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

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if the problem might be that having your fandom participationg be largely online means that you're connected to individual people and not to the fandom at large? So when individuals shift to other fandoms you find your f-list filled with unfamiliar fandoms "what's this? Prince of Tennis? SG-1?" whereas in a Yahoo Group the faces could change, but the fic kept pouring in. People might be missing out on good stuff because they rely on their flist for their "fandom needs" rather than Groups and Communities.

Icarus

[c-sinensis.livejournal.com]

I think that's part of it -- but also vice versa. I only have a few writers on my flist, and sometimes I miss out on fic because they only post it in their private LJ, or post it some place that I'm not a member of ... HP fandom is just so vast. Even with really helpful tools like daily_snitch it's easy to miss out on stuff. When I was at TWH in October, I had a conversation with someone about how I wished there was just one place that could be a nexus for all of the fandom, but after a couple of seconds thinking about it, we both agreed that it would just be an impossible task.

So perhaps it's the fact that the fandom is so large and spread out that it appears to be diminishing for some people. The communication train is just breaking down. In some ways I do miss the old Yahoo Groups days ... but there also seems to be a higher content of quality fanfic (if you keep up with what the new hot communities are, which can be a little difficult) now that the fandom has largely switched over to LJ.