uh oh, a rant bunny just bit me
Sep. 12th, 2003 01:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wisdomeagleThis is a rant. It's about fannish topics, but it's not about Stargate in particular. I mention most every fandom out there, actually. There are no spoilers. It ends with me being a whiny bitch and wondering why there's no one like me, and it will probably make no sense to anyone who isn't me, but I felt the urge to write it. So I did.
What makes a fandom?
I've been playing in fandom lately. Not Stargate fandom, not Harry Potter fandom, just fandom in general. Fen of fanda, if you will (or fans of fandoms, if you aren't as fond as I am of irregular plurals). So instead of reading a lot of fic, or reading/watching source material, I've been reading lots of rants and essays, which are sometimes even more fun. It's been all about The Meta. And hey, I learned things about fanda, so now I have a very vague idea of what the premise of The Sentinel is, why there are two Rays in Due South, and what people do and don't squabble about in the HP fandom. Anyhow, I stumbled across this rant: genre or looks? Basically, the author says we slash characters from source material that has a fandom, and a fandom gets established around source material that's sci-fi or fantasy. From here on out, we're calling sci-fi/fantasy "genre," because it's convenient short hand. The notable exceptions the author of this rant uses include Sherlock Holmes, which makes me delighted beyond belief, since it has a great slashdom and you should all read everything archived on Sacrilege! because it's really really really pretty.Not that I'm shallow or anything. But I'm veering away from my point. Amazingly enough, I fairly recently did a quick study of The Pit of Voles and figured out what the most popular fanda are. I essentially defined "popular" as "having 1000+ stories archived on ff.net)
Among the twelve most popular TV shows, the top 6 are genre. Then we get CSI, which, as near as I can tell from the episode guide, is not exactly speculative fiction, but it's definitely in a genre; it's a cop show. As near as I can tell. Then we have Power Rangers (genre in the sense that it's got sci-fi or fantasy elements), Lizzie McGuire, not genre at all (appears, from episode descriptions, to be sort-of like high school but without the constant torment from people who thought you were dating your best friend. Or maybe that was just me. It's hard to tell), Farscape, ST:E, and General Hospital (not genre.)
So, of the 12 most popular shows on ff.net, 3 of them are non-genre. That's 25%, people. That's a sizable chunk.
The 7 most popular movies (not counting "Miscellaneous Movies), 3 are decidedly non-genre: Newsies, Moulin Rouge, and, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Of the 5 most popular books, four are definitely genre (HP, LotR, Tamora Pierce, and Animorphs), the last one is the Bible. I'm not even touching that.
In conclusion? Genre source material is definitely more popular than non-genre. But not exclusively. I'd also like to point out that ff.net doesn't archive NC-17 fic, so it's skewed against shows that generate almost exclusively NC-17 (Queer As Folk, anyone?) But on the whole, even though it's a source of really crappy fanfic, ff.net is a fairly good indicator as to what's popular in the world of fen.
I really wish there were a similar archive just for slash, because, just off the top of my head, there are a half-dozen shows that always show up in discussions of slash that don't hit the 1000 mark on ff.net. This is, however, an indicator that not all popular fanda are popular slashda. Which brings up more interesting points.
But. What makes a fandom? Genre, obviously. The ten most popular, cross-category fanda are all genre.
They are:
Harry Potter (89366)
Lord of the Rings (21712)
Buffy: (18,084)
Star Wars (8310)
X-Men: Evolution (5142)
Dark Angel (3480)
Stargate: SG-1 (3407)
Tamora Pierce (3298)
Angel (3244)
Animorphs (3118) (numbers as of late August.)
So again I say: why? I'm asking this because every so often, I do a search, first on ff.net, then on Google, to see if anyone else has yet discovered that Anne Shirley is So In Love with Diana Wright. A search for Galaxy Quest slash turned up 3 stories. My search for Tom/Huck became intensely personal . The BBC had to sponsor a contest to get people to write Keeping Up Appearances fanfic. Despite their undeniable cuteness, I only found one Jean/Lionel 'shipper, and no one writes Vicar of Dibley fic, either. Does anyone mind spoilers for this show? If so... don't highlight. There's even a canonically gay character, who comes out in one of the most moving scenes ever! It's absolutely beautiful! And yet no one fics it! Everyone agrees that Bert and Ernie slash. But no one writes fic for The Neighborhood of Make-Believe, the internal fantasy world of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
These are all just random observations, of course, culled from my admittedly eclectic, not to say downright bizarre, taste in books, movies, and TV shows. But I do have a point here. Let me see if I can remember what it is. Okay. My point is that things that are obviously slashable (Anne of Green Gables. Anne/Diana. It's so there. It's real. I didn't make it up.) and extremely popular (how many little girls wanted to be just like Anne?) and yet totally lacking in slash fandom.
