I've got a theory-- DON'T START SINGING, YOU LOT
(Huh. The irony of the fact that I'm sitting here chugging Orange Crush has not escaped me. ;)
Seriously, I've been thinking. I know it's a natural human tendency to say "back in my day, etc and so forth" -- it's called "euchronia," the belief that there was once a "golden age" of sorts, or at very least that it was better when you were younger.
So I'll be fair and state clearly, for starters, that fandom has always been batshit crazy at heart. Gamers, writers, artists...we're inherently all just a little bit insane, really. As far back as you'll find media fandom you'll find tales of flamewars and freaks, of malcontents and the maladjusted.
But I think I can honestly say that fandom is really taking the cake for teh crazeh over these last few years, culminating in this mindboggling geyser of psychosis triggered by the new Harry Potter book. Death/abortion wishes directed at the author...racial slurs sent to the family of the girl slated to play Cho Chang...holy mackeral. It's getting to the point that people like me who merely like the books are saying "I'm not a Harry Potter fan" in the way many outspoken liberated women nevertheless tend to preface certain sentences with "I'm not a 'feminist' but..."
LOTR fandom, mainly the actor side, probably comes in second for the wacky, though at the moment it's a pale ghostly second as most of LOTR's loons are fading out as the lack of new movies has taken the wind from their sails. (Thank Eru.) Third would probably have to be Full-Metal Alchemist and any other anime that has recently made the leap to English mainstream via Cartoon Netwark and the like. (I'll leave that up to someone who understands the genre better, because quite frankly after watching all of Revolutionary Girl Utena anime tends to run together in my brain into a sticky gooey mess of bright colors and speed lines.)
I've read some fascinating essays on the subject of late, two of which are must-read.
yourlibrarian describes the echo chamber effect, which is a phenomenom I've been aware of for ages now but never had the right terminology to work with. The other is, of course, angua9's brilliant dissection of the persistant Harmonian Delusion, in which she is ever so much more deft and clever than I could ever hope to be. Good reading.
One question is left unanswered, however. This is how they are, but why? And this is where I've been thinking, and where my theory comes in. Please note that I am about to start using broad and possibly biased generalizations; I'm not newbie-bashing, and I am not saying all nufen fall into this category. But I believe it accounts for a broad stroke of the real crazies. (Also keep in mind that I shouldn't be waxing essayish while sleepy and working.)
My thoughts run like this: up until about 7-10 years ago, being a girl who was into fantasy or sci-fi -- heck, into reading at all -- was unusual. Being a girl into anime or roleplaying or conventions was even weirder. These hobbies aren't something you just accidentally stumble into because your friends are into it, unless you have very strange friends, in which case you're already a very strange person. ;)
So what I'm saying is, to be a geek, you had to have geek cred. And to be a girl geek, that meant getting the boys to accept you, and that meant not being a shallow girly-girl. You probably spent years reading and daydreaming and scribbling and basically accumulating a certain "mindset": that in a good story (or game) bad things happen to good people and life isn't predictable. That it's not necessarily about who gets the girl or who ends up with whom, but rather about who saves the world or who dies nobly in the process, and you can't change it because it's already been written...possibly before you were even born.
Enter the new "generation" of fans. I do not mean to paint a cruel stereotype, I just want to be honest here: a lot of these girls (and yes, most of them are girls) never picked up a good SF/F book in their life before they saw The Movies that all their friends were seeing. They then fell in love with what they saw, (usually) enough to want to read the books. This is not a bad thing! Fandom has received a huge influx of fabulous new artists, writers, and ideas from this easy-access "gateway," and for that I am grateful.
Unfortunately, it also brought in a time-bomb element. Many of these girls do not have the classic Geek Mindset mentioned above, or are incapable of developing it, or simply do not realize that they should. They are not focused on the plot; caught in a naïve high-school mindset, they are instead entranced by the social factors (both seen and imagined) between characters. To them, the paramount importance isn't who's going to save the world or how they're going to do it, it's who's going to be dating who in the meantime...and who's going "live happily ever after" together.
