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Dear random person,
Oct. 15th, 2010 11:28 amYou wrote a Livejournal entry on how slashers were portrayed in one article as freaks.
Fanfiction, for all its popularity, is not mainstream. Sexy fanfiction, it would follow, even less so. Sexy homoerotic fanfiction with characters that are usually portrayed as heterosexual in the canon-actually, that seems to be the majority of sexy fanfiction-but the point holds that it can still squick the mundanes out.
There are some problematic, misinformed items in the articles mentioned, but your reaction has a bit of what's called "Fan Myopia" by TVTropes; assuming that because you like something, it's more popular and mainstream than it really is. I've learned to accept my geekiness. If I start talking about Warhammer 40K in mixed company, I'd expect confused looks. If I were a furry and I started talking to a random stranger about albino ice phoenix hermaphrodite yiffing, they'd walk off in disgust. I've accepted that a lot of the things I like are, well, weird. That doesn't mean that they're wrong, just unusual.
And fandom doesn't exactly come with water wings. You can't really blame uninitiates for not knowing what the difference between "slash" and "gen" are, or not knowing a "fen" from a "filk". In fact, like a lot of movements that worry about their public image, all the specialized vocabulary seems designed to lock out newcomers until the Worshipful Master teaches them the codewords. And that's not even getting into the even more specific terms individual fandoms use. By the time someone knows enough about any given fandom to write knowledgeably about it, they're effectively fen themselves.
Bottom line; fandom isn't mainstream, and there's not much use hand-wringing every time a person from a certain group who acts like an idiot ends up in front of a camera or interviewer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go work on my Firefly AU. I might work on my Firefly/CSI Miami crossover if I have time, though.
Sincerely,
Jonn
Fanfiction, for all its popularity, is not mainstream. Sexy fanfiction, it would follow, even less so. Sexy homoerotic fanfiction with characters that are usually portrayed as heterosexual in the canon-actually, that seems to be the majority of sexy fanfiction-but the point holds that it can still squick the mundanes out.
There are some problematic, misinformed items in the articles mentioned, but your reaction has a bit of what's called "Fan Myopia" by TVTropes; assuming that because you like something, it's more popular and mainstream than it really is. I've learned to accept my geekiness. If I start talking about Warhammer 40K in mixed company, I'd expect confused looks. If I were a furry and I started talking to a random stranger about albino ice phoenix hermaphrodite yiffing, they'd walk off in disgust. I've accepted that a lot of the things I like are, well, weird. That doesn't mean that they're wrong, just unusual.
And fandom doesn't exactly come with water wings. You can't really blame uninitiates for not knowing what the difference between "slash" and "gen" are, or not knowing a "fen" from a "filk". In fact, like a lot of movements that worry about their public image, all the specialized vocabulary seems designed to lock out newcomers until the Worshipful Master teaches them the codewords. And that's not even getting into the even more specific terms individual fandoms use. By the time someone knows enough about any given fandom to write knowledgeably about it, they're effectively fen themselves.
Bottom line; fandom isn't mainstream, and there's not much use hand-wringing every time a person from a certain group who acts like an idiot ends up in front of a camera or interviewer. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go work on my Firefly AU. I might work on my Firefly/CSI Miami crossover if I have time, though.
Sincerely,
Jonn
