Fandom Corporate-ization
Nov. 5th, 2022 02:27 pmI was writing a comment on ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pendulumscale's post on the subject of zines culture nowadays (thanks vriddy for sharing!) but the response got p long and specific to my experiences so I thought I ought to share here on my own journal lol.
I'm relatively new to fandom compared to some of the fandom elders hopping around DW, but I've been actively writing fic for several years and got into doing fandom events last year. I remember sort of stumbling onto an event focused on a niche of mine that's very hard to search for on AO3 (Boku No Hero Academia femslash), and being super excited like "!!! Wait!! These ppl all like the niche thing I do :D :D :D omg I wanna join!"
And so I did and it was fun and I still talk to some of the fellow creators I met there today, but it catapulted me into the world of bangs and events in the My Hero Academia fandom... but with each event and ending up on the twitter-sphere, even if mostly just to keep an eye on them and observe others, I've been seeing that sort of corporate-ization of fandom thatpendulumscale describes.
( The Fandom Resume )
( The not-fan fan events )
( There is still passion out there! )
Of course it's easy to say "Just do things with your close fandom friends!" but at the same time, how do you meet those friends without those bigger events? How do u get to know them? What happens if u drift into different fandoms, and how do u meet new ones in ur new fandoms? etc etc... I guess that's the point of general social media, but that comes with its own wildness with 'the algorithm' and all that jazz.
As I get more entrenched it's clear fandoms are communities, but it's hard to control what a community is or will be, especially a huge one like BNHA, but it surprises how a big fandom can feel so lonesome/corporate sometimes.
pendulumscale's post on the subject of zines culture nowadays (thanks vriddy for sharing!) but the response got p long and specific to my experiences so I thought I ought to share here on my own journal lol.I'm relatively new to fandom compared to some of the fandom elders hopping around DW, but I've been actively writing fic for several years and got into doing fandom events last year. I remember sort of stumbling onto an event focused on a niche of mine that's very hard to search for on AO3 (Boku No Hero Academia femslash), and being super excited like "!!! Wait!! These ppl all like the niche thing I do :D :D :D omg I wanna join!"
And so I did and it was fun and I still talk to some of the fellow creators I met there today, but it catapulted me into the world of bangs and events in the My Hero Academia fandom... but with each event and ending up on the twitter-sphere, even if mostly just to keep an eye on them and observe others, I've been seeing that sort of corporate-ization of fandom that
pendulumscale describes.( The Fandom Resume )
( The not-fan fan events )
( There is still passion out there! )
Of course it's easy to say "Just do things with your close fandom friends!" but at the same time, how do you meet those friends without those bigger events? How do u get to know them? What happens if u drift into different fandoms, and how do u meet new ones in ur new fandoms? etc etc... I guess that's the point of general social media, but that comes with its own wildness with 'the algorithm' and all that jazz.
As I get more entrenched it's clear fandoms are communities, but it's hard to control what a community is or will be, especially a huge one like BNHA, but it surprises how a big fandom can feel so lonesome/corporate sometimes.
