![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"If you build it, they will come."
We've all heard it at some point. Many of us have given this wisdom to someone who said "there's nothing in the bit of fandom that I want to see grow!" and thought nothing of it.
As someone who's pretty much made a name for herself in fandom by writing the less-popular characters and pairings, I can tell you that while the basic premise is true, the implicit ongoing implications are a lie.
It's difficult being the only producer in a corner of fandom. Or one of maybe a handful of people, where the others have multiple loves - usually including a far more popular pairing or character.
The accepted wisdom is "make what you want to see in fandom".
What the people telling you this (usually from bigger, more popular sections of fandom which have no trouble in getting fanworks about the pairings/characters they love) don't tell you is that it doesn't always work.
I have loved at least two female characters in megafandoms ('secondary' female characters, never The One Girl In All The Canon whom everyone loves) - fandoms where one might expect the "if you build it, they will come (and they will help you build it)" truism to actually hold: hundreds of thousands of fans, surely there are some people who'll like the same character and pairing that you do, right?
Yes. And no.
There are people who like the same character or pairing, but usually as a secondary interest. And when their primary interest is a far more popular character or pairing, they'll spend 95% of their time gushing over their favourite...and 5% tossing a bone or two your way.
If you built it, people will come, yes. But they will mostly stand around and compliment you on your building skills. If you invite them to help you build, they will mostly put up their hands and say, "oh, well, I'm no good at building what you're building" and then go off and happily develop castles to their primary interest.
Which is absolutely their right to do so, but when you were sold the line that "if you build it, then they will come" with the unspoken implication that "and they will help you build it so you don't have to do all the work yourself", then it's very demoralising to realise that you have, in fact, been sold a lie. People will come and watch and praise you, they might even 'help' a little, but rarely will they take the initiative themselves.
(This, in fact, matches a lot of discourse I'm seeing about the way that a husband 'helps' by asking his wife exactly what she wants him to do instead of looking and seeing what needs to be done and then letting her know she's doing it. That might be why I have so fiercely come to dislike the 'well, maybe if you organised more fic exchanges, or set up more avenues for people to participate' angle of fandom. It's so tiring. You chivvy people into doing something they don't really want to do, and at the end you have hardly anything more - some new fics, sure, but the people who wrote them are no more enthusiastic about writing them off their own bat than a husband is about doing chores around the house without someone treating him like a child. In the end, it's easier just to go off and create it youreslf.)
The people who told you "well, don't complain that there's nothing in fandom, go and create it yourself and you'll make other fans!" slapped a bandaid on your wound so they wouldn't have to see it. They're not actually interested or invested in helping you sew up the gash, they just don't want to have to see it. People missing out in fandom makes them queasy, because fandom is supposed to be a happy place for all.
A. Happy. Place. For. All.
(And if you're not happy and satisfied by fandom, then obviously there's something wrong with you because Fandom Is A Happy Place For All.)
I present Stargate Atlantis fandom, Teyla Emmagan as a favourite character, and John/Teyla as a pairing.
Over eight years, I wrote a lot of fic about Teyla, featuring John/Teyla, featuring the team. I commented on a lot of posts. I ran ficathons and exchanges, asked for my favourite characters/pairings at every turn.
In the end, I was still one of only a handful of Teyla and John/Teyla fans who were producing fanworks about them. Why? Because the people who liked Teyla or John/Teyla could get so much more interaction by producing fanworks about Elizabeth or Rodney or John, or whatever combination of pairings they preferred. There's a reason The Algorithm of modern social media exists: likes and comments and clicks and reads drive interaction, which drives both advertising revenue and human notice. We are all Pavlov's dogs when it comes to people paying attention.
What you will find is that people will come to you if you build it. They will like you and your take, but they will not participate in what you like.
That's been a tough lesson to take in, and I'm still unlearning the habits and thought patterns I learned twenty years ago when I first came into fandom.
The people who like my stories? They don't necessarily like the characters or pairings I write, they like what I can do with a story. They'll suspend their own belief that John really belongs with his One True Love Elizabeth Weir for as long as my story goes. (And then they'll say they feel "dirty" for enjoying it afterwards: trufax.) But they won't write any John/Teyla or Teyla-centric stuff themselves. I am a source of product for the majority of fans, I am not an inspiration to go and do likewise.
And, demoralising as it is, I have to be okay with that.
You can't force people to like what you like, to be productive about what you'd like to see. And when you're an oddball in fandom, like me, and you're fannish about a minor character whom nobody else is fannish about ('fannish' is not the same as 'like': plenty of people like Teyla or Maria but few are fannish about them) nor has reason to be (because why bother with writing something about Maria when you can get thousands of times the interactions by writing about Natasha?) then you just have to twiddle along on your lonesome and accept that You're Just Weird (Nice And Likeable, Sure, But Weird).
