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Dear fandoms (and publishers), ...
I think I figured out a way to crystallize an issue I have with fandoms of a whole medium category of creative works. Also with publishers.
Dear visual novel fandom,
See, I'm only actually in love with two particular visual novels. I'm not actually in love with the visual novel genre/medium as a whole. I'm still highly skeptical toward much of it.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
Dear anime fandom,
I like your medium category's general art style, but again, I'm in love with particular series. I don't love the category as a whole, and I feel that it isn't even a coherent whole anyway.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
Dear video game fandom,
I don't even play the same games as the most visibly vocal of you, so I guess this doesn't really matter. Thankfully, I already have found people to hang out with who like the kinds of games I like.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
I mean, just now I was on Twitter and Sekai Project is advertising more VN projects. Yes, I know they do VN projects, and yes, I know that this makes complete sense and is probably what most of their customer base wants. That doesn't prevent me from feeling like "oh hey you like one of our products so you must like more VNs".
Yeah yeah I know it's not their fault. I'm not faulting them for it.
I'm just explaining why I feel that I'm being pandered to and feeling a little annoyed at that.
Dear visual novel fandom,
See, I'm only actually in love with two particular visual novels. I'm not actually in love with the visual novel genre/medium as a whole. I'm still highly skeptical toward much of it.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
Dear anime fandom,
I like your medium category's general art style, but again, I'm in love with particular series. I don't love the category as a whole, and I feel that it isn't even a coherent whole anyway.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
Dear video game fandom,
I don't even play the same games as the most visibly vocal of you, so I guess this doesn't really matter. Thankfully, I already have found people to hang out with who like the kinds of games I like.
Love,
Glenn Magus Harvey
I mean, just now I was on Twitter and Sekai Project is advertising more VN projects. Yes, I know they do VN projects, and yes, I know that this makes complete sense and is probably what most of their customer base wants. That doesn't prevent me from feeling like "oh hey you like one of our products so you must like more VNs".
Yeah yeah I know it's not their fault. I'm not faulting them for it.
I'm just explaining why I feel that I'm being pandered to and feeling a little annoyed at that.
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Comments
You probably already know that I've been kinda pissed at the anime fandom for a while. I've tried the "commoditization" reason, and it kinda worked, but was hard to communicate to others.
Stating it as being a fan not of the medium but only of particular stories presented through it -- and having much less loyalty to the medium as a whole -- is easier to communicate and still gets that point across.
Hence, it has crystallized (at least part of) the reason for my dissatisfaction.
And in any case this is more about the fandoms rather than the publishers.
Perhaps another perspective of this issue is that I just don't find diehard fans of the stuff I like, as opposed to very "diffuse" fans who take a mild liking to it alongside a bunch of other things. And that, that conceiving of a work as "just another [object in its medium]", is the commoditization I was talking about.
> liking anime stuff because fanservices / boobies / etc.
> liking anime stuff because lolis
get out
Loli stuff makes me uncomfortable, though
he isn't annoying about it so i have no problem with him
shit that fast eddie will shut down: memes*, arguments about lolita, any criticism of how he ran the site
He mostly seemed to do it because he was pissed off
I was used to people who didn't do things, but they sure could whine about how bad they had it, and how mean people were to them, and how THEY would run things if only they had the power! I think I saw more arguments on IRC back in the late 1990s and early 2000s end in rage quits than actual movement on an issue, and it certainly didn't help that one of the instigators was a fussy conservative in a channel full of fairly liberal people.