misscam | Blah blah fandom. Slight meta over the lastest HP tale

So I'm reading the latest Bad_Penny account on life in Harry Potter fandom and it is a bit like dropping intoa soap opera with out any previously on. You have to figure out who slept with who, who backstabbed who, who had a bitchfight, who got recast and why is a day lasting a month on this screen? There are so many grudges at work my inner journalist is just in a corner weeping over bias and lack of balance and where is the alcohol alerady?

It is interesting though, because it does sort of show what a tangled weave fandom can be. Alliances and grudges and cliques and the many unaware, all tangled together. I remember from Lord of the Rings fandom how Person A would hate Person B and I could never quite figure out why and after a while, I just got a headache and went back to writing fic. Heck, even further back to Star Trek: Voyager fandom, there were close to vendettas going on, and I managed to get myself into the middle of something I'm still not sure what was, but sure didn't help defuse.

The thing is, though, we all pull stupid shit in fandom. Not necessarily out of malice, but not always devoid of it. You're not always aware of it then and there, but it can become painfully clear afterwards. And you can get defensive and form grudges that way. Or people pull shit on you and you get your grudges that way. Some let them go, some don't. Some get them strengthened by more shit.

It's not strange therefore that fandom can seem a complicated weavework of relations and that outside observers can get confused and get stuff wrong and inside observers are always biased and subjective. (It's a human condition, quite simply.) You might get some perspective later, if you're willing and able to take a step back. It can be quite painful, as it can mean realising you or your friends have not been fully in the right, at least.

So this latest tale of Harry Potter fandom happenings got me to thinking about fandoms I've been and am in, all the grudges that go on, all the grudges I probably know nada about, all the grudges I might've sparked, all the grudges I have. Even I get a bit confused. And that's not even starting on the cliques and in some cases, the various ships. Argh.

People often link fandom to high school, all popularity contests and mean girls and popular girls and what-not. Teenagers are after all the step between child and adult, while fandom is a bit between real life and an invented life. It is a bit of a different playing field. Maybe that's why what the rules are gets so confused and sometimes disputed.And why people can have falling-outs over what seems not a big deal to one of them, and is a huge deal to another.

The closest thing to a universal rule in fandom I can think of is Plagiarism Is Bad, Mmmkay? Which is possibly why the previous bad_penny tales on Cassie Claire and Heidi got so talked about and if you agreed they committed plagiarism (not all did, and not all to the same level), you got very heated on them being tarred and feathered out of fandom. It does get very vicious. Heck, I've gotten vicious about it myself. It is the Big Fandom Sin.

Yet there are things you can do in fandom that can be called worse. Faking death to get sympathy. Stirring shit between other people for own popularity. Maybe you can think of other things. (I'm sure you can, actually.)

It's get all Fandom Is Serious Business at times, doesn't it? Which is probably why some of choose to laugh a bit. I think I've found it easier because I've always felt a bit of an outsider. I know it sounds odd, given everything, but I'm from Norway and Norwegians just are a bit outsiders. Maybe it's because our country has been fairly isolated, who knows. I tend to make my own little corners and my own little rules, which is probably a bit annoying. At least the bar is stocked. And people visit.

Come to think of it, I remember reading a tale of fights and what-not in the part of Voyager fandom I was in a while back, and my name wasn't even really mentionedI felt in the thick of it, but just goes to show, perception is misleading. Perception is bias. Also in this lastest tale, which isn't meant as a slam on anyone. It's just how our brains work and you can never quite fully step out of yourself, for all you might try.