--
There could be an argument made that the point wasn't to get other people to build with you - after all the explicit words don't say that people will come and do as you do. But the reason that I'm creating fanworks that don't yet exist is because I want to read fanworks for that character or pairing instead of having to create them.
And even to the people who defend "well, they never said they'd come and do the work with you" there's an underlying assumption that if people haven't joined you then it's kind of your fault.
As a BNF in Stargate once told me, "Well, nobody ever wrote a seminal John/Teyla work that just hooked people's imaginations to get them into the pairing". ie. "You didn't do the work, so you don't deserve the fandom."
Funny how it's always the "Team Gen" (where 'gen' means guys being buddy-buddy) and big-following m/m fans who say this sort of thing. They don't have to work for it to deserve the fandom, but I do.
--
"If you build it, they will come", yes. But they won't build it with you or join in on the work, they will watch you and applaud you and maybe follow you elsewhere to watch you work on other things that might not have otherwise interested them, but they are not interested in participating, only in spectating.
With fandom becoming a spectator sport (facebook/twitter/tumblr likes) rather than a participatory one (LJ/DW comments), this is more relevant than ever.
--
Also for my fannish50 posts
We've all heard it at some point. Many of us have given this wisdom to someone who said "there's nothing in the bit of fandom that I want to see grow!" and thought nothing of it.
As someone who's pretty much made a name for herself in fandom by writing the less-popular characters and pairings, I can tell you that while the basic premise is true, the implicit ongoing implications are a lie.
It's difficult being the only producer in a corner of fandom. Or one of maybe a handful of people, where the others have multiple loves - usually including a far more popular pairing or character.
The accepted wisdom is "make what you want to see in fandom".
What the people telling you this (usually from bigger, more popular sections of fandom which have no trouble in getting fanworks about the pairings/characters they love) don't tell you is that it doesn't always work.
I have loved at least two female characters in megafandoms ('secondary' female characters, never The One Girl In All The Canon whom everyone loves) - fandoms where one might expect the "if you build it, they will come (and they will help you build it)" truism to actually hold: hundreds of thousands of fans, surely there are some people who'll like the same character and pairing that you do, right?
Yes. And no.
There are people who like the same character or pairing, but usually as a secondary interest. And when their primary interest is a far more popular character or pairing, they'll spend 95% of their time gushing over their favourite...and 5% tossing a bone or two your way.
If you built it, people will come, yes. But they will mostly stand around and compliment you on your building skills. If you invite them to help you build, they will mostly put up their hands and say, "oh, well, I'm no good at building what you're building" and then go off and happily develop castles to their primary interest.
Which is absolutely their right to do so, but when you were sold the line that "if you build it, then they will come" with the unspoken implication that "and they will help you build it so you don't have to do all the work yourself", then it's very demoralising to realise that you have, in fact, been sold a lie. People will come and watch and praise you, they might even 'help' a little, but rarely will they take the initiative themselves.
(This, in fact, matches a lot of discourse I'm seeing about the way that a husband 'helps' by asking his wife exactly what she wants him to do instead of looking and seeing what needs to be done and then letting her know she's doing it. That might be why I have so fiercely come to dislike the 'well, maybe if you organised more fic exchanges, or set up more avenues for people to participate' angle of fandom. It's so tiring. You chivvy people into doing something they don't really want to do, and at the end you have hardly anything more - some new fics, sure, but the people who wrote them are no more enthusiastic about writing them off their own bat than a husband is about doing chores around the house without someone treating him like a child. In the end, it's easier just to go off and create it youreslf.)
The people who told you "well, don't complain that there's nothing in fandom, go and create it yourself and you'll make other fans!" slapped a bandaid on your wound so they wouldn't have to see it. They're not actually interested or invested in helping you sew up the gash, they just don't want to have to see it. People missing out in fandom makes them queasy, because fandom is supposed to be a happy place for all.
A. Happy. Place. For. All.
(And if you're not happy and satisfied by fandom, then obviously there's something wrong with you because Fandom Is A Happy Place For All.)
I present Stargate Atlantis fandom, Teyla Emmagan as a favourite character, and John/Teyla as a pairing.
Over eight years, I wrote a lot of fic about Teyla, featuring John/Teyla, featuring the team. I commented on a lot of posts. I ran ficathons and exchanges, asked for my favourite characters/pairings at every turn.
