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[personal profile] thisweekmod

Am still playing a bit with the layout. Is everybody finding it readable enough? Easily perused? Etc.?


A selection of posts about fandom and money which have popped up lately:

The Daily Duranie posted It's a Lonely Burning Question: "The thing is, and I’m going to be brutally open about this – the “It” list of fans, you know the ones – they tend to be at most of the shows, they always seem to know where and when to be, and how to get places that normal, everyday fans don’t – aren’t really on our reader list."

Function podcast posted Fn 11: Social Media, 20 Years Ago: "Anil sits down with some of the pioneers of the social web — Bruce Ableson (founder of Open Diary), Lisa Phillips (former senior system administrator at LiveJournal), and Andrew Smales (founder of Diaryland) — for an oral history about social media 20 years ago." Includes a transcript.

[personal profile] kara_mckay posted about reblogging and DW culture: "When anyone can interact with any content anyone produces, issues of personal and public become murky. In the days of old, very few people would have thought it okay for someone to go out of their way to find another user's journal and then abuse them for their content. It's a little different when your journal isn't really a journal, and isn't really personal."

Peter Rubin for Wired posted Photo Gallery: Our Favorite Cosplay From NYC's Black Comic Book Festival: "And while the cosplay stretched across cultures—attendees came styled as Sailor Moon, Kayako Saeki from The Grudge, Coming to America's Prince Akeem, and all manner of superheros—Williams says that there was no mistaking how more inclusive storytelling has changed the feeling among fans."

thewickling (Pillowfort) posted Do BNFs still exist?: "Does the concept of BNFs still exist in fandom? What does it mean to be a BNF then? How has the concept shifted over the years?"


Flashback - July 24, 2004

This meta/fandom history post was written in the early days of LiveJournal. It covers a bunch of topics: the changes in fandom discussion, public vs. private, discussion and ownership, BNFs ("Quick: When did the BNF = bad!wrong!evol concept first evolve? Answer: At the same time as the ability to see how many Friends a person has."), moving from mailing lists to other fandom spaces and the changes inherent in that, and more. It's a very good look at early 2000s fandom, fandom on LiveJournal, and the changes that happened in fandom around that time.

[livejournal.com profile] sophia_helix posted three years, three months, and 1,188 entries later: "So here we are. What makes Livejournal so drastically different?

Well, for starters, there's that self-selection thing. No longer are we blocking that hated listmate, or scanning for messages from the people we really like -- we now have the capacity put all those people in one place."

[Linked with permission from Original Poster.]


[community profile] thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.

thisweekmod: (Default)
[personal profile] thisweekmod

I seem to be averaging about 6-7 links per issue, plus the old school featured link. Hm. I WAS going to separate things out by topic, but if only one or two are on the same thing, it seems a little superfluous. Perhaps if I do a super-sized issue (10+) that would come in handy?


[community profile] thisweekmeta collects links of fandom meta and discussions from all over the web, and welcomes submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom discussion post that we've missed, whether new or old, please feel free to leave a comment on this newest issue or email the editor.

The FAQ can be found here, and our editorial guidelines can be found here. Questions, concerns, and feedback are all welcomed.


New Stuff

alis (Mastodon) posted shipping as activism: "The growth of "shipping-as-activism" is a side-product of the mainstream popularization of liberal communist* rhetoric, discuss."

[personal profile] anneapocalypse posted A Ball of String: dreamwidth, tumblr, twitter, youtube, and a bag of chips.: "I have a lot of thoughts on this that I haven’t had time to hammer out into a post, but reading these posts, and most importantly the discussions in the comments, has been fascinating to me and I am learning a lot of things about dreamwidth culture, which, yes, already exists, and has existed this whole time, which I think is important for those of us just recently coming here to realize."

[tumblr.com profile] goldentruth813 posted a discussion about the meaning of BNF (Big Name Fan): "The term BNF really fell out of favor in the drarry squad around the decline of livejournal. I think this was a combination of the social norms of tumblr being different than livejourbal as a platform and a few other reasons which I have theories on but am not sure I really wanna share in depth right now."

More BNF info: Fanlore's Big Name Fan page.

[tumblr.com profile] icouldwritebooks posted Fandom exists because people bother to build it: "Then, one day, dumb fangirlish teenage me was making one of those “Purity Litmus Tests” (you know, the ones where the goal was to get a low score to show how “corrupted” you’d been by the thing?) for my geocities site, when I realized that all this fun I’d been having wouldn’t even exist if other fans weren’t out there creating stuff. I realized that when I created stuff, I was a part of that, and it was really cool."

