[speaking of the pleasure button...]
Feb. 6th, 2007 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaSo lately I haven't been too inspired to post here-- partly 'cause I really ran out of steam, partly 'cause my flist isn't fannishly active in HP (which remains my only fandom) and partly 'cause I've been posting on my Myers-Briggs board & obsessively learning Tarot. And when I say 'obsessively', I mean I bought something like 20 decks in the space of 2 weeks... which reminds me quite painfully of a post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fangirljen that linked to the the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lady of DOOOOM. D:
I was gonna say something here about how ideally, one shouldn't just splurge on things and soak up everything about them as if it's manna from the heavens, no matter how good/insightful/fun it is, and instead try to distance oneself enough to learn something/keep perspective (read: sanity)... but then, this is my personality, too :/ Here but for the grace of chance go I, thankfully not fixated on TMNT paraphernalia. :/ I mean, that's sort of what the point of that post was, but at the same time, gaaahhh... that is not a good thing. I also have to admit I look down on obsessiveness about paraphernalia & 'acting it out' in general (ie, people who're way into cosplay) 'cause it's so surface and materialistic somehow, haha. But, well, being mentally masturbatory isn't any better than doin' it with the suit on, I guess. I don't have much confidence I can seriously always tell the difference between 'too much surface' (ie, scary fangirlism) vs 'illusory depth' (ie, pretentiousness), though I do have to say I get annoyed when people are so ticked off with pretentiousness they venerate surface squee/simplistic or badfic-style writing as if it's just naturally 'more honest' and therefore full of genuine goodness. Yeah, right. If you consider being honestly an idiot a good thing, more power to you, I guess. I still think there are many different flavors of idiots & there's room for everyone.
Just to state the painfully obvious, I found that original post and its yaye-fandom attitude to be way too rose-colored; there are tons of ways to be an unhealthily 'fanatical' fan and to just be unhealthy about fandom in general. I'm sure everyone in fandom knows someone who shouldn't be here, or just shouldn't be here as much and are just avoiding their real life, real issues, real friends. It's so easy, especially on the internet, to just-- live a whole 'nother life, a life where everything's focused on single-minded pleasure. Whereas some people can handle it, and need the escape, the 'safe space' from a life already spent working hard and not being entirely 'themselves', other people simply don't have that sort of work-ethic or natural grip on reality, pure and simple.
In any case, I think it's silly to either say 'fandom is love' or 'fandom is for losers'-- obviously, it depends on both the individual and the circumstances, but generally I'd say it's a bit of both.
The word 'fanatic' itself is a bit pathetic in that it implies excess; passion and creativity and community, yes, but still excess or the potential for lack of moderation, which is something that eventually messes you up. And yeah, love is great, love is positive-- whether for an idea or a book or an actor, whatever-- but the more you love something, the more it takes you over-- the harder the emotion gets to control and be rational about.
Generally I have mixed feelings about fandom not because of the overload of passion but because I feel a sense of rationality, moderation & balanced discussion often suffers to make room for all that passion. Speaking specifically of the Ninja Turtle Lady linked in this post, there's also an element of sheer glassy-eyed devotion, where you clearly cannot see any badly-done/silly/cheesy side to the thing you're into. I mean, the way she talked about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle song with shining transfixed fervor is sort of like the people who thought JKR is god & (before the 6th book), Harry/Hermione is Her apostle's vision :/ Or whatever. Issues, y'know?
A lot of people also care about critiquing the canon source but not fanworks, again because 'this is my squee' and to critique it or be rational about it is tantamount to killing its shiny goodness. That is NOT cool to me at ALL. It doesn't matter -what- it is, loving anything too blindly or mindlessly is potentially unhealthy or at least seems greedy to me. To me, love (fannish love specifically) is when you care enough about something to learn as much as you can, to see as much as you can of it, but also care enough about yourself not to overdose, not to blind yourself, and to keep the balance between the beholder (yourself) and the beloved object (what you're fannish about). Otherwise it all smacks of intellectual/emotional masturbation and 100% escapism which could easily degenerate into true delusional fanaticism of the Harmonian sort. :/
And of course I'm saying all this because these are -my- issues and -my- dangers and I constantly have to remind myself that I'm teetering on the brink of sheer obsessive delirium in my enthusiasm about ideas and books/movies/art/etc, just like the rats that keep pushing the pleasure button in that famous experiment till they died.
Yes, one's fannish passions are a great potential mirror for self-discovery and a way to find a community and so on. But. Well. Put simply, everything has a dark side, and emotionally-driven endeavors have quite the doozy.
fangirljen that linked to the the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lady of DOOOOM. D:I was gonna say something here about how ideally, one shouldn't just splurge on things and soak up everything about them as if it's manna from the heavens, no matter how good/insightful/fun it is, and instead try to distance oneself enough to learn something/keep perspective (read: sanity)... but then, this is my personality, too :/ Here but for the grace of chance go I, thankfully not fixated on TMNT paraphernalia. :/ I mean, that's sort of what the point of that post was, but at the same time, gaaahhh... that is not a good thing. I also have to admit I look down on obsessiveness about paraphernalia & 'acting it out' in general (ie, people who're way into cosplay) 'cause it's so surface and materialistic somehow, haha. But, well, being mentally masturbatory isn't any better than doin' it with the suit on, I guess. I don't have much confidence I can seriously always tell the difference between 'too much surface' (ie, scary fangirlism) vs 'illusory depth' (ie, pretentiousness), though I do have to say I get annoyed when people are so ticked off with pretentiousness they venerate surface squee/simplistic or badfic-style writing as if it's just naturally 'more honest' and therefore full of genuine goodness. Yeah, right. If you consider being honestly an idiot a good thing, more power to you, I guess. I still think there are many different flavors of idiots & there's room for everyone.
