Fandom, Social Networking, and More Frequent LJ Posts

[rsadelle]

I've been thinking about social networks and fandom for a while, specifically since LJ introduced the crosspost to Facebook/Twitter feature and everyone freaked out. A lot of people had theories/discussions about that. Here's mine: There are basically two uses for the internet. One is to talk to people you already know. The other is to find things that have been posted and post things to be found. The tension for fandom is that a large portion of fandom wants something in between: they want to find things that have been posted and post things to be found, but only within a specific network of people who are part of the community - a broader expansion of people you already know. But the internet doesn't work like that.

A lot of fandom is still invested in keeping fandom a secret from the people we're fannish about, but in a world where the existence of Wincest is canon on Supernatural and Pete Wentz tells people.com about his mom getting fan fic about him in her RSS feeds, that ship has sailed, circumnavigated the globe, and sailed again. I'm not advocating telling them about it - I still think that's incredibly rude - but I don't think hiding our existence is a viable strategy. I don't even hide it from people I know. My Facebook page says "fangirl" in the about me section and the website section links back here. My LiveJournal userinfo links back to Facebook. I don't generally bring it up in conversation, but I'm not hiding it either. Brad will often casually mention it to people I've just met, and that's made me more comfortable about talking about fannish things in non-fannish spaces. At a family dinner, I had a whole conversation with my mother about authors I refuse to read because they're anti-fan fic. I want to be clear: I am not impugning anyone else's choices here. People have their own reasons for not doing what I do, for keeping even their fannish spaces locked down, and I respect their right to those choices. (Even if I, as a reader, resent the hell out of friends-locked fic.) Everyone has different life/professional/family situations. The fact that we don't all make the same choices makes this a tough world to navigate. When friends gave me an iPod for Christmas/my birthday, I thanked them by name on Facebook and then couldn't here because all four of them keep those identities extremely separate, and I'm trying to respect that.

The thing is that I love social networking. I originally joined Facebook and MySpace because my step-grandmother's health was declining and I wanted to have an independent relationship with my step-cousins. (Years later, she's doing great.) MySpace (then) and Facebook (now) gave me a low pressure, low effort way to do that. (We may be cousins, but I'm three years older than the oldest and thirteen or fourteen years older than the youngest, and as much as I love them, I don't seem to have much in common with any of them.) Now it's expanded beyond them; I also get to see what's up with people from high school, college, and previous jobs who I would never stay in touch with otherwise - and I love that. I love knowing about other people's lives. I love knowing other people's stories. I never want to pry and make people uncomfortable, so I don't ask about people's lives very often, and this way I don't have to. As for me, I tend to use Facebook for more real life stuff (this sometimes overlaps with Twitter), but I'm still me, and it does still have a fannish bent - many of my status updates/link posts are about Empires, movies, or books.

And then there's Twitter. I adore Twitter. I follow very few people, but I love hearing what's up with them and I love Twitter for how I use it. eleanor_lavish made a post (friends-locked) about how she misses the days when people made lots of LJ posts. I've never been that person. For me, this is a place to say stuff, and I try to make that coherent and meaningful. I don't feel like that about Twitter. Twitter is a seemingly although not actually ephemeral medium (I use Tweetake every once in a while to download my tweets so I can pull out fic and plot bunnies). More importantly, you only get 140 characters. That's very low pressure, and it means that I don't feel like I'm taking time and energy away from other writing to post to Twitter. (Let me take a moment out of this post to say you should feel free to unfollow me/skip what I'm saying at any time. I talk a lot on Twitter, and I understand if that's not your thing. Brad and I have an arrangement where we follow each other but he ignores my fic writing and I ignore his hockey game live tweeting.)

The one fannish social networking/bloggish space I haven't (yet?) gotten into is Tumblr. I'm a word person, and from what I can see, Tumblr seems to be more about media.

