The Definition of Fan

[sistermagpie]

Reading about the recent…episode…is reminding me that people have very strong feelings about BNFs--some feelings even border on disturbing. It started me thinking about the question of definitions, specifically

BNF and Fan.

These two words are absolutely central to the fandom experience, yet they’re both argued over all the time. I think part of what makes them both so difficult is that they’re very much "I know it when I see it" words, and when someone tries to define them more clearly they start to drift away from the way they’re really used.

For instance: fan. When I first came into HP fandom I always felt I needed to confess that I wasn’t really a "fan" of the books because they weren’t special books to me. I didn’t re-read them for the pleasure of re-reading them, they weren’t "my books" in that way. But eventually I realized it was pointless for me to protest I wasn’t a fan because I was in the fandom. It didn’t matter that I didn’t loooooove the books, what made me a fan was the way I related to them and focused on them. There might be plenty of other people who profess to love the books more than I do and have far fewer problems with them, but they never think about them when they’re not reading them. I think between me and someone who loved the books but hadn’t given them much thought any random person would accurately name me as the "fan" based on my tons of essays and discussions about them. The other person would be a "fan" in the casual sense—they like the books. I would be a fan meaning I was in the fandom, and that’s the definition I use on lj.

That brings up the question of whether one is no longer a fan if one becomes disappointed with the source material. Some would say one can’t be both, but if it’s true, what do we call the many people who are active in every fandom and also very critical? I stayed in X-Files fandom until the show ended, yet I thought the last couple of seasons were horrible, even to the point of betraying the whole point of the show. Did that make me no longer a fan? It seems pointless to say so, since I was still active in the fandom. I was just now one of the fans to whom people said, "If you don’t like the show, why do you watch it?" and who had to point out that I enjoyed talking about the show, that my fandom interest was never based on just passively liking it. I was still enjoying pulling it apart and seeing how it worked and didn’t work.

The second definition that gets fuzzy is BNF/Big Name Fan. Lately I’ve seen a number of calls to level the playing field in canon by defining BNF as only fen who have some kind of contact with the people involved in the creation of the source material. The closer you are to them, the bigger you are. In HP, for instance, Emerson is a BNF because JKR knows who he is and has been interviewed by him. I would never challenge Emerson’s status as a BNF—on the "I know it when I see it" scale I’d give him a yes (there’s plenty of BNFs I’ve never heard of—HP is a big fandom with lots of people producing stuff). But not because he has had contact with JKR. For me that definition, where he’s a BNF because he has had contact with the "only true" BNF, JKR, is completely strange. First of all, JKR is not a BNF. She is not any kind of F, she’s the author of the source material. Secondly, I just see no more reason to be impressed with someone for having contact with a celebrity than I do to be impressed with someone for writing a widely-read fanfic. Actually, to be honest, I am more impressed with the fanficcer if I admire his/her work.

That’s just the way I center my fandom experience. It’s about creating things in fandom in response to the source material, be it art, Meta, fic or a service for others like an archive. It’s all centered in the fandom community, not the world outside the community. Someone having celebrity contact to me is just like…eh, it’s just a person with a potentially good anecdote (and equal potential for a boring anecdote). I know plenty of people who have interviewed or somehow come into contact with celebrities and it means very little to me—not because I’m so above that sort of thing but because it just literally usually means very little. Celebrities get interviewed; they get seen by regular people sometimes. My coming into contact with one says absolutely nothing about me except that I happened to have this contact with the person one day. If someone has more contact than that, like if they have an ongoing true relationship with a celebrity, and it makes them a BNF, frankly it makes me think less of them, not more, because why are they trading details of their friendship with strangers in fandom?

So it basically comes down to my tailoring my experience in fandom differently than other people do. Some people are interested in the author, the actors, the movie-making or tv-producing process. I’ve always been more about the fictional world and what people have to say about that. It’s like two different fan universes that orbit around different centers and perhaps both think the other is very strange. I’ve read plenty of posts where people argue that fans should "respect the canon" or the author by writing the characters the way that fan thinks the author says they should be written, or not changing certain aspects of the world in fanfic, or agreeing with the author’s take on any random subject.

Clearly they wouldn’t post these things if they didn’t think them, yet to me they’re completely bizarre. It’s like someone telling me to create some fictional master for myself that I must obey and please while I’m in fandom for no reason. Why would I model the things I could say about the books or the world in general on some random person just because they wrote the books? I mean, of course there is a certain respect I pay to the author as a human being. If the author didn’t like people putting up pictures of her child, for instance, I’d respect that opinion (I wouldn’t do it in the first place!). But a lot of the stuff other fans call me to respect seems completely odd to me. The things that some people think make one "cooler" as a fan might be the things that make me cringe with embarrassment and vice versa.

