What Is Fandom Culture?

[morgandawn]

1. The focused love of a subject matter (TV, knitting, hockey)
2. Active engagement with the subject matter vs passive consumption. Active engagement can be thinking about the show, discussing it, writing fic, making gif sets etc. Passive engagement is turning on the TV and watching it and then forgetting about it.  Note: one can passively consume the products of active engagement. Media fandom does not only consist of artists or fanfic writers, it also includes readers and lurkers and organizers. Also note that the active engagement does not have to be social - you can still be a media fan if you never connect up with another media fan and all the engagement takes place inside your head.
3.Non-commercial (fanzines were always supposed to be non-profit, artists would often get paid for their fanart prints or originals, and if fans turned their fanfic into pro fic - well it was no longer fanfic.)

Everything else: concrit, (n)etiquette, visibility, 4th Wall, warnings are all community specific and even among communities these "norms' or "rules" vary and are not universally accepted. To argue that someone is violating "fandom culture" is like arguing that everyone in the fandom world belongs to a single faith. In fact it argues that even if there are many fandom faiths, that all members of the faith  hold the same beliefs. While it is true that some faiths will not accept you unless you believe in and adopt their specific tenets, there are always those who claim a religious identity while disagreeing with some (or all) of the doctrines of their faith. 

Fandom is multitudes. Fandom is IDIC. Fandom is wherever you are.

Comments

[musesfool]

YES. Thank you.

[niqaeli]

I mean, the hilarious thing is that I disagree with you re: non-commercial. That one I believe to also be a matter of community standards that vary from community to community and also even within communities. It is, granted, true of a good deal of Western-derived media fandom, but that's not the only fandom community.

But, yes.

[morgandawn]

yeah, I waffled a long time on that one too, knowing the Japanese manga tradition. still, I place it within the realm of fanzines (charging for the physical product to cover production costs = not profit. knowing full well, there is and always has been a lot of wiggle room on the "no profit" side). when fan start filming their fanfic and charging for access to watch, I might waffle even more.

Speaking of which:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Phase_II_%28fan_series%29

[heresluck]

I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately, as you might expect, and one of the things I've been thinking about is the difference between being A Fan and being In Fandom. I completely agree that being a fan means being actively engaged (in any of a variety of ways!) and that the engagement doesn't have to be social... but I do think that *fandom* is social. Not necessarily social in the sense of interacting socially -- fandom includes readers and lurkers, as you say! But reading and lurking are still social in that they involve seeking out the fic/essays/art/etc. of other fans, which is, I think, a step beyond just thinking about the show or imagining missing scenes or writing drawer fic.

[kass]

the difference between being A Fan and being In Fandom.

Yes! I've been thinking about this too. I'm ordering a custom-made thing from Etsy which is clearly made by a fan. But I don't know whether she's "in fandom" as I would recognize it. I wonder to what extent making and selling fannish things might be her form of fannish sociability.

I do agree with Morgan Dawn's point that not every corner of fandom has the same social mores or implicit expectations. I think that's one of the things we're bumping into as we watch this imbroglio with assigning of fanfic (and the assigning of leaving critical comments) as part of a class -- I'm sure the people teaching that class think of themselves as fans; they wouldn't be treating fanfic as worthwhile literature if they weren't! But wherever they're coming from, fannishly speaking, may be different from the corner of media fandom where I was "reared" as a fan.

[heresluck]

Right, yes -- fandom is multitudes, as MD says; to make a distinction between In Fandom and Not In Fandom isn't to say that fandom itself is all one thing! Fandom is always fandoms, plural, always a sprawling, messy, and only sometimes overlapping collection of affinity groups with a wide range of norms and assumptions affected by lots of different variables.

[cofax7]

Yes, this!

Thank you for being sensible and bringing your understanding of fannish history to bear.

[saraht]

Yes, indeed.

[princessofgeeks]

Still so valid.

[catalenamara]

In addition to artists selling prints and originals, I've been buying (or have been gifted) tote bags, coffee cups, a wallet, Tarot cards, etc., with the designs being fan art, through Redbubble, Etsy, a Canadian site whose name I've forgotten, etc., etc. And of course there's the new(ish)? thing of "tip jars", a concept that was very new to me. I've used given a tip to a fan writer who is a particular favorite of mine through one of these sites. (I can't remember the name of the site now, but it had something to do with coffee.)
Everything's truly always a moving target. My definition of the only thing that truly defines fandom - any kind - is the passionate active engagement of the fan with the subject.