Sub-Cultural Darwinism: Some Thoughts on the Rise and Fall of Fandoms

[james_davis_nicoll]

Over the past few months, I have been slowly pulling together some thoughts on the question of why it is that certain pop culture institutions prosper while others decline.

Comments

[eagle]

What is it with this Internet obsession with the idea that the only merit of Among Others is fandom navel-gazing? My mother, who has read less SF than anyone reading this journal and who has absolutely nothing to do with fandom whatsoever or any of the experiences growing up described in that novel, thought it was one of the best books she's ever read and immediately re-read it. (And she never re-reads books.)

So, some people didn't like it. Fine. But that's not because it's an example of fandom crawling up its own rear, as they would know if they ever actually talked to someone outside of fandom who read the book.

This is starting to really make me mad. I don't at all mind people having different takes on books, but the sweeping generalizations and dismissive analysis based on the assumption that no one else could possibly read the book a different way or that the book is specifically aimed to not appeal to them is rather tiresome.

[andrew barton (from livejournal.com)]

Bang on there about written science fiction fandom. Rarely have I seen so many old white American dudes gathered in one place than at a Worldcon in the States. I didn't really get the greatest feeling of inclusivity at Chicon 7, myself--aside from the gender balance issue in the panels, in that there wasn't much of it--the density of fandom "jokes," like that Stagg Field thing, made it feel like I was a foreigner wandering around in someone else's backyard.

It seems to me that written fandom now is going on inertia built up in the '70s and '80s.

[desert-dragon42.livejournal.com]

OTOH, I was delighted at the number of other POC and women and such that I got to spend time among at Chicon 7. Yes, it could be better. But it is getting better over time. My first Worldcon was in 1995 just for reference.
Also, I found myself standing or sitting around in hallways, in the lobby and the bar chatting rather than attending a huge number of panels.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Yeah you have -- at the RNC in Tampa!

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Cheap shot. (Might be true anyway.)

Rarely have I seen so many old white American dudes gathered in one place than at a Worldcon in the States.

Try the Oshkosh Fly-In sometime.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

A sound engineer - producer friend of ours was hired on by The Nation magazine for the film they decided to make of both of the party conventions. So he saw -- and heard -- everything, up close and personal. He was in the Green Room when Clint Eastwood made his off the cuff spur of the moment decision to talk to an empty stool.

He says that Tampa was ALL OLD WHITE GUYS who could care less and hated leaving the golf courses to snooze through the speeches.

The DNC was just the opposite in every way, including energy, excitement and attention -- until the let down when they decided not to use the stadium but the auditorium (due to possible thunderstorms). They energy levels just cratered out that night, with 40,000 people turned away from what they had expected to participate in.

Love, C.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I find your friend's account entirely plausible.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

He's done sound all over the world for various professional projects, as well as owning his own recording studio which is hired by all sorts of professional projects. His ears are very good. He's also got great vision. So he's a reliable source.

Well -- he doesn't respect republicans, so maybe not?????

Naw. He knows what he sees and hears. :)

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

I'd be willing to bet said friend leans more towards the DNC than he does the RNC.

Edit: spelling

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

He does, being an intelligent well-educated observant man.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

Ah, thought so. And thus both his and your bias and blinders shines brightly through.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Ah! your non-reality based bias is revealed! You were not present at either Con, whereas he was, up close to all the action, which he recorded.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

Any bias you see is a product of your mistaken notion that anyone who isn't you is thus automagically on the enemy side. But your bias is plainly on display, because there's only one group that makes the claim that "intelligence and education" is the factor that separates them from the Other.

Not to mention, being present at an event is no barrier to one's perceptions being altered by bias.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

there's only one group that makes the claim that "intelligence and education" is the factor that separates them from the Other.



Indeed. (http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/rick-santorum-says-smart-people-will-never-be-on)

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Speaking of well-educated Republicans, would you care to explain the education section of the 2012 Platform of the Republican Party of Texas? (starts on page 11) Because all I'm seeing is willful ignorance.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

There are times when the various factions of politics merely represent contrasting positions that differ because of justifiable differences in how the initial axioms are chosen and weighted, or reasonable disagreements about the likely outcomes of preferred policies.

Then there are times when a political party goes so far off the rails that it is no longer possible to support it without being some combination of crazy, stupid or evil. The US Republican party hit that point at least a decade ago.