In fact, sometimes it just seems to come back to the same thing everyone claims to want to avoid, which is power imbalance in fandom. If we stop giving undeserved respect to fans on the basis of their sub-creations (fics, art, archives, etc.) and place it where it belongs, with the author, then we’ll all have a more realistic and egalitarian view or ourselves as fans, right? Well, no, wrong. Because as is always seen in fandom, that’s just another power set up based on different principles. It’s almost like the difference between a society with a power base of artisans or intellectuals (using the terms a little tongue-in-cheek since we are talking about fanfic and porn) and one where the power lies with the priests—that is, with fans claiming to be oracles for the god creator. Both systems are easily corrupted or lead to power imbalances. Both are going to create BNFs and those BNFs are going to have circles of friends and so inspire resentment in those inclined to need to be friends with them just because of their status. Both groups of BNFs "control" fandom in different ways. The first group makes people feel that people "only read" fics recced by them or whatever. The second group privileges contributions they deem "author supported" over any they don’t, and quickly comes to mistake their own preferences for canon anyway.

In both cases the real power to "fight against" the oppression lies in the individual him/herself. As I said I do believe that fans can make things unpleasant for other fans and so influence what gets said. There’s sometimes an uneasy balance between people who need to be their own person and learn to deal with disagreement and people who act maliciously (or just poorly) and don’t take real responsibility for it. It’s easy to do the one and accuse everyone else of doing the other.

Comments

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It seems to me, and this is really not a fully formed theory, that the BIG resentments created by the power imbalances often come from a misunderstanding of how power is created and maintained. We all feel the little resentments of power; I resent that there are people who only think of me as a friend of someone else when I've been writing since 2002, for example. Or sometimes I resent that I keep feeling drawn to ships (across fandoms!) that aren't all that popular. But the former is about people who don't know me, so whatever, and the latter is about my own choices, so too bad.

When I see people talk about someone climbing up some fandom ladder or asking why someone else became mysteriously popular or talking about closed off inner circles I'm always confused because that isn't the way it actually works. There isn't a path that you walk down and the more fangirls you bloody the bigger a BNF you are. Popularity is usually about doing the right thing at the right time to please the largest number of people, of giving people what they want when they want it. And who knows how that happens?

What's unfortunate is when the cult of personality around a particular BNF is such that there is some afterglow to being their friend. The more that happens, the more that they want to make their friends exclusive, because who knows if that stranger wants to be their friend just because, or wants to use their popularity because they think it will make THEM popular? And then when you mix archives and modding into that heady mix, it's just a mess, because then the inner circles have real, actual power over other people which can sometimes be meted out capriciously, not only because not everyone is a good mod but also because when you know and trust someone you might give them a break. Add to THAT a philosophical conflict that turns into a proxy war that gets people defending their friends and you get . . .

Well, you get HP fandom in 2003, is what you get.

The thing is, nearly all of these things happen all the time, all over the place. Anyone who was a "good kid" in high school, for example, remembers that they could wander the hallways any old time they wanted to and the principal would pretty much assume that they were just on the way to some place, not cutting class. Anyone who has looked to staff a volunteer organization has turned first to people that they knew and trusted, and then to the people that their friends knew and trusted.

I've been thinking about this a lot, for obvious reasons, for a really long time. When the whole inner circle thing first was talked about in mid-2002 I wasn't in it, so I really have seen it from both sides now and it both isn't as simple as it looks from the inside, nor as Machiavellian as it looks from the outside.

As for the whole genuflecting in the direction of the original genius, well, we agree about that one. I don't think there is anything that pisses me off more than someone trying to tell me what kind of fan I have to be.

Okay, sorry, that was long and probably off topic!

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this a lot, for obvious reasons, for a really long time. When the whole inner circle thing first was talked about in mid-2002 I wasn't in it, so I really have seen it from both sides now and it both isn't as simple as it looks from the inside, nor as Machiavellian as it looks from the outside.

This is a very apt description.

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

Not surprisingly, you have just described my own experience in fandom. I couldn't have described it better :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yup, that's the view from over here anyway!

[jollityfarm.livejournal.com]

Something I read in the library today, in the introduction to the tenth Sandman novel (The Wake), I found interesting. The guy who wrote that intorduction - can't remember his name - said a lot of things about the character of Dream, what he thought of him and his actions. He then said that those thoughts might be completely different to Gaiman's own, but that was the mark of a well-created character - one that can become something beyond mere formula and develop inside people's heads without the author having to nudge anyone along. I rather liked that, and I think it sort of goes with how I feel about being a fan of something. It's my business, not the business of Rowling or any of her other fans. If I am getting some kind of enjoyment related to the books, that is for me to care about, and not for anyone else to police, or to complain that I'm not being a proper fan about it.

Besides, I'm sure the people trying to make all the fans fit a certain mould have their own "guilty pleasures". Look at all the people who love to criticise and pull apart dreadful fanfiction. They might say how appalling it all is, but nobody is forcing them to read it, and certainly not to spend a good portion of time going through it and picking out all their least favourite parts.

