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A couple months ago, I was in line at the coffee house we meet at for my writing group. They keep a Magic 8-Ball on the counter, and in a moment of whimsy, I picked it up and asked in my mind, "Will there ever be another vid or fic recs post on Live Journal that isn't about Supernatural?" The answer was, "Ask again later." So, I did, a few weeks ago, and it said, "Reply hazy, try again." I think the Magic 8-Ball is fucking with me, but I also think it knows fandom.
Every Thursday and Friday, I skim fast over my flist because I know there will be almost no other content except squeeful posts about Supernatural. A while ago, it was the day before and the day after Stargate: Atlantis aired. But many people I adore love these shows, and I try to be all IDIC and my fandom's okay, your fandom's okay, but they can be... omnipresent. And hard to avoid. And a little bit wearing. When you're not into something that seems to have taken over fandom, it's not easy being IDIC.
In fact, I know people who have set up filters to avoid hearing about Supernatural, and I'm sure that if I could actually find the ability to rub some brain cells together and learn how, I might do it, too, just to take control over my flist on Fridays. Of course, if I filtered my buddies who love SPN, I wouldn't have much of an flist. Many people I know will sign on for a fandom they don't even enjoy, just to be in with the in crowd, and because that's where all the good fic writers go. At their peaks, Stargate SG-1 and Smallville (which I called Starville or Smallgate, because they seemed so ubiquitously together) probably had the largest collection of good writers and vidders I'd seen since back in the days of the Professionals, and I didn't even come into Pros fandom till it was nearly moving into the old-folks' home.
Recently I was talking with a friend, someone whom I would expect to be the last person ever to like SPN, and she started squeeing about it, and told me how much she was getting into it, despite the slash and the incest and the things she has never liked at all. And my initial reaction was this internal voice screaming NOOOOoooooo! They got another one! Our numbers of resistance are dwindling every day! NOOOoooooo!
That's when I realized: It's like being in a zombie movie. Any of the fandoms that ate fandom hit you with the reality that you are one bite away from being consumed by the undead, and soon you, too, could be stumbling around with your flesh rotting off, bleeding from your eyes, arms out in front of you, going, "grrrg join us aruggg join us aaalllggg." The few of you still living will huddle in a pub or a shopping mall or a house located in the middle of nowhere but suspiciously close to a cemetery, fending off the zombies with whatever weapons you have -- guns, machetes, old LPs, zine binding-combs.
And this isn't the first time a fandom ate fandom. As I said, SGA held that crown until just this past year, and I mean, try to find one person on your flist a year and a half ago who didn't have their own "Jeez, I wish I could pick off these SGA zombies from my flist" wishes. It's been a lull of a few years, though, from SGA to the previous fandom that ate fandoms, and then before that to The Phantom Menace. Hard to believe, I know, that anything so stultifying as that first of the Star Wars prequels could take over fandom, but anyone who survived that night of the living dead can show you their zombie-bite scars. They didn't take us alive then, and they won't now! Aim for the head, people!
What you get in the fandoms that eat fandom is the sense that you are trapped, and that there's nowhere to go to escape them. If you go to a con, you know that everything on the dealer tables and all the vids will be the current fandom du jour. You can't read your LJ or participate in a mailing list where the conversation doesn't turn to the hot series or movie. And as in any zombie movie, the zombies recognize themselves -- they don't go after one another, do they? No, they go after the living flesh, the ones who are still tasty and raw -- there's no fun in it unless you can convert. Just watch what happens when someone posts about a hot new show, and immediately gets comments on why they will so love it if they just turn to the dark side. So the ranks swell and the remaining few huddle ever tighter, pretty much till they run out of weaponry and are subsumed. Sooner or later, since zombies can't reproduce except by picking off the living, they will run out of resources, once they've eaten every last remaining survivor, or their show is cancelled because it's on Fox or the CW.
The omnipresent fandoms are the lumbering zombies of Night of the Living Dead, not the fast, flash-cut edited zombies of 28 Days Later. They come at you slowly but aggressively, like the ones in thr recent remake of Dawn of the Dead. And, seriously -- if you haven't got Sarah Polley or Ving Rhames to watch your back, you're pretty much doomed. Well, you're doomed anyway, 'cause the zombies always win. Except in Shaun of the Dead, where you get to live with them in your garden shed, and as long as you feed them and keep them chained properly, it's all okay.
