Rant: The Absence of Squee

[argentum_ls]

Sometimes this fandom makes me really sad.

I’ve been in a lot of fandoms over the years of every size. I’ve started fandoms, I’ve kept them limping along when few others were interested, I’ve helped end them. I’ve been a nobody and I’ve been a BNF. What I’ve never been is so excluded.

Fandom is an incredible social construct and there’s so much to marvel at within its workings: mailing lists, kink memes, fests, archives, twitter, bingos, tumblr, facebook, conventions. And the squee. Ultimately, it’s all about the squee. Fandom is the mechanism for individual fans to share their love of a media with other fans as loudly and in as many ways as possible. When one is the only person in one’s family, real-life-friend circle, or neighborhood who loves a particular media, the internet may be the only way to get one’s squee on.

The friendships that fandom can create are amazing. The hostilities are also amazing. Emotions run at their highest, exclamation marks abound, and whole vocabularies have been developed just to better express the squee.

It’s well documented that when people with a common viewpoint spend time together, they feed off each other. Their opinions intensify. They develop memes and short-hands to talk about the things they feel are important. They share backstories and explanations to help smooth over the holes in their arguments. In fandom, this manifests as fanon.

Right around the time first season was ending, a juggernaut ship developed in the TW fandom. This happens. Normally it would be no big deal, though I did personally find it concerning because the fandom was so new that it didn’t really have the traction to support itself with such a ship. It was acting like a fandom that was dying, not one that was being born.

In a larger fandom, developments and fanon in one ship would be mitigated by the activity in the other ships and there’d still be plenty of room for everyone in the middle. Or, the various factions could crawl off into their own fan-corners and play happily with like-minded friends. In the TW fandom, the memes and fanon from the main ship took over and became the assumed norm for how the show was viewed and how the fandom could be participated in.

Over the hiatus, this resulted in the non-like-minded fans dropping away. It’s hard to squee when what one wants to squee about isn't in line with what the majority is squeeing about. By the end of April, most of the former TW fans who weren’t into the main ship had left. They’d either been driven out or they’d quit. I heard from a few as they were leaving, and very nearly was one myself.

Here we are at the start of the second season, though. Squee is at its highest. The fandom is welcoming new members constantly (or should be), which means new voices and new perspectives. The stats on my stories are through the roof. I’ve never seen reading numbers so high. (The comments are good, too).

The problem now is that the Derek/Stiles fans have become so accustomed to everyone agreeing with their viewpoints that they’ve forgotten that they are viewpoints and not givens.

I’ve grown used to my kink meme prompts being ignored, my comment meme prompts being ignored, and my entries in other fests and challenges being ignored. I don’t like any of that one bit. It’s not the way fandom should be or behave. But that’s how it is. I don’t ship Derek/Stiles, and being ignored is apparently the cost. The rare, random fill has come through that lets me live in hope that more will happen, and it reminds me that I’m not completely alone out there.

But, overall in the fandom, there’s still no room for me.

I was going to participate in one of the live chats on LJ. I logged on to find that the majority of the comments already there were people decrying the BORINGNESS of one of the elements I most enjoy on the show. That alone wouldn’t be the problem, if it weren’t for the implication from the way the comments were being made that they expected everyone to agree with how BORING that element is. I left. I wanted to squee, not defend myself.

Tumblr. I can’t get started on tumblr. Everywhere I look, even when I follow tags for the things I’m interested in, I see hate and put downs casually being flung about as if they are the mere facts of the show.

Today I saw the post for the twitter friending meme. It was on a general fan site, not one dedicated to the main ship. Three items were listed in the invitation. One was a point I don’t agree with and one was, once again, a negative against something I particularly like. So much for finding friends that way.

Hardly before it got started, the fandom closed itself off. There’s no room for the new, the innovative, or the different. For me, for the other non-Derek/Stiles shippers, for the new fans who don’t yet have solid opinions, there’s no place to squee and no one to squee with. This all makes me sad.

Comments

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

I never knew I was one of them! x.x I never meant to be

I didn't mean it in any derogatory way. You're an "insider" because you're part of the group that appreciates and writes the main ship, so you've been able to fully get your squee on. When you go in search of stories to read, there are plenty to choose from and there are always new ones, so you've been able to have your fan experience validated.

my Lydia/Allison piece has 108 hits whereas my Derek/Stiles has 1336.

Yup. That's typical. I was talking to someone once who had written D/S and developed a sense of appropriate fan response based on that, so when he tried other pairings and received relatively no response, he thought he'd lost his mojo as a writer.

Just think, the 108 hits you got on that L/A story were probably mostly from people for whom you wrote the first thing in that pairing that they'd seen, which means you made a lot of people VERY happy, and your story is completely memorable to them, rather than being just one of many.

And I know that my Big Bang (which I put some real thought into and had a lot of fun writing) won't be all that well received either... so people just won't read it.

A lot of people won't, that's true. For those who do, it will absolutely make their day.

BTW, if you're interested, there is a new genfic comm (which I've done jack squat to advertise)--teenwolfgen--if you're interested in more places to crosspost for exposure.

I think you're right that with the new season, we'll see more different pairings, rather than just Derek/Stiles all the time.

I hope so. There's promise out there now. However, there're also some hints that some people will be switching pairing names without switching anything else. As in, they'll still be writing their D/S stories; they'll just have different character names in the slots. This irks me because it's fundamentally bad writing and bad characterization. Alas, since I'm not the fanfic police, I'll just try to recruit and keep new voices so that the fandom overall can grow and thrive. I want this fandom to thrive!

[fotoshop-cutout.livejournal.com]

you've been able to have your fan experience validated
Very true, it makes me feel a little guilty, but truthfully I shipped those two together before I got into the fandom (I still ship Jackson/Stiles too, though).

you made a lot of people VERY happy, and your story is completely memorable to them
I certainly hope so! I plan to write more of this pairing, as I enjoyed writing this piece so much. I also might dabble in Scott/Allison too, 'cause they're so cute and all.

teenwolfgen
I hadn't seen it. I will, however, go join up! If it gets more advertising, I think it may get some attention ;)

This irks me because it's fundamentally bad writing and bad characterization.
Honestly? I've already ran into not only this, but the pairing of D/S with bad characterization already. Such as Stiles being quiet and thoughtful a lot. He doesn't do this often in the show, so him being that way in a fic... there better be a good reason for it. As for Derek? He'll end up talking a lot, or just be completely... weird. I have a hard time reading those. It just feels wrong, you know? So I totally get the characters not being in character, it's annoying no matter which way you look at it!

[argentum-ls.livejournal.com]

it makes me feel a little guilty,

Enough with that! Guilt does not belong. Squee belongs.

I plan to write more of this pairing, as I enjoyed writing this piece so much. I also might dabble in Scott/Allison too, 'cause they're so cute and all.

I will read all of these things.

If it gets more advertising, I think it may get some attention ;)

I guess that means I should advertise it then, doesn't it? :) Truthfully, I haven't had the energy. That might be changing.

So I totally get the characters not being in character, it's annoying no matter which way you look at it!

Very true. There's all kinds of ways to write characters out of character. Regardless of where it comes from, the one that bothers me the most is when writers force the character to be who they want them to be rather than who they are, for better or worse.