Snowflake Challenge - Day 15

[alexcat]

Challenge #15

In your own space, opine on the future of fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This can be positive, negative, ambivalent; about fandom as a whole, your own fandom(s), or your own plans. Alternately, what do you hope fandom will do? Imagine a best-cast scenario, and tell us what that would look like.

I think fandom, like the world, has become split apart. I think that divide will continue to widen over this next year and beyond. I don't see the older fans giving in quite yet to the puritanical notions of the younger fans. This puritanical thread has always run through fandom but seems to have become worse over time. Evidently, there is a generation of fandom that doesn't quite get the separation of fiction and reality. My writing about murder in a fiction does not make me a murderer. (You can insert whatever you want in place of murderer.)

I love ad free spaces like Ao3 and Dreamwidth, but I don't see Dreamwidth becoming the fanhub that LJ was once though it has grown a LOT since Tumblr gave in to the puritans and Elon Musk ate Twitter. I fear the rise of censorship in fandom... but that is a battle we've always fought.

In short, I think we will keep on keeping on, being fans and fighting the good fight. Whether we will win or not is up in the air.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. Fandom will always exist, but IDK if I'll want to be a part of it.

[alexcat]

I think I'll hang around.

[pianogurl330]

In short, I think we will keep on keeping on, being fans and fighting the good fight. I agree with this!

[erulissedances]

Oh yes, your final paragraph says it all.

- Erulisse (one L)

[desdemonaspace]

Tumblr gave in to Puritans? I think I'm on a different Tumblr - I had the worst time, constantly blocking porn.

[alexcat]

Well, they deleted almost all blogs with adult content a few years ago. Tons of fanart pages were gone. I think everyone gets those pornbots things on a daily basis now.

[red_lasbelin]

Yes, I agree! Also I think the younger generation doesn't do a lot of 'long form' communication and writing outside of fiction writing, which would make Dreamwidth really thrive. Until the internet gets more interested in that style again, we're stuck like this. I do think longform will make a resurgence eventually, but we haven't swung fully back to it yet and I don't know how long it will take.

[alexcat]

I tend to be more into fandom things than reading or writing RL stuff myself.

[silveradept]

Keeping on keeping on, fighting even when unsure of victory sounds about right. I think we'll continue to see people peel off from the big places and go to smaller ones, and some of them will thrive and some of them will tear each other apart once they don't have an outside audience to go after.