The Myth of the Dying Fandom

[icarus]

The Myth of a Dying Fandom

There've been quite a few posts in the Harry Potter fandom lately about how it's dying, or declarations isn't dying, or that it needs to be revitalized, etc., etc. I think a lot of people have set the dying fandom myth to rest, but to add my two cents...

I receive several reviews a week on Harry Potter stories I wrote upwards of three years ago. Beg Me For It is being translated into Russian for Fanrus, a site that features Huge numbers of Harry Potter Russian translations. I was recently sent several gorgeous pieces of fanart. Given the last full-length HP fic I wrote was The Metronome in January, and I haven't been stirring the cauldron posting stories everywhere, that sounds like a pretty lively fandom to me.

When a group of authors discussed fanfiction on Making Light, most of the fanfiction writers who turned up wrote Harry Potter.

Now I have noticed that the HP authors I've followed for years haven't been posting a lot of fic. There seems to be a multi-fandom fad going around. I'm no different. Right now I don't have any HP stories burbling on the stove. I did burn out after 130 HP stories, and I was counting on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to restart my engines.

Instead, I find I'm holding my breath.

The book was a cliffhanger and I'm not one of those people who like to fill in what I think the ending's going to be. I don't shake my Christmas presents either. I like to be surprised. I've always been canon-centric in Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (we'll not mention what I do to canon in Stargate Atlantis). So instead of filling in the ready-made holes of canon, I find myself faced with a story that's... incomplete. I don't want to tie up the loose ends or finish anything off for JKR. I want to see what she does.

This is not a dying fandom. This is a fandom on the edge of a cliff, silently breathless, waiting for the fireworks to begin.

I predict an explosion of fanfiction after JKR's final book.

Comments

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Actually coming back, because if you have not seen this response (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/931494.html?thread=112350630#t112350630) to assorted "fandom is dying" wank, then you need to. It's funny, I guarantee it. Best thing I've seen all week.

[tree_and_leaf]

(Spits tea over keyboard)

Thanks for the link!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Funnier than hell. Dare I mention that Shakespeare relied so heavily on his sources that you could (stretching the definition to its limits) call it fanfic?

Icarus