Well shit, Henry Jenkins, out here in 1997 dropping truth bombs
Oh hey I need this for a research paper I’m writing, thank you!
i mean he had been out here since 1988 dropping such bombs:
“‘fandom’ is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture”
Jenkins, Henry. âStar Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.â Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85â107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691. Â
there are even some earlier works in fan studies but thatâs what i have ready to hand.Â
There’s this weird tendency among fandom types where they’ll take a character, and insist that they are fans of them, before changing their design, age, pronouns, backstory, blood type, species, hometown, favorite color, zodiac sign, medical history, and every other facet of their being.
They will then violently insist that this version is superior to the canon one and act like they “fixed” them and it’s like. Buddy that’s not the same character anymore. That’s just your own oc commiting identity fraud. Like. I get the desire to experiment with different interpretations of a story. But first of all it’s okay to just make an original character if that’s what you really want to do. And second of all, are you even really a fan of the character you “fixed” if they’re a completely different person afterwards?
Like. Idk dude for somebody who claims to be a fan you sure don’t seem to like them as they are :/
Gonna remember “buddy that’s not the character that’s your OC committing identity fraud.”
Someone in my offline life asked why I bother writing Star Wars fanfic, listing off Disneyâs various and assorted sins, all of which of course I agree are awful! BUT. I think Star Wars as a concept doesnât actually belong to the company that bought the legal right to wring as much profit out of the IP as possible. Star Wars is actually much larger than that.
Star Wars is a massive cultural project, almost half a century old, comprising all forms media, all forms of both official and folk art. It’s a densely woven tapestry of stories, the fruits of the labor and inspiration of thousands and thousands of people. It’s honestly the mythology of many of our childhoods, and it belongs to us in a way that capitalism canât touch.
It’s truly a global phenomenon too! Writing stories and sharing my theories about Star Wars has brought me into being a member a vast community of people, like I’ve had people ask to translate my stories into Russian, Italian, Chinese. I’ve had comments in my story written in so many languages. I have made friends across the globe, all from sitting at my isolated farm in rural USA.
That’s the reason that I write Star Wars, beyond enjoying the Force, the Jedi, the infinitely expandable galaxy, etc. like there’s room for everybody to tell stories. It’s a beautiful, special thing that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I personally LIKE joining in and adding my voice to an ongoing conversation among people who are excited about the heroes and stories that defined my childhood.
The entire idea of mythology only being available for a corporation, and not for the fans, is absurd to me. If we were in ancient Greece, and you said that you and your friends like to sit around and tell each other stories about Homeric characters, nobody would find it strange! Homer and the Homeric heroes were the pervasive stories that everybody vaguely knew and everyone had the context to easily enjoy a retelling.
Oh wow. I got chills when Duel of the Fates kicked in, it’s still one of the most stunning pieces of music I’ve heard anywhere, not just in Star Wars.
WHAT a day it’s been for prequel fans! I always wondered if it would come. It seemed terribly unlikely in the days where people preferred actors, directors, and teenage fans to kill themselves but it’s nice to know there were always some people out there who wanted to build. My fourteen-year-old self who posted endless fanfiction on theforce.net message boards is SCREAMING right now. (Her username on there was female_obi_wan.)
I remember during J.K. Rowling’s most recent (well, it might not be the most recent anymore) bout of biogtry I saw a tweet saying something along the lines of, “This wouldn’t have happened if you idiots hadn’t made a stupid wizard book a intrinsic part of your identity.” And I couldn’t understand it, and didn’t like it, because that’s what you’re supposed to do!
(Is this the probable autism talking?)
Then a few months after that Chadwick Boseman died, which was awful. Wealthy white film people had been having a go at Black Panther for ages (“not cinema” “despicable”) but suddenly it all stopped. I saw a lot of posts all over the internet saying things like “I feel like Black Panther was part of my identity” and “How do I tell my kids Black Panther is dead?” Black Panther wasn’t real, though… except of course he was.
Making a character or a film or a book part of your identity is, god, it’s such a bad idea. You always end up devastated or disappointed or hurt, for any number of reasons. A terrible idea. But we do it anyway. It’s hardwired into us.
Going back over old Red Dwarf posts and man, I forgot how much…the actual show sort-of-but-not-quite shipped Rimmer/Lister. Or kind of? (I mean, there was a kiss, fake though it was.)
Honestly, of all the situations I expected to find myself in this month, “suddenly hardcore shipping the two main characters of a comedy TV show you’ve loved for ages but never considered that way (while the world is in the middle of one of the worst crisises in decades)” is… not one of them. Ah well. What I do really miss is being In Fandom, I guess. Having a sort of fandom central hub (LiveJournal and then Tumblr used to serve this function) where you could just run in and shout “I LOVE THIS THING” and get a chorus back of “WE ALSO LOVE THIS THING.” I suppose Twitter is sort of the fandom central hub now but Twitter just doesn’t work as a platfom for me because you can’t have long conversations.
Anyway, it also so happens that Red Dwarf continuity looks like this:
except even more nonsensical, so I’d be really bad at being a Proper Fan of it. (I still haven’t actually watched Back to Earth since… heck, probably since it first came out. What the smeg was that?)
Throw into that the fact that I guess I’m sort of too old for Shipping now anyway, and… well, I’ll just be here on the sidelines, reblogging all the lovely Promised Land meta and fanart and jazz to secret side social media accounts and so forth.
But, man Promised Land told such a beautiful story. I’m an absolute sucker for “characters who are two halves of the same whole whether they like it or not” relationships, and I never realised there was one right under my nose for going on a decade. Whaddya know.
I think when Rimmer says to Lister at the end, “There’s a moon here, Listy, that wouldn’t mind some sunlight,” what he’s really saying is “We’re about to die. Please be with me,” and ouch, my heart.
2007-2014: I know I should, but the likelihood of losing it isnât that great, so Iâm not too worried about itâŠ
2007+: omfg save EVERYTHING! YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN THE FIC OR THE USER OR THE ENTIRE GODDAMN WEBSITE WILL VANISH AND YOU LOSE YOUR FAVORITE FIC F O R E V E R!!!
