Criticism and Authority in Fandom

[branchandroot]

Read this essay in its new home.

Comments

[arashi-neko.livejournal.com]

In so far I've seen in about 4 years of actively hovering around the various Internet fan-groups, the family authority model, albeit one sometimes extended to include a larger 'outside' group that sometimes forms around the core people in a particular fandom, shows up the most often. Even in real life interactions with netfans one personally knows *grin*. Mostly the people one feels most comfortable accepting criticism from in a fandom setting tend to be those either long enough in said group to be given some form of respect and authority, or else 'peers' from said group with whom there is some sense of commonality. If my description makes sense.

Fandom fits together a bit like a family you choose, as opposed to the one you're born with, I guess. But I'm not all that sure fandom is entirely decentralised; within a fandom, if the group is large enough and 'old' enough relatively speaking, within the fandom 'family' there may form a core 'family', a center of sorts, or the fans specialise more and more into groups of voluntary kin that share their feelings, opinions, or views on something.

[branchandroot]

You know, what fascinates me most is that this can happen without a connection such as blood relation. But, then, perhaps that simply demonstrates that blood relation is as much or little of an abstract connection as, say, liking yaoi. Hmmm.

But, yes, family is certainly the model I've seen most often.