Fandom and Its Discontents
On last night’s Oscars, a single-sentence summation: Okay, fellas, you fooled me…to a point. And after that, everything went pretty much as expected.
So since Cal’s finally asleep-—in the nook, which we’ve got to keep consistently reminding him is actualy his room now—-I’ll move on to far more pressing matters: Fandom, and its discontents. This being spurred mainly by my envious surfing of other people’s Escapade reports, as well as that fandom-centric OTP meme I’ve had staring at me from the head of my LJ file for…a long damn time, without feeling any particular urge to just g’wan ahead and fill it out. And why, given my interests, let alone the sort of virtual company I "keep"?
The immediate answer which comes into my head is (in true Bela Lugosi style) Fandom? I HAVE no fandom. Which is dramatically satisfying, though not entirely true—-after all, I spend an hour a day checking LJ, not to mention five hours a week (or more) on appointment TV. But without having any one fandom full of like-minded people, the kind who cut loose with fic and theories at a moment’s notice, the kind who build forums, websites and lists from which to squee and blather at will over their various favorite lust-objects and continuing stories…well, when you don’t really have one of those to your name/fandom(s), you feel pretty much like a stalker, a voyeur eternally pressed up against the window, a skeleton at the fandom feast.
Basically, my fandoms of the moment are all consumption fandoms, not creation fandoms—-with none of them do I feel the old OZ/Gangs of New York urge to jump in and play, to assume a mask, to imagine myself into one or more of the roles involved, and then record the result. And while this is probably very healthy indeed, in terms of me doing my own thing (I’ve made a hell of a lot of notes recently, and not writing fic may well prove the key to them blossoming into genuine product), it still leaves my inner landscape feeling more than a trifle denuded.
The "answer", I guess, would be to become a fan of myself, then let my audience catch up with me: Yup, that’d do. That’d be choice.
Dumb as it is, though, I really do miss caring about stuff that other people care about, particularly people whose brains I admire. Especially when I read their LJs and wish I could just capitulate to the flow of one fandom or another: Admit that Beecher and Keller always really were the beating heart of OZ, for example; let the sexual catnip lure of Tim Drake point me towards a paradise of endless Batverse couplings; become snake-in-the-headlights fascinated by the spectacle of Viggo Mortensen’s metafictional private life. Get swept away, and have a million enablers waiting to welcome me into a smorgasbord of infinite possibility, all cooing: One of us. One of US. ONE OF US..
I’m not one of nobody, these days. And yeah, it’s getting lonely.
So since Cal’s finally asleep-—in the nook, which we’ve got to keep consistently reminding him is actualy his room now—-I’ll move on to far more pressing matters: Fandom, and its discontents. This being spurred mainly by my envious surfing of other people’s Escapade reports, as well as that fandom-centric OTP meme I’ve had staring at me from the head of my LJ file for…a long damn time, without feeling any particular urge to just g’wan ahead and fill it out. And why, given my interests, let alone the sort of virtual company I "keep"?
The immediate answer which comes into my head is (in true Bela Lugosi style) Fandom? I HAVE no fandom. Which is dramatically satisfying, though not entirely true—-after all, I spend an hour a day checking LJ, not to mention five hours a week (or more) on appointment TV. But without having any one fandom full of like-minded people, the kind who cut loose with fic and theories at a moment’s notice, the kind who build forums, websites and lists from which to squee and blather at will over their various favorite lust-objects and continuing stories…well, when you don’t really have one of those to your name/fandom(s), you feel pretty much like a stalker, a voyeur eternally pressed up against the window, a skeleton at the fandom feast.
Basically, my fandoms of the moment are all consumption fandoms, not creation fandoms—-with none of them do I feel the old OZ/Gangs of New York urge to jump in and play, to assume a mask, to imagine myself into one or more of the roles involved, and then record the result. And while this is probably very healthy indeed, in terms of me doing my own thing (I’ve made a hell of a lot of notes recently, and not writing fic may well prove the key to them blossoming into genuine product), it still leaves my inner landscape feeling more than a trifle denuded.
The "answer", I guess, would be to become a fan of myself, then let my audience catch up with me: Yup, that’d do. That’d be choice.
Dumb as it is, though, I really do miss caring about stuff that other people care about, particularly people whose brains I admire. Especially when I read their LJs and wish I could just capitulate to the flow of one fandom or another: Admit that Beecher and Keller always really were the beating heart of OZ, for example; let the sexual catnip lure of Tim Drake point me towards a paradise of endless Batverse couplings; become snake-in-the-headlights fascinated by the spectacle of Viggo Mortensen’s metafictional private life. Get swept away, and have a million enablers waiting to welcome me into a smorgasbord of infinite possibility, all cooing: One of us. One of US. ONE OF US..
I’m not one of nobody, these days. And yeah, it’s getting lonely.