Signal boost: Why Avengers has eaten fandom, by Fabula Rasa

[amanuensis1]

So I fell and fell hard, and a lot of you did too--what was it about Avengers that made it a Fandom Global Event? For the definition of that term and some speculation why it happened, check out fabularasa's blogspot post, A Unified Theory of Fandom. Agree, disagree, discuss.

Comments

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think HP was a fandom global event because canon lasted over a decade and people grew up with it, aside from other reasons. And her assertion that "maleness" is a part of what makes a fandom popular is very depressing. I'd like to think more of us than that. I'd like to.

And I'm not yet convinced Avengers will become a FGE. At this point it feels just like it did with Merlin and Inception--a lot of people are all excited and it's brand new and inspiring, but I don't see signs that it's going to last any longer than any other fandom that comes and goes. Maybe there will be renewed bursts whenever a new film in the series is released. But I don't think there's enough, in the movie at least, to sustain interest indefinitely for years and years like HP or Buffy or Stark Trek or whatever.

Maybe a bunch of people who saw the films will start reading the comic books and that will sustain it between films? I'm not sure it's the same audience, though.

And of course I'm speaking as someone who saw the film, thought FUN, and then forgot about it before I left the cinema, I have to admit. (I really, really wish I found Jeremy Renner even slightly attractive, I'd so be all over your fics.)

[avashida.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of which fandoms count/have counted as FGEs, aside from Harry Potter, obviously. Because if you know which fandoms are FGEs then you can look at what's similar between them...

Only I'm struggling, honestly. Lord of the Rings, maybe? All my fandoms SEEM like FGEs, but that's because I'm in them, you know?

I disagree with her about Supernatural, though. It's not an FGE, but I think it's not because it's quite dark a lot of the time, and not in a 'there'll be a happy ending eventually' kind of way. Not because it's not clever. Spn fangirl can't you tell?

[sinick.livejournal.com]

Star Trek and Star Wars are the other two FGEs that spring to my mind. Interesting that the Big Four are split so evenly on the Fantasy/SF divide.

[avashida.livejournal.com]

It kind of makes sense, though - sci fi provides the same kind of escapism as fantasy, just with a slightly different bent, different motifs etc. My guess is that between them, fantasy and sci fi appeal to everyone - you either like (or lean towards) one or the other. (Or both. But between them they probably catch everyone?)

[andinocara.livejournal.com]

I must read this tonight when I have some time, because I really wonder what it was about Avengers that has caught me. Harry Potter was my first (and so far only) fandom, and though I enjoyed the movie in parts, I really wasn't that taken with it, right after watching it I pretty much had only negative reviews. But it somehow wormed into my brain more and more. Or maybe that was you and your fics (and femmequixotic's). I still am not that into the movie per se, but the characters are very powerful, and the interplay between them so full of potential. I think that is what makes a fandom, all the unsaid back story full of stories that need to be told. I guess there is a lot of potential for fandom there, since many of the characters have their own movies as well. And then of course there is the whole gods thing, vast amounts of potential backstory there. (plus any fandom with canon mpreg needs to be played with - lol)

[sinuous-curve.livejournal.com]

See, I tend to think that one of the big things that will lead to a FGE fandom (and really, the more I think about it the more I can't identify a single fandom that would qualify other than Harry Potter) is having tons and tons of backstory that has enough mentioned and hinted at to intrigue, but still leaves oceans of open room for people to fill and interpret. Which is one of the strong points of the Avengers, I think, because there's so much that's mentioned and hinted at and absorbed through fannish osmosis from the comics themselves that can be incorporated and talked about and used as a branching off point.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. I think Fabula Rasa is probably right with her points as well (though the male part is a little depressing), but to sustain for years and years at a huge level I think there needs to be depth and continuing active canon... with lots of "holes" for fandom to fill. If people go to the comics from the movie, (or if they keep making movies every few years), all these things are there as well.

[sinuous-curve.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! I was actually thinking about this a lot at work, but it's not just missing backstory, it's having a wide array of characters to take into a wide variety of logical (and canonical) places. Harry Potter was largely about Harry, of course, but there were so many hundreds of minor characters that could be expanded and written about at great length. I mean, I can't say I ever really wondered what would happen if, say, Lavender and Millicent got together, but their existence meant that someone did. Plus, Avengers also has the ability to crossover and merge with just about every other superhero canon that exists (and often it already does in the comics) so you can have the time Batman and Tony hit each other and cried and had sex and Logan fighting with Cap in World War II, etc.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Exactly! (In fact, I think I've read those stories...)

[pauraque]

I'm suspicious of the idea that you can say much about the typology of internet mega-fandoms when there have only been a handful of them. HP is a clear contender, but it didn't actually come on suddenly, it built popularity over several years on the strength of the books, then the movies, then the takeoff of LJ. Avengers, I would argue, didn't come on suddenly either -- there are the comics, and then the other movies, and now one movie that incorporates characters from all of them. The fandom is also riding the rising popularity of Tumblr, just as HP rode the wave of LJ. It seems very early to claim that Avengers will have the staying power of HP, though.

The other obvious example is X-Files, though perhaps it's not as obvious for people who weren't there. It also built its popularity over several years, and rode its way to massiveness on a forum that was new to most people -- the internet itself. The internet itself was much smaller back then, but in terms of saturation, XF fandom was where HP has been, and where Avengers is now. I started going online BECAUSE of that show, and so did many of my RL friends. Looking at that blog post, XF had cleverness and magic in spades, but it did not have a large cast of characters, nor was it male-focused -- on the contrary, it had one of the most widely beloved and widely ficced-about female leads in any fandom ever... if you like het, of course. XF slash, like most slash fandoms, was of course focused on the manpain of pretty white guys, which is a thing about fandom that has always left me very underwhelmed, and continues to do so.

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

That's interesting -- I started going online because of XF, too!

And you're right, it's hard to make generalizations when there has only even been one real mega-fandom that ate the universe. My points are facile and easily perforated, but I like to poke at things, and Avengers, and the force with which it hit (at least in my corner of fandom) has really surprised me. I myself am both facile and easily perforated, so feel free to poke back.

Does this mean I am going to have to figure out how Tumblr works?

[pinkelephant42.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter had lots of things to play with in the characters and plot, in all the things JKR told us, hinted at, and left open, and all the history in this fantasy world that is so close but so far removed from our own. Marvel has all of those things with the added bonus of many years of back comics to wade through, several alternate universes, and characters that can literally do anything. The thing about Marvel is that there was already an active, happy fandom in place from before the movies, and the canon isn't going to end, so even when the hype of these movies dies down at least a portion of the people brought in by them will still be in the fandom.