[personal profile] muccamukk posted New Meta Newsletter, Signal Boosting, Linking, Dogpiling, and History: "On the other hand, there is a conflicting need: the need of people who are affected by something to express their opinion and their hurt, or to try to protect their space. I also think that is important part of fandom. And then there's just difference of opinion and people having actual discussions about them like goddamn adults. Which happens! And is also important."

[personal profile] sciatrix posted about whisperspace: the sorrow of my favorite absence: "But I haven't mentioned the thing I use the favorites for that makes me love them best of all: the ability to do the equivalent of smiling, nodding, and projecting thank you for saying that in a rough conversation, especially one where I'm concerned the other person thinks I'm angrier than I actually am."

[twitter.com profile] teawoodski posted about fandom community: "Been thinking a lot lately about differing approaches to fandom engagement; now that my favorite show's back from hiatus and we've all got fresh content to roll around in, it's hard not to notice I have an entirely different use pattern from most of my closest fandom friends"

Flashback - March 22, 2006

Older meta can be a valuable way to see how fandom has changed (or stayed the same) over time. Today's flashback meta:

[livejournal.com profile] hesychasm posted in lieu of life: "I've been here long enough to know that my fannishness is cyclical, but that it will always be part of my life. I haven't delved as deep as some, but fandom has definitely gotten its hooks into me."

tozka: title character sitting with a friend (twm flower)
[personal profile] tozka

So...this may end up being more than twice a week. There's WAY MORE STUFF out there than I expected to find (I haven't even really dug into Reddit/LJ/personal blogs yet!), and general consensus on my informal poll is that people prefer shorter posts more frequently? :P


We collect links from all over the web, and welcome submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom meta discussion post that we've missed, whether new or "old," please feel free to leave a comment here or email the editor. Our FAQ can be found here.

Also, if you know of a good DW journal/Twitter/Tumblr/etc. user who posts regular meta, please drop a comment below.

Okay, onto the good stuff!


New stuff

alis (Mastodon) posted a discussion about social media spaces: "So a lot of Things recently make me interested in knowing how the impact of a social media platform having (or not having) tools like privacy controls and public timelines influences the way users conceptualize "their" profiles."

[personal profile] cesperanza posted Money and Networks: "Vulnerable people NEED THEIR NETWORKS for support, for pleasure, for all sorts of things, but if you're selling to your network (using guilt or whatever, or the fact that people like you, or care about you) then you're literally undercutting something really valuable that you have going for you IMO."

[twitter.com profile] dontperishyet posted fanfic writer greatest hits: "I’m a fanfic writer. You know me from my greatest hits: -“I thought this was only going to be 5K”"

enchantedsleeper (Mastodon) posted some thoughts regarding the Great Reblog Debacle: "A discussion arose in one of my fandom chats where someone (who was primarily a Tumblr user) said that they wouldn't think twice about DMing a random stranger, and didn't consider it personal. Most others in the chat were like, "Wha...? That seems so intrusive!" I think it's an Ask culture thing - many regular Tumblr users don't think twice about sending random Asks (anon or no)."

[personal profile] greywash posted but what does whisperspace mean to YOU?: "In other words: I think a lot of what I miss about tag whisperspace was that it was a clear and intuitive way of signalling a break between the part of a social media post that is media and the part of a social media post that is social."

[tumblr.com profile] probablyintraffic posted Coffee shop AUs: "Coffee shop AUs are misunderstood because more than any other AUs they inhere fantasies’ internal contradiction. Fantasies, indeed the very best fantasies, are simultaneously completely believable and fundamentally unrealistic."


Oldies but goodies

[tumblr.com profile] lysanatt posted The Fandom Divide: Nation & Cultural Citizenship: "So I dug out parts of a chapter on fandom (also a paper @ Midwest Popular Culture Association/Midwest American Culture Association Annual Conference, Chicago 2016) that might be of interest to those who want to dig deeper into what the gift cycle means to fandom, and why it works to further fandom cohesion."

[twitter.com profile] namjinary posted 3 Rules of Fandom: "In light of content creators in fandom being attacked,blamed & labelled as fetishists & sexualisers I feel the need to remind the people about the "3 Rules of Fandom" which many of us from multi fandoms already know but new ones-such as #ARMY who are new to fandom culture don't."