In the end, I was still one of only a handful of Teyla and John/Teyla fans who were producing fanworks about them. Why? Because the people who liked Teyla or John/Teyla could get so much more interaction by producing fanworks about Elizabeth or Rodney or John, or whatever combination of pairings they preferred. There's a reason The Algorithm of modern social media exists: likes and comments and clicks and reads drive interaction, which drives both advertising revenue and human notice. We are all Pavlov's dogs when it comes to people paying attention.
What you will find is that people will come to you if you build it. They will like you and your take, but they will not participate in what you like.
That's been a tough lesson to take in, and I'm still unlearning the habits and thought patterns I learned twenty years ago when I first came into fandom.
The people who like my stories? They don't necessarily like the characters or pairings I write, they like what I can do with a story. They'll suspend their own belief that John really belongs with his One True Love Elizabeth Weir for as long as my story goes. (And then they'll say they feel "dirty" for enjoying it afterwards: trufax.) But they won't write any John/Teyla or Teyla-centric stuff themselves. I am a source of product for the majority of fans, I am not an inspiration to go and do likewise.
And, demoralising as it is, I have to be okay with that.
You can't force people to like what you like, to be productive about what you'd like to see. And when you're an oddball in fandom, like me, and you're fannish about a minor character whom nobody else is fannish about ('fannish' is not the same as 'like': plenty of people like Teyla or Maria but few are fannish about them) nor has reason to be (because why bother with writing something about Maria when you can get thousands of times the interactions by writing about Natasha?) then you just have to twiddle along on your lonesome and accept that You're Just Weird (Nice And Likeable, Sure, But Weird).
--
There could be an argument made that the point wasn't to get other people to build with you - after all the explicit words don't say that people will come and do as you do. But the reason that I'm creating fanworks that don't yet exist is because I want to read fanworks for that character or pairing instead of having to create them.
And even to the people who defend "well, they never said they'd come and do the work with you" there's an underlying assumption that if people haven't joined you then it's kind of your fault.
As a BNF in Stargate once told me, "Well, nobody ever wrote a seminal John/Teyla work that just hooked people's imaginations to get them into the pairing". ie. "You didn't do the work, so you don't deserve the fandom."
Funny how it's always the "Team Gen" (where 'gen' means guys being buddy-buddy) and big-following m/m fans who say this sort of thing. They don't have to work for it to deserve the fandom, but I do.
--
"If you build it, they will come", yes. But they won't build it with you or join in on the work, they will watch you and applaud you and maybe follow you elsewhere to watch you work on other things that might not have otherwise interested them, but they are not interested in participating, only in spectating.
With fandom becoming a spectator sport (facebook/twitter/tumblr likes) rather than a participatory one (LJ/DW comments), this is more relevant than ever.
--
Also for my fannish50 posts
Tags:
no subject
What you will find is that people will come to you if you build it. They will like you and your take, but they will not participate in what you like.
I am a source of product for the majority of fans, I am not an inspiration to go and do likewise.
OOF. Mood. It's so disheartening, especially if they try to give a backhanded compliment ("You wrote it so well, I could never write as good as you!") to explain why. 8(
Or someone *seems* like they might participate with you and you're excited and you offer to help and just get silence back. :/
But the reason that I'm creating fanworks that don't yet exist is because I want to read fanworks for that character or pairing instead of having to create them.
Same! And since they don't exist, or don't exist to my specifications, I have to make them! And, like, sure, I enjoy making my stuff, but it sure would be nice to have other people engage with it the same way I do.
why I have so fiercely come to dislike the 'well, maybe if you organised more fic exchanges, or set up more avenues for people to participate' angle of fandom. It's so tiring.
This! I try to participate in exchanges to give people an excuse to write for my rarepairs or maybe check out my stuff, and it never really leads anywhere. Even when i do my best to make sure most of my fic is fandom blind friendly, so anyone interested in the tags/summary can enjoy it without canon knowledge and maybe end up interested in canon by the end of it. :/
With fandom becoming a spectator sport (facebook/twitter/tumblr likes) rather than a participatory one (LJ/DW comments), this is more relevant than ever.
It's so sad that fandom is like this now.
no subject
Oh man, I'd be hundreds of dollars richer if I got a dollar for every time someone told me this! I wasn't born writing this way, I had to learn it story by story! I wrote millions of words to get to this point!
I try to participate in exchanges to give people an excuse to write for my rarepairs or maybe check out my stuff, and it never really leads anywhere.
Yes. YES. So much this. I have one or two friends who are lovely and write me bits and pieces, even though they don't do much writing themselves generally, but sometimes I really want a big, meaty EPIC story of the kind that I write (because I want to read it too) and...there's not all that much out there.
It's so sad that fandom is like this now.
