During our discussion on Wednesday we talked about the various subgroups on the internet. I found myself drawn to the subgroup that all too often I have found myself identifying with and shying away from when I spend my leisure activities on the Web.
My online network, as the term was phrased in class, would have to be the fandom. This kind of embarrasses me because there can be quite the stigma on "fan groups." After all, fan is shot for "Fanatic" and for a lot of people within this group, that term could not be more accurate. I use pintrest a lot and am also an occasional user of tumblr. I've found that even though there are so many amazing opportunities to connect with other people on the internet, the people that I really want to connect with are the ones that share the same interests as me. And unfortunately for my popularity, that includes tv shows, books, and movies.
Fan groups can be really awesome, and really horrible. There is a part of the "fan culture" called "shipping" which is when a person "ships" for the relationship between two different characters. Most of the time, the ship is considered sexual, though there have been times where I've come across ships that focus only on the relationship, rather than the sexual aspect of it. Sometimes this part of the culture can be entertaining and fun, but all too often it becomes disturbing, uncomfortable, and sometimes downright pornographic. Something that starts off as a simple enjoyment of media can twist into really disturbing stuff.
But on the other hand, a lot of fans find a real support system within their fandom, they can enjoy time together, talk about the show and what happened and look through conspiracy theories and come up with theories of their own. I guess it just goes to show that no matter what it is, there are good and bad aspects to it.
I like to think that the area of fandom that I go into is pretty good and pretty high standard, but then again, maybe I'm getting sucked into the darkness without even knowing about it! Is it possible to have a separation between good and bad things within the same genre? Is it possible to only be a "little bit" of a fanatic?
My only experience with fan groups was during the Harry Potter era when the books were still being published. That was an incredible fandom. I never saw any shipping though! That's a new term to me. Does it come up frequently in most fan groups, or only a select type? I think it's possible to be a little bit of a fanatic. I definitely considered myself one for Harry Potter, but I didn't devote my time to fan forums, etc.
ReplyDeleteCan you name specific fan communities you've been involved with? Some of these issues would make more sense with more specific examples.
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