as soon as something genre is good, academia tries to redefine it How to Suppress Women's Writing redux.
Even if it weren't a case of Regression Toward the Mean Girls, the incidence of repeated recs would probably be a case of Regression Toward the Mean anyway. Because once a fandom and its base of stories gets big enough that it's difficult or impossible to read everything, one of the main factors in selecting the things that *can* be read in limited time is a) a BNF wrote it and/or b) a BNF recced it. Pretty soon there are even too many recs sites to keep up. So many newbies, and even a lot of experienced fans, will gravitate toward the popular critical apparatus. If they see something they like, they may rec it on their own sites or their own LJs, and it may be picked up by their friends. Naturally there are plenty of stories that Fan A would really like--if she ever found them in the obscure corners where they lurk--but if she doesn't know that the story exists, of course she won't even read it, much less rec it, so the memetic propagation favors the already-popular.
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branchandroot
Re: If You Admit You Can Play the Accordion
Date: 2006-03-20 03:45 am (UTC)How to Suppress Women's Writing redux.
Even if it weren't a case of Regression Toward the Mean Girls, the incidence of repeated recs would probably be a case of Regression Toward the Mean anyway. Because once a fandom and its base of stories gets big enough that it's difficult or impossible to read everything, one of the main factors in selecting the things that *can* be read in limited time is a) a BNF wrote it and/or b) a BNF recced it. Pretty soon there are even too many recs sites to keep up. So many newbies, and even a lot of experienced fans, will gravitate toward the popular critical apparatus. If they see something they like, they may rec it on their own sites or their own LJs, and it may be picked up by their friends. Naturally there are plenty of stories that Fan A would really like--if she ever found them in the obscure corners where they lurk--but if she doesn't know that the story exists, of course she won't even read it, much less rec it, so the memetic propagation favors the already-popular.