There is also the fact that I like to imagine things from another point of view. How would so-and-so have viewed that scene? What would X have thought of Y? Stuff that isn't in the books. Apart from the fact that I don't get to pick and choose which characters I become drawn to or fascinated by, there is also the fact of this being quite a respectable thing to do, literature-wise. Anyone who has read Wide Sargasso Sea will know that there can be other points of view, and that they can sometimes be fascinating. That book isn't rubbishing Jane Eyre, it's just a new pair of eyes. Someone can have criticisms of the points of view presented in a book, and yet still find the story so fascinating that they want to explore more of it. I don't know enough about Jean Rhys to know whether she would decribe herself as a "fan" of Jane Eyre, but I wouldn't complain if she did, and I doubt anyone else would, either.

I think I may be rambling, though. Do excuse me :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Besides, I'm sure the people trying to make all the fans fit a certain mould have their own "guilty pleasures". Look at all the people who love to criticise and pull apart dreadful fanfiction. They might say how appalling it all is, but nobody is forcing them to read it, and certainly not to spend a good portion of time going through it and picking out all their least favourite parts.

That's a great point--and really everybody probably bases their ideas on what it's okay to criticize on their own criteria. They might be consistent in their own thinking, but it might different from someone else's. For instance, one one hand you can say, as you did, that nobody is forcing you to read bad fanfic and spork it, so you shouldn't ever say someone should stop reading canon if they are bothered by it. But that other person is probably seeing themselves as consistent: they are supporting canon by sporking badfic, because the badfic is not canon and deviating from canon is bad.

It's always kind of interesting to look at seemingly conflicting opinions and see if there's a real consistency you're not seeing. Like the way different ideas about life/death go together (very common for anti-abortion to go with pro-death penalty, for instance, where the thought process maybe seems more inconsistent than it is because the arguments being made aren't really what the person's thinking).

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the point of fandom, and about the different philosophies of BNFdom as well. Probably the move towards a "canon-centric" version of BNFdom has a lot to do with the ship-related aspects of the recent wank--e.g., the GT folks (and those who were wrongly associated with them, like the SQers and other OBWHF shippers) were right in their shipping predictions and more pleased with the later books, and were also falsely maligned by the H/Hr shippers and MsScribe, ergo they win and that means BNFdom should be "handed out" according to their terms. I sympathize with GTers' feeings of vindication. Though I do think it's worth noting that, although the Canonites (for lack of a better term, and I would count myself among this group) were right in our shipping predictions, most of us were also wrong about our other predictions--for instance, about the character of Draco Malfoy and the direction JKR would take him.

The other thing about this "how should we determine who the BNFs are" debate is that we don't determine who they are. A "BNF," as I've always thought of the term, basically just means a fan who lots of other fans have heard of. For whatever reason. Fame is not something that gets dispensed deliberately for consistent reasons. It just happens.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, yeah. There's definitely a lot of that feeling that I've seen in fandom--and so very bizarre. I mean, I predicted OBHWF and yet I don't at all feel like that was a victory for me. That is, I don't think it gives me any credit except what it is--I saw that coming. Maybe somebody might be more likely to listen to me on something else if they thought hey, if I saw that maybe I saw something else they didn't see. But that's not really what's happening in shipping wars, because in shipping wars there are often arguments on *both sides* that are equally silly. I've heard plenty of whacked-out things said about H/G that I still think don't hold up despite the ship itself becoming canon. So the idea that there's any kind of status to be meted out based on guessing a ship is just crazy to me.

Fame is not something that gets dispensed deliberately for consistent reasons. It just happens.

Yes, totally. Maybe if you really studied the contributions of a BNF you would be able to track what thing they produced at what time that got them attention, but the fact remains that nobody can control it. You can't really design a BNF. Even from what little I have seen about the msscribe stuff--did she really give herself fame on her own? Or is the idea that she just got to be friends with certain people who may have been BNFs but were just regular people? What she did, I guess, to gain her own fame was to engineer dramas with herself at the center, and to be honest that is a way to get fame. It's a terrible way, but it is a kind of fame.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I’ve seen a number of calls to level the playing field in canon by defining BNF as only fen who have some kind of contact with the people involved in the creation of the source material. The closer you are to them, the bigger you are.

This concept is really foreign to me except in one specific type of fandom, which would be one that is focuses on RPF, in which case it is still really fucked up, but at least makes a little bit of sense to me. In that case, "BNF" would not just have contact with the creator of the source material, but with the actual source material itself, and when you're writing RPF, hearsay is your canon. Anyone who can bring you bits of information becomes valuable.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Good point--it's a lot like in TV fandoms where people have access to spoilers. There are people who get fandom points for having spoilers, sometimes doling them out like candy a little at a time. I imagine someone with access to stars, even in just a celebrity-centered fandom, is part of creating canon. Though again if the person is too close to the stars I'd be creeped out by them, because what kind of relationship do you have with these people if you're giving it out to strangers for use in their fanfic?

