Follow me on TwitterRadio Free Id 02.04.08: On Fandom
I do not like fans.
By “fans,” I do not mean just anyone who likes something. There are normal fans, and there are even those fans who stretch things a little beyond the norm (who ever’s defining that at the moment) and remain thoroughly on the side of Good. My movie fandom probably falls into this latter category, while my more staid fandom of comics and college football rest at pretty mundane levels. I can go on at length about one or the other, I have a framed movie poster or two (but only the classics!), but I know when to stow it.
You’ll also notice I mentioned mediums and not specific people, works, or teams within those mediums. I like college football. I like comic books. I like movies. I like the inherent potential for entertainment and, yes, enlightenment these three things can bring… but I know they are only mediums. As such they carry the potential for folly, failure, or just plain boredom. You win some, you lose some. The sane response is to pick your battles as best you can and shrug it off when you come across a stinker. Whatever the case, life goes on, and the sane fan can weather even genuine heartbreak with pride intact.
You may have guessed that this is not the kind of fan I have a problem with.
I’m talking about the Scans_Daily fan. The Girl Wonder fan. The Ain’t It Cool fan. The LOTR fan. The Star Wars fan. The Trekkie. The Whedonite. They likely have a fandom-related nickname. A pet named after a character. More than three t-shirts related to their fandom. They’ve been to conventions. Met some of the creators, actors, or what have you. Because they seek out their kind – partly to discuss their fandom in relative safety, and there’s nothing wrong with that – they often find themselves in like-minded echo chambers with no checks or balances to tell them when they’re getting a little, you know, weird. Your average Wookiee Appreciation forum is just one tentative post away from becoming a furry enclave.
I’m sure they’ve always been among us, but the ubiquitous presence of the Internet has broken down the barriers of that echo chamber. The Internet has by and large democratized entertainment, narrowing the gap between creators of an artistic work and their fans. Now, you’re not going to hop online and find Steven Spielberg’s e-mail address, much less talk directly to the man himself, but creators working in the “lesser” art forms (independent film, genre television, comic books) are much more approachable. Some maintain their own forums. They make frequent con appearances. The democratization works both ways: Hand-selling one’s work has become that much easier, and that much more integral, to a niche work’s success.
But good god, the fan entitlement that comes about because of this interaction.
Dorian directed me to this gem regarding legendary series Doctor Who, a series I confess I’ve never had anything to do with. This is the executive producer of Doctor Who and the spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures talking:
It falls to Davies “to keep balancing how much continuity there is, how many stand-alone elements there are.” Ever mindful of the shows’ “mainstream audience” (meaning, not just sci-fi enthusiasts) and put off by “exclusivity” in general, he said he is reticent of creating overly inclusive stories dependent on viewers’ in-depth knowledge of ornate histories.
This job is made easier by Davies’ policy of ignoring the voices of those most vigilant. “I think we’re an unusual science-fiction franchise in taking a very big step back from fandom and having nothing to do with them. . . . Every program on the BBC has a message board on the website. I forbid it to happen on ‘Doctor Who.’ I’m sorry to say this, all the science fiction producers making stuff in America, they are way too engaged with their fandom. They all need to step back.”
The wider point is that the Doctor Who franchise is many things to many people, and so it can’t be bogged down servicing the needs of what a kind person would call “special interest groups.” And any artist worth their salt could tell you that the minute they start writing for the perceived expectations of the fans is the minute that artist stops being relevant. The language Davies uses may be a little on the harsh side, but I suppose that’s to be expected from a busy-as-hell executive producer… and after time spent on Buffy the Vampire Slayer working for its nerd messiah Joss Whedon, he probably knows a thing or two about how toxic the fan-creator symbiosis can get.
Fan reaction was predictable. That these fans do not understand how their reaction proves Davies’ point is simply another symptom of the problem.
