How Fandom Has Changed

[paraka]

So, I've spoken to people about this in various places in various ways, but I kind of wanted to put this out there, and get people's opinions.

Maybe it's just the fandoms I've been in, or it could just be me, but it seems like fandom has changed how they present themselves a lot since I joined. The area that I notice this the most is with vidding.

I remember making my first vid, and then having no idea how to go about sharing it. I was a poor student! I couldn't afford to buy webspace! I also was stuck using WMM (Version 1!) because you couldn't get downloads of better programs, and that was all that was available to me. It took me *months* to get my hands on all the aired episodes of QaF, because there weren't all the communities available, and while there was probably bit torrent, I certainly didn't know about it. I used Kazaa to get all my eps. :P I remember, even as I got started, there was meta going around saying that vidding was beginning to lose some of it's quality because what with WMM being on most new computers, and episode downloads more readily available everyone was trying vidding now, even if they hadn't any talent for it. I took exception to such meta, mostly because I was one of those talentless n00bs taking advantage of the new fangled technology suddenly on my computer (I still don't really agree with that idea, because for all the less than stellar vidders, there are a lot of amazing vidders who wouldn't have tried in the old days, and even if you're not an amazing vidder, I still think your work has merit if you enjoyed yourself. Hell, if I was that kind of elitist, I could never have made anymore vids, and I'd like to think that I've moved beyond the mediocre vidder I started as).

Despite it giving me problems when I first started out, I think the thing about vidding today that annoys me the most is the fact that people don't have personal webpages for their vids anymore. They just post them to Youtube or Imeem, and so, so many don't even offer a download link anymore, or if they do, they're often hosted on temporary sites such as sendspace or megaupload. I'm one of those people that always downloads vids, I watch them as I do other things on my computer, I hate streaming vids. I won't watch them if there is only a streaming option, and I like being able to go to a vidders website and downloading more of their vids if I find something I like. Half the time if I want to do that now, I end up having to root someone's LJs tags or memories, only to find that the download link has expired.

And it's not just vidders that I've noticed giving up on personal websites, it seems like so many author's have decided that their LJs are the only place they need to post fic. I had a big long discussion with paradise_city about this, she was wondering why anyone would need more than LJ in fandom, and no offense to her, but that idea really... worries me and drives me crazy. Because LJ? Not really the best archive. Unless the author takes the time to maintain a master fic list, I find it so frustrating trying to find their other fics. Tags just... aren't really enough for me, and people can be really bad at keeping them updated (I know *I* am). Do people even *use* the memory feature any more? I've been lucky in SGA, that it has enough fic appearing on my flist, that I never really have to search any out, but it's not so with all fandoms. I've pretty much given up on reading Numb3rs fic, because it's always so much effort finding it. That's really the reason why I wanted to start an archive for Numb3rs, to help centralize it, but for reasons having to do with stupid eFiction those idea have been put on hold.

I know that when I started in fandom, it was literally *months* before I even found LJ, I happily did all my reading initially from personal webpages of authors, and then later from archives. Even once I was on LJ I did most of my reading off it. I really miss that. For one thing, as someone who doesn't bookmark fic as I read it, it was a lot easier for me to go back and find the fics that I had read previously, because it's a lot easier to remember a webpage than it is to remember someone's LJ.
I find myself missing the days when more fic was stored off of LJ, and not just because I feel that LJ isn't a reliable place for fandom. It's funny how fandom moves, I wonder where we'll be next.

Comments

[equusentric.livejournal.com]

1) I hate having to go to YouTube to watch vids because it affects the image quality, and Imeem streams so badly for me that I don't even bother following links there anymore. ITA with you that I've noticed the lack of permanent (or at least long term) links for vids, and it's a large part of why I don't watch many vids now.

2) I love LJ because it gives me a way to feedback without having to sign up for yet another board/archive site, but if I read someone's story and really like it, the first thing I do is check their user info to see if they have a website, and I bookmark those. Websites tend to be cleaner and it's great to have a good author's fic all in one place, and be able to avoid having to wade through all the other fic I'm not interested in reading.