And again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this! I admit that I personally think most shipping is silly; I was "raised" as the archetypical old-school "token girl geek." (My mom once called me and my friends "Wendy and the Lost Boys," heh.) Thus, in my world view of fannish media, romance takes a bottom rung to plot and characterization and oooshiny. However, it's none of my business why somebody enjoys their fandom. If someone loves Harry Potter because they're rooting for Neville/Luna, or if they're into LOTR because the movie boys are so gosh-darn pretty, well, all right then. At least they're into fandom, period. This is a good thing...
...until they get crazy about it. Until they start to feel that canon isn't delivering what they expect thanks to their geek-free upbringing. Mundane society pounds home the lesson that the hero deserves to get the girl, and vice versa; if the hero doesn't get the girl, Something Is Wrong. These fans have defined their Hero and their Girl (possibly investing something of themselves in the girl in question, don't tell me there's not a little claudestine self-insertion going on there!), and when the plot doesn't live up to their Disney-fed expectations it's Wrong and they're upset*.
Unfortunately, in this Internet age they can lash out easily and directly. Their own particular "echo chamber" feeds and fuels that discontent until they do so. And this is considered acceptable behavior...?! In whose world? *boggles*
I suppose what I'm trying to say that the popularity of Harry Potter and the LOTR movies (and, to a degree, Cartoon Network) has brought a huge influx of new people into the fandom...but I hesitate to call them "fans" in the geek sense of the word. They're people who wouldn't even be fans otherwise, who expect something entirely different (and erroneous) from the source material which was not written with their desires in mind.
I don't mean to sound elitist about it; obviously some have actual talents or are intelligent enough to find other reasons to stay and other fandoms to enjoy, and I say good for them and great for us! But I think the fact remains that if the Harry Potter books weren't popular (and easy to read), if the LOTR movies hadn't been so prettily cast, these wannabes would never have stooped anywhere near the fandom "fold." They're not really into fantasy, or fandom, or even reading -- all they honestly care about the pretteh pretteh bois or Who Ends Up With Whom because that's what they've been raised to expect from life. They're only here for the eye-candy and the squee.
And quite frankly, they're wearing out their welcome.
* Yeah, well, I'm upset that Frank Herbert died before writing the last Dune book, and that Chris Tolkien butchered his father's life-work. Suck it up, kiddies -- at least your author's still alive to give you more canon!
Seriously, I've been thinking. I know it's a natural human tendency to say "back in my day, etc and so forth" -- it's called "euchronia," the belief that there was once a "golden age" of sorts, or at very least that it was better when you were younger.
So I'll be fair and state clearly, for starters, that fandom has always been batshit crazy at heart. Gamers, writers, artists...we're inherently all just a little bit insane, really. As far back as you'll find media fandom you'll find tales of flamewars and freaks, of malcontents and the maladjusted.
But I think I can honestly say that fandom is really taking the cake for teh crazeh over these last few years, culminating in this mindboggling geyser of psychosis triggered by the new Harry Potter book. Death/abortion wishes directed at the author...racial slurs sent to the family of the girl slated to play Cho Chang...holy mackeral. It's getting to the point that people like me who merely like the books are saying "I'm not a Harry Potter fan" in the way many outspoken liberated women nevertheless tend to preface certain sentences with "I'm not a 'feminist' but..."
LOTR fandom, mainly the actor side, probably comes in second for the wacky, though at the moment it's a pale ghostly second as most of LOTR's loons are fading out as the lack of new movies has taken the wind from their sails. (Thank Eru.) Third would probably have to be Full-Metal Alchemist and any other anime that has recently made the leap to English mainstream via Cartoon Netwark and the like. (I'll leave that up to someone who understands the genre better, because quite frankly after watching all of Revolutionary Girl Utena anime tends to run together in my brain into a sticky gooey mess of bright colors and speed lines.)
I've read some fascinating essays on the subject of late, two of which are must-read.
yourlibrarian describes the echo chamber effect, which is a phenomenom I've been aware of for ages now but never had the right terminology to work with. The other is, of course, angua9's brilliant dissection of the persistant Harmonian Delusion, in which she is ever so much more deft and clever than I could ever hope to be. Good reading.One question is left unanswered, however. This is how they are, but why? And this is where I've been thinking, and where my theory comes in. Please note that I am about to start using broad and possibly biased generalizations; I'm not newbie-bashing, and I am not saying all nufen fall into this category. But I believe it accounts for a broad stroke of the real crazies. (Also keep in mind that I shouldn't be waxing essayish while sleepy and working.)