And then there's email. I think one effect of all this social networking is that emailing someone new seems like a big deal. It's not how we communicate anymore. But then there are my friends with whom my fannish conversations take place only on email.

eleanor_lavish talked about missing people posting things they've found with commentary, but sometimes I wonder, what's the point? If I email about how Breezy is definitely our kind of woman, my friends will talk to me about it. But I don't know that anyone would if I posted it here. Because that's the other half of posting to LJ. As much as I love it for the written equivalent of hearing myself talk, I also love it for having conversations with people - and for reading the conversations other people are having with each other. I read way more things (fic and otherwise) than I comment on, and I'm sure that's true for everyone else too, which means you might read this without ever telling me you did. For larger posts, that doesn't bother me, but why bother making a lot of one-off fannish posts if they're not going to be a place for conversation? I can send an email off to people I know might care - and might talk about it - just as easily (or perhaps even easier). I've been trying all week to figure out how to say that without being whiny and sounding like I'm asking for validation, but there isn't one because I am asking for validation. I don't want to go through the effort of making LJ posts about things I found enjoyable if they're not going to go somewhere. Otherwise, I can just quietly enjoy it on my own or in those more private fannish spaces.

When when I talk about not being bothered by no one leaving feedback on things I've written, people have asked if I post to communities, and I mostly don't. I don't even know where to post for bandom, and I've been in that fandom for two years. I'm also wary of expanding my fannish reach because of a lot of the things I hear about fandom from people who are deeper in. (I'll save the rant about how we are a community of women and hating other women is not okay for another day.)

But even with all that, I know what eleanor_lavish means. On days when I'm busy, my friends list, small as it is, seems overwhelming, but on weekends I refresh and refresh and refresh and wish there were more going on. I have recently become more likely to make small, one-off posts about something I just found. (It's not really a joke when I say I'm always two to three years behind the rest of fandom. I should have all my fic uploaded to AO3 by 2015 or so.) If I did more of that, if I posted here with my favorite picture of the day (not every day, but whenever there's one I love) with commentary, if I posted small plot bunny of the day posts instead of saving them all up for one giant post, would you read them and join in the conversation or would it be too much clutter on your friends list?

TL;DR version:

• I love social networking. You should be friends with me on Facebook. (I only ask that you let me know who you are if I don't already know your real name.) You can also follow me on Twitter.


• Feel free to unfriend/unfollow me at any time.


• I love email. You can send me some even if we don't know each other that well. You should also feel free to comment here, at any time. If you find an older post and want to comment, I have no problem with that. Talking about fannish things is my favorite thing in the world.


• I will absolutely and completely respect your boundaries around keeping your identities separate.


• I might post here more often, and I am open to suggestions as to communities I should be posting to.

Comments

[inlovewithnight.livejournal.com]

I would totally engage with small posts of the day. :D

[rsadelle]

♥

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I see the point of your first paragraph, but from my perspective, the internet CAN work like that--keeping posts in smallish communities--and LJ supports that in a lot of ways that Facebook and Twitter doesn't, hence the divide.

I mean, it's not just that I'm semi-closeted about my fannishness for professional reasons--I don't WANT to have conversations about slash with my Christian relatives, or the people I went to high school with. In fact, mostly I don't want to interact with the vast majority of folks I have friended on Facebook at all; I just want to see pictures of their kids and have a kind of faux sense that I'm keeping up with their lives that Facebook gives me, so I don't *actually* have to keep up with their lives. Whereas my fandom friends are more likely to be people I want to have actual conversations with even if I don't know who they "really" are.

I can see why you email a lot of your most significant fannish conversations--I certainly email you a lot of stuff I wouldn't think of posting, because it's snarky or I just want your input or I want to be sure someone actually reads something--but I also think that for fandom, you have a fairly small flist. I have about 4 times the friends you have, and while I rarely interact with the majority of those folks, it does mean when I throw out a topic for discussion that's not something I generally talk about (SV or SPN), I am probably more likely to get other people participating just because of the sheer number of people who are likely to see the post and perhaps be interested.

I don't know if I would comment more if you posted more or not. I don't see one post a day as excessive, that's for sure.

[rsadelle]

Friends locked communities might work like that, but I don't think general LJ content does - if it's open, it's open and if it's friends locked, then you have to know the person (at least in the LJ sense of friending) to read it. The locked to logged in users thing on AO3 is more like a blend of the two.

