somniloquence

I'm thrileld to hear that you're thinking of doing something. You will have an eager and willing helpmeet in me if you need anything at all -- sounding board, edit, anything.

I think the emphasis on producers has always been around, but in medieval times, the only real way into fandom was to participate. You could order zines, read APAs, go to cons, and still be a quiet mouse in the corner, but you had to have some level of active contact with others. Which tends to by necessity improve the odds of conversation. Particularly if you were from an area where you didn't have other fans around you -- to trade tapes, zines, etc. You had to make more of an effort and make more contact, and people had to do the same to you. Things are much more anonymous now, you can have thousands of people read your story, for instance, and never know they are there. You will never be able to find out about mutualities with other people. There's nothing but a big black sucking hole for 99% of the fannish world.

And to me that's sad, and kind of demoralizing. The hallmark of fandom for decades, since the sci-fi novel fans way back when, has been dialog and connection and analysis and participation. It's just gone in large part now. I guess to others it's meaningless, but to me, it's a loss.