[filigree10.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how he assumes that fandoms need to recruit teenagers to keep their numbers up, when all they need is new members. An activity can happily keep its own little niche by recruiting 20, 30 or 40-something new members to replace the ones who leave. When I attended my first opera festival in my thirties, I can remember looking around and thinking "I'm one of the youngest people here!" Twenty years later, I can see new thirtysomethings looking around and thinking "I'm one of the youngest people here!" The age profile is the same as before, and might convince newcomers that the festival is doomed by Darwinism, but if new cohorts of youngish people keeping coming in at the lower end, things can actually continue like this for a very long time.

I imagine that jazz music hasn't gained large numbers of teenage fans since the early 1950s, but still manages nicely by recruiting new people in their twenties and thirties.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent point, and something I've seen in folk music fandom.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing it in photography clubs though...

Though that could be explained by the fact that the older generation grew up in the era when the only way to share photography was via prints in corpus, and the younger has Flickr and it's hordes of imitators.

With fifty looming on the horizon, I straddle both worlds.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

I've heard that one of the things that killed the magazine Punch in the eighties was that the publisher did a survey and found the average age of the readership was something like 55, and decided that if they didn't attract younger readers their readership would soon die off. What they missed was that the average age of the readership had been 55 for a very long time. Their attempt to make the magazine attractive to a younger audienc didn't work and also scared off their core readership.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds about right as far as comics are concerned, that much I can say. If there's one fandom that seems to be constantly on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its own history, with every story seeming to be either a "take THAT!" at some previous writer or fashion, or a bloody-minded attempt to do something completely new (which usually amounts to doing something completely bizarre and/or stupid)...

My own proposed solution has always been to take a step back, stop worrying about being original, and just do simple adventure stories about colourful Good fighting colourful Evil for a while and see where that leads. But who knows, maybe that wouldn't work either. As that McCalmont fellow pointed out, we all feel that the best thing would be if everything was set up to cater to what we wanted - this is what I want, but maybe most comic readers aren't as easily amused as I am. ;)

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

I agree completely with this. :)

IMO, this is exactly why, in general, the Marvel made comic movies are doing so well. They're not trying to "reinvent" anything, they're staying relatively true to the source, and they're big, colorful and action packed. Seeing the Avengers this summer was like my childhood comics had come to life around me. (Although, sadly, without the Fantastic Four being present.) It was awesome.

Sadly, the people writing the actual ink on paper comics seem to totally fail to grasp this.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've wondered about anime/manga fandom as being very popular among young people in the US, since this has been going on for well more than a decade, and while many of the same people are still fans, almost no one in the US is actually producing similar material, making it a fandom that doesn't produce creators of the same medium.

I was also interested by the analysis of Old Man's War and Among Others - I entirely agreed with the author's analysis of the first book, and despite being right in the correct demographic for the second, it definitely wasn't my sort of thing.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

almost no one in the US is actually producing similar material, Er, wot? Not only is there a thriving amateur scene, but up until 2011 Tokyopop had its own U.S. publishing, complete with a "Rising Stars of Manga" contest.

As to anime, modern American animation has been heavily influenced by it for years. Where do you think Ariel's eyes came from? John Lasseter of Pixar says Miyazaki is a huge influence.

"At Pixar, when we have a problem and we can't seem to solve it, we often take a laser disc of one of Mr. Miyazaki's films and look at a scene in our screening room for a shot of inspiration. And it always works! We come away amazed and inspired. Toy Story owes a huge debt of gratitude to the films of Mr. Miyazaki."

[avram]

"A laser disc"?! Is it still 1990 at Pixar?

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Toy Story was made in 1995.

[avram]

I take it you're not familiar with the "OEL manga" scene, then. Not as vibrant as it was a few years back, but even now, when I run into a teenaged girl or a young woman who's making comics, her artwork is almost certain to be manga-like.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm also amused that both Terry Brooks and Dean Koontz managed to cash on this (which admittedly doesn't cause me to run out and look for some of this work).

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

I've wondered about anime/manga fandom as being very popular among young people in the US, since this has been going on for well more than a decade, and while many of the same people are still fans, almost no one in the US is actually producing similar material, making it a fandom that doesn't produce creators of the same medium.

Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Aeon Flux, Samurai Jack and Teen Titans were all inspired by anime (I'm sure there are more recent examples, but I haven't paid attention to Cartoon Network recently).

On the manga side, both Yen Press and Seven Seas publish a number of English language originals. Yen tends to go with adaptations of things like Twilight and James Patterson's sharecropped projects, but Seven Seas does totally original series, including the excellent Amazing Agent Luna created by a couple ex-Kim Possible writers.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, the creator of Aeon Flux is Korean by birth and upbringing, so a little different.