I do see your point. There are a lot of people in my life I will probably never talk fandom with - but they're the people I will probably never talk with about anything else really important in my life either. As for Facebook, I have a lot of people I'm friends with hidden (I do want to have that tenuous connection so I can see what they're doing if I'm curious, or they've friended me, but I don't want to see their status updates), and I figure anyone who doesn't want to hear about Empires/movies/books will hide me. Also, I accidentally learned that many people will friend you without actually reading your info, so who knows if anyone knows that I'm a fangirl.

See, the things I email are emailed not because I don't want to say them publicly (well, usually - things like "I didn't like this story because" or talking through something I'm working on are not things I would post here anyway), but rather because a large number of the people I want to have that particular discussion with often don't/won't do it here.

I do have a smallish friends list, and mostly by design. As much as I want more to read on weekends, I'm wary of friending people I don't know very well, partly because half the time I like people's fannish posts but don't care about their RL/cat posts unless I know them better and partly because friending is easy but unfriending is hard. But you're right that that does mean that fewer people friend me, which means there isn't as large a reader pool to pull from. I think if I posted to more comms, that might change. (If only I knew which ones to post to.)

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

I probably comment too often and am just getting irritating. That being said, I love your posts--and I think you should post your fic to more comms because it's so original and refreshing. AO3 would be a really easy way for you to do that because of the way searches work on there. I find it WAY easier to find random fic over there and I think you'd find more bandom readers if you cross-posted over there and then you'd get more comments. I want you to get more comments on your fic because I'd actually like to talk to other people about your fic.(I know this sounds crazy and stalkerish, but I think you're exploring things in an intersting way that is worthy of more meta conversation--I mean I enjoy your fic knowing virtually nothing about bandom.)

I wish people would do more of these kind of posts on LJ because it's what gives me an actual sense of folks and you don't have to join a whole comm to get some interesting fannish conversation. Comms are great, but can be kind of exhausting. You know I love your "outness" about being a fangirl--and I'm finding that I'm way more out than an awful lot of people, at least in the Adam fandom. A lot of people seem to have husbands and partners who don't even read their fic, which is kind of amazing to me for a variety of reasons that mostly are related to how much I'm blown away but the lack of intimacy and connection in a lot of people's most significant relationships. Which sounds more judgmental than I mean to be, but whatever. But Facebook is just a completely different medium for me--I'd never want people to link to my LJ from there.

On the other hand, I think one of the most appealing things about fandom is getting to have a second identity--and I can totally see why some people have multiple fandom names.


I wish people would have more "meta" type conversations on their LJ entries too, because that shit totally fascinates me.

As to the separation of fanfic from the people we write about--yep, that ship has sailed. But it does give me pause when I write...and I guess I have a double standard because I am glad that others don't have this hesitation.

Finally--it confuses me how specific people are in fandom--like folks in the Adam world who won't read anything that isn't Kradam. On the other hand, I also get that what works about fanfic is the specificity, the in-jokes, the individual culture of each fandom. Bandom is particularly bewildering to me because there are so many damn characters and no narrative line--or maybe I just dont' get the narrative line. I see what's easier about TV, movie fandom. RPS requires a disturbing level of obsession. I'd never go there--oops, speaking of ships that have already sailed ;) I just get that it would be friggin' exhuasting to obsess over more than one or two worlds of real people. Anyhow, I'd love to see more "thinky thinky" posts from you because that's what's interesting to me.

[rsadelle]

Awww, you're not irritating at all! I love talking fandom! I've been reading things at AO3 more often recently (I have issues with their aesthetic, and also I don't find the interface for finding things very intuitive, but it would probably make sense if I spent more time there), so I will probably put all my fic up there eventually. I'm not sure how much that would help with people talking fandom with me here, though. There seems to be something of a divide between AO3 and LJ where if people don't use the same username - and you don't know they use the same username - it's a lot harder to figure out who they are here. I don't know how much meta conversation you'll get in the comments to a story. Fandom doesn't seem to have much in the way of a structure for literary criticism of specific fic. You do get it in people's recs sometimes - here, for example.

