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vulgarweedLike lots and lots of people, I've been reading the ongoing revelations about truly trainwrecky onionlike layers of malicious batshittery in the HP fandom a few years ago...
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metafandom has been chock full of essays lately on what this says about interpersonal dynamics in fandom, the cult of the BNF, the justifiability of anonymity. All of them, I find absolutely fascinating reading. Sometimes I nod vigorously, sometimes I shake my head just as vigorously.
On occasion the point has been made that the cult of the BNF is so overwhelming in HP that everyone can't help but fall prey when the situation goes bad. I disagree, kind of. It's really a matter of where one might have the good or bad luck to "live."
HP fandom is so huge it's like New York City - it has boroughs that are separate municipalities with their own offices and departments, and within those boroughs are dozens and dozens of individual neighborhoods that are very different from each other. One can very well be president of the block club in the Jamaican neighborhood and never have talked to anyone from the Greek neighborhood that starts three blocks away. Of course everyone knows who the Mayor is, but he's very remote and not everyone cares. (And, for the sake of this analogy, isn't that JK Rowling, not any fan?)
My (very LNF) participation in the HP fandom started in fall of 2001, just as all of this crap was beginning to build, and yet I never really cared about Cassie Claire one way or the other, because she wrote about Draco and I never really cared about him. I had friends at FA and SQ and I commented in their forums sometimes, but I was never that deeply involved--because I knew the NC-17 Snape/Hermione I was most into writing and reading wasn't welcome there, which didn't bother me, just gave me a certain distance. Where you'd find me would be at WIKTT (which could be wanky in the extreme--"Pawn to Queen" wars, anyone?--but to my knowledge didn't have phenomena like this) and Witchfics, which was and is very openly and frankly a deliberately small collection of friends, mostly women in our 30s who have a passionate love/hate/snark relationship with Snape, and wanted to stay lowkey.) I still don't think I've ever read anything by Ivy or Ari_o or whoever the other big players are. I think the only thing I've ever read by Aja is the Good Omens story she wrote for GOE. I wasn't deliberately avoiding them; it's just that there was so much fic out there, and they just happened not to write about my fave characters, so they seemed to be famous and powerful in, say, "Astoria", but that meant little to me since I lived on, say, "the Lower East Side." And as far as I can see, MssScribe herself didn't write very much fic at all, which would explain why my memory of even seeing her name around is so vague.
So watching all this unfold is kind of like watching some semi-strangers, someone I've glimpsed from a taxi or been in the same bar as a couple of times maybe, friend-of-a-friend-of-friend thrice-removed, on local TV being indicted on consipiracy charges--it wouldn't affect me at all if it weren't for the fact that this kind of "white-collar crime" affects my bank, and my city's political climate, and has ripped off, directly or indirectly, some people I do know and care about.
But the HP fandom is large enough that I don't feel this has affected my neighborhood. I might feel I had to go to war if it did, but it just isn't that close to me and hope to the Gods that it never is.
The issues it raises, on the other hand, could be a nearly infinite series of other posts, but I'll refrain for now since I'm starting to get bored of reading about it and my thoughts are very tangled. At the moment, it falls into the same category as a LOT of wanky fandom issues for me: "Wouldn't all that energy have been better used writing porn?"
And in other news, my fun with the Ultimate Fandom OTP Generator continues to bear fruit.
Check the comments for fabulous crossover crack:
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catherinecookmn wrote 2001:A Space Odyssey/Discworld
very_improbable wrote Neverwhere/The Daily Show.
They work.
metafandom has been chock full of essays lately on what this says about interpersonal dynamics in fandom, the cult of the BNF, the justifiability of anonymity. All of them, I find absolutely fascinating reading. Sometimes I nod vigorously, sometimes I shake my head just as vigorously.On occasion the point has been made that the cult of the BNF is so overwhelming in HP that everyone can't help but fall prey when the situation goes bad. I disagree, kind of. It's really a matter of where one might have the good or bad luck to "live."
HP fandom is so huge it's like New York City - it has boroughs that are separate municipalities with their own offices and departments, and within those boroughs are dozens and dozens of individual neighborhoods that are very different from each other. One can very well be president of the block club in the Jamaican neighborhood and never have talked to anyone from the Greek neighborhood that starts three blocks away. Of course everyone knows who the Mayor is, but he's very remote and not everyone cares. (And, for the sake of this analogy, isn't that JK Rowling, not any fan?)
My (very LNF) participation in the HP fandom started in fall of 2001, just as all of this crap was beginning to build, and yet I never really cared about Cassie Claire one way or the other, because she wrote about Draco and I never really cared about him. I had friends at FA and SQ and I commented in their forums sometimes, but I was never that deeply involved--because I knew the NC-17 Snape/Hermione I was most into writing and reading wasn't welcome there, which didn't bother me, just gave me a certain distance. Where you'd find me would be at WIKTT (which could be wanky in the extreme--"Pawn to Queen" wars, anyone?--but to my knowledge didn't have phenomena like this) and Witchfics, which was and is very openly and frankly a deliberately small collection of friends, mostly women in our 30s who have a passionate love/hate/snark relationship with Snape, and wanted to stay lowkey.) I still don't think I've ever read anything by Ivy or Ari_o or whoever the other big players are. I think the only thing I've ever read by Aja is the Good Omens story she wrote for GOE. I wasn't deliberately avoiding them; it's just that there was so much fic out there, and they just happened not to write about my fave characters, so they seemed to be famous and powerful in, say, "Astoria", but that meant little to me since I lived on, say, "the Lower East Side." And as far as I can see, MssScribe herself didn't write very much fic at all, which would explain why my memory of even seeing her name around is so vague.
So watching all this unfold is kind of like watching some semi-strangers, someone I've glimpsed from a taxi or been in the same bar as a couple of times maybe, friend-of-a-friend-of-friend thrice-removed, on local TV being indicted on consipiracy charges--it wouldn't affect me at all if it weren't for the fact that this kind of "white-collar crime" affects my bank, and my city's political climate, and has ripped off, directly or indirectly, some people I do know and care about.
But the HP fandom is large enough that I don't feel this has affected my neighborhood. I might feel I had to go to war if it did, but it just isn't that close to me and hope to the Gods that it never is.
The issues it raises, on the other hand, could be a nearly infinite series of other posts, but I'll refrain for now since I'm starting to get bored of reading about it and my thoughts are very tangled. At the moment, it falls into the same category as a LOT of wanky fandom issues for me: "Wouldn't all that energy have been better used writing porn?"
And in other news, my fun with the Ultimate Fandom OTP Generator continues to bear fruit.
Check the comments for fabulous crossover crack:
catherinecookmn wrote 2001:A Space Odyssey/Discworldvery_improbable wrote Neverwhere/The Daily Show.They work.
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