Friday open thread: fandom love and community spirit

[dolorosa_12]

For those who've just added me through the friending meme and are a bit confused about what's going on, I post an open thread every Friday, with a prompting question to which anyone can respond.

This week's prompt is inspired by the annual holiday love meme. I've never participated in this before — my own anxiety and awkwardness is such that my immediate fear is that I post a thread to the meme, and no one responds, which would just crush me. But this year I've decided to risk it, and so my prompting questions here are twofold:

1. If you want to participate in the love meme, add your thread, and share it in the comments here. I've added me own thread in the link below.

holiday love meme 2020
my thread here

2. Whether you participate in the love meme or not, what is one thing you love about fandom, Dreamwidth, or your fannish community?



The big thing, for me, was the sense of relief at finding people who interacted with stories — with fiction — in the same way that I did. In other words, people for whom the story didn't end when the last page was turned or the credits started to roll, and who didn't see what we were given on the page or screen as being the entirety of the story. I've always been haunted by stories: if they resonate with me, they get into the space behind my heart, between my bones, and don't let me go. Growing up, with a few rare exceptions, I did not encounter any people who shared these feelings about, and reaction to, fiction. So when I did finally go online, and fall into first His Dark Materials fandom, and later transormative fandom more generally, it was like coming home.

I've not been here for as long as some people — just thirteen years so far — but I'm definitely not going anywhere.

Comments

[shadaras]

I love watching people be excited about things they love, and sharing things they love, and creating things to express themselves! I also love fanfic exchanges and the whole idea that we spend so much effort writing things designed to make other people happy. :) It's all really delightful!

[dolorosa_12]

I totally agree! I love that we've created this space where there's no such thing as being too enthusiastic, and with a culture of sharing, and creating gifts for each other (and just in general a community where there's no push to monetise our hobby).

[wheatear]

I love the discussion. It's so much fun to read and participate in discussion about the things we love with like-minded fans.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm here for the discussion too — and for discussing things with people who have the same level of interest, and investment in the things we love.

[author_by_night]

The big thing, for me, was the sense of relief at finding people who interacted with stories — with fiction — in the same way that I did. In other words, people for whom the story didn't end when the last page was turned or the credits started to roll, and who didn't see what we were given on the page or screen as being the entirety of the story.

YES! It's so nice to be able to actually talk about media with people. I wish there were more of it these days, but I take what I can get. I'm also glad I'm not the only one who doesn't just walk away from fiction. It stays with me. Even if I hated it. Sometimes that makes me want to discuss it more! :P

I've always been haunted by stories: if they resonate with me, they get into the space behind my heart, between my bones, and don't let me go.

I love the way you put it here.


I've always written fanfic, so I also liked finding transformative fandom. Even though I don't really write fanfic anymore, I'm still the first to insist that transformative works have a lot of value. I'm glad that the world is becoming more accepting of it.

I'm thankful for the fan community. I know there can be a lot of drama, but there's also a lot of goodness and a lot of things you learn from other people.

[dolorosa_12]

YES! It's so nice to be able to actually talk about media with people. I wish there were more of it these days, but I take what I can get.

It's still going on, it just takes a bit more effort to find, I think. I also think that as fandom has become bigger, there's just more discussion going on — but of a much wider range of things, so it's harder to find conversation about specific media. Maybe it's easier if you're into the megafandom of the moment, but that's basically never happened for me.

I'm thankful for the fan community. I know there can be a lot of drama, but there's also a lot of goodness and a lot of things you learn from other people.

Absolutely! And as to the drama, I'm grateful that it mostly takes place on Twitter and Tumblr, rather than Dreamwidth, so I can avoid it for the most part.

[forestofglory]

A thing I love about fandom is that it encourages me to learn all kinds of new things. I'm currently enjoying my deep dive into the history of Chinese material culture.

[dolorosa_12]

This is so true! And you've reminded me of another thing I love about fandom: it's watching my friends fall in love with new fandoms, learn new things, and share those things with me. So even if I'm not in the fandom in question, I learn something too!

