Something that's been confusing me about 'recent' changes in fandom:

[hmpf]

fandom seems to have moved to livejournal almost completely, even for those things that aren't necessarily best served by LJ. In fact, very little except the pure socialising part of fandom - which is, of course, an important part, no contest about that! - is *really* best served by LJ. Forums are better suited for discussion, since they allow discussions to stay in the public eye, and thus stay *active* longer, whereas on LJ a discussion will drop off people's friends page pretty quickly, turning discussions into quick, transitory, blink-and-you'll-miss-them things. (Sure, those people who noticed and joined the discussion when it popped up on their friends page often keep at it for days - but on a forum, a new contributor might discover it months after it started, and bring it back to the top by posting to it, and *everyone who contributed until then would notice*, and the discussion would be revitalised. A good LJ discussion goes on for days; a good forum discussion can go on for months.) And archives are much more suited for presenting fan-made content, esp. fanfic, because they don't require the potential reader to first learn about the individual LJs of three or four dozen writers and then search those LJs for fic; also, archives usually allow searching for different categories of fic, *and* they keep stuff accessible. Etc.

But, my general reservations about fandom's near-complete move to LJ (and f-locked LJs, for that matter) aside, my issue here is mainly with fanfic. I find the posting of fic to LJ and *only* to LJ, as seems increasinbly the practice in fandom, a bit antisocial, to be honest. (After turning into one of the official naysayers of Life On Mars fandom, I am now working on discrediting myself in fandom at large... ;-)) And I don't *understand* the attitude behind it, either. I mean, *why* would people not want their fic to find the widest possible readership? And how can they not care if it will still be easily accessible to new readers in a year or two?

The cynical part of me can't help wondering if there's a tendency to move away from fandom as a community and treat it as merely a tool for instant, personal gratification. I.e. as soon as you've posted a fic to your LJ and received an amount of feedback for that fic, you move on to the next fic for which you will get feedback in turn, and old fics become uninteresting simply because they don't generate large amounts of feedback anymore - so why bother keeping them easily accessible? That readers who come into the fandom later might still want read those older fics just doesn't matter, because the gratification to the writer is negligible, and the reader's gratification simply doesn't figure into the equation.

As I said, it's the cynical part of me that came up with that explanation.

Well, no matter what the reasons, it seems to me that the decentralised, dispersed nature of fandom on LJ is a good way to make sure that, instead of amassing a wonderful, huge collective treasure of fanworks for 'later generations' of fen to discover and enjoy, most of our work will simply disappear into obscurity and relative 'un-findability' fairly soon after it's posted.

Am I the only one who finds that perspective a bit sad?

(Also, I dislike the tendency for fandom to happen in a - however slightly extended - big 'NOW' for the personal reason of often being stressed out of my mind. The fact that fandom - discussions, fics, everything - seems to happen so quickly now, and requires you to constantly stay on top of things because you'll never be able to *find* the good stuff again if you don't notice it immediately when it's posted is a considerable additional stress factor. Which is sad, because I'd much rather 'do' fandom at my leisure, and I'm a naturally slow person. So, instead of 'doing' fandom at my own pace, I tend to go into hyperactive fannish phases when I manage to keep up with things for a few months, and then drop out of everything completely for months in turn. Needless to say, that way I hardly know what's happening anymore, and miss most of the good fic, debate etc.)

I've been out of the meta game for ages, so I don't know if this has been discussed on metafandom, recently or at all. If anyone remembers related discussions and can point me there, that would be much appreciated. I'm mostly interested in the question of why people aren't interested in keeping stuff accessible, because that is something I really, truly do not 'get'. So, if anyone can explain that mindset to me... I'm really curious about it.

Comments

[6beforelunch.livejournal.com]

(via metafandom) Just speaking for myself here...

The reason I tend to stick almost exclusively to LJ for everything (meta, fic, art, vids, etc.) is because LJ gives you the most control over your fannish environment. I.e. with LJ, I can controll what I see to a greater extent than I can with a forum or mailing list. On LJ, if there's a person whose posts are consistently rude or vulgar or annoying or just boring, I don't have to friend them. Contrast that to a mailing list or forum where, unless the poster actually crosses a line (a line determined most often by the mods who aren't me), I just have to skim their posts.

Obviously, you still face that same problem with communities, but in the way fandom is organized on LJ, you could theoretically have no communities friended and still manage to keep up with a great deal of the discussion and fic just by friending the journals of people you like.

Now, of course, greater control over what I see also means I'm probably missing out on some great stuff, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to make. YMMV.

LJ also fosters a greater sense of personal connection between fans, IMO, because a lot of people post about their "real life" in addition to posting fannish things. I don't think you get such a blurring of fannish and non-fannish posts on mailing lists and forums. I'll be honest, I get more fun out of seeing someone I consider a friend (or at least someone I have friendly feelings toward) post a great story or art work than a stranger. Doesn't mean I enjoy reading their story more because I know their cat's name, it just means that in addition to getting the satisfaction of reading the story, I like seeing them get feedback. I know them (to varying extents, I'm not claiming to be friends with every person on my friends list, that'd be impossible *g*) so I'm happy to see them do something good. Sort of like when I see an RL friend or friendly acquaintance suceed in something. Just makes me happy.

I so agree with you that it's a little sad that things are so transient on LJ. One reason I still maintain my fic site even though it would be easier to just rely on fic tags is that I want there to be an easy to navigate place to find my stories. And I want someone who's never heard of LJ or fandom to be able to stumble on it. I do hope that archives never become obsolete (and I don't see them doing so, they're still too useful). OTOH, LJ is easy (no HTML skills required) so I can see why some people don't bother with setting up personal fic sites. (Archives run by others, especially auto-archives, are another matter, and I really wish more people used those.)

So, um, I mostly agree with you about it being sad that a lot of fic tends to be exclusive to LJ these days, but I can understand why LJ is so popular with fandom.

I understand the popularity of LJ, too -

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

hey, I've been here for five years. I wouldn't be here anymore if I didn't enjoy it. ;-) I just think there are areas of fandom that would be better served if people didn't centre their fannish lives *exclusively* on LJ, that's all. There's nothing that says we shouldn't keep our social interaction here!

I have to admit I don't really 'get' the big problem having to interact with rude or boring people in other formats, e.g. forums, seems to constitute for some people. Firstly, only a very small percentage of people on a good forum will be rude or boring to the point where you *really* can't bear to get near their posts; and, well, it's easy to skim a single stupid post in a thread or even just jump directly to the next, more interesting one. And you can avoid threads started by people you don't like - nobody forces you to read every single thread. Some forums also have ignore lists so you can screen out any participants you really can't stand.

And, secondly, even a person I don't like may occasionally make a really good point in a discussion. I guess I'm very 'topic focused' and less 'social interaction focused' in my fannish life - I really am willing to listen to anyone who makes a good point, no matter if I personally like them or not. I enjoy discussion (of certain topics) a lot and am willing to engage in that type of conversation with absolutely anyone who doesn't insult me or bore me consistently. *g* I'm also very focused on certain types of fic, less on certain authors, and always eager to find new sources for those types of fic - this, also, is not exactly easy to do on LJ.

Topic vs. interaction

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

>I guess I'm very 'topic focused' and less 'social interaction focused' in my fannish life

Heh. I just followed the link to the discussion in sophia_helix's LJ given to me by lim below, and cereta makes exactly that point there in the comments (http://sophia-helix.livejournal.com/307952.html?thread=1073392#t1073392). Neat. :-) (That whole discussion seems to be utterly fascinating, really.)