recent shift in fandom quality?

[cimorene]

i remember when i made posts like "it's amazing how everything in due south fandom is good!" and stuff, because, well, everything that came up on the noticeboard wasn't good, but it was close enough (maybe something mediocre, not actually sucky, every couple of weeks or even less often than that).  and there were bad things in the archives of course, but it was still underrepresented even there.  but it's been changing gradually and now it's like i take a deep breath and go "uh-oh, here we go" every time i see a new fic post.  and now, as in so many other fandoms, whatever-it-is is more likely to be bad than good.  of course this is partially a side-effect of the DVD-release-wave of new fans, but there's been a concurrent drop in participation from many of the people who were active a few years ago (though i guess they're still there, and perhaps they just seem even less productive in comparison to the new elevated frequency of fic). 

and it's really sad, because the canon is so great, and it made me really disproportionately happy that the fandom seemed to reflect that, and just that there was a fandom i could love so unreservedly out there.  now i look around fandom as a whole, and while there is plenty of good fic on the whole if you can draw from any fandom you like, there's not a single fandom i've read in that could actually come out, well, looking good in a fandom profile. 

but perhaps this is really the same phenomenon that has affected the dynamic of due south--simply the growing popularity of internet fandom over the last few years.  it's been happening steadily, and the quantity of good has increased along with the quantity of bad, even if not entirely proportionately.  so there's more work wading through the slush pile, but you ultimately get a richer catch (on the whole--not, i think, in due south in particular), so if you have the time and energy for that then i guess you are better off.

sigh.  i don't even know what to tag this post.  it's not genuine meta but i don't have a "fandom rambling" tag, so.  but now i go to a slasha movie night at emmuzka's and hopefully my moroseness (morosity should be a word.  doesn't that sound great?  morosity) will be all cleared up.

Comments

[schonste.livejournal.com]

It happens to all fandoms, which, sadly, is very tragic. I remember back when most of the stuff coming out of the Smallville fandom was good. I remember back when my completely obscure fandoms with German rockers were good. The more time and exposure you give it, the worse it gets. I mean, it can get more good authors at the first, and then it will peak, and then... It usually just. Goes all downhill from there.

Which hurts me, down here in my soul parts.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

there's a limit to the number of good writers something will attract and no limit to the number of crap ones.

[jennaria.livejournal.com]

I remember, back when TPM fandom was just getting off the ground, the fans made the same claim -- that there were no bad stories. It wasn't completely true even then, but it was closer to being true than it has been for almost any of my fandoms since then: the combination of honeymoon period and an unusually high number of experienced writers in the fandom worked in our favor.

These days -- I don't know, maybe it really is that I've become a BOFQ. But the only exception I can think of to Sturgeon's Law when it comes to fanfic? Is Toy Soldiers, which is a tiny tiny fandom and only really has two writers that have stuck with it (and I'm one of them, so I'm way biased anyway).

[cimness.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm sure my impressions are influenced by my increasing degree of BOFQness/cynicism and higher standards. and i don't buy that every fandom used to be good; some fandoms look pretty clearly to me like they were bad to begin with and i've encountered a fair number of fledgling ones without a single good piece to their names.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

As a Jew, I am totally offended by your icon.

::g::

Just being an ass :)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

"canon Those Mean Girls From High School" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[aynatonal.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[neery.livejournal.com]

The same thing is happening to the Atlantis fandom right now, too. Sadly, the more people there are in a fandom, the bigger the quantity of mediocre and bad fic.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

well, the quality has certainly dropped by a huge degree, but it's not the same kind of thing because it never really had that almost-completely-good thing going for it. at first it had a way higher than average quality, and a higher proportion of good to bad, but wraithbait was already there at the end of the first season.