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Okay. This might be me jumping on the bandwagon a bit late, but as far as I see it, it's still a pertinent issue. I've just had some time to mull it over a bit, and discuss it with people.
Firstly, I'll start with a disclaimer, because I know both that the internet is a medium that people misunderstand the tone of things said, and the fact that I'm writing something that the people involved in will be reading, so it's easy to take it personally.
Let me ask you, however, to read this as a record of my objective observations. Nothing is unbiased, I know that, but think of this as anthropological study of fandom, instead of assuming that I'm deliberately speaking about particular people and/or groups. This is not me being vindictive. I don't hate anyone in fandom. I love a whole bunch of you. This should have no bearing on those relationships. This is just what I see.
so, Me = anthropologist. Fandom = societal group I'm studying. This = how I see things.
Fandom has an accelerated lifespan; people move in and out of it quite rapidly, in the big scheme of things. So, in my time in the lotrips fandom, I've seen huge crowds of people come and go. After my first six months-or-so in fandom I came to realise that fandom proceeds in generations. Generations of writers, of participants. There are constantly people writing in this fandom, a huge volume of stuff is put out on the public forums; that was the case 2 years ago and that's the case now. But there seems to be waves of 'good' writers, or rather, prominent writers that stand above the immense wave of fic being put out. These are the people who are recced, the people who everyone recognises. The term 'BNF' has other connotations so I won't use it here, but you know the type of people I mean.
These people aren't constant. These aren't the same people that started when the first movie was released at the end of 2001. As mentioned above, I believe that these people come and go in generations; each generation with key figures that stand out, each generation with slightly different attitudes, or writing styles, or influences, habits, topics.
And there are people outside the generations, of course - people who have been here since the start and are still here. More often than not, however, those people, though still existent here, have moved out of the spotlight and are most likely not participating to the level they did in their generation's hey-day.
Now, what seems to have happened is that a generation of lotrips participants/writers have come along who have become the golden children of the fandom. This generation have been more prominent than the others, and they've made more changes.
What changes? The golden children have brought about a change in the hierarchical order of things in fandom. Something that could almost be described as a 'class system' has been established, the boundaries within which are difficult to cross. The line between 'goodfic' and 'badfic' is no longer something that you discover after reading a story, but something that divides groups of people up into different 'habitats', and if you exist in one, you cannot transgress into the other.
Let me use an example that you can't deny. Lets take fellow_shippers. Back in the day, there was a lot of traffic to that community. It was the lotrips posting community. Everyone posted to it. Yet the gradual (yet definite) influence of the golden generation have brought about a change; there's still a lot of traffic to f_s, but it doesn't have the 'anything-goes' credibility it used to. The 'good' writers (the golden children) no longer post there because they don't want to associate with the alleged 'badfic' that's posted there. They're not interested in offering it to the group of people that read fellow_shippers. The public writing communities have become a forum for everyone-who-isn't the golden generation, including those generations that are trying to break in.
Let me take that last point further: with the shunning of the public communities, the leading writing groups and people (the golden children) took their publication of fic elsewhere. Ie. their own blogs and webpages. This further forged the divide in the fandom, creating separate communities, not necessarily enforcing a clique mentality, but forming a group set above the rest of the fandom that was, as it contained the prominent writers of this generation, generally regarded as the Good Writers, the 'real' writers, the people worth reading.
The golden generation became the fandom in many people's psyche - not only their own, but anyone wishing to be 'in', anyone coming in, etc (and basically, it was invite-only). And it's undeniable that they are good. The problem is that it's a mentality that doesn't allow in any new good.
What's happening now is that this generation of writers, the golden generation of the fandom, is coming to the end of its natural life. Its writers have stopped writing, have moved onto different forms and fandoms, and because they have been so incredibly influential, the perception is that when they end, fandom ends. Which is an understandable belief, considering how mightily they have reigned.
Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that the changes this golden generation have caused upon fandom means that it's near-impossible for the new generation to break on in. As I mentioned above, there's the fact that this group have become perceived as the be-all and end-all of fandom, but there's also the fact that because of the class structure they have established, the readers and new writers who keep fandom alive (and always have) can't break through. There are no longer any public forums from which the publicly-accepted new generation of good authors can be taken, because there's now the attitude that anyone who posts to those forums are, by default, bad. Or not suitable for associating with the 'good writers', at any rate. The only way new 'good' writers have 'risen up the ranks' in the past 6 months or so is through connections within the golden generation already - only if one of that group celebrate them are they allowed to share that kind of status, and thus be read by the masses.