My guess is people are moving away from the personal sites because the free ones are chock full of ads and the pay ones are getting more and more expensive. Plus, more people will feedback on LJ than they will from a website via email.

I wish more authors had personal sites, or there were better quality moderated archives. I occasionally check Wraithbait but not that often because I don't like wading through the bad!fic. I know many of the better QaF writers quit posting their stories at BJFic because they didn't want the association with the overwhelming bad!fic that got posted there. I wish there was an archive for SGA like Gio's Queer Eyes, with hand picked fic, but that takes money and time, things that seem increasingly in short supply these days. :/

[paradise-city.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this since our archive conversation -- thanks for your thoughts, by the way. I haven't gotten a chance to respond, but this post hits on everything I wanted to say, anyway.

I think the relative importance of archives depends on the reading habits of the person in question. I find little value in archives because I never read there and I never read there because LJ is sufficient to meet my reading needs. I don't read a lot of fic, I rarely go looking for a particular type of fic, and I find LJ's default comment page easier to read than most archive or personal site pages. And luckily, as my main fandom, SGA provides enough effortless fic via newsletters and rec lists to provide more than enough reading material.

The only time I ever actually used archives was when there wasn't enough LJ fic available -- early on in House fandom and before Nick/Greg CSI fic had an active LJ comm. That shortage hasn't ever happened again.

Mabe I'm just not an active enough reader, but I just don't need to read anywhere other than LJ. And while I agree that archives are much better for actual archiving purposes, I just don't have a personal need for them.

Maybe starting out on the vidding side makes a difference? Most of my flist comes from the fic side and they rarely positively discuss archives (though some have an interest in the OTW's archive project).

I'm not at all trying to rain on your archive parade by any means, just explaining my side. :)

[the-muppet.livejournal.com]

Despite it giving me problems when I first started out, I think the thing about vidding today that annoys me the most is the fact that people don't have personal webpages for their vids anymore. They just post them to Youtube or Imeem, and so, so many don't even offer a download link anymore, or if they do, they're often hosted on temporary sites such as sendspace or megaupload.

I totally agree with this, and it's one of the main reasons we changed our policy on Kawoosh! and The Impala and don't allow temp/streaming links - we want our archive links to be available for as long as possible.

Also, I think vidders who don't collate all thier vids onto a webpage are disadvantaging themselves - so often I've gone to watch one vid and ended up watching more of that smae vidders stuff cos it's all their and something caught my interest - that isn't going to happen if all the vids aren't in one place.

Not very articulate, sorry about that, but basically I'm saying I agree =)

[maekala.livejournal.com]

I'm exhausted from just posting all the stuff for my story, so I'm just going to say "word" for now and I'll see about adding more commentary tomorrow.

Word.

[jolinar.livejournal.com]

You know, funnily enough, I'm in the middle of making my first vid atm and its taken a bit of a backseat lately because of this exact reason -- I have nowhere to post it. I don't have a personal website and even though I have an LJ I'm not sure if it would be even worth posting it up in an entry. I think a lot of it is a self esteem thing, I'm usually very shy about posting something that is personal to me (and my art is usually quite personal to me, as I'm sure it is for everyone) so lately I've been persevering just purely for my own fun and enjoyment and sense of achievement. A friend of mine had suggested just throwing it up on Youtube, but that really feels so cheap to me. I'm in the same boat as you -- I will rarely watch a vid if you can only stream it, I usually like to have a (high-res... ahem) version sitting on my harddrive.

As for LJ, I'm old fashioned and still use the memory feature. I used to have a huge long list of Bookmarks however I tend to avoid relying on that these days as I recently had a Harddrive corrupt itself on me. At least with LJ links, its permanent and always accessible no matter what computer I'm on. At least thats my reasoning for it :P

[kronos999.livejournal.com]

Just a random person cruising in from a bookmark on my del.icio.us network and I agree enough to comment, though I'm coming in more from the fic rather than the vidding side of things.

