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the_comfy_chairQuality and popularity are two separate concepts that, in theory, are complementary. In practice, however, they are often intimately entwined and certainly play an important role in what gets read, watched, listened to, etc. That the same mechanism is at work in fandom and fan fiction is not surprising, though perhaps, with the independent community nature of fandom as opposed to professional published fiction, it should be.
What follows is a discussion on quality vs. popularity in SGA fan fiction, with the purpose of exploring the structural dynamics of fandom and the social norms and mores that contribute to those dynamics.
Fiction and its attendant trappings in the SGA fandom can be very frustrating, in that I've noticed the same authors get recced and acclaimed repeatedly, regardless of the quality of their work. There have been multiple instances where I've read a fic whose quality struck me as notably out of proportion to the amount of glowing feedback it received and I needed only to double check the author's name for the proportions to make sense. Perhaps belatedly, I've come to realize that being a well-known author in other fandoms takes one far in this fandom.
Of course, this isn't unique to the SGA fandom, but it is happening more often here than I've seen in other fandoms. This could be a function of the little black dress nature of the fandom as a whole: perhaps, as SGA is drawing many popular authors from other fandoms together, these effects are being multiplied to noticeable levels.
I find this problematic because (a) it implies a lack of objectivity on the part of readers and reccers, which likely means (b) less well-known authors with high quality work are left undiscovered (or at least unpublicized). Many rec pages look incredibly similar, with the same authors and the same works. That's to be expected, to an extent, but I've noticed many authors who have nearly all their SGA pieces recced. Now, there are many professional authors, musicians, etc. I enjoy, but I wouldn't rec 80% of their back catalog nearly as often as happens with SGA authors. Are all these authors' works really that good? Is it the quality that's driving the rec, the recognizability of the author's name, or some other factor?
Related to this is the proliferation of crack fic in the fandom (which, arguably, could be a different issue entirely). There are several crack fics I've enjoyed, but there are many more that left me scratching my head and wondering about authorial intent. Previous discussions have looked at authorial distance and the merit of the crack fic label, but I've been feeling a shift from considering crack fic to be good in terms of silly enjoyment to good in terms of characterization and quality, most often when a well-known name is associated with the piece. It was this phenomenon that led to me to question the depth of the relationship between popularity and quality.
I suppose the questions I'm trying to raise are those of perspective: this has been my experience with SGA, having come late to the fandom party (post-S1) and having been largely unfamiliar with the staple authors. However, from discussions I've had with others, it seems as though this has become a trend. If that is indeed true, it then becomes a question of extent and, relatedly, fandom norms and mores and how they create fandom homeostasis.
Of course, this is the same lament seen in many other fandoms likely since the dawn of fandom. I had, however, anticipated SGA being different because of the aforementioned little black dress nature of the fandom as a whole. With many authors being brought in from many other fandoms, I had expected there to be more open and experimental air in terms of reading new authors. That doesn't seem to have happened and I'm not entirely sure why that is.
I feel the need to disclaim this this is (a) nothing personal and (b) certainly isn't intended as wank against more popular authors in favor of less popular authors, but rather as an exploration of fandom dynamics and, perhaps, a comparison of fandom's social norms and mores to the norms and mores of professional published fiction. As such, I'd love to see any discussion this may prompt.
ETA 1: For any newcomers to the discussion, the issues I originally posted about are related to public crit and easily segue into a discussion on that topic. However, as per the admin's kind reminder, please keep your responses away from the topic of public crit and on topic with what was said in the original post. Thanks!
ETA 2: Thanks to everyone who's participated in this discussion. I benefited quite a bit from reading others' opinions and I hope some of y'all did, too. Kudos also for keeping the discussion friendly and polite; perhaps it was naive of me, but I hadn't realized how incendiary a topic this could be. Thanks for sharing your ideas and opinions. :)
What follows is a discussion on quality vs. popularity in SGA fan fiction, with the purpose of exploring the structural dynamics of fandom and the social norms and mores that contribute to those dynamics.
Fiction and its attendant trappings in the SGA fandom can be very frustrating, in that I've noticed the same authors get recced and acclaimed repeatedly, regardless of the quality of their work. There have been multiple instances where I've read a fic whose quality struck me as notably out of proportion to the amount of glowing feedback it received and I needed only to double check the author's name for the proportions to make sense. Perhaps belatedly, I've come to realize that being a well-known author in other fandoms takes one far in this fandom.
Of course, this isn't unique to the SGA fandom, but it is happening more often here than I've seen in other fandoms. This could be a function of the little black dress nature of the fandom as a whole: perhaps, as SGA is drawing many popular authors from other fandoms together, these effects are being multiplied to noticeable levels.