I remember a really interesting comment from Jennifer Pelland at a Wiscon panel (about balancing writing and the day job, I think) where she said her husband is very supportive of her writing but not interested in reading it because it's just not his thing. I don't know that not reading it is such a huge lack of intimacy, but I do think that about not having the people closest to you know about it. For so many of us, fandom is such a huge part of our lives. I can't imagine having close friends who didn't know about it.

I do understand people having multiple identities. It just doesn't work for me. I've had sock puppets for various purposes before, but I could never keep them up. The closest I come is my second Twitter account for @replying to celebrities/following non-celebrity partners of celebrities without being in a place where clicking on my username will take them back to fan fic discussion about them.

I think there is a lot of meta in fandom! I don't track much of it because, occasional meta post aside, I would usually rather use my time and energy on reading/writing fic or having plot bunny type discussions. metafandom tracks some of that kind of discussion. You might also like deadbrowalking.

I can understand that specificity - sometimes one pairing/character does it for you and no one else does. The thing about bandom is that there isn't one narrative line - there are several overlapping/intertwined narrative lines. I've found that I know most of the canon from reading fic - if you read enough fic about a specific band, you start to see the same repeated things over and over again, and that's usually the stuff that comes from canon/reality. I came into bandom via fic and went back to find out who everyone was in real life after having a sense of them from fic. (This is pretty much what I've done with H50, too, and various other fandoms over the years.) I also came into it late - people who've been in bandom for the last five years watched everything happen in real time, which can make it easier to absorb. I do have the kind of brain that will hold onto a lot of facts and trivia, which makes that kind of tracking easier for me.

I don't know that I'll be making more thinky/meta posts - these take a lot of time and effort, and I often feel guilty working on them instead of my writing - but I might be making more posts in general.

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

I loved this reply so much! And it was great to read the meta about h50 and s/d and then I read the fic being analyzed (I'd already read and loved El's DADT fic) and it just about melted my brain and all the rest of me too. So, thank you for that. I'll check out the two meta comms.

[rsadelle]

:)

[megyal]

I will absolutely and completely respect your boundaries around keeping your identities separate.

Thanks for that. It's only now I feel comfortable with acknowledging a separate online identity, much less my real life one. I understand what you're saying, but I really don't mesh well with most of it. Being a fan is almost like being a different person for me, while still keeping basic elements of myself, and it's kind of freeing.

Posting regularly to LJ...that was a phase for me that I liked, I guess, not just doing it, but reading what others say. Then I got super-busy with work, and passed out of it. I also got a lot picky about the concept of friends. I'm demanding, and attention-seeking. If you don't talk to me and I spend a lot of time talking to you, I see that as an unequal exchange, and I'm out. I agree with norwich36 about not WANTING to talk to people I interact in meatspace with, about slash.

[rsadelle]

I understand that other people's choices are not mine! I'm just not good at being only parts of myself. I've never even managed to maintain a fannish sock puppet for more than a few weeks. (With the exception of my appropriate for @replying to celebrities Twitter, which I rarely post with and mostly use so they won't have to click back to fan fic discussion about themselves if they happen to click on my username in a @reply and so I can keep my Twitter manageable - I follow celebrities with that one, so if I'm busy, I can keep up with just the people I know on my other one and leave the celebrities for later.)

I love reading other people's posts on LJ, and maybe that's the other thing I have to remember about this. For years, I've had trouble thinking of posting fic as something I do that contributes to the community when other people do so much "real work" like maintaining comms or beta reading or keeping primers, and maybe I need to think of small posts as contributing to the larger fandom community even if people don't talk about it with me.

I see what you're saying, and for me, I'm trying not to think about friendship as an exchange. I know I read things that I don't comment on, often because I just don't have anything to say, and I'm trying to remember that that might be true for other people. On the other hand, I've also been making more of an effort to comment more often because of that - and sometimes I'll leave comments on people's personal posts that say something like, "I don't have anything specific to say about this, but I wanted you to know I read it."

There are a lot of people I wouldn't want to talk slash/fandom with, but I also don't want to have to watch what I say that carefully when I'm chatting with people I am close to - and sometimes Brad will listen to me chatter about something I'm writing and have something helpful to say.