[agarttha.livejournal.com]

Frankly I do not see the point of it....I like Harry Potter, I like how people read it, I like to see a literary world take shape in imaginations other than mine... Sometimes there are good stories, apt observations, mostly there is badly written sex when teenage boys think and act like simpering teenage girls. But-- I couldn't care about the name of the person who said those things, or who they are, or where they live. I do not care. That's what the internet is about-- faceless ideas that fight for validity, recognition on their own merit. I was not aware of who Cassie Claire was until a few months ago, I have tried to reach the alarmingly tedious Trilogy and failed, and will try my very best to forget that I know this one name.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing--I think that your experience is like a lot of peoples'. It's very much like my own, since I just came into fandom and read fics and wanted to talk about the books. Most of the people I came to admire I admired because of my own thoughts on them, like I liked their writing or I enjoyed talking to them. There would often be no way of my knowing they had this special status of BNF or not.

[skelkins.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting combination of issues, I think, because there's a third definition of "fan" that you didn't touch on so much, but which I think is highly relevant here, and that's the definition of fan that's all about Cult of Celebrity.

One can be a fan in the sense that you (and I) tend to use the term ("A fan is a person who is unusually actively engaged with the source text"), or one can be a fan in the "canon whore" sense ("A fan is a person who simply adores the source text"), but there's a third meaning of the word as well, which is all about the transference of respect for a person's work into a desire to be close to that person, often to the extent of eroticizing them. The stereotypical "screaming fans" of boy bands, for example, are fans in this third sense: what makes them fans is not so much that they're 'fanatic' about the band or its music per se; it's that they've transferred their love of the music into a highly personalized, and often eroticized, fixation on the music's producers.

I think that this third way of being a fan is certainly related to the second, but it's not quite the same thing. One can be overwhelmingly and uncritically in love with a book, for example, and therefore consider oneself to be a "true canon fan," without feeling any particular desire to get close to the book's author.

I don't think that anyone likes to think of themselves as falling into this third category of 'fan.' When we do talk about it, we usually do so quite derogatively: "drooling fangirls," "nutty stalkers," etc. Yet, at the same time, I think you do see a lot of manifestations of it within fandom circles. There's a kind of half-joking eroticization to the way that a lot of fans talk to each other, for example, that I can't quite help but read as a recognition of the fact that indeed, even the soberest of us sometimes do find ourselves "fangirling" each other, just a little bit. ("Marry me!" fans cry to express their approbation, and "have my internet babies!" and they greet each other with *snogs* and suchnot -- and what is all of that really meaning to convey, anyway? It's a joke, sure, we all get that, but what's the uncomfortable truth that the joke is working to gloss?) The very nature of LJ fandom, for that matter, often seems tailored to facilitate this cognitive confusion: when you really like someone's writing, then you're encouraged to "friend" them on livejournal, right?

One of the things that I find so interesting about the way people are talking about the whole BNF phenomenon is that there seems to be an unwillingness to recognize that there's really no great difference between feeling a desire to meet JK Rowling in person because you liked her books, and - say - wanting to have lunch with Cassie Claire because you liked the Draco Trilogy, or because you admired her internet persona. I mean, they're both exactly the same thing, aren't they? In both cases, it's something that happens when people extrapolate their admiration for someone's work into a desire for a more personal relationship. Yet I don't think that people who would jump at the chance to meet Rowling in person are viewed with nearly the same degree of scorn as those who hanker after a more personal relationship with a fan whose work they have admired. I guess this gets into what you were saying about producers and fans not being the same: like you said, JKR isn't any sort of an 'F'; she's the producer, yo!, which is a very different role.

Yet I do find it very interesting that many of the people who seem to be the most horrified by the BNF phenomenon right now are also people who don't seem to see anything strange or off-putting about the Cult of Celebrity when it is applied to the producer.

[cleverthylacine]

People on FW made a big deal out of the fact that I referred to myself as a BNF, but there was a time when I was getting a fair amount of celeb-like treatment in a few sectors of the fandom, and I wasn't the one who nominated me for BNF Deathmatch, either.

I'm not ashamed of my inner screaming fangirl, but I get irritated when I'm accused of feeling like that about someone I don't feel like that about (Alan Rickman, Tom Felton) or when I'm criticised for not having unthinking adoration of anything.

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

The last few seasons of The X-Files should just never be spoken of. If there is anyone less adept at reading their fanbase and writing believable romance than JKR, it's Chris Carter. I keep hearing Monica doing those whale calls...*shudders*

I guess I'm like you in that the world and the characters in it are infinitely more important to me than the person who created them. If they weren't so talked about in fandom, I probably wouldn't even read JKR's interviews because they're always somewhat of a disappointment. And it's the same for fanfic authors, actually. I don't have to be a fan of the person to be a fan of the thing they've created and in a lot of cases, I'm not. But then, sometimes, I'm just a fan of the person, not necessarily everything they write or draw and I friend them anyway.