[raven]

That it's been a constant in my life for a really long time. I'm less involved with it as the years go on and I'll definitely never be obsessive in the way I was when I was 13, but it makes me glad to think that I have this continuity, that at some level I'm the same person at 33 as I was at 13, you know?

[dolorosa_12]

That's a beautiful way of putting it. I only started participating in fandom in my early twenties (although the fannish feelings were, of course, a constant in my life for much longer), so I don't quite have the same decades of continuity that you do, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

I also like that it's given me this unbroken, continuous written record of my life (through the mechanism of my interests and obsessions), and I can look back, and see how I've changed.

[bruttimabuoni]

Your answer definitely rang bells with me. I've always live with stories and characters way outside the books I was reading, and eventually that became true of some TV.

But also, I found it just joyful to meet people who have unashamed enthusiasms about things that aren't fashionable. There's lots about fandom that I've not got into (cosplay, meta, figurines), and lots I am enthused about that isn't really fannish (super niche bits of history, for example) but I recognise the joy of being super into a thing and enjoying it openly. I didn't find fandom until well into my twenties, when I could easily have been doing my fannish thing, but I was well schooled as a teen on what it was okay to care about in public.

[dolorosa_12]

I was well schooled as a teen on what it was okay to care about in public.

Oof, I can relate. I have really strong memories of basically being told (either implicity or explicitly) by the people around me that I was too enthusiastic, cared too much, or was too uncritically earnest about the various things I loved, and it was such a relief to fall into a community where that degree of enthusiasm was the norm.

[aphrodite_mine]

here is my link, if I can manage to not mangle the html typing in the dark.

I'd say my favorite thing is community, and relative anonymity. As much as the book of Faces can be useful for connecting with RL people, it is designed to be superficial scrolling. DW is the opposite of that. I can talk about anything without fear that my cousin will share it with my mother, or something equally as annoying. Fandom drama is so refreshingly easy to unplug from.

[dolorosa_12]

I appreciate that as well. I'm quite open about my life in fannish spaces, and I generally operate under the principle that I should not share anything openly online that I would not be happy with everyone in my life reading, but I like the fact that Dreamwidth and other fannish spaces give people a degree of curation and control that doesn't exist on other online platforms.

[chestnut_pod]

It's fashionable to dunk on tumblr, but I absolutely credit my tumblr circle starting c. 2012 with making me a good person who can take criticism and who cares enough about people to be getting a doctorate in people! Which is quite a lot to lay at the feet of one social media experience, but as a very lonely baby queer Jew in the hinterlands of rural Catholic NorCal, I think my overall development as a person could have gone many ways. The array of media, perspectives, people, and critiques that I came into contact with then let me develop in a safe space and name my priorities, and learn when I was going against those priorities! I'm no longer on tumblr, but I'll always be grateful to that part of my fandom narrative for a fantastic education.

[dolorosa_12]

Awww, this is so heartwarming to read. I never really found that same sense of community and connection on Tumblr, but I really love to hear about other people's experiences. It's wonderful that the platform was such an educational space for you, and brought you into contact with people and perspectives that helped shape your own perspective and priorities.

(Also, hooray for the doctorate — always lovely to meet other people who have or are pursuing PhDs!)

[lirazel]

I 1000000% agree about loving how others in fandom connect to stories on a deeper level than most people. But I'll add something else I love: how I have gotten to know people who are from such different backgrounds than I am, who have different perspectives on and insights into the world, who have taught me so much and broadened my view of the world. I don't want to think about the person I'd be if I'd never found fandom.

[dolorosa_12]

I totally agree with you. My first circle of fannish friends was mainly pretty similar to me in terms of background and outlook, but almost all of them came from the opposite side of the world. And as I moved into fandom more generally and met new people, I defintely came into contact with people of vastly different experiences and identities. (For me, it was originally very eye-opening to meet so many people who were open about being gay, lesbian, bi or trans, because growing up in the 1990s, this was not, in general, something that people were open about. I grew up in what were for the time very socially liberal circles, but the attitude was very much, 'there's nothing wrong with being gay ... but I'm straight!' I think if I'd been in fandom when I was a teenager, rather than only starting to participate when I was in my twenties, I might have understood my own sexuality better, from an earlier age.)