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kaphore I had a conversation the other day that voiced a great deal of what I genuinely find off-putting in the fandom climate today. I'm not the only one. This sentiment is very common among people who've been in various fandoms for quite some time now. Yes, the fandom olds, the decripids, the hags, and whatever else we've been called. But, it's the undeniable truth. The fandom has been changing.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to his friend's wedding. He's known this friend since elementary school. It was right after the war, too. Auntie G spent a great big chunk of the 90s as a nurse caring for wounded, and right after started saving up for the most amazing wedding I've ever been to. She got married in a Star Trek uniform. Her husband wore a Star Trek uniform. Almost all the guests wore cosplay. It was wonderful. And it was, to a very impressionable young me, the first time I came into contact with fandom.
Some years later, I was craving the same joy and community with people who love the very same things I do. I was a part of the subculture. At the same time I was one of the first generations in my neck of the woods with unlimited access to the internet. The world of communities gathered around love for a media, creativity, and sharing both of those was as lovely as I remember Auntie G's wedding to be. Not without its faults, of course.
At the core of all those (very formative) experiences was creativity. It was equal parts enjoying other people's art and creating your own. A shared joy. Bouncing theories off one another. Getting into heated arguments on forums about what the next issue of W.I.T.C.H. will bring.
I am saying all this, not to bring up some misguided nostalgia about the Olden Times, my point is... the point was to read and watch and think and rethink and immerse yourself in something. It was effort, effort a lot of us loved putting in. It was time, time I was stealing away from school, from sleep, clicking away at our family computer, hoping there will be a next chapter, another beautiful piece of art by that one creator that hits the right emotion of a character every time.
We don't watch things and we don't read things the same way we used to. This is a natural progression of having everything we could ever possibly wish to read or watch at the palm of our hands; we're bombarded with streaming services, easy access to whatever we can find on the internet, kindles, kobos, deliveries. We can get almost anything, almost anywhere we want. Even someone like me from a country like mine. For a price, of course. I would hate to use the term 'spoiled' here, as it's difficult for me to blame consumerism on a consumer, when it's really capitalism at fault here. The ready-made services that pump so much content into us, along with the chaos that is social media really primed a great chunk of younger generation for simple, easy, mindless "content consuption".
And so we became the "content". Fanartist, fan writers, who have been doing this for decades, or weeks, or days in a very short span of time became a service. Our works, works that we put hours into. Stealing time from sleep, from school, sometimes from work to bring our creative works to light. They're art. They're inspired, remixed, transformative, but it's art. And more and more, proven time and time again, it's not seen that way because nothing created is lately being seen that way.
I hate the word "content". It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It justifies all the puritan demands of us to censor it. It calls for the same quality of the mainstream media that's being consumed (yes, consumed, not watched, not read, not thought about. just consumed), all while separating it as laughable and "cringe". It also makes me personally feel like I'm a service, rather than a person. A creative person trying to share joys of creation. Share thoughts and have fun. The essential core of fandom is being changed before our very eyes, and that's community.
The binging, the mindless consumption, the thoughtless complaicement behind the language we use, the lack of appreciation and respect for one another are becoming more and more prevalent. For me, personally, this means I watch my every written word like a hawk, wondering in which way anything I put out there creatively could be taken out of context and not read properly. It means that things I've spent hours, days, weeks, months on are just content to some. Content that's only ever allowed one of the two adjectives: problematic, or wholesome.
Content that might get thousand eyes looking at it if posted in the exact optimal timeframe before everyone moves on and looks at a new thing.
I don't want to stress out over a pastime. Over a hobby. Over something I've always participated in as a means to relax and have fun with. I am not a "content" creating factory, pushing out search optimized tags, checking stats, binging things on time to be able to create on time to be able to..... It's demotivating, and personally, it's stunted any desire I might've had to keep on writing.
I don't see how things might change to back then. To all those hand-sewn Star Trek uniforms at a wedding where everyone's been watching it since childhood. I don't know how to participate in fandom without burning out anymore. I don't know how to interact while avoiding the stress of fast expectations and even faster fleeting interests. And I'm frankly not sure if all these thoughts I have aren't just some thoughts of a person who simply couldn't keep up with the times.
When I was a kid, my dad took me to his friend's wedding. He's known this friend since elementary school. It was right after the war, too. Auntie G spent a great big chunk of the 90s as a nurse caring for wounded, and right after started saving up for the most amazing wedding I've ever been to. She got married in a Star Trek uniform. Her husband wore a Star Trek uniform. Almost all the guests wore cosplay. It was wonderful. And it was, to a very impressionable young me, the first time I came into contact with fandom.