So what's happening isn't that "we've run out of stories to tell", because essentially the way generations die out is that they run out of stories to tell themselves. Everything has been done before, and I'm not just talking about fandom. It's the staple phrase for post-modernism (and what's more post-modern than fanfiction?), it's not something that just happened in this fandom so now we can close the door and it's over. Each generation of fandom exhausts themselves in terms of what they can write, and the new generation moves in and re-writes all the same stories themselves. That's the way the world works, that's the way creativity has worked for generations and generations of 'real' art and literature.
People are still writing during-production lotrips stories, just as people are still writing during-quest frodo/sam stories three years after the first movie was release, and fifty years since the book was released. People still write the faculty, star wars, star trek, the beatles for god's sake. My imagination doesn't require the spoiling it has had over the past couple of years of new canon even time I refresh my friends list.
The golden generation have lived out their natural life, they're moving on to different things, as generations in this fandom (and all other fandoms, I'm sure) have in the past. The difference is this time is that people seem to believe that they are fandom.
When fellow_shippers drops from 15 posts per day down to 15 posts per decade, then maybe I'll start thinking that fandom is over and there are obviously 'no more stories to tell'. Maybe by that stage professional writers will have realised that the 'boy goes-on-quest, comes-back-changed' story will have been exhausted.
Personally, sure it stings when these people I've been so close to for what seems like so long move onto different things, but hey, I'm still here. I've still got parts of me invested in this fandom, and I'm going to continue to invest them for as long as I'm still loving it. Move onto AUs, RPGs, Troy, Pirates, M&C, Harry Potter, anything you like. I'm going to try and dig out the new generation.
edit: in summary, fandom is made up of so. many. people. any writer would be no one without the multitudes of people reading, and the multitudes of other people writing. these people come and go. just because one, or two, or twenty of them are done with it, doesn't make it 'over'.
Firstly, I'll start with a disclaimer, because I know both that the internet is a medium that people misunderstand the tone of things said, and the fact that I'm writing something that the people involved in will be reading, so it's easy to take it personally.
Let me ask you, however, to read this as a record of my objective observations. Nothing is unbiased, I know that, but think of this as anthropological study of fandom, instead of assuming that I'm deliberately speaking about particular people and/or groups. This is not me being vindictive. I don't hate anyone in fandom. I love a whole bunch of you. This should have no bearing on those relationships. This is just what I see.
so, Me = anthropologist. Fandom = societal group I'm studying. This = how I see things.
Fandom has an accelerated lifespan; people move in and out of it quite rapidly, in the big scheme of things. So, in my time in the lotrips fandom, I've seen huge crowds of people come and go. After my first six months-or-so in fandom I came to realise that fandom proceeds in generations. Generations of writers, of participants. There are constantly people writing in this fandom, a huge volume of stuff is put out on the public forums; that was the case 2 years ago and that's the case now. But there seems to be waves of 'good' writers, or rather, prominent writers that stand above the immense wave of fic being put out. These are the people who are recced, the people who everyone recognises. The term 'BNF' has other connotations so I won't use it here, but you know the type of people I mean.
These people aren't constant. These aren't the same people that started when the first movie was released at the end of 2001. As mentioned above, I believe that these people come and go in generations; each generation with key figures that stand out, each generation with slightly different attitudes, or writing styles, or influences, habits, topics.
And there are people outside the generations, of course - people who have been here since the start and are still here. More often than not, however, those people, though still existent here, have moved out of the spotlight and are most likely not participating to the level they did in their generation's hey-day.
Now, what seems to have happened is that a generation of lotrips participants/writers have come along who have become the golden children of the fandom. This generation have been more prominent than the others, and they've made more changes.
What changes? The golden children have brought about a change in the hierarchical order of things in fandom. Something that could almost be described as a 'class system' has been established, the boundaries within which are difficult to cross. The line between 'goodfic' and 'badfic' is no longer something that you discover after reading a story, but something that divides groups of people up into different 'habitats', and if you exist in one, you cannot transgress into the other.
