2023 Snowflake Challenge #15
Thu, Dec. 28th, 2023 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiraliciousChallenge #15
In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.
So back in January when this first came up, I sat down and wrote out by hand a very long, thoughtful, dare I say hopeful, response to this with, honestly, way too many in depth examples of fandom over the decades and centuries, but I never got a chance to type it up. Now, I have no idea where that notebook is, which sucks, because there are other things in it too. Personally, I was mostly trying to make myself feel better over the fate of fandom, which there was a kind of overall doom and gloom feeling about the future of it going around at the time, including in my own headspace.
I am going to do my best to sum up what I came up with from memory. Trust me, it's going to be much shorter.
Basically, fandom has been around almost as long as there has been people interacting with each other and it will always be around. There will be people dressing and creating things based on and inspired by other people, media and things. As for what form that is going to take, I have no fucking clue and I don't even want to venture a guess. In the what, 26ish years I've been in fandom (depending on how you want to count what being in fandom is), the ways we express and celebrate and participate in fandom have changed in ways I could never have imagined. And things are just changing faster now. When I first started reading and writing fanfic online, you kept your real name an impenetrable secret to avoid losing your job or getting sued. Discussing shipping with the actors at conventions was one of the most egregious fandom social faux pas (this was slightly dependent on fandom, but overall, yeah). Now, fanfic is mainstream, authors openly talk about writing/having written it/discussing how their published book started as it, and we've got actors and front runners as involved in the fandom as the fans. The websites that have come and gone. The various purges and trends. The ever changing stances on NSFW content. Small business e-commerce. Social media. Couldn't of predicted most of it. Whatever form it takes next will likely be a surprise to me.
As for individual fandoms, they never really die. There is always someone out there doing the thing. They get less active. They get resurgences. They move to new places and formats. They go out of style. But they don't die.
I just hope, fingers crossed, knocking on wood, that we can find a place and a way to me more civil to each other than not. I'm not naive enough to think there will never be assholes. I just hope for an overall respect of difference of opinion to form. I know, it's a pipe dream, but I can also see enough people hoping for the same thing, that maybe we can make it happen. Maybe.
So, I don't know what Fandom as a whole will be doing. I, however, will be in my little sandbox, trying not to be an asshole, and looking for other people to play with, and creating my silly little fics and things and hoping they find the people that want them and that they make them happy.
In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.
So back in January when this first came up, I sat down and wrote out by hand a very long, thoughtful, dare I say hopeful, response to this with, honestly, way too many in depth examples of fandom over the decades and centuries, but I never got a chance to type it up. Now, I have no idea where that notebook is, which sucks, because there are other things in it too. Personally, I was mostly trying to make myself feel better over the fate of fandom, which there was a kind of overall doom and gloom feeling about the future of it going around at the time, including in my own headspace.
I am going to do my best to sum up what I came up with from memory. Trust me, it's going to be much shorter.
Basically, fandom has been around almost as long as there has been people interacting with each other and it will always be around. There will be people dressing and creating things based on and inspired by other people, media and things. As for what form that is going to take, I have no fucking clue and I don't even want to venture a guess. In the what, 26ish years I've been in fandom (depending on how you want to count what being in fandom is), the ways we express and celebrate and participate in fandom have changed in ways I could never have imagined. And things are just changing faster now. When I first started reading and writing fanfic online, you kept your real name an impenetrable secret to avoid losing your job or getting sued. Discussing shipping with the actors at conventions was one of the most egregious fandom social faux pas (this was slightly dependent on fandom, but overall, yeah). Now, fanfic is mainstream, authors openly talk about writing/having written it/discussing how their published book started as it, and we've got actors and front runners as involved in the fandom as the fans. The websites that have come and gone. The various purges and trends. The ever changing stances on NSFW content. Small business e-commerce. Social media. Couldn't of predicted most of it. Whatever form it takes next will likely be a surprise to me.
As for individual fandoms, they never really die. There is always someone out there doing the thing. They get less active. They get resurgences. They move to new places and formats. They go out of style. But they don't die.
I just hope, fingers crossed, knocking on wood, that we can find a place and a way to me more civil to each other than not. I'm not naive enough to think there will never be assholes. I just hope for an overall respect of difference of opinion to form. I know, it's a pipe dream, but I can also see enough people hoping for the same thing, that maybe we can make it happen. Maybe.
So, I don't know what Fandom as a whole will be doing. I, however, will be in my little sandbox, trying not to be an asshole, and looking for other people to play with, and creating my silly little fics and things and hoping they find the people that want them and that they make them happy.