Half the time if I want to do that now, I end up having to root someones LJs tags or memories, only to find that the download link has expired. This is one of the great things that annoy me about the lack of archives/personal pages hosting vids. I am a serial monogamist when it comes to fandoms so I am often NOT following as the vids are announced and by the time I find them, they are long gone. It is very frustrating to hunt through tags and recs lists only to not be able to get at the video in the end which happens to me on a regular basis.

Even if the vid is still there, tags really aren't sufficient when it comes to hunting them down. I don't mind going through a LJ if there is a master post, but I'm likely to give up otherwise even if I like a vid by that person. If I have all of them listed in front of me, I'll probably just download them all and then delete what I don't like. I don't really enjoy doing this on YouTube because I can't download decent quality videos anyway.

Because of these two issues, I don't watch many vids anymore unless someone recs one to me, even though I love them. I just can't take the frustration and go back to my old favourites which I have saved to my hard drive.

And it's not just vidders that I've noticed giving up on personal websites, it seems like so many author's have decided that their LJs are the only place they need to post fic.

This is very true. As a replacement for personal websites, as long as the author creates a master post and updates it, LJ works rather well. The problem is that many don't do that. This is especially frustrating for multi-chapter posts since if the tag is missing or misspelled, finding that one missing chapter of a WIP for something posted a few years back isn't fun. This is one of the reasons I think people should post to archives for a backup. Sure, there is badfic, but keeping track of chapters is much easier.

About archives and badfic in general. I hate how archives have gotten a bad rap. I honestly would rather search through an archive of badfic for one good story than try to find it on LJ. Why? Because I can find exactly what I'm looking for without having to search Google, del.icio.us, storyfinders and everything else I can think of with a ton of variations in spelling, pairing etc. and still not find what I'm looking for. I may be just expressing some frustration here after attempting to enter a few new fandoms over the past month and having real trouble finding fic that interests me because everything is so decentralized. There are too many communities, everything is on LJ and I know that I am missing stories I would like to read simply because they are buried in several years of posts.

Turning the clock back a few years, I could have gone to the major archive(s) for the fandom and found enough stories to keep me interested without spending more time digging than reading. I could have gotten a good grounding in the fandom, found all the BNFs and iconic stories, as well as lesser known ones that may have gotten neglected, and built my way up to the continual postings of new fic. Now, I spend way too much time trying to find what I want to read in the first place. If I don't like a fic, I can always hit the back button after a paragraph of spelling mistakes. LJ is fine if you've already worked your way through the fandom and are just keeping up with the new stories, but it isn't so good when you are just getting started or like something other than the *OTPOMGtheirloveissocanon* since they never show up on recs pages.

And I've run out of characters so I'll be double posting you... Sorry.

[aruna7.livejournal.com]

Hi! I discovered your post through veni_vidi_vids and I really appreciated reading it. It makes a lot of sense to me, and is alike some of my recent (or so not recent) thinking about where fandom goes.

I started vidding almost 3 years ago, but been checking vids for like 7 years, and I'm kind of mourning the loss of personal sites. Not that much for fanfic, but I confess I don't have much time for fic reading.

I'm a huge anti-youtube for various reasons. First, I'm a vid DL girl, I like storing them on my computer and have time to properly (re)watch them. Youtube is kind of crappy about quality/ratio most of time, and it also kills my browser on a regular basis though I'm not on dial-up. And browsing only a youtube page is something I find quite bleh. (As for vid theft, I'd better not start on it I think).

I'm a huge LJ girl personnally. But I use it in parallel as my site, as a kind of announcement place (for the open posts). But I always take time to tag everything perfectly, with the tags showing on the main page, so that people don't take hours to browse them. When it's done this way I like LJ. It's easy to have updates and to leave feedback. But a personal site is still something more than useful and that I enjoy pretty much to browse. And it means DL links!

The temporary links are quite boring as well, especially when there are a few free sites that allow enough room to store loads of stuff there, on a permanent basis and that you can link either to a little personal site, or to a LJ well sorted out (like 4shared for exemple).

I guess I'm not such an old vidder, but an old fashion one for sure! And I'm afraid I just posted a novel on your LJ! Hum... *waves* Nice to meet you! =)