I think to some extent, it's all about access. If you're a BNF and you have a lot of people on your flist, I think you're privy to a lot more of the things that go on in fandom and your experience is a lot bigger, to some extent. You can see more discussions and so forth, you get to know more people. And to some extent, might just feel more a part of things. I think that's a part of the appeal, actually.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh god, the whale calls. Yipes.

If I weren't in fandom I'd probably never read interviews either. Actually, I still don't read them, just as I rarely read interviews in XF fandom. Only I tend to hear about them because different bits of interviews become topics for discussion in fandom.

And to some extent, might just feel more a part of things. I think that's a part of the appeal, actually.

That's a good point and it's got a special twist because it's on the Internet. I remember one time someone wrote something in response to complaints about being ignored--I think it was Gwen who did a post about how to become known in fandom. I think one of the things she included, which is weird but needed to be said, was that on the 'net if you didn't talk you literally weren't there. But it goes beyond that, because not only do you have to talk, but you have to talk in a way that gets people to answer you, you know? And there are probably perfectly nice people who just don't happen to do that naturally on-line. So it can be frustrating that you're there, you're perfectly friendly, you want contact, and you see these other people getting answers when they don't. You would feel like you were floating around on the fringe.

[nightbluesprite.livejournal.com]

I really like your analysis, but It’s almost like the difference between a society with a power base of artisans or intellectuals (using the terms a little tongue-in-cheek since we are talking about fanfic and porn) and one where the power lies with the priests—that is, with fans claiming to be oracles for the god creator. was especially inspired. Probably because it was so tongue-in-cheek, but... it was apt.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--I figured I'd better say I knew it was tongue-in-cheek or people might have been worried!

[galaxianomiko.livejournal.com]

Man. If being a fan means you can't complain about the source material turning to crap, then there's a hell of a lot of fandoms that just got cut in half! (X-Files being one of the most widely criticized...see also Buffy, Star Wars, The Matrix.)

I agree with you about "in the fandom" as a definition. The way I see it, people who participate in the fandom who are also criticizing parts of the source material are envisioning what it could be at its best.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL--I know! I was always think of that as being a total stereotype of a fan, and frankly, the critical fans usually are central to my own experience. I remember in XF there were people who hated people who didn't like Season 8, but damned if they could have a conversation about the Season without bringing up their criticisms because there was nothing else to talk about!

[autumnised.livejournal.com]

I have you friended because you're one of the most insightful commentators I've come across on HP; fanon or canon. I'd go on, but it would just embarrass you, seriously :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Woo-hoo! Thanks! *feels all BNF-y and is loving the icon*

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's really so easy to change the shape and leadership of a community -- which is what fandom is -- just by exertion of will or intellectual definitions. It seems to me that these people who say "let's redefine what a BNF is" are a little like those Indiana legislators who said "let's round pi to make it easier to work with." I think you're right that jawboning can potentially have an impact, but even that, I think, is very indirect and unpredictable. It's like memes -- you never know what, specifically, will catch on, what will bounce off some obscure amplifier hidden deeply in the fabric of the community and reverberate all over the place and actually make a difference. And if you don't catch that reverberator just right, then you just have some agreeable ideas that people might pay lip-service to but that don't really change anyone's behavior.

The whole BNF thing strikes me as a complicated phenomenon, and by no means an entirely bad (or even avoidable) thing. Any community is going to have leaders -- people who have knowledge that others want to learn from, or who exemplify behavior that seems worth imitating, or who have consistently interesting and useful takes on community issues so you want to take their temperature before spouting off. I think that happens spontaneously in any association of people, and you can't (and shouldn't) resist it any more than you can plough the sea, as the saying goes. And at best, that sort of leadership can help a community hang together, help moderate conflicts and tensions.

When leadership gets institutionalized, which is also probably inevitable because leaders do things and build things, you maybe have some really knotty and difficult, maybe even tragic (in the literary sense) complications -- things that are in part good, in part bad, and in part unavoidable. Formal power can multiply good influences, makes a lot of good things possible -- look at the way vigorous fandom leadership prevented anti-slash homophobia from taking root in the mainstream, pushed that division firmly to the margins (though perhaps with repercussions that tranformed rather than went away -- though that's another wank). But it also amplifies inevitable personal mistakes by the leadership and sets some secondary, purely social issues in motion. For example, there's the starfucker syndrome that seems to be part of human nature, that skelkins described (more politely!) above, and that adds whole layers of batshittery to the process of exercising leadership. And even where it's not so extreme, there's the whole issue of envy and resentment, of injured self-regard, by people who think they ought to have similar power but haven't figured out how to get it, that mucks things up as yet another counterforce and independent driver of events. Someone should write a Rousseauistic take on fandom!

Or Voltairean! I guess I lean toward the "cultivate your own garden" approach to "reforming" fandom. Which is maybe the same as your point about the individual, maybe changing things one person at a time. But the idea that this can all be sorted out, that all the contradictions can be eliminated, that there's a formula for making it all work smoothly and seamlessly by any kind of "reform," seems a bit utopian. The focus has to be on something less than the total community, if that makes sense.

