The big fandom friending thing...and why I'm not participating.

[silveradept]

So! There's a big fandom friending thing going on - your host is theladyscribe. If you're looking for more people writing fic and talking about shared interests, go find, go find!. It's already four pages long and likely to grow more.

But I'm not participating. (I may end up doing December Dailies on a shared baseball/tarot theme, analyzing cards from said Baseball Tarot deck at request of audience. Yea/Nay?)

Because I feel excluded. Which is a bit odd to be saying, considering I watch media, and read books, and listen to podcasts, and otherwise comment when others are talking about their media diet. I'm even trying for detailed media analysis of a classic series of science fantasy, so I don't think I'm somehow outside the community of fandom in many ways and places.

However, the way things are constructed for the friending, I feel like there's an incredible weighting toward those who regularly write fiction in their fandoms. Which I do not.

So, what's being asked, outside of a Dreamwidth user name?

tumblr username
other platforms (please specify):

I realize tumblr has made it very easy to be fannish, with the ability to reblog and with the focus on single things making a post, really. And other locales are likely to be AO3 and so forth. Not really much of an issue, but since I have neither tumblr nor AO3 account, or anywhere else, really, apart from the company I keep on other platforms and locations, I'm already putting up a sparse profile.

active/primary fandoms:
inactive/secondary fandoms: (fandoms you like to read/watch but maybe don’t fic or otherwise engage in)

I don't really consider anything in my media diet a primary affair (or even a few somethings), and the inactive commentary suggests that engagement is primarily fiction made in that fandom. It's possible for "commentary on that piece of media" would count as engagement, but I don't do that here, instead appearing in other places to talk with people in their domain. I don't think I've done much for posts on those matters. So, it's pretty easy to define me completely out of active fandoms and to make all of mine inactive ones or secondary ones. Which is a pretty pitiful profile, if I'm not really anywhere and don't really have anything that I'm active in.

I post about: (fandom, real life, combination)

And then, the options here suggest that one speaks of fandom, or of one's personal life, or a combination, but not really any other options. Since I'm a linkspammer with an eye toward current and newsworthy events, and the other eye with the magpie's avarice for shiny things, and only rarely do I dive into introspection or work-type talk, I'm an "other" in this category, too, talking and explaining too much, with too little in the keywords department or the published work portfolio to be easily scannable and to have a decision made about.

So I don't think I'd be much in gathering people as friends during this affair, even if there are wonderful people out there who would be great conversation partners and very insightful.

Which goes to the other part of the lack of participation - to have assembled a corpus of work in various fandoms or original working requires an investment of time that I'm not able to produce, as well as being inspired to write things (which, frankly, I haven't been, except for that one plotbunny that I will get around to when I have a very large amount of uninterrupted time and no other projects to work on). To be a reviewer or reader takes time and reading and kudos left. I'm neither of those things. I'm hanging out in meta land, ready to talk character development or plot speculation or overall theme, which I think is a part of fandom, just not one really served by this friending thing.

This isn't to say it's bad or that people shouldn't participate, just that I'm probably am edge case who thinks I'm a bigger slice of the pie and doesn't feel included, when I'm really just on the edge of the bell curve.

Comments

[nicki]

*grabs a nearby edge of the bell to sit on*

I'm kind of where you are, not really into most of the current fandoms, more on the meta side than anything else. And mostly I talk of other things, with occasional side steps into media. I do sometimes read things the float across my rlist and sometimes write if inspired and I do have a tumblr, but my tumblr follows gaming rather than fandom (like actual games, not fic about game characters).

[onyxlynx]

There's a baseball Tarot?

(Fifty years ago when I was scribbling rudimentary fanfic, there wasn't a name for it.)

[silveradept]

There is such a thing as the Baseball Tarot. And it's quite nice.

[cosmolinguist]

I am intrigued! I love baseball. I'm delighted that such a thing exists.

[onyxlynx]

Thank you!

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I had very similar, though less well-formed, thoughts.

Things like nanila's subscription meme and kaberett's introduction meme seem much more suited to me, and both got me a bunch of new people on Dreamwidth this year already, so I guess I don't need all the friends or all the things to be tailored to me. :)

[silveradept]

Yeah, it's not a horrible thing, because there are other things to do and see and make friends with, but it seemed worth a comment to point out that some part of fandom might be sitting on the sidelines.

[cosmolinguist]

Absolutely. I've always felt a bit edged out by fandom because I'm into my second decade of not having a TV; the stuff I'm most likely to consider myself a "fan" of is like radio shows or books nobody else has heard of (especially since I've been reading so much non-fiction in recent years).

[silveradept]

Really? That, by itself, is fascinating. And would require a lot of evangelism, I guess, and participation in the tiny fandom exchanges or something.

I have been reading a lot of non-fiction as well, when I get to reading, so maybe we'll have to compare notes or something.

