Fandom Meta

executrix - Being a Fan (To the Tune of "Being Alive") In some ways, fandom really is like one of those improv performances where the actors work with lines shouted out by the audience. However, a) they have a lot more prepared than they'd like you to think, and b) maybe on another stage, today's audience is the cast. But here and now, they're the audience. The performers hope that the performance will please them ("and they who live to please must please to live") but that doesn't mean the audience necessarily can act and direct.

fabu - Anonymous memes and intimidation I guess there's something fun about speaking your mind without being held accountable for it, and (in these more recent ones where people submit their own names), there's something intriguing about (potentially) getting the the unvarnished truth about how people see you. (Based on recent, non-anonymous comments in my journal, I suspect the unvarnished truth about how people see me is "not short.")

melyanna - Sexism and fandom nostalgia_lj got me thinking today, for some reason, about gender roles and such in fandom. Generally I tend to think that fandom is overly fascinated with issues relating to sex and gender – for some reason I was, until recently, not all that interested in women's issues.

worldserpent - Contract vs. Status So awhile back, Jonathan Franzen wrote this essay in the New Yorker about how he gave up reading this author because his books weren't entertaining enough. . . . Anyway, he laid out two types of models: Contract and Status. . . . In some ways, the distinction between Status and Contract isn't equal. When we talk about fictional works, it's clear that most of them fall into the Contract catagory. And in a way, couldn't you say that Status is in itself a sort of Contract, and that 'difficulty' is itself a specialized kind of pleasure? So rather than there being two poles, could we instead visualize it as a nested Venn diagram?

commodorified - So, this is my Theory I did a poll a while ago on reading habits; if you were one of the 139 people who participated, thank you. The first thing I learned is that livejournal polls are not a suitable tool for doing robust social science. I have a snapshot; it's a neat and interesting snapshot, but it's just a snapshot.

eurydice72 - Fic reading preferences got to thinking about how we read fic. For instance, I'm not keen on reading fic where it's light text on a dark background. I'd much rather have black text on a light-colored background.

penfreaks - [I was happily eating stroganoff] Why do people like angst so much? Seriously, angst is probably the most common genre of fanfiction.

Specific Fandom Meta

( Cut for possible Spoilers for the Fandoms: House, HP, anime )

On Reading and Writing

isiscolo - anonymity and authorship Secret-author fests are aggravating in a way, because as a writer I want immediate recognition and plaudits! But as a reader, I appreciate them, because they force me to evaluate stories on their own merits, without any of the baggage that comes with the author's name. I always try to be fair and impartial when reading (and recommending) stories, setting aside any personal feelings or associations I have with any particular author, but sometimes it's difficult - and sometimes I can't tell whether I'm truly managing to do this.

invisionary - Is there an intangible quality to writing? A lot of people will tell you that there's more to being a good musician than just technical skill. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. As an example, take one of my favorite guitarists, David Gilmour. A lot of different players and bands have covered Pink Floyd over the years, but I've never heard a cover version of the solo for Time that hit me the same way Gilmour's original did. The same holds true for their other songs; these other guitarists are playing the same notes, arranged in the same way, but to my ear, there's just something missing. Even if it sounds the same (or really close to it), it doesn't feel the same. Do you think the same thing can hold true for writing?

thelana - An opiniated reader's opinion on what makes good ficPlease yourself. Ultimately, write what you like. Write your story, let it rest for a few days. Then reread it and ask yourself if this is the kind of story you would want to read if you were a new reader.

Links, Polls, Questions, etc

dis_mount - [I have a question for all of you lovely people] How and when did you first get interested in slash?