And isn't that all we can hope for in the zombie fandoms? Just to get along, to still be able to enjoy one another's company, even though your friend is a slavering, gargle-noise-making, glassy-eyed fan? If you love them enough, you'll put up with their new interest even though you can't understand a word they say or trust that they won't try to eat you.
Every Thursday and Friday, I skim fast over my flist because I know there will be almost no other content except squeeful posts about Supernatural. A while ago, it was the day before and the day after Stargate: Atlantis aired. But many people I adore love these shows, and I try to be all IDIC and my fandom's okay, your fandom's okay, but they can be... omnipresent. And hard to avoid. And a little bit wearing. When you're not into something that seems to have taken over fandom, it's not easy being IDIC.
In fact, I know people who have set up filters to avoid hearing about Supernatural, and I'm sure that if I could actually find the ability to rub some brain cells together and learn how, I might do it, too, just to take control over my flist on Fridays. Of course, if I filtered my buddies who love SPN, I wouldn't have much of an flist. Many people I know will sign on for a fandom they don't even enjoy, just to be in with the in crowd, and because that's where all the good fic writers go. At their peaks, Stargate SG-1 and Smallville (which I called Starville or Smallgate, because they seemed so ubiquitously together) probably had the largest collection of good writers and vidders I'd seen since back in the days of the Professionals, and I didn't even come into Pros fandom till it was nearly moving into the old-folks' home.
Recently I was talking with a friend, someone whom I would expect to be the last person ever to like SPN, and she started squeeing about it, and told me how much she was getting into it, despite the slash and the incest and the things she has never liked at all. And my initial reaction was this internal voice screaming NOOOOoooooo! They got another one! Our numbers of resistance are dwindling every day! NOOOoooooo!
That's when I realized: It's like being in a zombie movie. Any of the fandoms that ate fandom hit you with the reality that you are one bite away from being consumed by the undead, and soon you, too, could be stumbling around with your flesh rotting off, bleeding from your eyes, arms out in front of you, going, "grrrg join us aruggg join us aaalllggg." The few of you still living will huddle in a pub or a shopping mall or a house located in the middle of nowhere but suspiciously close to a cemetery, fending off the zombies with whatever weapons you have -- guns, machetes, old LPs, zine binding-combs.
And this isn't the first time a fandom ate fandom. As I said, SGA held that crown until just this past year, and I mean, try to find one person on your flist a year and a half ago who didn't have their own "Jeez, I wish I could pick off these SGA zombies from my flist" wishes. It's been a lull of a few years, though, from SGA to the previous fandom that ate fandoms, and then before that to The Phantom Menace. Hard to believe, I know, that anything so stultifying as that first of the Star Wars prequels could take over fandom, but anyone who survived that night of the living dead can show you their zombie-bite scars. They didn't take us alive then, and they won't now! Aim for the head, people!
What you get in the fandoms that eat fandom is the sense that you are trapped, and that there's nowhere to go to escape them. If you go to a con, you know that everything on the dealer tables and all the vids will be the current fandom du jour. You can't read your LJ or participate in a mailing list where the conversation doesn't turn to the hot series or movie. And as in any zombie movie, the zombies recognize themselves -- they don't go after one another, do they? No, they go after the living flesh, the ones who are still tasty and raw -- there's no fun in it unless you can convert. Just watch what happens when someone posts about a hot new show, and immediately gets comments on why they will so love it if they just turn to the dark side. So the ranks swell and the remaining few huddle ever tighter, pretty much till they run out of weaponry and are subsumed. Sooner or later, since zombies can't reproduce except by picking off the living, they will run out of resources, once they've eaten every last remaining survivor, or their show is cancelled because it's on Fox or the CW.
The omnipresent fandoms are the lumbering zombies of Night of the Living Dead, not the fast, flash-cut edited zombies of 28 Days Later. They come at you slowly but aggressively, like the ones in thr recent remake of Dawn of the Dead. And, seriously -- if you haven't got Sarah Polley or Ving Rhames to watch your back, you're pretty much doomed. Well, you're doomed anyway, 'cause the zombies always win. Except in Shaun of the Dead, where you get to live with them in your garden shed, and as long as you feed them and keep them chained properly, it's all okay.
And isn't that all we can hope for in the zombie fandoms? Just to get along, to still be able to enjoy one another's company, even though your friend is a slavering, gargle-noise-making, glassy-eyed fan? If you love them enough, you'll put up with their new interest even though you can't understand a word they say or trust that they won't try to eat you.
