dynamics of fandom, 1
4 Jun 2010 01:36 pmRecently, while following links on something else entirely (as usual), I came across a presentation from TED, by Seth Godin (author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us). Right about the same time as watching that short video, I also stumbled across a post by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
obsession_inc called Affirmational fandom vs. Transformational fandom, which posits that:
The two theories/perspectives (Godin,obsession_inc) are wildly divergent in terms of their origins, and (I would argue) to their external intentions -- that is, the former uses the premise as a springboard for activism, while the latter operates independent of any such consequences. So, in some ways, there's only a passing resemblance, but it's there to me all the same.
Meanwhile, of course, reading essays on postmodernism and its clash with feminist theory, and browsing my way through various pseudo-academic (and outright academic) texts on Japanese animation, I kept coming across oblique references to fandom and fan participation. Or, not-so-oblique, if we get into talking about Azuma's arguments. Regardless, this all simmered, and the following illustrated meta-story, or meta-theory, is all that capped off by the discussion on my previous posts over fanfiction and the question of whether fandom has influence on the creative process or whether it's simply a backdrop to what may sometimes be a process independent of any community.
And, of course, the not-yet-dead discussion of Published Authors Behaving Badly when it comes to fanfiction.
So, to start, in this first picture we have ourselves a newly-published original story.
( Because when I said it comes together in pictures, I wasn't kidding. Adobe Illustrator FTW, with scattered hints of potentially controversial suppositions, so consider yourself warned. )
FYI: if you haven't noticed, here I'll say it explicitly: the use of 'analysis is my chocolate cake' as a tag indicates 'this topic is open for debate/discussion', while the 'at play' and 'league' tags mean it's genre-focused and fandom-focused respectively, and the 'half-asleep' tag means it's related to fanfiction.
obsession_inc called Affirmational fandom vs. Transformational fandom, which posits that: In "affirmational" fandom, the source material is re-stated, the author's purpose divined to the community's satisfaction, rules established on how the characters are and how the universe works, and cosplay &etc. occur. It all tends to coalesce toward a center concept; it's all about nailing down the details. ... "Transformational" fandom, on the other hand, is all about laying hands upon the source and twisting it to the fans' own purposes, whether that is to fix a disappointing issue (a distinct lack of sex-having between two characters, of course, is a favorite issue to fix) in the source material, or using the source material to illustrate a point, or just to have a whale of a good time.
The two theories/perspectives (Godin,
obsession_inc) are wildly divergent in terms of their origins, and (I would argue) to their external intentions -- that is, the former uses the premise as a springboard for activism, while the latter operates independent of any such consequences. So, in some ways, there's only a passing resemblance, but it's there to me all the same. Meanwhile, of course, reading essays on postmodernism and its clash with feminist theory, and browsing my way through various pseudo-academic (and outright academic) texts on Japanese animation, I kept coming across oblique references to fandom and fan participation. Or, not-so-oblique, if we get into talking about Azuma's arguments. Regardless, this all simmered, and the following illustrated meta-story, or meta-theory, is all that capped off by the discussion on my previous posts over fanfiction and the question of whether fandom has influence on the creative process or whether it's simply a backdrop to what may sometimes be a process independent of any community.
And, of course, the not-yet-dead discussion of Published Authors Behaving Badly when it comes to fanfiction.
So, to start, in this first picture we have ourselves a newly-published original story.
( Because when I said it comes together in pictures, I wasn't kidding. Adobe Illustrator FTW, with scattered hints of potentially controversial suppositions, so consider yourself warned. )
FYI: if you haven't noticed, here I'll say it explicitly: the use of 'analysis is my chocolate cake' as a tag indicates 'this topic is open for debate/discussion', while the 'at play' and 'league' tags mean it's genre-focused and fandom-focused respectively, and the 'half-asleep' tag means it's related to fanfiction.