Examine the language; if you have any familiarity with this sort of thing, none of it should surprise you. “We ensure you keep your job, after all.” “Because what would fans know?” “Producers are just better and more important people than you and I...” “The other writers, particularly Moffat, have made the most memorable episodes and if RTD listened to the fans they would be getting more than an episode or two each per season.” There’s a lot of wounded, defensive egos behind words like that, the kind of language one might expect from a lead singer who’s just been told by his on-the-rise band that they’re going in a different direction, and please don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
The word is entitlement, but the word is also ownership. Anyone who’s been in an abusive relationship would recognize the tone – if not precisely the words – as well. “Oh, right, because what have I ever done for you?” “If you’d just listen to me, everything would be fine...” “You owe me your happiness.” The threat is clear: We’re the kind of people with the blind devotion that can turn a thoroughly mediocre movie like Serenity into a cult classic, but if you cross us, we’ll take it all away again. That the fans never follow through with those threats is beside the point. It’s all about caustic rhetoric and the illusion of wielding the power in the relationship.
And that really may be the best lens to view this type of fandom through: relationships and power. These are not people who want to view what they love objectively. Instead, these are the men and women who use their fandom as a substitute for religion, or ethics, or therapy. They cannot get their arms around the thing they love. They prefer instead to be enmeshed in it. And somewhere, deep down inside, they may resent that something outside their control has so much power over their emotional state. Those backlash claims – we pay your bills, we’ll walk away if you don’t keep us happy – are a denial of their co-dependence.
I don’t think there’s a prescription or treatment for the situation, at least not something that can be applied en masse. There’s one piece of advice that circulates among creators and the more sane fans online: Do not engage. You cannot win with a super-fan. Their reasoning is as Teflon-coated as that of a conspiracy theorist’s: everything that doesn’t fit the world view is forgotten or ignored. The best you can do, when confronted with this kind of fan, is to take those words to heart.
Do not engage.
Do not engage.
Do not engage…
Syndicate this story
del.icio.us | Digg | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit
Comments
A new part of the creative process that I had not really thought about until just now. Well done Ken!
There was always something in the way the Heroes TV show cultivated their online community that, deep down, always bothered me… and now I know why.
Boy do I hate those over the top Cinema Styles fans I have to deal with. Cinema Styles banner t-shirts, “Lapper is God” bumper stickers, and always constant floods of e-mails dissecting every post while strongly recommending new ones. Arrrgghhh! It was fun at first (the offers to have my children, gifts arriving in the mail every day) but after a while it just became a burden. Recently I’ve had to call the cops on several who camp out on my lawn. I can’t even go to the store anymore without a bodyguard. Get a life people! Oh for a world where I only get a few hundred hits a day and no one ever e-mails me because I’m just one movie blogger in a sea of thousands.
While I think there is much to admire and agree with in this piece, I do feel compelled to remind you that one person’s mediocrity can be another person’s masterpiece without that serving as proof that the more enthusiastic viewer must therefore be a slavish acolyte of an unworthy God. To argue otherwise does have an unfortunate tendency (especially when it’s the minority view) to come across as sour grapes.
Please explain your problem with scans_daily to me a little further - everyone I know who reads the community mainly uses it to preview comics and decide what titles to buy or skip. It’s actually been really useful for me in this regard. And the community isn’t even in its heyday anymore, that was about two years ago. Are you indicating that just talking on the community is somehow a dictation to comic writers? Or is the slash jokes you don’t like? If you said, Newsrama, or something like that, I guess I would understand a little more - I know Girl Wonder was formed around a stated agenda. Or we all talk about comics too much and you don’t think it’s normal?
[I have nine comics related t-shirts btw - so consider me a crazy fan.]
But then again, we think you’re an ass, so it all works out evenly in the end.
So the only “good” and “correct” type of fan is the utterly passive, unquestioning consumer.
Passive and unquestioning ... exactly the kind of people who elected GW Bush to office.
I agree with you that Fannish Entitlement is pretty obnoxious and silly.
But so are the sweeping generalizations you make in this essay, especially the one you make about Girl-Wonder, an organization whose mission and scope are lightyears away from something like H.E.A.T (Hal’s Emerald Advancement Team.)
Don’t believe me? Read the G-W mission statement page.
