Snowflake Challenge 2023: Challenge #15

[lebateleur]

Challenge #15

In your own space, opine on the future of fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So if you think about it, fandom has exited online for about only two decades. That's not actually much time at all in the grand scheme of things. So I hope the future of fandom will involve participants figuring out how to combine the best elements of the various permutations of fandom in that time: the close knit community vibe of the early online years, the increasing variety of fandoms, platforms, and engagement styles of the early aughts; the ease of locating communities, participants, and content of the late aughts, and the consideration for others' experiences of recent years...while jettisoning the negative aspects of those periods (e.g. clannishness, trolling, conflating "not my thing" with actively harmful content, and so on).

これで以上です。

Comments

[muccamukk]

I would say three decades. I remember fandom in the 1990s, for sure. But it's still not a very long time on the whole. I guess that gives a feeling both that there's a lot of room, and that it's not a sure bet.

[lebateleur]

To be sure, although the 90s was the early adopter period: many people did not have access to home (or even work!) Internet, you had to pay by the minute, and you didn't really want to be online long anyway because no one could call you while you were and phones were the primary means of communication. Where you lived played a huge role too: I went from having the Internet in the US to living in a country where it's wasn't available at all during that period.

All that really changed, I think, over the last two decades, when dedicated connections became more available (and affordable) for people all over the world and then fandom as we think of it today really took off.

I definitely agree that there's a lot of room but that nothing is a safe bet, which is why I find it interesting and helpful to think through these sorts of questions.

[mekare]

Thank you for that shift in perspective.

[lebateleur]

Sure, and thanks for reading--it was fun to think it through!

[tsuki_no_bara]

that's a good point, that online fandom isn't that old in the grand scheme of things. (i'd say older than a couple decades too, tho. i mean, there were fandom usenet groups and i remember having fancasting conversations in online forums in the early-mid 90s.) there's been enough different fannish spaces for people to take the good and leave the bad and (theoretically) make a new space.

[lebateleur]

Definitely, but I feel fandom was in many ways embryonic in the '90s: participation was very much stratified and constricted by whether you could afford (often pay-by-the-minute) dial-up, assuming you even lived somewhere where it was available. (I had to drop out of fandom in the late 90s after moving to a country where the Internet wasn't really a thing yet.) Regional and economic barriers to fandom participation obviously still persist today, but they've definitely flattened now that smartphones, data, WiFi, and public networks have proliferated around the world.

So yeah, I think fandom will always evolve as people's means of engagement change, and as they evaluate what is or isn't working for them in any given space at a specific point in time.

[corvidology]

You and me both, petal. ♥

[lebateleur]

Well, I am in good company, at least ♥

[kalloway]

I'm definitely a lot closer to three decades online and felt I was arriving late to the party- the completely dramatic, backstabbing chaos party with endless mailing list blow-ups, warring message boards, screaming over stolen website layouts, and everything else. I'm not going to say it was a bad time, but I admit I'm laughing at "close knit community vibe of the early online years" because that absolutely was not a universal experience. I remember it as gleeful chaos to be approached with sharp knives and a stack of floppy discs. Save everything, save often.

[lebateleur]

Sure, but it was my experience, which is really the only one I can speak to. I also found that there was far more "gleeful chaos to be approached with sharp knives" after I got back online in the early aughts...and it's grown progressively less gleeful since. Early fandom was wonderfully weird: stuff that these days would get flamed for OOCness/canon-noncompliance or Twitter dogpiled for being supposedly unhealthy was just "fic," and authors were more concerned with caveating that they didn't own the characters or source material than anything else.

[silveradept]

I agree that there's many opportunities to take what works from other places and forge forward with them.

Nine good words fandom's power possess:
Steal What Works,
Fix What's Broke,
Discard The Rest.

[lebateleur]

♥ I love this ♥

[under_the_silk_tree]

All good points!

I remain hopeful for fandom and can't wait to see where it goes.

[lebateleur]

Me too! And I'm glad that there's a core of people keeping the vintage lj post-and-comment style alive. That's really the format that's best suited to me.

[svgurl]

Those are good hopes to have and I am with you on them. :D

[lebateleur]

Then I am in good company ☆

[lirazel]

Well said! Your hopes are my hopes!

[lebateleur]

I'm glad others share them. :D