My thoughts run like this: up until about 7-10 years ago, being a girl who was into fantasy or sci-fi -- heck, into reading at all -- was unusual. Being a girl into anime or roleplaying or conventions was even weirder. These hobbies aren't something you just accidentally stumble into because your friends are into it, unless you have very strange friends, in which case you're already a very strange person. ;)
So what I'm saying is, to be a geek, you had to have geek cred. And to be a girl geek, that meant getting the boys to accept you, and that meant not being a shallow girly-girl. You probably spent years reading and daydreaming and scribbling and basically accumulating a certain "mindset": that in a good story (or game) bad things happen to good people and life isn't predictable. That it's not necessarily about who gets the girl or who ends up with whom, but rather about who saves the world or who dies nobly in the process, and you can't change it because it's already been written...possibly before you were even born.
Enter the new "generation" of fans. I do not mean to paint a cruel stereotype, I just want to be honest here: a lot of these girls (and yes, most of them are girls) never picked up a good SF/F book in their life before they saw The Movies that all their friends were seeing. They then fell in love with what they saw, (usually) enough to want to read the books. This is not a bad thing! Fandom has received a huge influx of fabulous new artists, writers, and ideas from this easy-access "gateway," and for that I am grateful.
Unfortunately, it also brought in a time-bomb element. Many of these girls do not have the classic Geek Mindset mentioned above, or are incapable of developing it, or simply do not realize that they should. They are not focused on the plot; caught in a naïve high-school mindset, they are instead entranced by the social factors (both seen and imagined) between characters. To them, the paramount importance isn't who's going to save the world or how they're going to do it, it's who's going to be dating who in the meantime...and who's going "live happily ever after" together.
And again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this! I admit that I personally think most shipping is silly; I was "raised" as the archetypical old-school "token girl geek." (My mom once called me and my friends "Wendy and the Lost Boys," heh.) Thus, in my world view of fannish media, romance takes a bottom rung to plot and characterization and oooshiny. However, it's none of my business why somebody enjoys their fandom. If someone loves Harry Potter because they're rooting for Neville/Luna, or if they're into LOTR because the movie boys are so gosh-darn pretty, well, all right then. At least they're into fandom, period. This is a good thing...
...until they get crazy about it. Until they start to feel that canon isn't delivering what they expect thanks to their geek-free upbringing. Mundane society pounds home the lesson that the hero deserves to get the girl, and vice versa; if the hero doesn't get the girl, Something Is Wrong. These fans have defined their Hero and their Girl (possibly investing something of themselves in the girl in question, don't tell me there's not a little claudestine self-insertion going on there!), and when the plot doesn't live up to their Disney-fed expectations it's Wrong and they're upset*.
Unfortunately, in this Internet age they can lash out easily and directly. Their own particular "echo chamber" feeds and fuels that discontent until they do so. And this is considered acceptable behavior...?! In whose world? *boggles*
I suppose what I'm trying to say that the popularity of Harry Potter and the LOTR movies (and, to a degree, Cartoon Network) has brought a huge influx of new people into the fandom...but I hesitate to call them "fans" in the geek sense of the word. They're people who wouldn't even be fans otherwise, who expect something entirely different (and erroneous) from the source material which was not written with their desires in mind.
I don't mean to sound elitist about it; obviously some have actual talents or are intelligent enough to find other reasons to stay and other fandoms to enjoy, and I say good for them and great for us! But I think the fact remains that if the Harry Potter books weren't popular (and easy to read), if the LOTR movies hadn't been so prettily cast, these wannabes would never have stooped anywhere near the fandom "fold." They're not really into fantasy, or fandom, or even reading -- all they honestly care about the pretteh pretteh bois or Who Ends Up With Whom because that's what they've been raised to expect from life. They're only here for the eye-candy and the squee.
And quite frankly, they're wearing out their welcome.
* Yeah, well, I'm upset that Frank Herbert died before writing the last Dune book, and that Chris Tolkien butchered his father's life-work. Suck it up, kiddies -- at least your author's still alive to give you more canon!