[flamewarrior.livejournal.com]

I think there's a big difference between the phenomenon of people becoming leaders and the phenomenon of BNF-dom, certainly as you present the former here. Leadership as you present it seems rational and likely to lead to peaceful communities. BNF-dom seems just to lead to a load of old wank and very hurt feelings on all sides. What's forming in my head is that leadership as you talk about it here is about power based on responsibility and competence, whereas BNF-dom (when the BNFs take it seriously, that is) is about power based purely on fashion, fame and hierarchy.

this doesn't happen just in the HP fandom; I know from my time in various fandoms

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

I think the prolem the average fan has with the average "BNF" (leaving aside any personal beefs for real or imagined slights) is the not-uncommon experience of having someone make you feel bad solely based on their authority as a so-called "BNF". Because people are human, and sometimes immature, and in the habit of forming cliques, they start to believe that they really are right most of the time, so their opinions really are more equal than others. It's hard not to feel squashed and to take it personally and to blame it on BNF syndrome.

Re: this doesn't happen just in the HP fandom; I know from my time in various fandoms

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That is definitely true. Because I don't think it's a solution to just dismiss the way people feel and say it's their own fault or they're imagining it. That can be just as inaccurate as assuming that it really is all the BNFs fault how everyone else feels. The reality is that certain people do hold different positions within the society of fandom and that makes a difference in how what they say is taken. Sometimes in very real, practical ways.

[flamewarrior.livejournal.com]

You know, it's weird, I was in British SF fandom for many years, and while there were popular fen, I never came across anything even remotely like the BNF phenomenon people talk about in HP fandom. In fact, I still don't really know what a BNF is, except possibly someone who people look up to / kowtow to the opinion of / otherwise place on a pedestal for some bizarre reason. There are meta and fic I enjoy, and meta and fic I don't enjoy, and no fan always falls on only one side of that fence. Some people must really want to give their power away. [/sounding smug - I'm not, honest!]

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I kind of feel the same way. I mean, I knew who some of the BNFs were in the fandom, but there's a difference between knowing that certain people were popular or had done something popular or were in some administrative position and feeling like those people had any control over me. Looking back at any time when I've censored myself it's always been just a normal choice of speaking publically, not because of the power anyone else had.

[darth-kittius.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest and to put a disclaimer on the following statements, I haven't read the entries that's brewing up all this discussion lately and I wasn't in fandom at the time. (Although reading about the whole deal it is on my "to do" list.) However, I've been active in fandom for about the last year or so. I still don't have a clue about who a BNF is or what differentiates them from anyone else participating in fandom. I could have ten of them on my flist, I could have zero. I don't know and don't really care. I'm sure everything eventually devolves into a popularity contest somehow, but I just don't get it. To me, it doesn't make your fic or meta better. I read whatever I come across and I either like it or don't -- I know it's not "right," but I usually don't even look at the author's name until after I've finished a fic. I don't decide to read people's journals based on who they are in the fandom "structure" -- I read it if it's interesting to me, and I stop reading it if it annoys me.

And… well.. since it seems to flow from that and I haven't gotten to vent it -- I really don't understand ship wars either. Seriously people, can't we just all read whatever we want to read?! I mean, I know JKR isn't going to write either Draco/Hermione or Severus/Hermione, but that's what I prefer to read in fandom. I don't think I'm "right" in that it'll ever happen in canon -- or even that it SHOULD happen in canon. I just think I enjoy reading it and should be able to continue to read it (because other people write it). I just don't understand the bad feelings that arise out of personal preferences.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think there are so many people who have just that experience in fandom--it's pretty much the way I am too. I started recognizing names of fanfic authors really only because it started to help me in finding fic I thought I would like.

It's weird because now that I've read some stuff about how fandom used to be in 2003 and how it is now I think that yes, I have noticed that it's different now, it's just that I would never have put it in terms of there being people who used to control the fandom that can't now. I just remember it more like, "That was when X fic was being written and I was reading that," or "that was when Y was being done and I was following that" or "that was people were talking about Z." Maybe people are right when they say the structure of fandom changed, but to me it just comes down to what the people I knew were doing or not.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

To me a BNF is just anyone who is well known in a fandom... it doesn't matter how they got that recognition.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think honestly that's what it is. It doesn't always have to do with any kind of power or even respect.

[eucalyptus.livejournal.com]

I always find the way people talk about BNF status amusing. And it's because, to me, fandom is a just different kind of Hollywood minus the money. You do something to make yourself prolific, you become the equivalent of a celebrity. And just like celebrities, there will be people deserving of it and people who aren't -- the Paris Hilton's of the world (and the fandom equivalents, who shall remain nameless). So if you consider fandom to be a kind of Hollywood, are the power struggles really all that surprising? I don't think so.

