everything's FINE

[sab]

Things I know about yesterday: Donnatella Moss didn't die. I learned that on AIM. Then I learned about denialcorp on AIM as far as SV's concerned, and I share the following: EVERYTHING'S FINE. Then I saw Angel and lots of people died, but since it was the APOCALYPSE and also most of them were demons I'm pretty sure that's not a spoiler. Seriously, it's not a spoiler, I'm just being cavalier about mortality.

And in that spirit, I give you raincitygirl's denialcakes LJ entry, full of distracting comedic links and Jon Stewart's commencement address at William & Mary College. The latter is really damned good.

*

I'm living in a place where I don't really have a participatory fandom; where my diversity is manifest as dilution, or the center cannot hold, something like that. Babylon 5's the deepest of my current wading pools, and, I say again, dude, any fandom where ff.net's the go-to fic archive (Enemies & Allies, being specialized, and having under 20 stories, not withstanding, of course) is a sorry state of affairs.

But B5's representing in a big way. There's a loud and energetic group of girls here on LJ, and over at t_m; folks like barkley and andrastewhite are watching the episodes anew and we're having character discussions and some fearsome debates. Totally not sneezing at the B5 fandom, of whose ranks I am proud to be a member: I love you all.

But I was thinking about the experience of fandom, of *a* fandom (rather than fannishness in general), and I do kinda miss being part of a big meaty one. For the purposes of this argument, "Big Fandom" describes a group of people who largely know one another's names and reputations, where there's BNFs and where people can be identified by writing style, where there's a dozen specialized fic archives and fan sites that people know by name or acronym, where there's flamewars and aggravation and community -- all around one specific show/book/medium.

Maybe LJ and the current tread toward polyfanism has created a dilution of the big-ass fandoms, but they're still around. You can see it in HP, for one thing, in SV, in the Buffy/Angelverse still, even. In the comicverse/Batverse/JL-verse too, at this point. And there's probably still folks participating in the West Wing fandom, though I don't know the state of it at the moment. CSI and Alias both seem to have considerable community followings. What else? Where's the Big Fandom, nowadays?

I had it last in Farscape, before that was WW, and to a degree in SN, though Sports Night never had the same kind of community feel as other Big Fandoms. Before that, of course, was XF, the One Big Fandom To Rule Them All, and before that, I had Trek, the One Big Fandom To Birth Them All.

Now -- I have B5, and we're the fannish equivalent of the kiddie table. We're trying our damndest, but at the end of the day, there's maybe a dozen of us total, t_m and ff.net. Jeremiah never got off the ground, though the Samwise and Markus fans are representing over on valhalla_sector like troopers. Band of Brothers will never be a fannishy fandom, because, oddly, we've got too much respect for it to take it to that loving/mocking place. camp_toccoa is an awesome community, and a great crowd, but, you know, not the same thing.

And then there's Firefly, which, as Punk commented when we were discussing this, is a side-dish fandom. Everyone's got a lump of Firefly on the side, next to their main-course Angel or HP or SV or Farscape. Firefly -- there's no there there, despite the fact that it surpasses, in sheer numbers, all three of my other fandoms combined.

So, what's the buzz? Am I alone in this? Are other folks noticing a fannish diaspora that's caused a dilution in the concept of Big Fandoms? And for you kids who are still in Big Fandoms -- where are they? HP, SV, Alias? How're they workin' out for you?

Comments

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

I'm friending you because I need some B5 love in my life.

I've bought all the DVD sets, and I've begun the series from the beginning, becaue I'm sure there are a few episodes that I've missed.

I've not ever been active in the B5 fandom; my love for this show has been sated by reruns until the DVDs started coming out, and I just got bootlegs of the movies that I want to watch with a friend I converted.

Anyway, now that Angel is dead, I want something to go along with my fairly new due South obsession. (Speaking of fandoms, that one has had a big resurgence in the past year, with new fans finding the show and new activity on lj.)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment on due South, actually. It seems to have been going through this cycle where it *was* Big Fandom, started to move on, and now is back to Big Fandomness again, which is both weird and exciting.

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

It's wonderful how the DVD releases can spark interest in a flagging fandom. Second- and third-generation waves can only benefit from experienced writers, although the old-school fans might be uneasy at new folks bustling in (this is not true for DS, but I have heard that's a problem in some fandoms).

I see the new blood in QAF has improved fic quality--when the fandom was new, the writers were mostly newbies; now the writers seem mostly to have other fandom experience, and that's reflected in story quality. (Now if only they'd write something besides B/J! /snark)

I'm also interested in how the newbies will affect S&H and The Professionals fandoms.