I started to realise this shift was happening about the time that LJ people began migrating to Tumblr rather than making the jump to DW. Younger generations of fans (ie. the last five to ten years) have never known an actually interactive, participatory fandom. They think that liking or reblogging something is sufficiently fannish, and see no need to actually be involved in either the creation or celebration of things.
And yes, it's sad. I believe the 'distance approval' of likes/reblogs has a bigger effect on social networks than we realised at the start, and are only just beginning to comprehend now.
no subject
It's just so rude to tell someone who's work you supposedly like, why you won't be adding to fandom: "You did it too good!" Like...um thanks? I know there's some larger ships/fandoms where I'm a bit intimidated by how many fics exist for it, and I think "eh, what am I gonna add to this that someone hasn't already done better?" but if I got hyperfixated on that ship/fandom I might write my fics anyway. But I'd never tell an author in their comments that their awesome fic is why I wouldn't write my own.
sometimes I really want a big, meaty EPIC story of the kind that I write (because I want to read it too) and...there's not all that much out there.
Same!!!!!!!!! Or even just someone to help me plot out those big meaty stories!
They think that liking or reblogging something is sufficiently fannish, and see no need to actually be involved in either the creation or celebration of things.
I remember seeing discourse about whether it was appropriate to comment on reblogs, and a lot of people were like "ew no don't comment on my post" so I imagined that scared a *lot* of people off from commenting, or at least conditioned them to accepting a "distance approval" world of fandom.
I don't think it's a coincidence there's so many "how to start commenting on fics!" guides and stuff have popped up over the last few years. People are either too scared to comment or too embarrassed, when I feel like that barrier never really existed much back in the LJ days.
no subject
I once murmured that the story I wanted to write had probably already been written, and a friend pointed out "but the story you'll write is the version that you'd write, not anyone else; that makes it different and worth writing" and I've always remembered that when I've thought about writing a re-version of something.
People are either too scared to comment or too embarrassed, when I feel like that barrier never really existed much back in the LJ days.
I wonder if some of it is 'millenial anxiety' - rather like not answering the phone.
no subject
Very true! Good advice. :D
I wonder if some of it is 'millenial anxiety' - rather like not answering the phone.
yeah, probably. Or just not wanting to sound "cringe" by expressing enthusiasm or positivity over something.
no subject
It's so hard if you can't write the thing or do the art or make the vid to try to help build the fandom (and even more frustrating, then, when you participate in, say, a charity event and give your prompts to someone who said they're good with crafting the thing with your character(s) and thoughts... and they ghost you).
no subject
I understand the feeling of not being able to do what others have done, but I also know (and maybe come from a different era in this) that the people who do these amazing things learned along the way. So many of us didn't spring fully-formed from the forehead of the God Of Creativity, we toiled along the way to learn what we know and implement what we learned.
However, one thing that I always found helped was recommending - not just reblogging, but also adding a 'why I like this and I think you'll like it too' comment.
no subject
I complain about it even while I struggle at interacting. Like... should I try out Reddit?! Do I want to look at Reddit?! And this is just for the possibility talking about things I love; engagement on fanfic is its own separate beast.
no subject
And here's where we start talking about the subtle/not so subtle versions of fannish racism and how that plays out in what is produced and consumed.
When we were still running BASCon, we were already running into the problem of younger fans who had no idea of how to interact with people in real life. Online was where they lived, which isn't bad in and of itself but it did make it hard to engage with some of them sometimes. It's worse on some fronts now; the world of reblogging, etc. does not make for good conversation.
These days I feel very much like a solitary fan in the few fandoms I tangentially participate in and I know in some quarters, I'll get some BS about how I should add this character or that character that they like and I absolutely detest. On another hand, my specialty in an exchange like Yuletide seems to be rare-pairs/rare fandom; the one thing that the person wanted, asked for for years, and I gave it to them for a gift. I'm okay with that.
no subject
I, too, have learned to be happy out in the wilderness of rarepairs and small fandoms.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
And
Sadly, so so true.:/
no subject
Which pairings and which shows become popular in fandom has very little to do with any one author or fan. There have been a few exceptions, where one person who's already a BNF gets a whole bunch of people into creating stuff for a new fandom or a new pairing ... but in all those cases, the person in particular a) already had a large following of people that really looked up to them (because they'd been producing lots of content for a juggernaut ship in a juggernaut pairing) and b) the fandom/pairing they led people to was extremely similar to the one they were coming from. Like, from one Standard White Male Slash Pairing to the next Standard White Male Slash Pairing. It doesn't happen for those of us who like female characters who aren't Strong Female Characters (TM), or who like characters of color, or characters who are otherwise marginalized.
And it sucks.
no subject