Interesting analysis as always, sistermagpie. I went a little off topic, I think, but c'est la vie.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh god,it's true. And Hollywood minus the money is not a pretty site...

Not off topic at all!

Yes!

[enelya-oronar.livejournal.com]

I think every comment as well as your summary encapsulates it all. So I just want to say "Yes!"

Re: Yes!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Excellent! *punches fist in air*

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

It seems to me, in light of not only the MsScribe expose but also the recent hatememe kerfuffle, that a BNF is not just someone who's well known, but someone who, either by force of personality or actual position of power, holds influence over the fandom. That could be someone who moderates a popular comm, someone who recs a lot of fic and whose recs are widely read, or someone who is respected for insight/talent/humor/whathaveyou. It's the wielding of influence that seems to make people go wonky with respect to BNFs: Some resent the power, and some crave it.

On a BNF-related sidenote: I came to the HP fandom only last year, from a long stint in LOTR, and had NO IDEA that Cassie was big over here before she was big over there. I admit that that was part of what drew me into charlottelennox's tale. Because I'm a BNF-whore just like everyone else.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

BTW, here from the Snitch. *waves*

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay - really struck me as true, especially the first part about being a fan. I, too, don't think there's any point when I would have called Harry Potter my favorite book, and yet it's practically consumed my life for the past six years - I've definitely spent many times the amount of time I've spent on any other book. It's also interesting how I completely respect Harry Potter's canon, without exception, and yet there's another fandom I've recently acquired, in which I definitely do not accept its entire canon, but the parts I do, I love fiercely and have been obsessing over for months, writing fanfic like crazy and such. Am I really a fan? It's really interesting.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Am I really a fan? It's really interesting.

Isn't that weird? And yet every fandom has people like that. I remember in LOTR fandom too I never had any desire to talk to other people about the books, though I loved them. It was only when the movies came out and I had something I wanted to discuss with others--how the adaptations worked and didn't--that I got into the fandom. Naturally there were a lot of people who wanted to talk about that because they hated the movies, yet they were still part of the fandom--and they'd sometimes fight with people who loved the movies and even though they sometimes did something better than the books.

[silentauror.livejournal.com]

First of all, JKR is not a BNF. She is not any kind of F, she’s the author of the source material.

Yes!! Thank you for saying that! I absolutely agree!

Secondly, I just see no more reason to be impressed with someone for having contact with a celebrity than I do to be impressed with someone for writing a widely-read fanfic. Actually, to be honest, I am more impressed with the fanficcer if I admire his/her work.

At first, I was going to ask where the discrepancy between these two things came into play - surely, if a fic is that widely-read, then it's because the readers admire it? - but I do see what you mean.

To me, a big name in the fandom has more to with how well known the person in question is, which could come from writing, RP-ing, organising comms or events, hosting a lot of meta discussion, whatever. The bigger point to me, though, is the whole question of people fighting for status. When I joined the fandom, I wasn't actually aware that I was joining a fandom, per se - I was just writing stories and posting at an archive and hoping a few people might read it. To this day, I'm delighted that people do. The point is just that it's a hobby, and I wish we could all remember that and be glad that we have people to have discussions with, art and fic to enjoy, people to enjoy our art and fic in turn, and basically just find a niche to occupy here. Wishful thinking, I know!

Nicely said, with all this. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

When I joined the fandom, I wasn't actually aware that I was joining a fandom, per se - I was just writing stories and posting at an archive and hoping a few people might read it.

Yeah, it's funny that people forget that that's probably how most people start out. Some people immediately start noticing the more established folks, perhaps, but I think a big number of fans just post what they want and are happy with the responses they get and who they get them from. I'm sure that's why whenever the subject comes up there tends to be a lot of "How can that person be a BNF when I've never heard of them?" Because there's lots of different "centers" in fandom rather than just the one. And that's always been the case, even back when there were, admittedly, maybe some people who were known by a surprising amount of people.

[no-remorse.livejournal.com]

That brings up the question of whether one is no longer a fan if one becomes disappointed with the source material.

skelkins once quoted the definite answer to that question:

For some reason I recall Aljo Svoboda. When I first got involved in fandom in the early seventies I seem to remember reading a lot of locs and even some articles by Aljo and his only subject (in my memory at least - for all I know I could've read 2 locs and inflated them in my mind) was gafiation. He either wrote that he was about to gafiate, or that he had recently gafiated or been gafiated for a long time or explained why he had gafiated, or why he was going to remain gafiated, extolled the advantages of being gafiated, and described what it felt like to be a gafiate. This went on for years, possibly thanks to the slow schedules of many paper zines. Also, possibly due to the vagaries of when the locs appeared (or maybe not) Aljo managed to exist simultaneously in every imaginable state of gafiation all at once.

From my point of view, admittedly as a lowly neofan, Aljo's sole claim to being a fan was that he was gafiated. In other words he was a fan because he claimed he wasn't.

I've always admired his audacity. There is a certain sense to it. There are lots of people who aren't fans. When you come down to it, practically everyone in the world isn't a fan. And they're just...not.

