I just can't fathom why people invest so much time in works considered trivial entertainments even by their authors (authors, like your JKs and your Joss Whedons, who when questioned about their work tend to refer to a sort of desperate pseudo-science of embedding serious content in such trivial vessels).

That probably makes me a critical conservative outside the carnivalised objective-value-free post-modern menagerie of fandom. It also makes me someone who wishes people could stop talking about Trek and Potter (and stop talking about talking about them, and ...). Sometimes it's the literary equivalent of the pop charts being dominated for decades by endless remixes and covers of "Ice Ice Baby" and "She Loves You".

But it upsets me that genre is a ghetto, both in an artistic sense and in the sense of market penetration, because I love certain types of work that, on some level, are insultingly understood by the broader public as equivalent to Trek or Potter. And there's a "reverse racism" to it as well, when established creators outside the ghetto who have managed to escape its narrow categorisation dissociate themselves from it utterly (Atwood famously).

But then finally, and in total contradiction, one comes to love this same ghetto for the unique creative constraints it places on the art produced within it, and for the misshapen yet oddly charming hunchbacks of works that result, e.g. the pulp writers who've become some of my great favourites despite all of the absurd tics of their work.

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

That's a good summary, but I have one better

Fan: Sane, Open Minded and Nice. Can have polite conversation and enjoys discussion.
Fanatic: Fucking Jackass, Lock em in a closet and throw away the key. You don't want other people to know that people like them even exist.