I find this problematic because (a) it implies a lack of objectivity on the part of readers and reccers, which likely means (b) less well-known authors with high quality work are left undiscovered (or at least unpublicized). Many rec pages look incredibly similar, with the same authors and the same works. That's to be expected, to an extent, but I've noticed many authors who have nearly all their SGA pieces recced. Now, there are many professional authors, musicians, etc. I enjoy, but I wouldn't rec 80% of their back catalog nearly as often as happens with SGA authors. Are all these authors' works really that good? Is it the quality that's driving the rec, the recognizability of the author's name, or some other factor?
Related to this is the proliferation of crack fic in the fandom (which, arguably, could be a different issue entirely). There are several crack fics I've enjoyed, but there are many more that left me scratching my head and wondering about authorial intent. Previous discussions have looked at authorial distance and the merit of the crack fic label, but I've been feeling a shift from considering crack fic to be good in terms of silly enjoyment to good in terms of characterization and quality, most often when a well-known name is associated with the piece. It was this phenomenon that led to me to question the depth of the relationship between popularity and quality.
I suppose the questions I'm trying to raise are those of perspective: this has been my experience with SGA, having come late to the fandom party (post-S1) and having been largely unfamiliar with the staple authors. However, from discussions I've had with others, it seems as though this has become a trend. If that is indeed true, it then becomes a question of extent and, relatedly, fandom norms and mores and how they create fandom homeostasis.
Of course, this is the same lament seen in many other fandoms likely since the dawn of fandom. I had, however, anticipated SGA being different because of the aforementioned little black dress nature of the fandom as a whole. With many authors being brought in from many other fandoms, I had expected there to be more open and experimental air in terms of reading new authors. That doesn't seem to have happened and I'm not entirely sure why that is.
I feel the need to disclaim this this is (a) nothing personal and (b) certainly isn't intended as wank against more popular authors in favor of less popular authors, but rather as an exploration of fandom dynamics and, perhaps, a comparison of fandom's social norms and mores to the norms and mores of professional published fiction. As such, I'd love to see any discussion this may prompt.
ETA 1: For any newcomers to the discussion, the issues I originally posted about are related to public crit and easily segue into a discussion on that topic. However, as per the admin's kind reminder, please keep your responses away from the topic of public crit and on topic with what was said in the original post. Thanks!
ETA 2: Thanks to everyone who's participated in this discussion. I benefited quite a bit from reading others' opinions and I hope some of y'all did, too. Kudos also for keeping the discussion friendly and polite; perhaps it was naive of me, but I hadn't realized how incendiary a topic this could be. Thanks for sharing your ideas and opinions. :)
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If You Admit You Can Play the Accordion
Date: 2006-03-20 02:15 am (UTC)Before we reach the question of how we define "good," there are several possible meanings of "popular" to disentangle. The highschoolesque aspects of fandom come to the fore here, leading to the posited over-valuation of stories by BNFs and Cordettes.
Paperback potboilers are more "popular"--in the sense of demotic--than less accessible works with greater literary pretensions. However, in any given week, X number of mysteries, thrillers, and romances are published. Within a given genre, a few will sell a million copies, most will sell 2,000 copies, so genre alone doesn't define popularity.
And, for that matter, one reason that Shakespeare and Dickens were popular in their own day is that they addressed concerns of the time (e.g., Shakespeare's never-ending flow of horn jokes; Dickens' dying children) in language and conventions that were accessible to the audience of their own times. It's not that they meant to be hoity-toity and high-falutin', it's just that our language and conventions are different.
Oh, about the subject line: one of the, ummm, immortal songs from "Ishtar" (a movie I rather enjoyed despite its reputation for atrocity) includes:
Telling the truth is a dangerous business.
"Honest" and "popular" don't go hand in hand.
If you admit you can play the accordion,
They'll never hire you for a rock'n'roll band.
Re: If You Admit You Can Play the Accordion
Date: 2006-03-20 02:26 am (UTC)Moreover, when I was talking about genre fiction, I merely meant that they are traditionally regarded as being of lesser quality. In fact, assoon as something genre is good, academia tries to redefine it (as in Handmaid's Tale or Dispossessed is not *really* sf/f...)
And in fanfic, a lot of the fic tends to lean on traditional generic categories...for better or worse.
...and only *you* would cite Ishtar!!! and get away with it :D
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.
Re: If You Admit You Can Play the Accordion
Date: 2006-03-20 04:17 am (UTC)The only thing is though: does that mean that the fic *isn't* quality? I.e., I'm still stuck on the fact thst for the most part BNFs become BNFs because people like their writing. Yes, it may get overinflated, and we've all see the scary fangirl effects in HP...but I end up having a lot of recs on my page that resembles other pages, not b/c I ignore other fic or b/c these are my friends but simply b/c I like the stories!!!
Ain't We Got Fun?
Date: 2006-03-20 04:28 am (UTC)Nope, it just means that there's a snowball effect where something that is perceived as good (and very well may be) will continue to get more and more recs, whereas obscure stories (some of which are corkers) get more and more obscure.