But if you notice you're not a fan...then you're a fan.

source

I think I am Aljo Svoboda.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

If you notice you're not a fan, you're a fan. That does sum it up, absolutely! And I think it definitely applies to you too.

Here via the Snitch

[auctasinistra.livejournal.com]

Your definition of fan makes sense to me; it's involvement. It doesn't have to be uncritical involvement -- why should it be? I'd even be willing to consider that those who love something (or even someone) blindly or uncritically love it less than those who take a hard look, see it in a more realistic light, flaws and all, think about it and analyze it, and still love it. :)

Lately I’ve seen a number of calls to level the playing field in canon by defining BNF as only fen who have some kind of contact with the people involved in the creation of the source material.

That's a weird definition of BNF, I think. So when there's no one left alive who's met, for instance, Tolkien or Arthur Conan Doyle, those fandoms no longer have BNFs? Seems to me BNF is about one thing: recognition. Not admiration necessarily (though there's a strong correlation), not the quality of one's work within fandom, certainly not what you did to become recognized (author, artist, meta person, archivist), but simply that your name is known.

But, to paraphrase isiscolo, one person's BNF is another person's BFD. ;)

Good essay.

Re: Here via the Snitch

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! It's true about the BNF/BFD. It's a weird thing about fandom that it really draws people who tend to think or overthink things, and that includes their own involvement in fandom. If people didn't ask themselves why fans do what they do there might be a lot less angst in fandom, but they do, and they ever will!

[cmwinters.livejournal.com]

What the HELL is going on???

This is the second post I've read in ten minutes talking about some recent "incident" and people freaKing out.

Me? *C_L_U_E_L_E_S_S*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, I've avoided the many details but they are here: http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/

Anything about the msscribe saga. At this point references to it seem unavoidable on any flist!

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

That brings up the question of whether one is no longer a fan if one becomes disappointed with the source material. Some would say one can’t be both, but if it’s true, what do we call the many people who are active in every fandom and also very critical?

I think there's a difference between "becomes disappointed in the most recent source material"/"is very critical of the source material" and "openly dislikes the source material". Star Wars fans, for instance, almost universally criticize everything about the movies and/or hate the books, but they're still fans because they still like watching the movies or writing fic about them. They still get enjoyment from the source material. They probably still went to the midnight premieres of the movies - even Attack of the Clones, even after seeing the Phantom Menace.

Then you have people who appear to not enjoy anything about the HP anymore. Maybe they do, they just don't ever say anything about it. Everything about the books is wrong. They appear to hate every aspect of the author. There is nothing positive about the whole deal except the theories/characterizations that they came up with that were completely jossed by canon. They say they aren't going to read the last book, or didn't read HBP. I would say that those people aren't fans, or maybe are anti-fans. I don't think they should "leave the fandom" or anything, and I don't think that means they have no right to comment on posts about canon, but I don't think they can be called "fans" unless "fan" undergoes a semantic shift.

The second definition that gets fuzzy is BNF/Big Name Fan. Lately I’ve seen a number of calls to level the playing field in canon by defining BNF as only fen who have some kind of contact with the people involved in the creation of the source material. The closer you are to them, the bigger you are.

That doesn't really even make sense. The only HP fandom BNF (who isn't really a BNF anymore - I see lots of people saying "Cassie who?" these days) was CC. A BNF is someone who everyone in the fandom knows. They have fangirls who attack anyone who makes a slightly negative comment. But mostly it's that everyone knows them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm learning more and more about the SW fandom this way--you're not the first person to say that. I dipped into it a bit after Attack of the Clones--and fit right in because I was criticizing stuff. But yeah, I see what you mean. I criticize the HP books all the time, but I haven't had the experience that many fans had where they used to like them and now don't. Actually, re-reading them and poking them wound up making me appreciate them more. That's probably why I never think that criticizing something automatically means you hate everything about it. Times when people have asked me why I hate some aspect of the books so much have sometimes been times when I was liking it the most.

After HBP, obviously, it's easy to understand people sick of readers who are saying that the books are ruined now because Harry didn't get with Hermione or Remus touched a girl. That's just kind of...what do you do with that? It's not even an interesting thing to disagree about because it doesn't really have anything to do with the themes of the story. It's still always part of fandom, but it does show that different people are fans of different parts of the series, if that makes sense.

I don't think they can be called "fans" unless "fan" undergoes a semantic shift.

I think of people like that as part of fandom, though it does seem strange ironic to call them fans. (I'm calling them fans in my original post, but thinking of some people whose stuff I've read it does seem incongruous to say "This person is FAN of HP.") Sometimes when I run into someone who say "This person is supposed to be a fan of the source material!"

But mostly it's that everyone knows them.

That's always how I've thought of it. It's a reference to the social situation that fandom is, not any real designation of merit. Yeah, a lot of people get known because they've done something, but it's not always something particularly admirable.