[cosmolinguist]

I've been meaning to blog more about what I'm reading, because I like/envy that several of my friends do this, but I just haven't had the focus/concentration to finish anything, lately. I hope that'll change now that Andrew got me a Nook as an early birthday/Christmas present. Already I'm spoiled by being able to change the fonts of books to something more readable for me. :)

[silveradept]

It is nice, as a librarian, to be able to say "why yes, all of our electronic offerings are also large print."

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, I kinda gave up on fannish friending memes a while ago for some of the same reasons, but also because my fannish interests are just so damn obscure that no1curr and what even is the point. :/

[silveradept]

Yeah, there's that, sometimes. I do see the occasional tiny fandom festivals, but it's not the same, is it?

[lexicalcrow]

Yeah, it's not really the same. They sometimes feel more like all of us with fandoms of one coming together to pimp them to no one at all. And it just feels pointless. And, IDK, I don't really post much fannish stuff anyway, even when I do post, so. Yeah.

[syntaxofthings]

Yep.

(I am also unhappy with the assumption that Dreamwidth doesn't have a lot of content. Uh.. excuse me?)

[silveradept]

Well, if you're going to compare it to LJ, Twitter, tumblr, or AO3, then yes, not a lot of content. But in terms of absolute numbers, not so much.

And I think that perception is because it's not like you can type in an interest and get six communities and a thousand journals back when you go look.

[syntaxofthings]

Possibly also my standards are different. Sure you can find Twitter and tumblr articles on everything, but are they really as thoughtful and in-depth as I'd like? (LJ does still win at meta, especially for things that have been around a while.) Still. There are so many great people here on DW and I am frustrated that this perception is that it's all about content and the fact that there is "so little" of it.

[silveradept]

TTherehe are lots of great people here, but I think the "lack of content" argument is usually used as a "why don't you attract more people, some of whom will be converted to paying users" idea. Instead of relishing the tight-knit community of long-form writers that are here.

Catching up on old comments

[syntaxofthings]

I find that a strange argument, mostly because it's not the Dreamwidth staff themselves making it. They seem to be quite content with the cash flow of the user base they have (speaking of, I should renew my paid account - I buy a paid account every December with their special and give people the extra points throughout the year). I think that just illustrated that I'm firmly on the side of the tight-knit community camp and love the Dreamwidth business model and practice.

Re: Catching up on old comments

[silveradept]

The people who are here very much love it here and are willing to support it, I suspect. I wonder what the free-to-paid ratio is for here, because I suspect Dreamwidth is pretty good on that. Probably why the staff doesn't have to push things too hard.

[alexseanchai]

You make a valid point, and I'm sorry you feel left out—it does seem exclusionary of people who don't fic, though I admit I didn't notice that when I jumped in.

Baseball Tarot? Okay, maybe it's just because I don't sports, but, say what?

[silveradept]

No worries. I think it's one of the stronger assumptions in fandom that everyone fics, even if everyone doesn't post them.

The complexity of the baseball game lends itself to being life-metaphorical, so it's various components can be used to help as an oracle or in trying to induce new ways of thinking. I'm sure other sports also have their own decks, but I'm sufficiently stepped in baseball lore from playing, watching, and officiating that it works for me.

[momijizukamori]

See, I always feel a little awkward because the closest I get to Western fandom is Homestuck and X-Men comics and everything else is anime and manga, and it seems like the DW userbases skews the same way AO3 does - mostly Western media, mostly TV shows.

[silveradept]

That's true, although I'm sure there's a vibrant community of anime and manga fans (I am, but I haven't been able to read/watch much because time and Adulthood and Significant Other very much into Western media) to talk this with - they probably just have to be found, instead of being omnipresent enough to be visible.

[davidgillon]

I had exactly the same reaction. I had a really wonderful experience with kaberett's introductions meme when I'd just joined DW, and was looking for more of the same, but this really didn't seem to fit me. Yes, there is stuff I'm fannish about, and I have even written fanfic in the past, but I'm mostly here to share lives with people, and talk books, and fanfic isn't a large part of my life.

This isn't a bad meme, but it's constructed in such a way that it's not as inclusive as the name initially implies

[syntaxofthings]

I'm mostly here to share lives with people, and talk books, and fanfic isn't a large part of my life.

Yes. This. Perfect.

[escritoireazul]

I may end up doing December Dailies on a shared baseball/tarot theme, analyzing cards from said Baseball Tarot deck at request of audience. Yea/Nay?

SO MUCH YEA.

You make really good points about the assumptions the friending meme draws about fannish experience and activity.

[silveradept]

Hello, person whose user name I do not recognize! Thank you for your enthusiastic vote. I think there are enough curious people that I might go ahead with this.

If you feel comfortable, would you mind telling me how you came to this corner of the Dreamsphere?