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sophiaserpentiaI learned a lot, about myself and the nature of fandom, from the great WoW RealIDFail controversy of last week.
Being a fan of just about anything will generally get you a lot of grief, and so people learn in public not to mention that they are a fan. Unless you're talking about sports fans -- which makes me think that scorning fans is yet another secret form of misogyny, peppered with our society's general scorn for intelligence. I think this is part of why, whenever the producers or writers of an entertainment franchise do something that ignites fan controversy, discussion within the fan base isn't so much between opponents & supporters, as it is between opponents and people making fun of opponents.
But I got to thinking about the notion of being "emotionally invested" in something. A fan is someone who has made a significant emotional investment, not to mention a significant financial investment as well, in an entertainment franchise. That's not to mention the contribution they make to the community -- fan art, fan fic, etc., the glue which binds fans together and keeps them spending money -- and their enthusiastic free publicity for the franchise: word-of-mouth and viral marketing which advertisers dream of (because it means customers doing their job for them).
However, fans are not usually seen by the producers and creators as being co-investors at all. From the other perspective, the "investors" are the creative talent and the ones who sign the checkbooks at production time. This leaves fans in an incredibly vulnerable position: they are investors who have no real say in the decisions that are made.
This may be a large part of why so many people's relationship with a fandom, a very personal and intense experience, often quite literally a formative part of their lives, more often than not ends with sadness or disappointment. Fans make what is for them a huge investment in something in which they have no real say; the only vote they get is to stop consuming.
As a writer I can see how the flip-side might become somewhat harrowing; if you listen to fans *too* much, if you deliver only what they want, you might feel too constrained and feel as though you've had to sell your artistic integrity.
Before RealIDFail I would likely have sided with the writer 100%. But as I've said before, the meaning of a creative work is essentially the response intended to be provoked in the reader/listener/viewer. The writer or musician or developer does not develop subsequent works in a vacuum, especially at the point when there is a large, vibrant, active fan community. (So was Stephen King saying in Misery that he felt hobbled by his fan base?)
I'm not sure what I'm saying here in terms of how much an artist or developer owes to the fan community, I'm just... thinking about this and seeing if there's a dialog to be had about it. How much of a say do fans have? How much say should they have? Will artistic quality or meaningfulness suffer or improve if fans are allowed greater access and influence? There's a perception that an artist who caters too openly to fans will create inferior content -- is there any truth to this?
Being a fan of just about anything will generally get you a lot of grief, and so people learn in public not to mention that they are a fan. Unless you're talking about sports fans -- which makes me think that scorning fans is yet another secret form of misogyny, peppered with our society's general scorn for intelligence. I think this is part of why, whenever the producers or writers of an entertainment franchise do something that ignites fan controversy, discussion within the fan base isn't so much between opponents & supporters, as it is between opponents and people making fun of opponents.
But I got to thinking about the notion of being "emotionally invested" in something. A fan is someone who has made a significant emotional investment, not to mention a significant financial investment as well, in an entertainment franchise. That's not to mention the contribution they make to the community -- fan art, fan fic, etc., the glue which binds fans together and keeps them spending money -- and their enthusiastic free publicity for the franchise: word-of-mouth and viral marketing which advertisers dream of (because it means customers doing their job for them).
However, fans are not usually seen by the producers and creators as being co-investors at all. From the other perspective, the "investors" are the creative talent and the ones who sign the checkbooks at production time. This leaves fans in an incredibly vulnerable position: they are investors who have no real say in the decisions that are made.
This may be a large part of why so many people's relationship with a fandom, a very personal and intense experience, often quite literally a formative part of their lives, more often than not ends with sadness or disappointment. Fans make what is for them a huge investment in something in which they have no real say; the only vote they get is to stop consuming.
As a writer I can see how the flip-side might become somewhat harrowing; if you listen to fans *too* much, if you deliver only what they want, you might feel too constrained and feel as though you've had to sell your artistic integrity.
Before RealIDFail I would likely have sided with the writer 100%. But as I've said before, the meaning of a creative work is essentially the response intended to be provoked in the reader/listener/viewer. The writer or musician or developer does not develop subsequent works in a vacuum, especially at the point when there is a large, vibrant, active fan community. (So was Stephen King saying in Misery that he felt hobbled by his fan base?)
I'm not sure what I'm saying here in terms of how much an artist or developer owes to the fan community, I'm just... thinking about this and seeing if there's a dialog to be had about it. How much of a say do fans have? How much say should they have? Will artistic quality or meaningfulness suffer or improve if fans are allowed greater access and influence? There's a perception that an artist who caters too openly to fans will create inferior content -- is there any truth to this?
