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

[wildebeth.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting points. A lot of people have said they got into fandom to fill in the blanks, but maybe filling in the ending is too much of a responsibility? I think there are quite a few fans out there who just don't have time to be involved anymore. I joined out of boredom and the lack of a life; now that I've found one, all I care about in regard to fandom anymore is the friends I have made. *shrug*

And I still get a review or two every now and then as well. I've only written and posted five.