And then there's this Harry Potter thing. It just weirds me. It really does. The books are great. Loved them. Devoured them in a matter of weeks, basically. I read with a shipper's eye, since I knew there were huge quantities of shippers out there. And I came up empty. Now you want source material that scream subtext, check out Lord of the Rings. Now, I don't have a problem with the HP fandom. I don't think it's stupid or wrong or anything. I think it's amusing. I just don't understand it. At all. (I really, really don't get the Draco thing.) There have been well-written books before. There've been well-written genre books. Non-genre books. Kid's books. Adult books. And nothing like this. It's just ::boggle::
I think HP has lots of ships because it's got lots of characters. And LotR has lots of ships because it's got lots of characters played by pretty actors. (And because of the subtext. Can't forget that.)
I think we've evolved fan culture and then adapted that culture to fit the specific fanda of which we're a part. I think this is what's so fascinating and confusing for me about the HP fandom. I'm not a part of it; I'm just a spectator, and... they've created their own universe. There's what JKR wrote. And then there's what the fans write, and think, and say, and create. And there's fanon. There's this huge swamp of fanon that just makes me go ::boggle::
I'm amazed by the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing too. Movie starring Orlando Bloom. Bam. Fen knew what to do with it. The slashers started slashing, the writers of het fiction started shipping, the icon makers made icons.... and it's suddenly one of the most popular fanda on ff.net? What? When? As a fan of stuff that's off-beat and obscure, quirky and old-fashioned and not genre, I'm a person with a fan mentality but without a fandom that I can really call my own.
Yes, I've been living and breathing Stargate and J/D for the past three quarters of a year. But I have a feeling that had I not stumbled across Stargate (or more like had it dumped in my lap by certain persons who shall remain unnamed :p ) at exactly the right moment, it never would have had the appeal it does. It's not exceptionally well-written, internally consistent, or arc-based, and if they go through with the damn J/S romance, I will be one extremely unhappy slasher.
I know that Farscape is a better show in those regards (I do,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gvambat, really I do.) But it didn't have the slashy aspect that pulled me into 'Gate, and for whatever the fuck reason, it doesn't have the same emotional appeal. I'm not a sci-fi person. I'm not a fantasy person. Unlike just about every other geek I've met, I never had a huge collection of genre books. I had a huge collection of books of all sorts, including awful romances and kids' books and classics and trashy lesbian emotional porn love stories, but I never did the genre thing. I don't know why. My sister did. My best-friend-in-the-whole-world did. It somehow passed me by.
I think the point of this (and it makes absolutely no sense and for that I am truly sorry) is that I wish that some of the source material I love, that I really, really love, had fandom. I wish Anne of Green Gables had a fandom. I wish Sacrilege! had updated in the last year. I wish I were into sci fi or fantasy so that I were really, really intrigued by something that has an established fandom.
I've started reading everything fannishly. I think about 'ship. I think about slash. I think in terms of arcs and hurt/comfort and smarm. You can do it to any source material. So why oh why won't people do it to my source material?
This makes no sense and it's late, so I think I'm going to bed.
It's all about the pretty boys, yo.
What makes a fandom?
I've been playing in fandom lately. Not Stargate fandom, not Harry Potter fandom, just fandom in general. Fen of fanda, if you will (or fans of fandoms, if you aren't as fond as I am of irregular plurals). So instead of reading a lot of fic, or reading/watching source material, I've been reading lots of rants and essays, which are sometimes even more fun. It's been all about The Meta. And hey, I learned things about fanda, so now I have a very vague idea of what the premise of The Sentinel is, why there are two Rays in Due South, and what people do and don't squabble about in the HP fandom. Anyhow, I stumbled across this rant: genre or looks? Basically, the author says we slash characters from source material that has a fandom, and a fandom gets established around source material that's sci-fi or fantasy. From here on out, we're calling sci-fi/fantasy "genre," because it's convenient short hand. The notable exceptions the author of this rant uses include Sherlock Holmes, which makes me delighted beyond belief, since it has a great slashdom and you should all read everything archived on Sacrilege! because it's really really really pretty.Not that I'm shallow or anything. But I'm veering away from my point. Amazingly enough, I fairly recently did a quick study of The Pit of Voles and figured out what the most popular fanda are. I essentially defined "popular" as "having 1000+ stories archived on ff.net)
Among the twelve most popular TV shows, the top 6 are genre. Then we get CSI, which, as near as I can tell from the episode guide, is not exactly speculative fiction, but it's definitely in a genre; it's a cop show. As near as I can tell. Then we have Power Rangers (genre in the sense that it's got sci-fi or fantasy elements), Lizzie McGuire, not genre at all (appears, from episode descriptions, to be sort-of like high school but without the constant torment from people who thought you were dating your best friend. Or maybe that was just me. It's hard to tell), Farscape, ST:E, and General Hospital (not genre.)
So, of the 12 most popular shows on ff.net, 3 of them are non-genre. That's 25%, people. That's a sizable chunk.
The 7 most popular movies (not counting "Miscellaneous Movies), 3 are decidedly non-genre: Newsies, Moulin Rouge, and, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Of the 5 most popular books, four are definitely genre (HP, LotR, Tamora Pierce, and Animorphs), the last one is the Bible. I'm not even touching that.
In conclusion? Genre source material is definitely more popular than non-genre. But not exclusively. I'd also like to point out that ff.net doesn't archive NC-17 fic, so it's skewed against shows that generate almost exclusively NC-17 (Queer As Folk, anyone?) But on the whole, even though it's a source of really crappy fanfic, ff.net is a fairly good indicator as to what's popular in the world of fen.
