My Fannish World

[cimorene]

irisbleu said she was inventing a fannish meme and invited everyone to draw a "visual representation of all the overlaps and relationships between all of an individual's fandoms".

I wanted to draw what fandom looked like to me, but of course, there are such a variety of relationships to represent that it's hard to know how to represent them in only two dimensions. Her own map here focuses on crossovers she's written, shared settings/creators/actors, and so on. But thegoldsky already made a different version representing how the groups of fans she knows have overlapped.

The first time I drew intuitively and ended up with a kind of

The Known Fannish World v.1


You'll observe the overlap between NSYNC and Arashi labelled "popslash", because they are both popslash, but elsewhere, all the fandoms within media slash enclosed inside the media slash blob. Within media slash, for example, Due South is between fantasy/SF and crime, but The Professionals is accidentally in the overlap between the crime/media slash section and Harry Potter (because that section is labelled England! But obviously, while The Professionals and Harry Potter both take place in England, The Pros is not a subset of HP). The proximity of Fandom Wank to LOTR RPS is because that is a fandom I associate with many of my friends from The Cabal That Doesn't Rule Fandom Wank, whereas the overlap of Fandom Wank with tinhats is because, well, you read about tinhats there. You'll also observe a few names of significant people, and hearts attached to fandoms to indicate groups of friends, and arrows indicating the direction my acquaintances migrated from one fandom to the other, or just that they were there, or that two fandoms have something in common.

But I was dissatisfied with the lack of consistency in the ways the relationships between the fandoms were drawn, so my second attempt focuses more closely on qualities of the fandoms themselves. So this one is

The Known Fannish World v.2


I've given each fandom its own little shape and enclosed them within regions. The great blobs of media slash and fantasy overlap in the centre, which is the core of the fannish world for me. Fandoms positioned close to the media blob and the fantasy blob are felt to be more closely related to them. Relationships are noted as between Sherlock Holmes and House, and Holmes and Jeeves & Wooster, for example. You will see the labels "Historicals" and "Very British Stuff", as well as a "Buddy Cops" subset of media slash. There are other labels which could have been added if there were room, like High Fantasy and Kids' Fantasy and Space Opera and Mystery and Adventure.

And that was unexpectedly time-consuming but very satisfying. Despite the fact that the second one is more careful and analytical and logical, I like the first approach better - I feel it captures more of my experience of fandom.

Comments

[anglepoiselamp.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I don't think I could ever make a map like that. Not only would it be too complex and make my brain short-circuit permanently, it's also too much like the mindmaps we were forced to make in school. Man, I hated making those things. My brain just doesn't work that way. I guess it's because I'm not a visual thinker at all.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

There are lots of fandoms which are huge and aren't really part of my reality, or fandoms which I've been involved in somehow but are really small, and I've left out anything that's too small to have its own fandom community: a source material or potential fandom didn't count, nor ones with only a few stories or a few active authors. If I'd followed irisbleu's pattern of fandoms I've written the picture'd have been quite simple and much less busy, but I considered all the ones I've read extensively and written recs for, because that's the principal part of my fannish output.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

You know, I just realized, I didn't fit in my "historicals" anywhere - the medieval lit and such! If I think about it, though, I tend to think of those things as sort of "embedded" in all of my other fandoms anyway as part of the cultural/literary backgound, so I suppose they're present by implication. I could've given them an ocean to themselves, though, just like I gave LOTR.

(I like your use of multiple colors!)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

By "Historicals" I meant to refer to historical fandoms, including everything from Jeeves and Wooster and the Age of Sail to Troy - nothing as original as yours. But I do feel the Gawain pieces are a major omission from your map! They're some of the most memorable of your work, from my point of view. There's just a touch more magic.

[norah.livejournal.com]

AHAHA you weird visual people. I would make mine in EXCEL and do a TABLE where each person on my flist is marked WRT the fandoms they share with me. YIS. We linear text-based thinkers do not grok you and your pretty pretty maps!

[telesilla.livejournal.com]

Hee! I was just thinking 'there's no way I could DRAW a map; I don't think that way.' That Excel table thing would be kind of cool, though.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Maps capture so many more relationships than tables! You'd have to have, like, each row a person, and a column for each potential fandom they could share, for example; which leaves out the inter-relationships that the fandoms have with each other for a separate table.

It's kind of like the way a piece of fiction captures so much more than an analysis or summary.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Hee! This is a really neat idea. I love your maps.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Isn't it cool? I love navel-gazing about fandom.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

THAT IS SO ANALYTICAL AND INTENSE. O.o

I'D JUST BE LIKE SKDFJ;. "HARRY POTTER --> JAPAN" AND DRAW LIKE A PIT STOP AT "HOUSE AND TV FANDOM" ON THE WAY.


Also I love the way you drew a ship for "age of sail." :X

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I was proud of the blobby pirate flag... thingy... too. :X And the silhouette for Sherlock Holmes.

Anyway, I get the feeling you don't voraciously devour as much fiction in different fandoms as I do. It's kind of a compulsive stress relief, you know? Archive wading! For fun! I tried to draw a map of the fandoms I've written for, which is quite different. If I tried to make one restricted to fandoms where I've stuck around and participated with the other fans and formed social relationships it'd be smaller even than that.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

öklasjfö new Kokia album?

Here via Metafandom

[opengoal.livejournal.com]

cimorene111, your map is so great!
But isn't there a large overlap of the HP and anime fandoms?

Re: Here via Metafandom

[cimness.livejournal.com]

If I had been drawing fandoms visually overlapping to indicate overlapping fanbases, then yes. But if I had drawn them that way, I'm not sure a visual map of this sort would even be possible, given that almost everyone in fandom has participated in many different fandoms. The overlap in the upper box is mainly used for conceptual relationships between the source materials (there's no overlap at all in the second), and the relationship between HP and anime is indicated with an arrow. That said, I think that view of the relationship is rather HP-centric, which isn't surprising since most members of main/media fandom are closer to HP than they are to anime, which flourished for a long time before HP came along, as I understand it.

[schonste.livejournal.com]

These are awesome and so cute. I would make one for myself except it would just not work. XD

Also your pirates skull reminds me of an octopus and it makes me wants to draw cartoon octopuses.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hahhahha. Glad to be of... inspiration? XD

[hakeer.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's really cool.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[special-trille.livejournal.com]

pretty

[cimness.livejournal.com]

hahhahahha! Were you just in a tearing hurry or did I merit exactly the amount of attention between "no comment at all" and "comment with punctuation"? The lack of period is resulting in me picturing you saying it in a hilariously offhand manner.

here from metafandom

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Aw, I love the little Age of Sail ship!

Re: here from metafandom

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hee, thank you!

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

If you're just including fandoms in general, you forgot Man from UNCLE, which overlaps with Trek, Pros, Starsky and Hutch and Due South.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

No, I'm not. If I'd been including all fandoms, there would be a lot more in there. These are more in the way of fandoms that have a significant presence in my personal world. That said, though, Man from UNCLE is actually there on the first map, although not overlapping, anything, since I wasn't using overlapping that way.

[missizzy]

Drawing such a map must amke the drawer think.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was a very thinky activity! XD

[lim.livejournal.com]

This map is genius. *jumps around in due South* *plants flag in SGA*

\o/

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was fun! Ooh, I'm visualising a fandom version of Twister now...