[derekl1963.livejournal.com]

"almost no one in the US is actually producing similar material, making it a fandom that doesn't produce creators of the same medium"

If nothing else, there's a huge remix/AMV community on YouTube. You can still sometimes find new stuff for Star Blazers (1970's) and Sailor Moon (1990's.).

[tavella.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Arlington, and later SF Bay Area, I remember checking out the local SF groups, and feeling way out of place and young in both groups. And I was around 30! Given that I was a huge reader of SF and fantasy, including a lot of older stuff, I was absolutely the perfect recruit, but I just bounced off, even a decade ago.

I don't think it's purely a matter of age, either. My major social group a few years before had people in their teens to people in their 50s in it, and we were never bothered by this. You don't have to *act* old no matter your age.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

McCalmont's criticism (and meta-criticism) suffers from the fact that he's constantly assuming his conclusions, and also that he's a poor and unsympathetic observer of other people's behavior. For instance, his explanation for the popularity of that OLD MAN'S WAR is that " aside from being a very old-fashioned science fiction novel, [the book] is also a vehicle for the escapist fantasies of an aging SF fandom". But older readers I know (including myself) were less impressed with it than younger readers I know. The younger readers hadn't read FOREVER WAR, or even STARSHIP TROOPERS etc--this was their first intro to these tropes, and the book worked really well for them because of that. McCalmont doesn't even broach this possibility, as it doesn't accord with the hobby horse he rode in on.

Similarly, he says, "Works like ALL-STAR SUPERMAN only function if their audience has previously consumed and understood dozens of other works." I think this betrays a striking lack of insight on McCalmont's part. On the contrary, stuff like ALL-STAR SUPERMAN allows you to dive into the stream of the narrative without having done all that gruntwork. You need to have some passing acquaintance with Superman's origin story to decode the first page, but if you know who Superman is you probably know that "last-son-of-Krypton" stuff and don't need or want it rehashed ad nauseam.

You could criticize both these works on other grounds, but I think McCalmont's comments are more useful for understanding his own limitations as a critic than for assessing the works and their impact.

[ambyr.livejournal.com]

The fact that Taral Wayne barely beat out No Award in the Hugos this year, even with IRV system, makes me dubious of his relevance to even that narrow shard of fandom subculture that makes up old-school cons, much less fandom as a whole.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Taral Wayne always loses - but he's got enough fans that he keeps getting nominated. The thing is that the same half-dozen fans who keep nominating him are also the only ones who vote for him. *grin* But I see this as a fannish in joke thing rather than an assessment of the system as a whole; Taral Wayne is not representative of the field.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

McCalmont's argument with Scalzi in the comments of the follow up post (http://ruthlessculture.com/2012/07/19/sub-cultural-darwininsm-some-metafiltered-follow-up/) is interesting. Scalzi's right (and so is jamesenge above) that McCalmont's eliding his own critical judgment of the works he mentions with their larger cultural affect; he found Old Man's War old-fashioned, so that must be the source of its appeal generally, and those must be the kind of people it appeals to. Scalzi calls him out with the numbers on that specific example, but he doesn't take the argument back to the general, except for some unflattering comments about McCalmont's reasoning abilities. McCalmont misses an opportunity on the rebuttal: his central point isn't about Scalzi's readership, it's about fandom as an active social phenomenon. Are Scalzi's younger readers being mobilized into written-SF fandom, or are they staying just readers?

I don't have the faintest idea, but it seems like those numbers must be out there somewhere too, in registration info for cons and so forth. I do see a widespread impression online that they're not, at least in proportional numbers compared with times past.

[laetitia-apis.livejournal.com]

Despite ctl++++, I bailed about three screens down, so my only comment is "hoot mon, is that fellow ever fond of 'vibrant'!"

Watched a new bridge being paved today. The roller was most definitely vibrant -- I could feel the vibrations through my feet.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Basically what jamesenge said, with added bonus that attempting to apply some of McCalmont's theories to fandoms I'm familiar with results in very little agreement with his observations.

Re: McCalmont's theory that a widely-read fan will want to experience new things is intriguing, I don't think it makes sense for only older fans to be considered "widely-read" and therefore jaded. It seems, at least to my observation, that the younger fans of older fandoms (Sherlock Holmes, classic TV, classic movies, Neil Diamond, cult-horror flicks) are much more well-read than the older fans, and their myriad interests clash with the older fans single-minded interest. And the more experienced in other cultures a fan is, the less jaded I find them to be.

Again, it's all personal experience. His theories may only work with SF/F fandoms, though he seems to believe they work for all fandoms, and I really can't agree.