Also, you list that you like Zeus Comics. Is Richard, with his outspoken views on the character of Freedom Ring, one of these people on your “Do Not Engage” list?
Allan: There are many things I would consider masterpieces, but I do not let them rule my life. I can be passionate about art without losing perspective on the whole of human existence.
Bunny: That’s about the same reason I use S_D. But every time I see a word like “Didiot” pop up I want to scream. I don’t care one way or another about slash, it’s the fan entitlement and the weird idea of what being a fan is ("I have too many fandoms") that agitates me.
Caroline: Your hive mind confuses and frightens me.
Katherine: You have successfully missed the point entirely… but points for somehow lumping in my problems with super fans to an endorsement of Dubya. I take it you’re a G-W advocate, so those kinds of leaps in logic are to be expected.
Richard is one of the most balanced people I know. He has problems with how gay characters are introduced simply to be murdered messily, but he doesn’t create websites and engage in agitprop rhetoric to get his point across. Also, he <i>moves the hell on</i>. So, no, he’s not on the list.
<i>Because they seek out their kind – partly to discuss their fandom in relative safety, and there’s nothing wrong with that – they often find themselves in like-minded echo chambers with no checks or balances to tell them when they’re getting a little, you know, weird.</i>
Actually, Mr Lowery, we do that because we have got social skills and we know people who aren’t fans aren’t that interested in listening to us get excited about our favourite books/shows/comics. Someone with a common interest in them, though, can really enjoy such a conversation. Yes, it’s weird, in the strictest sense of “not normal” or “very unusual” because in the normal run of things you don’t get quite such a cluster of people with an specific common interest - unless you’re at a convention, or a football match, or an art show, or an craft shop…
You seem to think I’m talking about the run of the mill fan. I’m not. I used to run a comics blog, for god’s sake.
I’m specifically talking about the kind of fan that uses their fandom as therapy, ethics, etc, and who lives in it like the abusive partner in a bad relationship. The “everything’s relative” argument doesn’t work once you spend a day or two on, say, byrnerobotics.com or, say, a thread like this one: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/02/the_great_debate_should_dragon_people_have_tits.php
Well since you didn’t respond to my comment I must now assume you support torture by our government. It is the only possible conclusion I can reach. I must say that I am very disappointed that you are a torture advocate Ken.
Also, this statement, “You seem to think I’m talking about the run of the mill fan” clearly indicates you have voted for Lyndon Larouche in the past and endorsed pre-emptive strikes in the middle east. Shame on you Ken, shame on you.
Wow Ken...so many people showed up to prove your point for you!
Wait, you’re saying there’s no middle-ground between being a passive consumer and an obsessive ranter?
Gee, I’ll have to gather up a bunch of like-minded souls and create an anti-garlic internet forum where we can expound at length about why garlic is an abomination, why garlic should taste like leeks, and why garlic used to taste better in the good old days but tastes terrible now.
Jonathan: Did you know that, as has been pointed out to me, I used the word “mediums” as plural instead of “media”? And that is exactly why George W. Bush is in office.
Andrew posted a pretty good retort to one of the LJ responses at his blog. He said what I would’ve said, but much more clearly, which is pretty cool and also humbling.
Here’s his thing: http://armagideontime.blogspot.com/2008/02/too-many-damn-elms.html
Clearly I need to enable HTML up in this piece.
Ken - Man, that LJ guy couldn’t have supported your point more if he’d typed “I AGREE WITH KEN LOWERY 100%” a hundred times.
Hey Mikester you just ruined the surprise of my next post damn you. I was simply going to type “I AGREE WITH KEN LOWERY 100%” a hundred times. Now it’ll just look like I got the idea from you. Thanks a lot!
Thanks Ken, I appreciate being included in your ad hominem attack. It’s always good to be loved.
I go to cons. I regularly visit and post at Whedonesque.com. I run a fan site. I own more then 3 shirts related to my fandom. I’ve met a lot of actors and creators. I’ve named pets after characters.
And yet I use my real name, I don’t base my life on a show, and I have no problem with showrunners who shun fan interaction. By your definitions I’m a superfan who avoided the mentally obsessive part.