I really wish there were a similar archive just for slash, because, just off the top of my head, there are a half-dozen shows that always show up in discussions of slash that don't hit the 1000 mark on ff.net. This is, however, an indicator that not all popular fanda are popular slashda. Which brings up more interesting points.
But. What makes a fandom? Genre, obviously. The ten most popular, cross-category fanda are all genre.
They are:
Harry Potter (89366)
Lord of the Rings (21712)
Buffy: (18,084)
Star Wars (8310)
X-Men: Evolution (5142)
Dark Angel (3480)
Stargate: SG-1 (3407)
Tamora Pierce (3298)
Angel (3244)
Animorphs (3118) (numbers as of late August.)
So again I say: why? I'm asking this because every so often, I do a search, first on ff.net, then on Google, to see if anyone else has yet discovered that Anne Shirley is So In Love with Diana Wright. A search for Galaxy Quest slash turned up 3 stories. My search for Tom/Huck became intensely personal . The BBC had to sponsor a contest to get people to write Keeping Up Appearances fanfic. Despite their undeniable cuteness, I only found one Jean/Lionel 'shipper, and no one writes Vicar of Dibley fic, either. Does anyone mind spoilers for this show? If so... don't highlight. There's even a canonically gay character, who comes out in one of the most moving scenes ever! It's absolutely beautiful! And yet no one fics it! Everyone agrees that Bert and Ernie slash. But no one writes fic for The Neighborhood of Make-Believe, the internal fantasy world of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
These are all just random observations, of course, culled from my admittedly eclectic, not to say downright bizarre, taste in books, movies, and TV shows. But I do have a point here. Let me see if I can remember what it is. Okay. My point is that things that are obviously slashable (Anne of Green Gables. Anne/Diana. It's so there. It's real. I didn't make it up.) and extremely popular (how many little girls wanted to be just like Anne?) and yet totally lacking in slash fandom.
And then there's this Harry Potter thing. It just weirds me. It really does. The books are great. Loved them. Devoured them in a matter of weeks, basically. I read with a shipper's eye, since I knew there were huge quantities of shippers out there. And I came up empty. Now you want source material that scream subtext, check out Lord of the Rings. Now, I don't have a problem with the HP fandom. I don't think it's stupid or wrong or anything. I think it's amusing. I just don't understand it. At all. (I really, really don't get the Draco thing.) There have been well-written books before. There've been well-written genre books. Non-genre books. Kid's books. Adult books. And nothing like this. It's just ::boggle::
I think HP has lots of ships because it's got lots of characters. And LotR has lots of ships because it's got lots of characters played by pretty actors. (And because of the subtext. Can't forget that.)
I think we've evolved fan culture and then adapted that culture to fit the specific fanda of which we're a part. I think this is what's so fascinating and confusing for me about the HP fandom. I'm not a part of it; I'm just a spectator, and... they've created their own universe. There's what JKR wrote. And then there's what the fans write, and think, and say, and create. And there's fanon. There's this huge swamp of fanon that just makes me go ::boggle::
I'm amazed by the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing too. Movie starring Orlando Bloom. Bam. Fen knew what to do with it. The slashers started slashing, the writers of het fiction started shipping, the icon makers made icons.... and it's suddenly one of the most popular fanda on ff.net? What? When? As a fan of stuff that's off-beat and obscure, quirky and old-fashioned and not genre, I'm a person with a fan mentality but without a fandom that I can really call my own.
Yes, I've been living and breathing Stargate and J/D for the past three quarters of a year. But I have a feeling that had I not stumbled across Stargate (or more like had it dumped in my lap by certain persons who shall remain unnamed :p ) at exactly the right moment, it never would have had the appeal it does. It's not exceptionally well-written, internally consistent, or arc-based, and if they go through with the damn J/S romance, I will be one extremely unhappy slasher.
I know that Farscape is a better show in those regards (I do,
gvambat, really I do.) But it didn't have the slashy aspect that pulled me into 'Gate, and for whatever the fuck reason, it doesn't have the same emotional appeal. I'm not a sci-fi person. I'm not a fantasy person. Unlike just about every other geek I've met, I never had a huge collection of genre books. I had a huge collection of books of all sorts, including awful romances and kids' books and classics and trashy lesbian I think the point of this (and it makes absolutely no sense and for that I am truly sorry) is that I wish that some of the source material I love, that I really, really love, had fandom. I wish Anne of Green Gables had a fandom. I wish Sacrilege! had updated in the last year. I wish I were into sci fi or fantasy so that I were really, really intrigued by something that has an established fandom.
I've started reading everything fannishly. I think about 'ship. I think about slash. I think in terms of arcs and hurt/comfort and smarm. You can do it to any source material. So why oh why won't people do it to my source material?
This makes no sense and it's late, so I think I'm going to bed.
It's all about the pretty boys, yo.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-12 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-12 11:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-12 12:11 pm (UTC)no problem. Fannish obsession is always tolerated and approved of.