Now, see, this is interesting, in a very meta non-X-specific way.
Because to *me*, fandom always seems to define itself - and fans themselves - by exclusion.
Not "we're the cool kids and you're not" (which would be the typical high school scenario we all decry), but "They're (whoever this mysterious 'they' is) the cool Divas/BNFs/whatever today's buzzword is and *we're* the outsiders, the fringe-dwellers, the marginalized, the ones who speak the truth and should be listened to because we haven't bought into the political bullshit The Cabal of Mighty BNFs(TM) has set up."
Or maybe that's just my time in Smallville speaking. *g*
Because fandom is always setting up these juxtapositions, these dichotomies - slash v. het, noromo v. shipper, dark v. light, pairing X v. pairing Y, quality v. crap etc. etc. - and where one stands (much easier to find out nowadays with LJ/blogs) allows one to be slotted into a box by one's fellow fans.
So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!"
Which, in fact, may be part of the dynamic at work in my own response to the original question about the CBFFAs.
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Re: Quick question
Date: 2002-10-29 07:31 am (UTC)Because to *me*, fandom always seems to define itself - and fans themselves - by exclusion.
Not "we're the cool kids and you're not" (which would be the typical high school scenario we all decry), but "They're (whoever this mysterious 'they' is) the cool Divas/BNFs/whatever today's buzzword is and *we're* the outsiders, the fringe-dwellers, the marginalized, the ones who speak the truth and should be listened to because we haven't bought into the political bullshit The Cabal of Mighty BNFs(TM) has set up."
Or maybe that's just my time in Smallville speaking. *g*
Because fandom is always setting up these juxtapositions, these dichotomies - slash v. het, noromo v. shipper, dark v. light, pairing X v. pairing Y, quality v. crap etc. etc. - and where one stands (much easier to find out nowadays with LJ/blogs) allows one to be slotted into a box by one's fellow fans.
So I find it interesting that you're saying people in comic-fandom would make the leap to "we are the community", because the other fandoms I've been involved in or observed would have the opposite leap, to "we're being marginalized by the community!"
Which, in fact, may be part of the dynamic at work in my own response to the original question about the CBFFAs.