So may I suggest that the problem isn’t with fans as a group at all, even superfans, but with obsessive people? Every group, EVERY group has a class of people in it who go too far, who think they have more power than they do (or should). Sports fans who post threats at coaches, or riot in the streets when their team wins. Church members who run everything and begin to ostracize those who don’t recognize their status. People in the workplace with exaggerated notions of their own power, usually because they haven’t got any.
Sure there are fans who go too far, who demand too much. But it’s possible to condemn them without mocking the fans who don’t. I suppose it’s a lot easier to laugh at someone in a costume at a con, but it’s a damn lazy argument.
“There are many things I would consider masterpieces, but I do not let them rule my life. I can be passionate about art without losing perspective on the whole of human existence.”
I whole-heartedly agree and I see nothing in my comment that would suggest otherwise. I was merely suggesting that just because you personally dislike or are apathetic to a specific piece of work that does not automatically mean that the opinions of those who don’t share your view are suspect and should therefore be invalidated as “without perspective”. It is possible for someone to enjoy and appreciate a work that does not meet with your approval without them being one of the superfans you describe above.
I would also add, as an addendum to Mr. Bridges comment, that one can also go too far the other direction in being an anti-fan--disdaining honest differences in opinion from others as the result of a failure of intelligence or fidelity to a hive-mind, rather than acknowledging that tastes are not universal and it is possible for an intelligent, rational individual to enjoy something (be it popular or unpopular) they abhor. This attitude is precisely the reason I stopped reading one of your above commenter’s well-known blog (from which, I should divulge, I was once very temporarily banned).
The point you make about fandom fails to point out who the producers are aiming the shows at. Joss Whedon has often stated that he would rather create a show 1,000 people loved than one 1 million people thought was ok (or words to that effect). As such, it makes sense for him to repsond to, and interact with his target audience.
RTD, on the other hand makes his show for a much wider audience (kids, parents and geeks). And as such it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to interact with the latter.
I think the point you’re making is too general. As well as changing half-way through: are you complaining about fans (totally unfounded and unnecessary IMO: let people like what they want to like, I don’t care if someone thinks Zac Effron is God: I’ll just not listen to them).
Or producers: which is a more interesting point, but not as black and white as your DO NOT ENGAGE mantra suggests. It makes sense to include a letters section in a comic book only read by 10,000: since getting your letter in the comic will only increase your fandom for it, and encourage the reader to get his/her friends to buy and enjoy iy all the more.
Oh another thing, Ken, about these “uber-fans” based on your description, you’ve also just described the English and/or Film Studies Department of the University where I work.
If you made a Venn Diagram of Internet Fans and Ron Paul supporters you’d probably find some significant overlap.
To continue a theme:
Ken, I agree with you 100%
lovely! total agreement, and god that live journal cat is terrifying.
ahahahaha.
i just got around to reading the comments on this. excellent work, you scurrilous bastard.
fandom is VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS OKAY.
I see what you did thar… You started with a brief, all-encompassing, provocative statement to grab our interest, and then gradually refined it to make it clear (well, slightly clearer, at least) that no, you don’t actually hate *all* fans, just the really loopy ones.
So eventually, if one manages to keep a lid on one’s temper and get through the whole piece, one can see what you’re getting at and agree that, yes, there are indeed some very self-important fans out there with a monstrous sense of entitlement and ownership. And that as a TV producer, or indeed as a fan, one’s time can be spent in far more productive ways than arguing with them or trying to appease them.
But is it really reasonable to expect all the fans who come here - even the reasonably sane, balanced ones - to read that far into your piece without feeling at least a *little* bit insulted by your opening salvo?
Now add the “unfortunate” choice of picture, and if said fan happens to be a little bit on the portly side and by no means averse to the occasional bit of cosplay… You see the problem?
Basically, you chose a needlessly provocative way of saying something really quite simple: “Most fans may be allright, but boy, some of them cop a bit of an attitude, don’t they? Don’t waste your time trying to make ‘em happy, that’s my advice.”
As for comment on the points you were actually making, I can do no better than Mark Davidson’s comment above.