[tumblr.com profile] ritalara posted Let people like things with whatever intensity their own will demands.: "Let fans enjoy their faves without a legitimacy test."

tozka: title character sitting with a friend (twm flower)
[personal profile] tozka

Hello all, and welcome to the first issue of This Week in Meta! Depending on how much we find each week, this will be at LEAST a twice-weekly pan-fandom newsletter centered around fandom meta and discussions.

We collect links from all over the web, and welcome submissions from readers. If you know of an excellent fandom meta discussion post that we've missed, whether new or "old," please feel free to leave a comment here or email the editor. Our FAQ can be found here.

Also, if you know of a good DW journal/Twitter/Tumblr/etc. user who posts regular meta, please drop a comment below.

Okay, onto the good stuff!

New stuff

[twitter.com profile] aroundab00t posted a discussion about ages in fandom: "Ok, yall, I'm gonna salt on main for a sec. Sometimes I see people in fandom talking abt how Weird it is for Fandom Olds to be active members of the fannish community, & people older than their teens second guessing their places in what should be a welcoming & open space..."

[twitter.com profile] eugial posted a discussion about 18+ warnings: "I've seen some of these children who think fandom is activism straight up say shit like "this is the internet no one is going to respect your 18+ only warning" and I just gotta say that's not my fucking problem. Not even a little bit. I'm not your damn parents."

[twitter.com profile] freetofic posted a Google Doc asking for people to post their experiences: "if you deal w/marginalization b/c of your race &/or ethnicity, & you have the desire/energy to share some thoughts on it, please consider responding to this Google form."

kanon (Mastodon) posted Types of Ships (non-exhaustive list): "4. [Character A, who seems to be best-suited to address B's Flaws and Insecurities]/[Character B, who seems to be best-suited to address A's Flaws and Insecurities], or: Ship Stoichiometry"

Kari-izumi (Pillowfort) posted Anti discourse: "Are they in the bubble or are we? I mean every side has assholes, but most discourse blogs started calling bullshit out once they or their friends became targets and almost none of the ones I follow off Tumblr engage in that shit in spaces where they can just be fans. Do they think we're making shit up about being harassed offline or assholes who fake suicides or use a kids cartoon to push discussion about pedophilic ships with seven year olds?"

[twitter.com profile] midgetnazgul posted this on Twitter: "the fandom version of Marie Kondo's philosophy should be "if it doesn't spark joy, shut the fuck up"

[personal profile] naraht posted On transitions and dialogue and things: "I've been reading a lot of literary fiction recently and noticing how much ease it demonstrates with transitions, and with telescoping from the particular to the general and back again. Fanfiction and popular fiction are very dialogue-heavy and tend to have scenes like scenes in films, where you get a straightforward narrative describing exactly what happens while (say) two characters are in a room together."

[personal profile] novembermond posted how to find comms on dw & and how to get people to find your comm: "so let's say you have just seen the movie "Venom" and now want to find posts about it. On tumblr you'd type in the tag and you would find all the posts tagged Venom. That was your "community" on tumblr. On dw you can follow comms, but it is not the same as tracking a tag on tumblr. People's posts don't show in any tag automatically (tags on dw are only for your own organisation). Rather you need to specifically create comms and have people post their stuff in them."


Oldies but goodies

attackfish posted over at Pillowfort: "It’s really a shame that the imperative “examine why you like something” has come to be such a part of the toolbox of people who want to make you stop liking the thing (with the implication that if you think about the thing, you will not only stop liking the thing but come to the realization that it really is wrong and terrible!!!), because examining why you like something and figuring out why you like it is a great way to get more out of the thing."

Jessica Conditt for Engadget posted Nerdy, written erotica doesn't need Tumblr to survive: "When Verizon was in the process of buying Yahoo and Tumblr, many people in fandom communities saw the writing on the wall, largely because they'd endured this process before. Fanfiction and fanart has found a home at a handful of sites over the years, from LiveJournal and FanFiction.net to DeviantArt and Tumblr -- but it seems that every time it settles in at a particular site, the terms of service get updated and the community is purged."

[personal profile] melannen posted You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone: "Because the other thing is: the adult content warning on all the entries does not make a distinction between "this entry is marked adult" and "this journal is marked adult". When you click through to the second warning page, it does give a reason if you entered a reason, but that's it, and that doesn't show on reading pages. And most people who have their entire journal set to adult are doing it "just in case", and 90% of their entries are not, in fact, adult. This can lead to a weird impression."

[personal profile] tozka (me!) posted fandom meta discussions on mastodon, covering old people in fandom, DW communities, Tumblr people moving to DW, Tumblr etiquette vs DW etiquette.

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