Fascinating.

[hmpf]

No real post here today, as I'm having The Day From Hell, but here's a link for you:

cofax's reaction to my thoughts on fandom, and other LJ fen's reactions to hers:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/suelac/58807.html

And, just to compare, the board-based fandom's reply to my thoughts again:

http://forums.scaperoute.com/kansas/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=11029;start=75

The fascinating thing of course being how totally differently these two communities react.

BTW, thanks, cofax, for linking to me - I think this actually made that post of mine the most viewed and most-commented-on post ever in this humble LJ of mine... While I'm not usually trying to get people to read this LJ - most of it is too boring for public consumption, except for a few RL friends - I am glad that that post got some reactions, because, frankly, the reactions so far have been fascinating.

Hmmm. Being read - weird feeling! I suddenly feel so... public. I'll have to watch what I'm saying in the future (if any of these visitors stay around), and stop posting boring things about hating lettuce. ;-)

Comments

[maramcc.livejournal.com]

Nonsense. I hate that purple cabbage and wish it would never appear again in restaurant salads. Also onions and peppers of all kinds. You'd think there'd be no "culture shock" when moving from one part of the US to the other, but there is. East Coast people put red onions on all of their salads, and West Coast people have yet to "discover" this, er... variation. And 6 years later, I STILL don't remember to ask restaurant people to remove them!

I'm keen on lettuce, though.

"Boring." Be glad the current season (Autumn/Winter) prevents my giving Garden Reports. Until the Spring Thaw, bwah ha ha ha ha ha!

[cofax7]

Well, you can still post about lettuce, if you like. Or friends-lock the lettuce posts. *g*

It's my pleasure and frankly my obligation to link to you, since it was your post that started off the train of thought leading to my discussion. Common netiquette.

As for the two wildly different sets of responses... well. My post was written in a highly controlled and academic style, in an attempt to ensure that responses would also be as impersonal as possible. Not that yours wasn't, but I think I was more aware than you were of the hot-button issues you were going to trigger by using the E word. *g*

Thing is, the differing responses don't necessarily have to do with the different forums, so much as the different communities. It's not the structure, it's the content. And the group I hang with on LJ is a multi-fandom community full of metatextual geeks. So the responses are going to be informed by that interest and their multi-fandom experiences. Whereas the board community -- well, Farscape is for many people their first fandom, and the revelation that many of the posters had never even heard of either blogs or LJs rather reinforces that. People are just becoming aware that there are other places where fandom takes place, that their one board isn't the be-all and end-all of the fannish experience, and it's both surprising and intimidating.

It's something that I remarked on when I first came into Farscape: it's a very disjointed fandom, with discrete and non-overlapping communities -- or it was; this has changed, in large part as a result of the campaign. It's one reason why Shrift and Nestra started Leviathan: there was no one place to find all kinds of fic, regardless of keywords, pairing, or quality.

[kernezelda]

Very interesting. I've been following the discussion both on Kansas and Suelac's LJ. Most of the Kansas boarders are strangers to me, I only go there for the fic. I'll read or avoid their fic if I recognize the author's name.
LJ feels more intimate, and that makes me feel more able to 'put myself out there' with fic and icons and little bits of my life.

So this isn't really a post of any substance, just a note of appreciation for your discussion.