Than this there's nothing surer:
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 06:03 am (UTC)I think this is an important point. I can only speak for myself, but there are certain things I look for in fanfic, and when I find writers and reccers who seem to be on the same wavelength I generally stick close. Reading the replies here got me comparing two writers I've read. One is a BNF and one isn't. I think they both have a major, consistent flaw in their writing (by that I mean that almost every one of their stories [that I've read] have the same flaw). The difference is that the BNF's flaw is one that annoys me, but doesn't really keep me from enjoying the stories. The other writer's flaw is one that gets *right* up my nose, and prevents me from wholeheartedly enjoying her writing. I think it's totally a matter of personal taste, but there must be a significant number of people who share my personal taste, at least to some extent, given the relative popularity/number of recs garnered by the two writers.
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 08:34 am (UTC)I think this is one of the core issues here, as opposed to what might constitute quality (which I'm not denying is an issue, but it's so personal I doubt we'll ever achive any kind of chorum about it).
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 03:11 pm (UTC)Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 04:05 pm (UTC)Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 07:06 pm (UTC)Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 08:51 pm (UTC)Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 11:34 pm (UTC)but thsnksfor letting me know :-)
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 08:41 pm (UTC)Also, I wanted to let you know that it's not a matter of not wanting to engage with your comments. My LJ time's pretty limited during this part of the week and I just haven't had the time to make an in-depth reply.
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-20 11:33 pm (UTC)and i know that i tend to answer shorter comments first...i think i was mostly worried that i'd come off too lecturing, which all the i believe and i think i was peppering in there might not have managed to offput...so it was my own anxieties mostly...
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-21 03:14 am (UTC)Also, just FYI, I still have the text of the comment you deleted. It sounds like you'd rather not repost it, but I just wanted you to have the option.
Re: I feel like a number....
Date: 2006-03-21 03:18 am (UTC)though i really do have you on my rec page :-)
About the fic
Date: 2006-03-20 04:18 pm (UTC)The BNF is Astolat, and most of her stories in this fandom (I think I've read them all) just really *work* for me. The problem happens at the end--the story will be going along really great and then ends at what is for me an unsatisfying stopping point. I can't say that this happens in all her stories, but it's happened often enough that I started to notice (and it takes me forever to notice things like that, so I think it's a trend).
The non-BNF is Mousewitchy, and I've only read two of her stories, so it's entirely possible that I've got the wrong idea about her writing. It's just that in the stories I read the emotions seem oversimplified, everything is very black and white, and if the good guys do it it's automatically right. (FWIW this is IMO a consistent flaw in canon, too.) I think that can make for a very satisfying read if one is in the mood for it, but the older I get the less I like it.
Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-21 08:41 am (UTC)I've been reading and enjoying
I've enjoyed some of
As for my own two examples:
I have long said that
As for a little known author,
Ah, SGA. It's such a shiny fandom! "Even the white bits are black" (to quote Eric Olthwaite ;)
Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-21 02:00 pm (UTC)I've enjoyed cesperanza's SGA stories, but I fell in love with her writing back in Due South--there was something about that fandom that made her shine, IMO.
I recognize the name ladyflowdi, but I'm not sure I've read her stuff--I'll definitely have to check it out. Have you read any of the SGA stories by
Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-21 03:37 pm (UTC)Trinityofone is somebody who's garnered a lot of recognition in this fandom, and I like a lot of her stories. The trend toward crackfic and really out there AUs has made it difficult for me to enjoy a lot of stories based on far-out premises. The thing I've come to realize is that I have a very firm vision of who the characters are, and if a writer has a different view (going back to Rachel Sabotini's three-point characterization theorem) then I need them to begin with a canonical reference and *work to* the alternative. In other fandoms I've been far more accepting of wider ranges of characterization and it just doesn't work for me in SGA.
Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-21 04:47 pm (UTC)I actually find that the crackfic and AUs/ARs work more for me in SGA than in fandoms. Maybe because the whole stargate premise itself is kind of crack-ish? I seem to be able to swallow almost any kind of insanity as long as the characters feel recognizable to me, and I think that's why skoosiepants's stories work--it just *feels* like this is how the characters would be if they were dumped into this insane situation.
I suspect a lot of it too is that the characters not only feel recognizable, but are also how I *want* them to be. Which leads right back to personal taste, and probably applies to all fanfic and not just the crack/AU/AR. As a reader, when I find writers and reccers who seem to want the same things from the characters that I do, it's like a match made in heaven.
Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-22 06:21 am (UTC)One of the most out-there crck writers, imo, is
I find your point interesting about how you have different expectations in different fandoms. Have you considered whether the size of the fandom might have anything to do with that?
Re: About the fic
From:Re: About the fic
Date: 2006-03-22 06:13 am (UTC)I find
Re: About the fic
From:Re: About the fic
From:Regression Toward the Mean Girls
Date: 2006-03-21 04:48 am (UTC)Re: Regression Toward the Mean Girls
Date: 2006-03-21 12:12 pm (UTC)