Extreme Fandom

[puppetmaker]

For every form of fandom there are the extreme fans. From the sports fans who act like they own the team to the tv series fan who thinks they own the series to the comic book or book fan who thinks they own or are owed what they want by the creators of the series. Peter once said quite seriously, in his CGB column I think, that all that is owed to the fan is to do the best job that he can do and for him it is to tell the best stories he can.

Recently a couple of creators have been taking some serious flak from fans about comments that they might or might not have said or said and they were taken out of context. There is howling for heads and that they better “fix” this or else. And there are campaigns to get their point of view heard to the PTB (powers that be) so that they will know how upset they are. It’s the fans way or the highway.

Sure those extreme fans can save a show by rallying the troops, I’m not saying that all they do is destructive or counter-productive. Jerico and the 3rd season of Star Trek are both held up as fans who managed to get something done. But there comes a time that these fans need to back off and take a look at how their actions are actually detrimental to their cause.

They want to be heard but swearing at and declaring that if A doesn’t happen or if A does happen, they aren’t going to watch/read/play anymore isn’t going to win points with the PTB. In fact they tend to write off those fans as well fanatics that wouldn’t be happy if they were given everything they want with a big red bow tied around it. The PTB listen to the more reasonable fan who expresses displeasure without seeming to foam at the mouth. But even in listening, the PTB has all the cards and all the power. They decide what is and what isn’t.

I know I am preaching to the part of fandom that already understands this but I felt it needed to be said. I feel for the creators who are taking a beating at the hands of extreme fandom. And since extreme fandom is the most vocal, how can even you wonder why some creators and actors are very reluctant to engage fandom in an exchange of ideas? They are d’mned if they do and d’mned if they don’t . So they set out to do the best they can. Maybe fandom should set out to do the same.

I am grateful for the regular fans who have a love for their genre and talk about passionately but not to an uncomfortable extreme.

Comments

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the recent trend of fandom getting more petulant and fierce is driven by the fact that they can all find one another online and band together into a crowd mentality more easily, or because so many people in the present 18-40 demographic were spoiled rotten with the whole "never discipline, always make them feel special" brand of parenting...or both?

I've definitely been upset by the turns certain series took in the past, especially when I felt they were reinforcing negative stereotypes about gender, race, religion, culture, and/or sexual orientation, but after the first time this happened, I realized that getting worked up was just making me feel worse. I have absolutely stopped watching shows that crossed a line, and I have called or emailed studio feedback lines (especially where one of those negative stereotypes is being reinforced) and expressed my concern, but the rabid threats and clanging fury of the very vocal fandom scares me sometimes.

Weirdly, though, I have often had a few occasions where I was assigned an article about a show and despite having watched every episode and seeing behind-the-scenes interviews, I feel like I am not enough of an "expert" because there are so many fans I know who would yell at me for not knowing every teeny tiny detail )"Well, that person mentioned in X obscure interview that his character wears blue underpants, so clearly you don't understand the show!" type stuff) and so because of the very noisy and self-important fans, I felt like I was not really a fan. Wacky.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the recent trend of fandom getting more petulant and fierce is driven by the fact that they can all find one another online and band together into a crowd mentality more easily, or because so many people in the present 18-40 demographic were spoiled rotten with the whole "never discipline, always make them feel special" brand of parenting...or both?

I tend to think it's more the former than the latter, because the latter has been true of every generation going back to the beginning of time, at least according to the previous generation at the moment. :)

Seriously, the Internet *has* changed everything. It's probably the most profoundly culture-changing invention since the automobile. (Yes, even more than radio and TV).

I'll even wander out on a limb and muse that fandom as we know it might never have *existed* if the Internet had been around at the time. Fandom grew, largely, from people creating a social network in order to interact with other people who shared their interest, and the culture grew from the necessities of the time. Fandom wasn't defined, largely, by *what* you were into, but where you lived. Southern fandom was different to New England fandom, which was different to West Coast fandom or British fandom. You had to travel to congregate with people, and most people could only afford to travel so far, so often.

Today, I can sit down at my desk, type a few words into a search engine, and find hundreds if not thousands of people who share my interest. I can communicate with them in real time. I can (virtually) congregate with them at any time I want, from the comfort of my home, or even from my mobile phone.

This change happened just slowly enough that we didn't immediately see it as a the transformation shift that it was, or at least minimized our awareness of the degree. But those of us who are old enough to have entered fandom in the days before the Great Internet Shift sometimes get whacked in the face by the Board of Implicit Assumptions when things like this get critical mass and we kinda wonder where the heck it all came from.

[norda.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[hangingfire.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. It articulates very well something I've been ruminating over since Sunday. (Well, and before that, but some things I heard on Sunday really got me pondering the matter.) And I like the term "extreme fandom". It exactly describes a very particular sort of behaviour.

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think that successful fan efforts like the Jericho resurrection have had the unintended effect of giving fans a sense of ownership or entitlement that has led to some of these extremes. Once the more extreme fans got it into their heads that they could maake their voices heard, things became much more strident and vicious.

Plus, of course, there are the fan forums, which provide a place for people with an axe to grind (or who just like to get attention) can go to cause trouble. It's gotten to the point now that I don't visit the Black Library forums, or even read over Amazon reviews for my books. In the past, I was looking for honest feedback, but for the most part all I seem to get are people who are up in arms because I got the color scheme of a particular Space Marine Legion wrong. Which would be bad enough, but more than half the time, these complainers are actually *wrong*. And I certainly don't have the time or energy to argue the point.

Sigh. Can you tell this post touched a bit of a nerve? ;)

[ladytalker13.livejournal.com]

This may offend some people and if it does, please know it wasn't my intent... I passionately love sci-fi and fantasy and authors and meeting celebs and all manner of geeky things... but I don't feel so strongly about any of it that I would have to become rabid about it, because, after all, it's all just forms of entertainment.

I get rabid and can really be over the top over one of my students being mistreated at home... one of my kids losing a job unfairly... a friend being stolen from... a teacher who isn't helping my grandchild in school... usually witnessing an injustice to someone else will set me off.

Since I've gotten older and possibly wiser, I tend to pick my battles more carefully... and arguing ad nauseum online with people about picky things is boring to me... no offense intended to anyone...

[queenanthai.livejournal.com]

Kathleen, you've had a lot of excellent things to say about the nature of fandom. My podcast is actually going to be doing a show on that very topic around November-ish, and I'd love to have you on it. All you need is Skype and a headset; heck, I'll buy you a headset if I have to. cleolinda'll be on it; whaddya say? It'd be fantastic.