Let me use an example that you can't deny. Lets take fellow_shippers. Back in the day, there was a lot of traffic to that community. It was the lotrips posting community. Everyone posted to it. Yet the gradual (yet definite) influence of the golden generation have brought about a change; there's still a lot of traffic to f_s, but it doesn't have the 'anything-goes' credibility it used to. The 'good' writers (the golden children) no longer post there because they don't want to associate with the alleged 'badfic' that's posted there. They're not interested in offering it to the group of people that read fellow_shippers. The public writing communities have become a forum for everyone-who-isn't the golden generation, including those generations that are trying to break in.
Let me take that last point further: with the shunning of the public communities, the leading writing groups and people (the golden children) took their publication of fic elsewhere. Ie. their own blogs and webpages. This further forged the divide in the fandom, creating separate communities, not necessarily enforcing a clique mentality, but forming a group set above the rest of the fandom that was, as it contained the prominent writers of this generation, generally regarded as the Good Writers, the 'real' writers, the people worth reading.
The golden generation became the fandom in many people's psyche - not only their own, but anyone wishing to be 'in', anyone coming in, etc (and basically, it was invite-only). And it's undeniable that they are good. The problem is that it's a mentality that doesn't allow in any new good.
What's happening now is that this generation of writers, the golden generation of the fandom, is coming to the end of its natural life. Its writers have stopped writing, have moved onto different forms and fandoms, and because they have been so incredibly influential, the perception is that when they end, fandom ends. Which is an understandable belief, considering how mightily they have reigned.
Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that the changes this golden generation have caused upon fandom means that it's near-impossible for the new generation to break on in. As I mentioned above, there's the fact that this group have become perceived as the be-all and end-all of fandom, but there's also the fact that because of the class structure they have established, the readers and new writers who keep fandom alive (and always have) can't break through. There are no longer any public forums from which the publicly-accepted new generation of good authors can be taken, because there's now the attitude that anyone who posts to those forums are, by default, bad. Or not suitable for associating with the 'good writers', at any rate. The only way new 'good' writers have 'risen up the ranks' in the past 6 months or so is through connections within the golden generation already - only if one of that group celebrate them are they allowed to share that kind of status, and thus be read by the masses.
So what's happening isn't that "we've run out of stories to tell", because essentially the way generations die out is that they run out of stories to tell themselves. Everything has been done before, and I'm not just talking about fandom. It's the staple phrase for post-modernism (and what's more post-modern than fanfiction?), it's not something that just happened in this fandom so now we can close the door and it's over. Each generation of fandom exhausts themselves in terms of what they can write, and the new generation moves in and re-writes all the same stories themselves. That's the way the world works, that's the way creativity has worked for generations and generations of 'real' art and literature.
People are still writing during-production lotrips stories, just as people are still writing during-quest frodo/sam stories three years after the first movie was release, and fifty years since the book was released. People still write the faculty, star wars, star trek, the beatles for god's sake. My imagination doesn't require the spoiling it has had over the past couple of years of new canon even time I refresh my friends list.
The golden generation have lived out their natural life, they're moving on to different things, as generations in this fandom (and all other fandoms, I'm sure) have in the past. The difference is this time is that people seem to believe that they are fandom.
When fellow_shippers drops from 15 posts per day down to 15 posts per decade, then maybe I'll start thinking that fandom is over and there are obviously 'no more stories to tell'. Maybe by that stage professional writers will have realised that the 'boy goes-on-quest, comes-back-changed' story will have been exhausted.
Personally, sure it stings when these people I've been so close to for what seems like so long move onto different things, but hey, I'm still here. I've still got parts of me invested in this fandom, and I'm going to continue to invest them for as long as I'm still loving it. Move onto AUs, RPGs, Troy, Pirates, M&C, Harry Potter, anything you like. I'm going to try and dig out the new generation.
edit: in summary, fandom is made up of so. many. people. any writer would be no one without the multitudes of people reading, and the multitudes of other people writing. these people come and go. just because one, or two, or twenty of them are done with it, doesn't make it 'over'.
no subject
vive la fandom!