[speaking of the pleasure button...]

[reenka]

So 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 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.

Comments

[malafede.livejournal.com]

A lot of people also care about critiquing the canon source but not fanworks

... I always run in the opposite attitude. People have this -- um, hero worship? I remember discussing feedback with someone on TWOP, and she completely couldn't treat the issue the same if she was talking about the writers (of the show, as opposed to "the fangirls"). I think this just proves that fandom is a lot of different things, and we just tend to think it's full of the attitude we like the least.

I think all sort of groups have a fatal flaw, depending on the driving cohesive force, and with fandom it's something similar to religion. We keep telling each other how good this is... how important it is... how validated we are for investing emotions and self-esteem in it... a lot of people hate the nay-sayers, but paranoid, gloomy, pompous as they may be they can do a reality-check like nobody's business.

I wonder if a group only um, has a reason to exist (= goes somewhere) and can only achieve great justice if it has an equal number of yay-sayers and nay-sayers in it. Btw, I just realized I have SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE playing. So even my computer agrees with me, in which is telling me to give the happy people a break.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yea, I know I'm oversensitive, anyway :> I realize some people can't critique this, some people can't critique that, some people just can't critique. I'm hard-pressed to decide which there's more of in HP, but I think there's more critical canon discussion than critical fic discussion merely judging from the meta I've seen. In H/D specifically, definitely, I'm the only person I've seen who focuses on fanon over canon. Everyone does a little of both, of course. I think by definition, most fans -care- more about canon than fanon so they just plain talk about it more and possibly they thus get more vocal about not critiquing it if they're of that persuasion. I guess I feel oppressed merely by the fact that there isn't as much discussion, and discussion is just stifled overall with fanworks. People make posts about what kind of discussion there should be and whether there should be discussion at all, 'cause eeeeverything hurts someone's feelings. I feel like there's more of an accepted mode of talking about canon-- places you could go to discuss canon critically, also-- the way there isn't with fanworks.

And yeah, there definitely needs to be a balance in any venture. I don't like 'shiny happy people' if that means they're aggressive about it, and neither do I like aggressive nay-sayers. People like to say 'live and let live', but some even get aggressive about -that-. :/ It's not about actual equality in numbers, I don't think, so much as the type of people and their behavior... 'cause numbers alone don't dictate personality/behavior 'cause one person can control 20, y'know, or have the force of 20 if they're a BNF, whereas no one ever hears from lurkers. There's all kinds of complicated group dynamics at work where you never just have individuals set up against each other-- there are always mitigating factors like cliques and politics, etc. One reason I feel it's easier to critique canon is that cliques interfere with fanon critique a lot more 'cause actual clique members are the ones who create said fanon, whereas generally they aren't so involved with canon meta 'cause that's not a social issue except for really obsessed meta people.

Of course, all groups in general have a fatal flaw, since they are, in fact, groups :D

[malafede.livejournal.com]

In H/D specifically, definitely, I'm the only person I've seen who focuses on fanon over canon.

I think that's the actual issue, more than (always) a matter of hurt feelings. I'm with you, I'd like more discussion and analysis of fanworks, but people aren't interested more than being viciously opposed to it (in H/D especially it seems more like there's a few people who are opposed to it and they are very vocal.) I encounter the attitude of it being "not serious business" more often than the attitude of it being mean -- but maybe I'm oversensitive too. ;)

You're right that the numbers don't matter as much as the energy member each of their side bring to it -- it seemed easier to use a literal figure.

I don't like 'shiny happy people' if that means they're aggressive about it, and neither do I like aggressive nay-sayers.

It's true, and it seems to stem from the differing concept of debate people have, some being very descriptive about things and some being very... persuasive. It's like the point is not to get to the bottom of things but to push one's agenda. :/ :/ It's why I get annoyed at the idea that an analysis that reach positive conclusions is inherently better than one that's negative, or viceversa. Positive/negative are morally neutral, and an insight shouldn't be valued in terms of how much it supports or detracts something, but in terms of how true it is.

Though you know, more in terms of the individual rather than the philosophy, at least negative people being aggressive doesn't reek of hypocrisy the same way the militant happy do. There's something about saying "everything sucks" and "shut up sucker" that's more coherent than "everything is great" and "shut up cunt and be more nice like me". You know???

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're right about people not being that interested -.-;; Gnah. Am -I- even that interested anymore? But fact remains I'm always more interested in fanfic analysis in any fandom I read for ^^; If I was uber into canon, I'd probably be too anal to read fic, considering I'm -almost- too anal to read fic even without being that into canon, merely -knowing- it ^^;; Really, the ideal state seems to be before I even know of canon directly, in terms of me enjoying a fandom -.-;;

I like when people say 'shut up, sucker' as long as they aren't self-righteous or all passive-aggressively victimized about it (which sometimes they are). That's my issue with some segments of the Slyth fandom. *cough* :)) Being snarky is cool, being whiny is uncool, but being whiny while pretending to be snarky is like, triple-XXX super-uncool, or something :> I suppose what I'm talking about is hypocrisy, except I don't think merely being bitchy necessarily equates to honest (though being militantly nicey-nice is -definitely- hypocritical in its very construction-- there's actually zero room to be for real with that). I sometimes get militantly 'happy'/defensive when I think people are too negative (as you know, hahaha) and I also get negative if people are too positive. I'm just a contrary bitch :D

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, well, I definitely agree with you in terms of what the worst parts of Slyth fandom do -- but I wonder if self-martyrdom is even relevant to this discussion, given that self-martyrdom seems to be a constant across the negative/positive spectrum. Actually the obsession this fandom has with deciding what side* is more right (more moral, more intelligent, has best reading skills, has best sense of perspective) is an example of what bugs with trying to pretend positive/negative reading have relative moral values.

*ew, sides.

[jenparakeet.livejournal.com]

the issue i've always had with fandom are those fans who seem far too removed from reality. i mean, sure, you make your own happiness, but there's still a world out there that you need to learn to function in at some point, and it's not entirely healthy to completely ignore it. what freaks me out (even though they don't tend to disturb my own, er, "fanning") is when i look at them and recognize tendencies of my own (usually the obscene spending habits and fic bits), carried to uncomfortable extremes (cosplay comes to mind).

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.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I know exactly what you mean (and hey, I ramble all the time... other people rambling puts me at ease). I do think it's probably the extremity/losing-touch-with-reality thing in the first case & a sense of hypocrisy either way in the second case (yeah, especially if you admire IC writing at all). Ideally you should be able to critique & squee equally no matter what it is you're into, canon/fanon-wise. And also ideally, you don't turn into a total nerd. I mean, we all go 'but nerds/losers are cool!!' and yet we all know that this only goes to a certain extent. Not ALL extremo!nerd obsessive behaviors are cool. To say the least.

...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*

[jenparakeet.livejournal.com]

...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*

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?