Some years later, I was craving the same joy and community with people who love the very same things I do. I was a part of the subculture. At the same time I was one of the first generations in my neck of the woods with unlimited access to the internet. The world of communities gathered around love for a media, creativity, and sharing both of those was as lovely as I remember Auntie G's wedding to be. Not without its faults, of course.
At the core of all those (very formative) experiences was creativity. It was equal parts enjoying other people's art and creating your own. A shared joy. Bouncing theories off one another. Getting into heated arguments on forums about what the next issue of W.I.T.C.H. will bring.
I am saying all this, not to bring up some misguided nostalgia about the Olden Times, my point is... the point was to read and watch and think and rethink and immerse yourself in something. It was effort, effort a lot of us loved putting in. It was time, time I was stealing away from school, from sleep, clicking away at our family computer, hoping there will be a next chapter, another beautiful piece of art by that one creator that hits the right emotion of a character every time.
We don't watch things and we don't read things the same way we used to. This is a natural progression of having everything we could ever possibly wish to read or watch at the palm of our hands; we're bombarded with streaming services, easy access to whatever we can find on the internet, kindles, kobos, deliveries. We can get almost anything, almost anywhere we want. Even someone like me from a country like mine. For a price, of course. I would hate to use the term 'spoiled' here, as it's difficult for me to blame consumerism on a consumer, when it's really capitalism at fault here. The ready-made services that pump so much content into us, along with the chaos that is social media really primed a great chunk of younger generation for simple, easy, mindless "content consuption".
And so we became the "content". Fanartist, fan writers, who have been doing this for decades, or weeks, or days in a very short span of time became a service. Our works, works that we put hours into. Stealing time from sleep, from school, sometimes from work to bring our creative works to light. They're art. They're inspired, remixed, transformative, but it's art. And more and more, proven time and time again, it's not seen that way because nothing created is lately being seen that way.
I hate the word "content". It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It justifies all the puritan demands of us to censor it. It calls for the same quality of the mainstream media that's being consumed (yes, consumed, not watched, not read, not thought about. just consumed), all while separating it as laughable and "cringe". It also makes me personally feel like I'm a service, rather than a person. A creative person trying to share joys of creation. Share thoughts and have fun. The essential core of fandom is being changed before our very eyes, and that's community.
The binging, the mindless consumption, the thoughtless complaicement behind the language we use, the lack of appreciation and respect for one another are becoming more and more prevalent. For me, personally, this means I watch my every written word like a hawk, wondering in which way anything I put out there creatively could be taken out of context and not read properly. It means that things I've spent hours, days, weeks, months on are just content to some. Content that's only ever allowed one of the two adjectives: problematic, or wholesome.
Content that might get thousand eyes looking at it if posted in the exact optimal timeframe before everyone moves on and looks at a new thing.
I don't want to stress out over a pastime. Over a hobby. Over something I've always participated in as a means to relax and have fun with. I am not a "content" creating factory, pushing out search optimized tags, checking stats, binging things on time to be able to create on time to be able to..... It's demotivating, and personally, it's stunted any desire I might've had to keep on writing.
I don't see how things might change to back then. To all those hand-sewn Star Trek uniforms at a wedding where everyone's been watching it since childhood. I don't know how to participate in fandom without burning out anymore. I don't know how to interact while avoiding the stress of fast expectations and even faster fleeting interests. And I'm frankly not sure if all these thoughts I have aren't just some thoughts of a person who simply couldn't keep up with the times.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-16 08:33 pm (UTC)I think, for me, this constant pressure for content also pushes this emphasis on things being smooth and overproduced, like... Everybody wants to be able to sell their shit, which means there's no joy or goofiness to it. I think part of the reason the kids I work with embrace bizarre memes is that they feel like a place that imperfection is allowed. The piece about the handmade Star Trek uniforms sticks with me so much, in that I know so many people who'd think something like that was so cool - but would be embarrassed to be wearing something unprofessional or unpolished, but made with love. It runs along with the phenomena of expecting small time fan creators to be producing professional polished art and writing for free, in my head.
I was talking about it with a long-time irl friend who does fandom very differently than me, and they were talking about how they like that there are more labels, more boxes, more identities known to them now than there were when we were 19-20 and exploring what it meant to be queer or to engage with media through a lens of critical thought and love. But it made me so uncomfortable, and I told them that - I'm glad people have more terminology, but I feel that the pressure to Do It Right, to Find the Right Label, to make the perfect and wholesome art, is sometimes greater because of it.
I don't know that we can go back to what was - but I do think that we can grow our own appreciation for it in the here and now. And I think for me, part of that has to be contributing, even when I'm nervous about not saying it right. But I don't think you're alone in feeling isolated from really digging in with fully fledged attention to the media you're interacting with. And I hope to keep working on rebuilding my ability to do so.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-21 06:45 pm (UTC)