Just to state the painfully obvious, I found that original post and its yaye-fandom attitude to be way too rose-colored; there are tons of ways to be an unhealthily 'fanatical' fan and to just be unhealthy about fandom in general. I'm sure everyone in fandom knows someone who shouldn't be here, or just shouldn't be here as much and are just avoiding their real life, real issues, real friends. It's so easy, especially on the internet, to just-- live a whole 'nother life, a life where everything's focused on single-minded pleasure. Whereas some people can handle it, and need the escape, the 'safe space' from a life already spent working hard and not being entirely 'themselves', other people simply don't have that sort of work-ethic or natural grip on reality, pure and simple.
In any case, I think it's silly to either say 'fandom is love' or 'fandom is for losers'-- obviously, it depends on both the individual and the circumstances, but generally I'd say it's a bit of both.
The word 'fanatic' itself is a bit pathetic in that it implies excess; passion and creativity and community, yes, but still excess or the potential for lack of moderation, which is something that eventually messes you up. And yeah, love is great, love is positive-- whether for an idea or a book or an actor, whatever-- but the more you love something, the more it takes you over-- the harder the emotion gets to control and be rational about.
Generally I have mixed feelings about fandom not because of the overload of passion but because I feel a sense of rationality, moderation & balanced discussion often suffers to make room for all that passion. Speaking specifically of the Ninja Turtle Lady linked in this post, there's also an element of sheer glassy-eyed devotion, where you clearly cannot see any badly-done/silly/cheesy side to the thing you're into. I mean, the way she talked about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle song with shining transfixed fervor is sort of like the people who thought JKR is god & (before the 6th book), Harry/Hermione is Her apostle's vision :/ Or whatever. Issues, y'know?
A lot of people also care about critiquing the canon source but not fanworks, again because 'this is my squee' and to critique it or be rational about it is tantamount to killing its shiny goodness. That is NOT cool to me at ALL. It doesn't matter -what- it is, loving anything too blindly or mindlessly is potentially unhealthy or at least seems greedy to me. To me, love (fannish love specifically) is when you care enough about something to learn as much as you can, to see as much as you can of it, but also care enough about yourself not to overdose, not to blind yourself, and to keep the balance between the beholder (yourself) and the beloved object (what you're fannish about). Otherwise it all smacks of intellectual/emotional masturbation and 100% escapism which could easily degenerate into true delusional fanaticism of the Harmonian sort. :/
And of course I'm saying all this because these are -my- issues and -my- dangers and I constantly have to remind myself that I'm teetering on the brink of sheer obsessive delirium in my enthusiasm about ideas and books/movies/art/etc, just like the rats that keep pushing the pleasure button in that famous experiment till they died.
Yes, one's fannish passions are a great potential mirror for self-discovery and a way to find a community and so on. But. Well. Put simply, everything has a dark side, and emotionally-driven endeavors have quite the doozy.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 01:57 am (UTC)i can't quite pinpoint why it puts me so ill at ease--whether it's as petty a reason as being associated with them or the fear that someday, this could be me! but it's there, nonetheless.
as far as critiquing goes, there's definitely something a little off about being highly critical of the original work, yet glossing over the flaws of fanworks (if it's an issue of the author's/artist's style or artistic tendencies, that's not really the same bag). as you've said several times before, the best sort of fanwork inserts itself into the canon established by the original piece, rather than twisting it around and completely disregarding it. and when that's the kind of fanwork that gets glorified, it's especially irritating, because disregarding canon is probably the biggest possible flaw a fanwork can have. ew, this is not eloquent at all.
that said, the other extreme doesn't do well by me either--blind worship of the original work and a refusal to acknowledge its own flaws just demonstrates a lack of willingness to really think about it and accept its imperfections. even in real life, acknowledging flaws is a lot healthier than ignoring them.
ugh, this kind of went all over the place. i hope it's coherent.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 11:43 am (UTC)...I also think that it's possible to be sane about cosplay (or else most of the population of yaoi convention is... disturbed)... it's just that... it's. It's like it breeds a special sort of crazy the way RPs do also. *shudder*
no subject
Date: 2007-02-15 05:51 pm (UTC)that is surreal. i almost brought up rp'ing in my previous comment in the same context...
special kind of crazy is pretty accurate. the kind of crazy that births the d&d fans who dress up and meet in parks to enact battles. although that's obviously the extreme. i do have friends who cosplay, most of whom are pretty... well-behaved about it, and in the case of one of them who's majoring in fashion design, it's really pretty justified (and her costumes are damn amazing). but yeah. dressing up and playacting and role playing... kind of an uncomfortable idea.
oh, moderation! why aren't you encouraged more in the universe of fannish geekdom?