somniloquence

Yeah, I just now realize I should have put a Tumblr link to this, too. Adding that now.

It's very hard--I mean, I have even been known to rant about academic study of fans, because I hate that feeling that we're some savage culture the white men are writing about, like it's the 1800s or something. But then, there are also academics who are fans, like you, approaching it from the inside and writing about it, or who may have even discovered fandom and their role in it through the academic study, so then…it's all part of a cycle, opening fandom up to more people who will discover their true selves from the public nature of it, but it also opens us up to more mocking and more of businesses trying to make money off of us. It's a different world than when I started, and it'll be different in 20 years, and who knows what kind of changes that'll bring?

I worked at a huge national online publication and on the surface they wrote about fanworks in a positive way. But inside the walls? They joked about us all the time, and there was no way I was ever gonna out myself in the watercooler discussions. I would never have asked someone, "Do you read fanfic?" because then…I might have to end up talking about writing it. Bleh. We were all fat creeps who lived in our parents' basements or owned 27 cats or something, and stalked our heartthrobs.